Philippines Begins To Dismantle The Shackles of Catholic Medievalism

Passage of contraceptives law in Philippines shows times have changed for Catholic church

Article by HRVOJE HRANJSKI , Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines – Twenty-six years after Roman Catholic leaders helped his mother marshal millions of Filipinos in an uprising that ousted a dictator, President Benigno Aquino III picked a fight with the church over contraceptives and won a victory that bared the bishops’ worst nightmare: They no longer sway the masses.

Aquino last month signed the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 quietly and without customary handshakes and photographs to avoid controversy. The law that provides state funding for contraceptives for the poor pitted the dominant Catholic Church in an epic battle against the popular Aquino and his followers.

A couple with links to the church filed a motion Wednesday to stop implementation of the law, and more petitions are expected. Still, there is no denying that Aquino’s approval of the legislation has chipped away at the clout the church has held over Filipinos, and marked the passing of an era in which it was taboo to defy the church and priests.

Catholic leaders consider the law an attack on the church’s core values — the sanctity of life — saying that contraceptives promote promiscuity and destroy life. Aquino and his allies see the legislation as a way to address how the poor — roughly a third of the country’s 94 million people — manage the number of children they have and provide for them. Nearly half of all pregnancies in the Philippines are unwanted, according to the U.N. Population Fund, and a third of those end up aborted in a country where abortion remains illegal.

Rampant poverty, overcrowded slums, and rising homelessness and crime are main concerns that neither the church nor Aquino’s predecessors have successfully tackled.

“If the church can provide milk, diapers and rice, then go ahead, let’s make more babies,” said Giselle Labadan, a 30-year-old roadside vendor. “But there are just too many people now, too many homeless people, and the church doesn’t help to feed them.”

Labadan said she grew up in a God-fearing family but has defied the church’s position against contraceptives for more than a decade because her five children, age 2 to 12, were already far too many for her meager income. Her husband, a former army soldier, is jobless.

She said that even though she has used most types of contraceptives, she still considers herself among the faithful. “I still go to church and pray. It’s a part of my life,” Labadan said.

“I have prayed before not to have another child, but the condom worked better,” she said.

The law now faces a legal challenge in the Supreme Court after the couple filed the motion, which seems to cover more ideological than legal grounds. One of the authors of the law, Rep. Edcel Lagman, said Thursday that he was not worried by the petition and expected more to follow.

“We are prepared for this,” he said. “We are certain that the law is completely constitutional and will surmount any attack on or test of its constitutionality.”

Over the decades, moral and political authority of the church in the Philippines is perceived to have waned with the passing of one its icons, Cardinal Jaime Sin. He shaped the role of the church during the country’s darkest hours after dictator Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law starting in 1972 by championing the cause of civil advocacy, human rights and freedoms. Sin’s action mirrored that of his strong backer, Pope John Paul II, who himself challenged communist rulers in Eastern Europe.

Three years after Aquino’s father, Benigno Aquino Sr., a senator opposing Marcos, was gunned down on the Manila airport tarmac in 1983, Sin persuaded Aquino’s widow, Corazon, to run for president. When massive election cheating by Marcos was exposed, Sin went on Catholic-run Radio Veritas in February 1986 to summon millions of people to support military defectors and the Aquino-led opposition. Marcos fled and Aquino, a deeply religious woman, was sworn in as president.

Democracy was restored, but the country remained chaotic and mired in nearly a dozen coup attempts. The economy stalled, poverty persisted and the jobless were leaving in droves for better-paying jobs abroad as maids, teachers, nurses and engineers. After Aquino stepped down, the country elected its first and only Protestant president, Fidel Ramos. He, too, opposed the church on contraceptives and released state funds for family planning methods.

Catholic bishops pulled out all the stops in campaigning against Ramos’ successor, popular movie actor Joseph Estrada, a hero of the impoverished masses who made little attempt to keep down his reputation for womanizing, drinking and gambling.

But few heeded the church’s advice. Estrada was elected with the largest victory margin in Philippine history. Halfway through his six-year presidency, in January 2001, he was confronted with another “people power” revolt, backed by political opponents and the military, and was forced to resign.

His successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, styled herself as a devout Catholic and sought to placate the church by abolishing the death penalty and putting brakes on the contraceptives law, which languished in Congress during her nine years in power.

It mattered little. Arroyo’s mismanagement and corruption scandals set the stage for Aquino’s election on a promise to rid the Philippines of graft, fix the economy and lift millions out of poverty. The scion of the country’s democracy icon took power several years after Sin’s death, but it was a different era in which the church was battered by scandals of sexual misconduct of priests and declining family values.

The latest defeat of the church “can further weaken its moral authority at a time when this is most badly needed in many areas, including defense of a whole range of family values,” said the Rev. John J. Carroll, founding chairman of the Jesuit-run John J. Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues. He said he wondered how many Catholics have been “turned off” by incessant sermons and prayers led by the church against the contraceptives law, and how much it contributed to rising anticlericalism and the erosion of church authority.

“People today are more practical,” said Labadan, the street vendor. “In the old days, people feared that if you defy the church, it will be the end of the world.”

Associated Press writers Jim Gomez and Teresa Cerojano contributed to this report.

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1000 Years of Carnage & Barbarity in The Name of Christ

1000 Years of Carnage & Barbarity in the name of Christ

Kenneth Humphreys

10th Century Obscenities Vile Princes of the Papacy “Popes maimed &         were maimed, killed & were killed… Without question, these pontiffs         constitute the most despicable body of leaders, clerical or lay, in history.         They were, frankly, barbarians. Ancient Rome had nothing to rival them         in rottenness.” – Peter de Rosa (Vicars of Christ, p48)          John XII (955-964). Born from an incestuous          relationship  between Pope Sergio III and his 13-year-old daughter          Marozie. John, in         turn, took his mother as his own mistress. Pope at 18, he turned the            Lateran  into a brothel. He was accused by a synod of “sacrilege,            simony,  perjury, murder, adultery and incest” and was temporarily          deposed.  He took his revenge on opponents          by hacking off limbs. He was murdered            by an enraged husband who caught him having sex with his wife.	11th Century Horror Church lords over ignorant squalor of millions 1095 - Pope Urban II          calls upon the Franks to invade the more civilized Muslim world. Begins        five centuries of warfare. “Let those who have         hitherto been robbers now become soldiers.” – Urban II addresses his gangsters.   1009: Rivalry from Islam prompts         eastern churches to break with idolatry. This ‘iconoclasm’ begins breach         with idol-worshipping Catholic west. Centuries of bloodshed ensue. 1079: The Council of Rome:         Persecution of Berengarius & his followers who cannot stomach the         dogma of ‘transmutation of bread & wine into Christ.’ Svyatoslav’s Miscellany, 1076. God’s work – a serious business.	12th Century Criminality Christian Church ally of murderous kings & rogue      princes “Warrior Monks”         – Muslim heads catapulted into the besieged city of Antioch by Christian         Knights (Illumination from Les Histoires d’Outremer by         William of  Tyre 12th century, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris).   1118: Christian fanatics          captured Saragossa; the beginning of the decline of Muslim civilization          in Spain.          1184 Council of Verona         condemns Waldensians for witchcraft. The charge is later extended to condemn         heretics.	13th Century Wickedness Vile Crusaders Plunder & Murder for God 1204 Christian crusaders         sack & ruin greatest Christian city, Constantinople. 1209 Pope Innocent III         launches Albigensian Crusade against Christian Cathars of southern France.         7000 massacred in La Madeleine Church alone. 1211 Burning of Waldenses         heretics at Strasbourg begins several centuries of persecution.            German Teutonic Knights         butcher their way through the Baltic lands, savage Catholic Poles &         Orthodox Russians. 1231: Pope Gregory IX authorizes         Inquisition for dealing with heretics. 1277 Pope John XXI, alarmed          by rumors of pagan heresy among “scholars        of arts in the faculty of theology” pressurizes Stephen Tempier,        Bishop of Paris, to prohibit 219 philosophical and theological theses.      The “Condemnations of Paris” is the first of 16 lists of censorship.
