Hello all, sorry to invade your house with politics on an otherwise beautiful Thursday morning, but this seemed an appropriately important issue. Two days ago a number of John Carroll (my alma mater of happy memory) faculty members issued an open letter to Fr. Niehoff, S.J., the president of the university, asking him to make a public statement in support of the administration's revision of the HHS mandate concerning the coverage of contraception. Desiring to issue my own open letter in response, your faithful Inkler sent a message first to Fr. Niehoff (president@jcu.edu), then to all of the faculty members who had signed the statement. The full text is below. While my tone is often negative, I do sincerely hope that the points I made are valid, and that they may further discussion (as Flannery O'Connor has said, in a deaf world, one has to shout in order to be heard). I'll try to get back to posting as normal in the next day or so. Peace!
Date: Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 4:33 PM
Subject: The Recent Statement Regarding the HHS Mandate Made By Some Members of the John Carroll Faculty
To: president@jcu.edu
Fr. Niehoff,
I am sorry to be contacting you regarding this, but I am even more sorry to have to. I am an alumni of John Carroll (class of '07), and was extremely disappointed to have seen this article which lists a number of Carroll faculty members and expresses several opinions that can only be defined as negligently ignorant:
1) The undersigned faculty members support the HHS "compromise." In fact this is not a compromise at all - a careful reading of the administration's wording shows it to actually be a widening of the original mandate. Whereas the original mandate allowed for a narrowly defined exemption for those working for a "religious employer," the revision mandates contraception coverage for all employees, regardless of who their employer is.
2) Just a side point: while the revision does not require the Church as an institution to pay for this coverage, it undeniably violates the conscience of the individual - by mandating that insurance companies (which, after all, are run by human persons who also have consciences) cover this additional "health care" with no co-pay, the administration is in effect demanding that the insurance companies simply raise the cost of coverage for all of their covered members (i.e., the cost will be passed along to those who are supposedly getting this coverage for "free" - both those who object to the morality of this coverage and those who do not). There is no other way of understanding this mandate than saying that it will force people, even against their own conscience, to pay for operations and contraceptives which are objectionable on religious, moral, and even anthropological grounds.
3) The undersigned faculty states "We, the faculty of John Carroll University named below, are committed to freedom of conscience and religious liberty... However, we also believe that access to contraception is central to the health and well being of women and children." There are a number of things wrong with this statement. I'll list two:
3.1) The commitment to freedom of conscience applies in all cases, not merely those with which a person (or even a group of persons) agrees. That would be logically untenable. That is, the undersigned faculty cannot logically hold both positions at once - it comes down to effectively saying "I support freedom of conscience, except where there is something else which I judge to be more important." In other words, "I support the freedom of other people's consciences except where those people's consciences disagree with mine." Another way of looking at it: a person is smoking a cigarette. The research into the adverse effects of smoking on the health of the smoker finds undeniably that smoking is harmful in the vast majority of cases. Knowing this (that is, my conscience having been formed in this way), I still cannot demand that that person stop smoking, nor can I expect the government to mandate that insurance companies provide "free" emphysema and/or lung transplant and/or heart disease treatments by raising everyone's cost. It is that individual's choice to smoke, and it is not society's responsibility to cover the ill effects of the individual's choice.
3.2) That being said, we're dealing with a point of absolutely fundamental disagreement: the undersigned faculty claim that access to contraception is "central to the health and well being of women and children." Why? Because pregnancy has here been implicitly redefined as a disease. I understand that they are merely agreeing with the statements of the various governmental agencies they cite, but citing agencies that are making statements to justify their own actions does not excuse these faculty members from examining the issue with their own consciences. It is morally abhorrent and gravely insulting to human dignity to suggest that pregnancy is a disease. What is equally disconcerting is that two of the undersigned are professors of bioethics, who at the very least ought to have an understanding of the implications of such a position.
