Obamacare and the Catholic bishops: They had it coming

The author of the article entitled “Santorum and St. Thomas Versus the Catholic Bishops,” is, along with Rick Santorum himself, and in marked contrast with, for example, Newt Gingrich, one of the very few commentators, Catholic or non-Catholic, to be hitting the right nail right on the head.  Most prominent pundits – and, of course, almost the entire Catholic, and even conservative-Christian, “establishment” – their religious (or is it “tribal”?) dander up, have been pounding away righteously – and, technically, rightly (in the Catholic case) – on the “religious liberty” nail.  But this is a tragic diversion – and, one hates to say it, but maybe even an intentional diversion – from what author Jonescu and Santorum recognize correctly as the “fundamental choice” that the Catholic bishops (and, really, the Catholic people) have so far not had the courage, integrity, or wisdom to Thomistically make:
 
Rick Santorum and St. Thomas Aquinas are right. The Catholic bishops have been wrong up to now. They have a fundamental choice to make. So do all Catholics. …
 
While siding with the bishops’ recent opposition to President Obama’s imposition of abortion upon Catholic hospitals, Santorum nevertheless stated bluntly that the Church “had it coming.”
 
(And this is not a new shtick on Santorum’s part:  He is a long-time critic, for example, of the government-funded, secularized Catholic Charities USA.)
 
Santorum said:
 
“Be careful when you have government saying that they can give you rights, that you have a right to health care, and government’s going to give you something, because once you are now dependent on government… not only can they take that right away, they can tell you how to exercise that right, and you can either like it or not. And that’s the problem. That’s what the Catholic Bishops Conference didn’t get, that there’s no free lunch here, folks. If you’re going to give people secular power, then they’re going to use it in a secular fashion. And that’s why, you know, I hate to say it, but you know, you had it coming. And it’s time to wake up and realize that government isn’t the answer to the social ills. It’s people of faith, and it’s families, and it’s communities, and it’s charities that need to do this as it has [been] in America so successfully for so long.”
 
[Or, as MCD recently wrote to Archbishop Wenski:
 
The idea that Catholic education and charity cannot survive or flourish without governmental aid, and that Catholic schools and charitable organizations have a religious-liberty right to such aid, have become unquestioned and unexamined tenets among American bishops. …
 
…you [bishops] yourselves have promoted a government solution to the health care problems of Americans – as you have promoted a government solution for almost every social problem. You are now reaping what you have sown. …
 
The cure for Catholic charity lies precisely in the rejection of governmental aid, a rejection which is a necessary if not sufficient condition for a restoration of “Catholic fervor and Catholic religious certainty.” … ]
 
Writes Jonescu:
 
Not only was Santorum right in saying this, but his words ought to initiate a more open public debate among Catholics regarding their leaders’ consistent support of the political Left. The fundamental issue here is not abortion, but rather Christianity’s position on the proper role of government.
 
Sadly, from the overwhelmingly bellicose, moralistic, territorial, “rights”-defending (and money-defending) noises coming from the Christian-establishment mainstream, that is a debate, a fundamental choice, which will continue to be ignored and deferred.
 
I must note with satisfaction that, in this connection, Jonescu makes MCD’s very own case against the use of force in Catholic “charity”; against the fraudulence of Catholic “charities” which rely on secularist-government funding for their existence.
 
There is no virtue in doing that which one is compelled to do. Charity, for example, is only charity (i.e. a Christian virtue) if it is a freely chosen course of action. Government-imposed “charity,” in addition to violating constitutional rights, also short-circuits the moral growth of individual citizens. This helps to explain why the progress of socialism, throughout the civilized world, has consistently been accompanied by moral breakdown and social disintegration.
 
Or, as MCD put it:
 
“Government charity” is a meaningless – or maybe, pernicious – contradiction in terms. True charity can only be freely, intentionally given; it cannot be taxed into existence. “Catholic” institutions which use this method of perpetuating themselves are operating unethically while perverting the meaning and practice of true Catholic charity.
 
Jon Merrill is the founder of Militia Caritatis Dei.