14th Century Catastrophe Church hostility to medicine allows plague to decimate Europe Burning of the Jews of Cologne – blamed by Christians for the         Black Death (Liber Chronicarum Mundi). World Domination? “We declare, say,         define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation         of every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.” – Pope Boniface VIII, Bull Unun Sanctum, 1302 1311-12: Ecumenical Council         of Vienne. It authorises the brutal suppression of the Knights Templar         (mercenaries of the church who have outlived their usefulness).       1316-1334: Pope John XXII,         world’s richest man and first pontiff to promote theory of witchcraft.         Sanctions bull allowing heresy charges to be brought against dead people.         In 1320 he instructs French Inquisition to confiscate all property belonging         to blasphemers or dabblers in black arts. 1300s.  Glowing eyes and nocturnal behaviour of the cat interpreted by the Church as clear proof of the hapless moggy’s diabolic affinity. Wholesale trapping and burning of cats allowed free rein to the spread of the flee-carrying rat. Subsequently, Europe’s population was decimated  by the plague. 1347-50: The Black Death sweeps         across Europe, killing one-third of the population. “Jews were burnt all         the way from the Mediterranean into Germany… under torture confessing         to have spread the plague by poisoning wells… the poison made from the         skin of a basilisk (a kind of mythical serpent)…” – N. Cantor (In the Wake of the Plague)	15th Century          Malevolence Tortured Bodies by Sadists of the Lord	16th Century Mayhem Pogroms & civil wars in the name of Jesus “My advice…               is: First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who               are able toss sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could               also throw in some hellfire..” Martin Luther (“On              the Jews and their lies” 1543) 1517: Martin Luther posts         95 theses at Wittenberg. The Reformation will turn Europe into a battleground. 1517 A Dominican monk Johann         Tetzel swells papal coffers by selling indulgences (‘souls freed from         purgatory’!) 1524: Luther – no friend           of the downtrodden – encourages savagery of German princes in           putting  down the two-year Peasants’ Revolt.   Book Burners for Christ– Dominican monks in the service of Ferdinand proudly consign the wisdom         of Moorish Spain to the flames (Berruguete, Prado Museum, Madrid) 1553 John Calvin, the “Protestant            Pope” of Geneva proves his Christian credentials by having Michael            Servetus, the Spanish physician, burned at        the stake for heresy. Servetus      had opposed Trinitarianism and infant baptism. Servetus,                  the discoverer of pulmonary blood circulation (an advance on                  Galen) had fled the Inquisition and had thought himself safe          among Protestants. Oh dear.         1559 Introduction of Index of Forbidden Books (lasts until 1966) 1563 Following the Council         of Trent, Jesuit Order becomes ‘Defender of the Faith’. Huguenots are         persecuted in France.	17th Century Barbarity Burning Witches for Christ Urbain Grandier, burned         in Loudun, 1634. Cardinal Richelieu orchestrated his murder. 1600 After a seven year trail           before the Inquisition, Giordano Bruno, who had the audacity to suggest           that space was boundless and that the sun and its planets were not unique,           is condemned and burned at the stake. 1605: The Gunpowder Plot. Catholic fanatics attempt to blow up James         I of England. 1633 Galileo is brought before the Inquisition. Under threat of torture and death, he is forced from his knees to renounce all belief in Copernican theories. He is sentenced to life imprisonment. He dies in 1642 and the charges against him stand for another 350 years.     1618-1648 Central Europe         devastated by Thirty Years’ War between Catholics and Protestants