4) "The fact that the bishops have rejected the accommodation offered by the administration leads us to wonder what motivates their continued resistance." This statement is shocking in its ignorance and frustratingly disappointing to find it coming from people who are supposed to be teaching. The bishops' motives are nothing other than what they have stated them to be - the defense of 1) the First Amendment of the United States Constitution which protects the freedom of the individual's conscience (this is an issue far wider than the Catholic Church - it is a legal question first as to how the Constitution itself may be applied) and 2) the dignity of the human being, whether they be female or male, adult or child, inside the womb, or outside of it (and no, one should not have to engage in a debate with faculty members at a Catholic university over what constitutes a "human being" - this ought to be a complete non-issue). To suggest that the bishops have any other motives than what they have repeatedly and publicly stated is nonsensical and paranoid.
5) "The American bishops have accused the Obama administration of attacking religious liberty in mandating insurance coverage of contraception. On the contrary, we believe the insurance mandate is driven by a concern for women’s health." Undoubtedly a concern for women's health ought to be a primary issue, but this concern must first of all be directed toward her health, not motivated by some other concern. The idea that pregnancies are to be considered harmful is simply a redefinition of what "health" means. The secondary idea that the only way to avoid unplanned pregnancies is through the use of contraceptives is morally repugnant and presents a picture of human volition that is grossly at odds with that presented by the Church. Unfortunately for this line of argument, the issue here is not what motivates the mandate. The issue is what the effects of the mandate will be, which is precisely what the bishops are concerned with.
6) "We believe that the faculty and the administration of John Carroll University need to take a stand in the face of the bishops’ unwillingness to accept the accommodation offered by the Obama administration." I'm not going to address this one in depth because it is absurd and betrays a surprising ignorance of the structure of the Catholic Church. If the bishops were teaching something contrary to Catholic teaching or something that in any other way violated the consciences of the faithful, then yes, a "stand" would be necessary. Neither of these is the case.
7) "We thus ask that, along with the presidents of other Catholic and Jesuit universities, you urge the bishops to avoid the inflammatory rhetoric they have been using to attack the administration’s policy." Two points:
7.1) Even a cursory look at the statements made by Notre Dame College and the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (to which, undoubtedly, John Carroll already belongs and is therefore already included under) shows that they are not simple acceptances of the administration's revision. While they both applaud the administration's willingness to compromise (note: this is actually a slap in the face of the administration, who refused to use the term "compromise," preferring "accommodation" to avoid the appearance of backing down in the face of criticism), both statements end by acknowledging that there are still significant issues (the AJCU statement calls them "details") which need to be resolved. In both instances, what is commended is the administration's (real or imagined) willingness to enter into discourse, not the content of the accommodation itself.
7.2) "Inflammatory statements" - This is itself an inflammatory and accusatory statement and, unsupported as it is, has no place in this letter.
8) "We ask that you stand up to those who would play politics with women's health." Again, two things:
8.1) "Playing politics" is a surprising oversimplification of the bishops' position that can only be the result of willful ignorance. This is not a political issue: on the one hand it is a legal issue, and on the other it is a moral issue. Trying to make it simply an issue of politics is a refusal to see the implications of the action.
8.2) This statement is again itself inflammatory by implying that the bishops have little or no regard for issues of women's health. This is simply and patently false.
9) Lastly, while the tenor of this letter from the undersigned faculty is respectful in tone, it is, in principle and intention, deeply divisive. The undersigned members of the faculty are explicitly asking you to initiate and encourage further division within the Church, on the apparent belief that the Church is run as a sort of democracy. As you well know, it is not. The Church is concerned with Truth, not with opinions, however learned they may be.
Fr. Niehoff, I appreciate your efforts to run a truly Catholic university. When you became president, I was one of those excited by your stated intention to further John Carroll's "Catholic identity." I also appreciate and support the freedom of the faculty members to state their beliefs. The appropriate manner and forum of such statements is open for discussion, but the fact that John Carroll is a Catholic University means that it must publicly support the position of the Church herself. Thank you for your leadership in this matter.
Sincerely,
Inkler in the Dark
(just kidding, I used my real name).
AMEN.
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