Are the Catholic Bishops Bigots?

 

“We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.”  Thomas Jefferson

 

  A Belgian farmer accidentally altered the border of Belgium and France after moving a boundary stone to make way for his tractor. A history enthusiast walking the national border between France and Belgium was the first to notice that one of the stones marking the boundary between the countries since 1819 had been displaced by more than 7 feet—making France smaller and Belgium larger. Officials with the Belgian government said they’ve asked the farmer to return the stone to its proper place. Failing that, the long-dormant Franco-Belgian border commission will have to resolve the dispute. “We should be able to avoid a new border war,” neighboring French Mayor Aurélie Welonek told La Voix du Nord.
  There’s been a growing movement to move the boundaries of religious freedom and rights of faith groups for the last fifty years. It’s moving toward a “holy war” though one side will fight in the courts to preserve one of our greatest blessings of the United States, a blessing that was essentially unknown in any other nation until the birth of America – the 1^st Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” 

  But it’s not Congress that has continually infringed on our 1^st Amendment rights, it’s the courts as judicial activists which was never the intent of our Founding Fathers. A continual phrase that’s used to justify these egregious actions against people of faith is the “separation of Church and State.”
  Educated individuals know that the phrase is not in the Constitution. It was Jefferson, in personal correspondence, when he was President, who used it referring to the State meddling in the affairs of the Church, not the Church seeking to control the State.
  Enemies of the Church continually seek to manipulate the court of public opinion with accusations of hate, bigotry, meanness. They use slurs and emotionalism rather than objective truth and reasoned argument. No longer content to seek to eradicate religious rights and secularize the public square, they now seek secularization within religious groups and will not be satisfied until all people of faith are goose-stepping with their agenda.
  A clear example of this is the attack on the Catholic Church for refusing Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians. As a Bible-believing Christian, I do not believe in the sacramental teaching of the Catholic Church and have fundamental theological differences on an entire range of issues from the authority of Scripture, justification by faith alone, all of the Solas of the Reformation and would even differ with their view of birth control. Yet, this is a shared moral conviction on the sanctity and dignity of human life. If we believe in the Bill of Rights in general and the 1^st Amendment specifically, we must defend the Catholic Church’s right to govern their church as they see fit and hold to their convictions.
  Some years ago our family visited Salt Lake City and the Mormon Tabernacle but were not allowed entry into the Temple because we weren’t LDS. Holding certain dogma and restrictions is common to nearly every religion. Muslims limit non-Muslims from their mosques and holy sites and Jews limit even Jewish women from certain places. Religious groups limiting access to worship settings or practices is common as it fits their belief system. Christianity is rare in that there are no spaces where unbelievers are not welcome, though they, like the Catholic Church, may limit participation in certain religious practices.
  While President Biden is our second Catholic president, he is the most pro-abortion president in our history and is out of touch with popular opinion. A recent survey found that while 61% said abortion should be legal in most or all cases during the first trimester, in the second trimester, about two-thirds of respondents, 65%, said abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, and in the third, 80% of respondents oppose abortion.
  Catholic dogma teaches that abortion is murder. The outcry of cruelty in refusing holy communion to pro-abortion politicians brings to my mind the baptism scene in The Godfather near the end of the movie. While the new Godfather, Michael Corleone, is being asked by the priest baptizing his son, “Do you renounce Satan and all of his works?” To which he responds, “I do renounce them.” At that very same time Corleone is having his rivals assassinated. Movie director, Francis Ford Coppola, brilliantly contrasted the murderous evil Corleone had ordered while going through the motions of verbalizing righteousness in parenting the new life of his son.
  Everyone knows that the Catholic Church is unapologetically pro-life. One wonders if those appalled that Catholics are being consistent would agree to allowing them to refuse anyone from communion. Should they be forced to offer communion to anyone? What about a devil worshipper, or a Nazi or white supremacist? Does a faith group’s precious beliefs mean anything or must it cave to the court of evolving morality and public opinion. Faith groups, in light of the clear wording of the 1^st Amendment, must be able to refuse communion or anything else to those they believe violates their sacred tenets, in this case, the sanctity of life.  
  The Catholic Church is sending a powerful message in that Archbishop Cordileone, the Archbishop of San Francisco issued a pastoral letter on the human dignity of the unborn, Holy Communion and Catholics in public life. He writes: “This is especially a time for us Catholics, whose faith calls us to advocate for the universal good of a consistent ethic of life in every stage and in every condition to call our country back to respect for human life…and this is especially so for Catholics who are prominent in all walks of public life, entertainment, media, politics, education, the corporate world, and so forth, as they have such a powerful influence on shaping the attitudes and practices of people in our nation.”
  Mark it down. People of faith and conviction will not compromise even if courts or public opinion rage against them. We can’t. We answer to a Higher Authority. As Peter answered the government of his day, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). In 2,000 years the Church has not surrendered, Look at China and Iran if you want to see how the Church will respond to pressure and persecution. I’m thankful for the 1^st Amendment, but God’s people will still do right and act righteously even if someday we no longer have it. “We must obey God rather than men.”

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