	1411 Dominican Vincente Ferrer         revives anti-Jewish hysteria in Spain: “cohorts of the Devil and         Anti-Christ, clever, warped and doomed.” 1415 John Huss           of Bohemia, critic of papal corruption but guaranteed personal           safety,  burned at the stake. “When dealing with heretics,           one is not obligated  to keep his word.” – Pope Gregory           XII. 1415 Pope John           XXIII deposed: “The most scandalous charges were suppressed;           the  Vicar of Christ was only accused of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy           and incest.” – Gibbon (Decline & Fall) 1478: Pope Sixtus         IV, in alliance with King Ferdinand of Spain, establishes the Spanish         Inquisition. Jews, Moors and heretics will be imprisoned, tortured and         murdered for centuries.         The bisexual Sixtus, though suffering from syphilis, fathers children         from his elder sister. 1484 Pope Innocent VIII decrees that cats are unholy creatures, to be burned along with the witches that own them. 1486 Taking a break               from book-burning, two Dominican monks, Henrich Kramer & James               Sprenger, write a best-seller – Malleus Maleficarum               (‘The Witches Hammer’) – ‘the most blood thirsty book ever               written.’ (Peter de Rosa, Vicars of Christ, p184) This unsurpassed               nonsense rests on the bench of every magistrate and judge in Europe               for three centuries and leads to tens of thousands of judicial murders. 1498 Dominican           reformer, Savonarola – burner of books & ornaments of ‘pagan            immorality’ – is himself burned for criticising the degenerate            Pope Alexander VI.
18th Century Scandal Christian Church endorses Slavery, Racism & subordination      of women “And Noah awoke from         his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said,         Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.         And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his         servant.” Genesis 9.24-26   “As for your male         and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves         from the nations that are round about you. You may also buy from among         the strangers who sojourn with you and their families that are with you,         who have been born in your land; and they may be your property.”          Leviticus 25:44   1738: Freemasonry is condemned         by Clement XII and Catholics are forbidden to join. 1793: Last ‘witch’ burning at Poznen in Germany	19th Century Evil Christian Church Rejects Science & social        reform; Christian ‘missions’ go hand-in-hand with colonialism.   1814: Society of Jesus, suppressed         since 1773, is restored. The Inquisition continues until 1834, Church-sanctioned         torture until 1917. 1844: ‘Protection of Children         Act’ allows Church missionaries in Australia to kidnap aboriginal children. 1854: Pius IX proclaims the         dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the bull Ineffabilis Deus.         Lourdes shrine introduced.   1864: Pius IX issues the encyclical          Quanta cura and the Syllabus of Errors. It condemns some         80 propositions derived from scientific method and rationalism. Liberalism         & socialism are denounced.   1870: Vatican Council declares         the Pope “infallible”.   ‘Bible Societies’ & ‘Missions’         in European colonies destroy indigenous cultures	20th Century Iniquity Christian Church allies itself with Fascism;        opposes advances of science & personal freedom 1907 Pius X condemns Modernism         in the decree Lamentabili and the encyclical Pascendi. Hitler’s Pope – Pius         XII (1939-1958) Hitler, a Roman Catholic,            is never excommunicated for causing the death of millions; whereas        Martin Luther was excommunicated for criticism of the papal system. Friends of Fascists Everywhere:          Germany          Spain          Croatia	21st Century Menace Churches the Stalking Ground of Paedophiles & Sex        Offenders On March 12, 2000 Pope         John Paul II attempted to purify the soul of the Catholic Church by         apologising for 2000 years of “sins” committed by the church         – quite some compensation for twenty centuries of terrorism, extortion         and murder! And yet – September 2000 – the            same John Paul II issues “Dominus Jesus (Lord Jesus)”,  reaffirming              intolerance: “Only one path to God – the Roman Catholic Church.” And the story does not end: Still the evil continues… Child               sex abuse scandal rocks the US Catholic Church “The Roman Catholic         Church has removed 218 priests from their positions this year because         of child sexual abuse allegations, but at least 34 known offenders remain         in church jobs”- Reuters (June 9 2002) Anti-abortion Anti-birth control Creator of “saints” 31 July, 2003 “Congregation          for the Doctrine of the Faith” condemns same sex deviants          who seek marriage. In contrast, no Vatican condemnation    of priestly paedophiles.

