{"id":7537,"date":"2012-03-31T21:30:21","date_gmt":"2012-04-01T02:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/?p=7537"},"modified":"2017-01-24T17:57:07","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T22:57:07","slug":"cardinal-dolan-on-how-the-potus-broke-faith-and-announced-the-hhs-mandate-was-a-fait-accompli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2012\/03\/cardinal-dolan-on-how-the-potus-broke-faith-and-announced-the-hhs-mandate-was-a-fait-accompli.html","title":{"rendered":"Cardinal Dolan on How the POTUS Broke Faith And Announced the HHS Mandate Was a “Fait Accompli”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>
\nStop the presses, as this just came in from todays\u2019 Wall Street Journal.<\/em> A frank interview between James Taranto, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan on the HHS Mandate surprise attack. Perhaps \u201cambush\u201d is a better description. You be the judge.<\/p>\n

By JAMES TARANTO, New York<\/p>\n

The president of the U.S. Conference of Bishops is careful to show due respect for the president of the United States. \u201cI was deeply honored that he would call me and discuss these things with me,\u201d says the newly elevated Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York. But when Archbishop Dolan tells me his account of their discussions of the ObamaCare birth-control mandate, Barack Obama sounds imperious and deceitful to me. <\/p>\n

Mr. Obama knew that the mandate would pose difficulties for the Catholic Church, so he invited Archbishop Dolan to the Oval Office last November, shortly before the bishops\u2019 General Assembly in Baltimore. At the end of their 45-minute discussion, the archbishop summed up what he understood as the president\u2019s message:<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019ve heard you say, first of all, that you have immense regard for the work of the Catholic Church in the United States in health care, education and charity. . . . I have heard you say that you are not going to let the administration do anything to impede that work and . . . that you take the protection of the rights of conscience with the utmost seriousness. . . . Does that accurately sum up our conversation?\u2019 [Mr. Obama] said, \u2018You bet it does.'\u201d<\/p>\n

The archbishop asked for permission to relay the message to the other bishops. \u201cYou don\u2019t have my permission, you\u2019ve got my request,\u201d the president replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you can imagine the chagrin,\u201d Archbishop Dolan continues, \u201cwhen he called me at the end of January to say that the mandates remain in place and that there would be no substantive change, and that the only thing that he could offer me was that we would have until August. . . . I said, \u2018Mr. President, I appreciate the call. Are you saying now that we have until August to introduce to you continual concerns that might trigger a substantive mitigation in these mandates?\u2019 He said, \u2018No, the mandates remain. We\u2019re more or less giving you this time to find out how you\u2019re going to be able to comply.\u2019 I said, \u2018Well, sir, we don\u2019t need the [extra time]. I can tell you now we\u2019re unable to comply.'\u201d<\/p>\n

The administration went ahead and announced the mandate. A public backlash ensued, and the archbishop got another call from the president on Feb. 10. \u201cHe said, \u2018You will be happy to hear religious institutions do not have to pay for this, that the burden will be on insurers.'\u201d Archbishop Dolan asked if the president was seeking his input and was told the modified policy was a fait accompli. The call came at 9:30 a.m. The president announced the purported accommodation at 12:15 p.m.<\/p>\n

Sister Carol Keehan of the pro-ObamaCare Catholic Health Association immediately pronounced herself satisfied with the change, and the bishops felt pressure to say something. \u201cWe wanted to avoid two headlines. Headline 1 was \u2018Bishops Celebrate . . . Accommodations.\u2019 . . . The other headline we wanted to avoid is \u2018Bishops Obstinate.'\u201d They rushed out a \u201ccircumspect\u201d statement, which Archbishop Dolan sums up as follows: \u201cWe welcome this initiative, we look forward to studying it, we hope that it\u2019s a decent first step, but we still have very weighty questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within hours, \u201cit dawned on us that there\u2019s not much here, and that\u2019s when we put out the more substantive [statement] by the end of the day, saying, \u2018Whoa, now we\u2019ve had time to hear what was said at the announcement and to read the substance of it, and this just doesn\u2019t do it.'\u201d<\/p>\n

