To put it simply, all Catholics are required to purchase health insurance. All health insurance providers are being required to provide birth control and sterilization as part of their reproductive health services. Failure to comply means going out of business, even if our business is to educate people or to help the poor. Our government requires Catholics to pay for birth control and sterilizations not only for ourselves but for others. We are being forced to participate in sin, and the only concession we've been given is that we have a year to reconcile ourselves to this fact.
Maybe you are reading this because you are Catholic, trying to find a way to explain the issue to non-Catholics so that they can see how it is relevant to them. Perhaps you are a non-Catholic trying to understand the Catholic point of view. Perhaps you were bored and stumbled across my site. Whatever your reason for reading it, I hope you walk away understanding our position better and maybe even being inspired to throw your support behind freedom and justice.
Imagine, if you will, that government research showed that volunteering in your community was beneficial to individuals, families, communities, and society in general. So, the government decided to pass a law requiring every man and woman to volunteer 10 hours per week at a non-profit organization. Now imagine that the Department of Health and Human Services took this law a step further and mandated where you volunteer those hours. If you are atheist, pagan, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim, imagine that they mandated - based on their research - that you volunteer for a Christian Church. If you are Mormon, Protestant, or Jehovah's Witness, imagine that they mandated that you volunteer for a Catholic Church. Failure to comply with this law would result in huge fines being levied against you, and anyone who works for you. Would you be outraged? Would you feel that your rights had been violated? Would you then take a stand to oppose it?
Or, imagine, that due to budget cutbacks cities could no longer afford to keep police officers on duty and so for the safety of the public in general they wrote a law in which all citizens were required to be trained in the use of fire arms. Now imagine that the Department of Health and Human Services took things a step further and required every adult age 18 or older to purchase and keep in their home a firearm. Failure to comply with this law would result in the revoking of your right to drive a vehicle. Would you be outraged? Would you feel that your rights had been violated? Would you then take a stand to oppose it?
I end my post with these words by Martin Niemöller, a preacher during Nazi Germany:
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I was Protestant.
and I didn't speak out because I was Protestant.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
This all assumes that the Roman Catholic Church, as an organization, is religious in nature. It is not. It's action over it's history show that it is mere a glorified version of the Mafia, hiding behind the "we speak for God" excuse.
ReplyDeleteInciting genocide.
Destroying cultures.
Eradicating any trace of competition when ever possible.
And never, ever, even hinting that it feels remorse for the suffering and death it has caused.
Believe what you want, but the Roman Catholic Church is as evil as the Roman Empire from which it sprang.
Visible after approval? Typical.
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for taking the time to visit my site and read my blog. Even though you have completely missed the point of my blog post, I appreciate your visit nevertheless. Yes, I approve all comments before they are posted. This is for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that I don't wish to publish comments whose sole content is strings of words that would make a sailor blush.
You say that the Catholic Church has incited genocide, destroyed cultures, eradicated competition whenever possible, and never indicated remorse for any of these things.
If by your statement you mean that the Catholic Church's doctrines have specifically told people to go out and do these things, I invite you to prove it by way of showing me where in the Catechism or the Bible it is specifically stated that we are to do those things.
If, however, you mean that people have misinterpreted and misapplied Catholic teachings and thereby caused good people to come to harm, you are justified in your statement. Every Catholic who is honest about their faith and mature in the knowledge of what it means to be Catholic must acknowledge this. Jesus did not come to heal those who were well, but those who were sick. The Catholic Church is a hospital for sick people - people who are sick in the head, sick in the heart, and sick in the body. We do bad things sometimes. Every saint was once a sinner, and Catholics know this to be true.
The Catholic Church has repeatedly apologized for many of the mistakes made in Her name. If you doubt me, just google Pope apologizes for... and you'll find plenty of references to thinks publicly apologized for just in the last 10 years.
I imagine that you get a lot of your information from atheistic websites and people who are anti-Catholic in general. This is a bit like getting information on what a person is like from their worst enemies - it's not likely to be accurate nor is it likely to be very informative. I would highly recommend that you take the time to do your own homework.