Miracle Mongering Catholic Fascists Persecute Freethinker

FIR against rationalist for questioning ‘miracle’

Man files complaint against Sanal Edamaruku who dismissed water dripping from Jesus statue as due to capillary action, saying he had made statements against the Church

Jyoti Punwani

Mumbai was the birthplace of the Indian   Rationalist Association (IRA), founded in 1930 by Mumbaikar R P Paranjpe.   Almost a century later, it has also become the first city to have an FIR filed against the President of the IRA.

The FIR has been filed by another Mumbaikar, Agnelo Fernandes, President of the Maharashtra Christian Youth Forum.

CR 61/2012, Juhu Police Station, has been filed against miracle-buster Sanal Edamaruku, who is also founder-president of the Rationalist International,   which has scientists such as Richard Dawkins in it.

The FIR has been filed under IPC Sec 295A: Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs. The offence is cognizable and non-bailable.

The whole story began on March 5, when during a TV programme in Delhi, Sanal  dismissed reports that the “dripping cross” outside Vile Parle’s Velankanni   church was a miracle. TV-9 asked him to investigate and flew him down on   March 10. Sanal visited the spot and took pictures.

Born to rationalist parents, Sanal has, for the last 30 years, travelled across the country demonstrating the science behind supposed miracles. He has exposed the man-made nature of the ‘divine flame’ at Sabarimala, and successfully challenged Hindu godmen on TV.

Later on March 10, Sanal attributed the water dripping from the Jesus statue   to capillary action of underground water near the cross. His photographs,   displayed on TV-9, showed seepage on the wall behind the cross and on the   ground near its base. “I removed one of the stones covering a canal for dirty   water nearby, and found that water had been blocked there. Once water is   blocked, it will find an outlet, if not downwards, then upwards. Every student knows that trees get water through capillary action.’’

Sanal said that when he reached the spot, a priest was leading a prayer on the road near the cross; water from the cross had been collected in a bucket   and was being distributed to those gathered there. He was given a photograph of the statue dripping water with the word ‘miracle’ written on it. He said   he was not allowed to take a sample of the water for chemical analysis.

During the subsequent TV discussions in Delhi and Mumbai, Sanal accused the Catholic Church of “miracle mongering’’. Interestingly, in Mumbai, Archbishop Agnelo Gracias, who joined the discussion, categorically stated that the   Church had not described the event as a miracle and would do so only after   conducting investigations. The Archbishop also claimed that the Church was not anti-science and, in fact, it had established the Pontifical Academy of   Sciences, of which Galileo had been a member.

At that point, Sanal pointed out that the Church had imprisoned Galileo, and burnt scientist Giordano Bruno at the stake, and Pope John Paul II had even apologised for it. He also asked the Archbishop what he had to say about the   Vatican indulging in exorcism, to which the Archbishop replied that though he   had not come across any case of “possession’’, he could not rule it out.

All through the discussion, the other panelists kept warning Sanal that they would file FIRs against him if he didn’t apologise for his allegations against the Church.

The discussion ended with Sanal declaring that the Church’s intolerance had resulted in the Dark Ages in Europe. “Don’t try to bring the Dark Ages to India,” he said.

Fernandes lodged a complaint against Sanal at Juhu Police Station on April 10. Another complaint was lodged at the MIDC Police Station. In his complaint, Fernandes states that statements made against the Church and the   Pope by Sanal had hurt his religious feelings.

Sanal, who lives in Delhi, said, “The Indian Constitution enjoins me to develop scientific temper. Let them arrest me, I’m not going to stop doing my fundamental duty.’’

A Sanal Edamuruku Defence Committee has been convened by lawyer N D Pancholi.   Meanwhile, Mumbai police have called him here for questioning.

Support the Sanal Edamaruku Defence Fund with your donation.

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Right Wing Catholic “Religious Liberty” Disguise For Religious Intolerance

My Take: Catholic bishops against the common good

             By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN

(CNN) -

The U.S. Catholic bishops who claim, increasingly incredibly, to speak on behalf of American Catholics hit a new low last week when they released a self-serving statement called “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty.” As this title intimates, the supposed subject is religious liberty, but the real matter at hand is contraception and (for those who have ears to hear) the rapidly eroding moral authority of U.S. priests and bishops.

