Anti-Catholicism Rising

Yesterday, weird anti-Catholic slogans were spray-painted on Saint James Cathedral in Seattle and on O’Dea Catholic High School across the street.

The photo was taken of the marble facing on the front of the Cathedral. You can seen the bronze cathedral doors in the background. Photos of the rest of the damage may be seen here.

The phrases spray-painted on the buildings were “The Papal State is not the United States” and “The Catholic church was not born in the U.S.A.”

I find it interesting that while both these statements are true, they are also clearly considered a slur by the person who painted them.

By “Papal State”, I presume the vandal meant Vatican City, as the Papal States were dissolved when Italy was united in the 19th Century. So when the vandal says “The Papal State is not the United States”, it is a geographical truism.

The vandal clearly meant to imply that the Pope has no voice in America. What he or she is actually claiming, however, is that Catholics have no voice in America. In this, he was simply following the policies of President Obama.

While the media mostly continues to say this is a fight over birth control, both the President and the Bishops know that this is a fight over religious liberty, over the First Amendment. Simply: can a Catholic be forced to pay for murdering children in the womb? The President says yes.

Refusal will be met with punishment in the form of fines. The Bishops have said that they will close facilities rather than be forced to violate Catholic teaching in those facilities.

The media and the President have done such a good job of reframing the issue, that partisans now insist the Bishops wish to make birth-control illegal. Which is ludicrous.

But this ludicrous reframing, and the President’s tacit approval of denigrating the religious liberty of American Catholics, will lead to many more incidents like this.

And for what? What does the President gain? What does America gain if the various Catholic charities and hospitals just close down?

Turns out, it would probably wreck the economy:

The Catholic Church has perhaps the most extensive private health-care delivery system in the nation. It operates 12.6 percent of hospitals in the U.S., according to the Catholic Health Association of the U.S., accounting for 15.6 percent of all admissions and 14.5 percent of all hospital expenses, a total for Catholic hospitals in 2010 of $98.6 billion. Whom do these hospitals serve? Catholic hospitals handle more than their share of Medicare (16.6 percent) and Medicaid (13.65) discharges, meaning that more than one in six seniors and disabled patients get attention from these hospitals, and more than one in every eight low-income patients as well. …

Compared to their competition, Catholic hospitals take a leading role in providing less-profitable services to patients. They lead the sector in breast cancer screenings, nutrition programs, trauma, geriatric services, and social work. …

Imagine the impact if these hospitals shut down, discounting the other 400-plus health centers and 1,500 specialized homes that the Catholic Church operates as part of its mission that would also disappear. Thanks to the economic models of these hospitals, no one will rush to buy them. One in six patients in the current system would have to vie for service in the remaining system, which would have to absorb almost $100 billion in costs each year to treat them. Over 120,000 beds would disappear from an already-stressed system.

The poor and working class families that get assistance from Catholic benefactors would end up having to pay more for their care than they do under the current system. …

Some may doubt that the bishops would create this kind of havoc and disruption, and perhaps President Obama believes Cardinal George and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to be bluffing. However, Obama may want to read St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, and his Principle and Foundation of faith, which informs Catholics on the priority of salvation. The first task of mankind, according to St. Ignatius, is to serve God and “save his soul,” and “other things on the face of the earth” should be used only as long as they serve that purpose. When they become a hindrance to salvation, St. Ignatius warns to “rid himself of them.”

As for me, my daughter was born in a Catholic hospital in Tucson. We were bankrupt at the time, and our looming bill was impossible. I was a pagan and my wife was an atheist. I sat down with the Franciscan sister who administered the hospital, and she told me that the law prohibited her from writing off our bill.

So instead, she charged us one dollar.

Under the President’s regulation, if this hospital wished to have insurance that did not violate the Church’s teaching, they would have had to turn us away because we were not Catholic.

So, while indeed “The Catholic church was not born in the U.S.A.”, she certainly does a lot for the U.S.A., whether you subscribe her beliefs or not.