Having rushed to conciliate, they got the \u201cBishops Obstinate\u201d headlines anyway.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Dolan explains that the \u201caccommodation\u201d solves nothing, since most church-affiliated organizations either are self-insured or purchase coverage from Catholic insurance companies like Christian Brothers Investment Services and Catholic Mutual Group, which also see the mandate as \u201cmorally toxic.\u201d He argues that the mandate also infringes on the religious liberty of nonministerial organizations like the Knights of Columbus and Catholic-oriented businesses such as publishing houses, not to mention individuals, Catholic or not, who conscientiously object.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve grown hoarse saying this is not about contraception, this is about religious freedom,\u201d he says. What rankles him the most is the government\u2019s narrow definition of a religious institution. Your local Catholic parish, for instance, is exempt from the birth-control mandate. Not exempt are institutions such as hospitals, grade schools, universities and soup kitchens that employ or serve significant numbers of people from other faiths and whose main purpose is something other than proselytization.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe find it completely unswallowable, both as Catholics and mostly as Americans, that a bureau of the American government would take it upon itself to define \u2018ministry,'\u201d Archbishop Dolan says. \u201cWe would find that to be\u2014we\u2019ve used the words \u2018radical,\u2019 \u2018unprecedented\u2019 and \u2018dramatically intrusive.'\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Still sitting on the edge of your seat? Exhale. Breathe in deeply. Now, go read the rest.<\/a><\/p>\n

And did you see Peggy Noonan\u2019s piece as well the day before? It\u2019s a great companion to Taranto\u2019s. It\u2019s even got an knock-out title: Not-So-Smooth Operator<\/em>. Here\u2019s a small taste,<\/p>\n

Something\u2019s happening to President Obama\u2019s relationship with those who are inclined not to like his policies. They are now inclined not to like him. His supporters would say, \u201cNothing new there,\u201d but actually I think there is. I\u2019m referring to the broad, stable, nonradical, non-birther right. Among them the level of dislike for the president has ratcheted up sharply the past few months.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not due to the election, and it\u2019s not because the Republican candidates are so compelling and making such brilliant cases against him. That, actually, isn\u2019t happening.<\/p>\n

What is happening is that the president is coming across more and more as a trimmer, as an operator who\u2019s not operating in good faith. This is hardening positions and leading to increased political bitterness. And it\u2019s his fault, too. As an increase in polarization is a bad thing, it\u2019s a big fault.<\/p>\n

The shift started on Jan. 20, with the mandate that agencies of the Catholic Church would have to provide birth-control services the church finds morally repugnant. The public reaction? \u201cYou\u2019re kidding me. That\u2019s not just bad judgment and a lack of civic tact, it\u2019s not even constitutional!\u201d Faced with the blowback, the president offered a so-called accommodation that even its supporters recognized as devious. Not ill-advised, devious. Then his operatives flooded the airwaves with dishonest\u2014not wrongheaded, dishonest\u2014charges that those who defend the church\u2019s religious liberties are trying to take away your contraceptives.<\/p>\n

What a sour taste this all left. How shocking it was, including for those in the church who\u2019d been in touch with the administration and were murmuring about having been misled.<\/p>\n

Events of just the past 10 days have contributed to the shift. There was the open-mic conversation with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in which Mr. Obama pleaded for \u201cspace\u201d and said he will have \u201cmore flexibility\u201d in his negotiations once the election is over and those pesky voters have done their thing. On tape it looked so bush-league, so faux-sophisticated. When he knew he\u2019d been caught, the president tried to laugh it off by comically covering a mic in a following meeting. It was all so . . . creepy.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Heh. And I thought I was the only one to think that. And now Peggy has gone and planted Sade\u2019s song into my formerly placid keppe. Do you know what that means? I have to infect you all with it too. With the long version, no less!<\/p>\n