On Easter Sunday, Timothy Dolan, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told CBS that the controversial Health and Human Services contraception rule represents a “radical intrusion” of government into “the internal life of the Church.” On Thursday, 15 of his fellow Catholic clerics (all male) took another sloshy step into the muck and mire of the politics of fear.

In “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty” there is talk of religious liberty as the “first freedom” and a tip of the cap to the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. But first and foremost there is anxiety. “Our freedoms are threatened,” these clerics cry. “Religious liberty is under attack.”

But what freedoms are these clerics being denied? The freedom to say Mass?  To pray the Rosary?  No and no. The U.S. government is not forcing celibate priests to have sex, or to condone condoms. The freedom these clerics are being denied is the freedom to ignore the laws of the land in which they live.

When I first heard of the HHS rule requiring all employers to pay for birth control for their employees, I thought it should include, on First Amendment grounds, an exemption for Catholic churches. And in fact it did.

Moreover, when Catholic bishops and priests opposed the contraception mandate, HHS modified its rule, exempting not only Catholic churches but also Catholic-affiliated hospitals, universities, and social service agencies. (For these organizations, employees would receive contraceptive coverage from insurance companies separately from the policies purchased by their employers).

Once the Obama administration presented this compromise, I thought Catholic clerics would withdraw their objections. I was wrong. Instead they acted like political hacks rather than spiritual authorities, doubling down on the invective and serving up to the American public an even deeper draught of petty partisanship.

The bishops refer repeatedly in their statement to “civil society.” But think for a moment of the sort of “civil society” we would have if religious people were exempt from any law they deemed “unjust” for religious reasons.

Mormon employers who object to same-sex marriages could deny life insurance benefits to same-sex couples.

Jehovah’s Witnesses who object to blood transfusions could deny health care coverage for blood transfusions.

Christian Scientists who oppose the use of conventional medicine could refuse to cover their employees for anything other than Christian Science treatments.

And Roman Catholics could demand (as the bishops do in this statement) state financing for foster care programs that refuse to place foster children with same-sex parents.

As the Roman Catholic Church has taught for millennia, human beings are not isolated atoms. We live together in society, and we come together to pass laws to make our societies function. Virtually every law is coercive, and care must be taken not to violate the religious liberties of individual citizens. But care must also be taken to preserve the common good.

In their statement, Catholic bishops accused American political leaders of launching “an attack on civil society.” They also attempted to cloak themselves in the mantle of Dr. King. But theirs is a vision of an uncivil society, and their cause has nothing to do with the civil rights movement.

The civil rights movement succeeded because its cause was just, and because its leaders were able to mobilize millions of Americans to bring an end to the injustice of segregation. The effort by male Roman Catholic leaders to deny contraception coverage to female employees who want it does not bear even a passing resemblance to that cause. And even the bishops behind this so-called “movement” must admit that it is failing to mobilize even American Catholics themselves.

At least since the Second Vatican Council of the early 1960s, Catholics worldwide have been asking, “Who is the Roman Catholic Church?” Is it the hierarchy–a collection of priests, bishops, and cardinals overseen by a pope? Or is it the “People of God” in the pews whom these leaders are ordained to serve?

In recent years, this question has jumped by necessity from the realm of Catholic theology into the rough and tumble of American politics. Does American Catholicism oppose contraception? It depends on who speaks for the Church. The 98% of American Catholic women who have used contraception?  Or the 15 male clerics who issued this statement?

According to “Catholics for Choice,” which has published a rejoinder to “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” “The bishops have failed to convince Catholics in the pews to follow their prohibitions on contraception. Now, they want the government to grant them the legal right to require each of us, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, to set aside our own guaranteed freedom from government-sanctioned religious interference in our lives.”

The bishops’ statement gives lip service to “civil society” and the “common good,” but what these 15 clerics are trying to do here is destructive of both. To participate in civil society is to get your way sometimes and not others. To seek the common good is to sacrifice your own interests at times to those of others.

I will admit that the HHS contraception rule does ask these Catholic clerics to sacrifice something. But what is this sacrifice? Simply to allow the women who work for their organizations to be offered contraceptive coverage by their insurers. To refuse this sacrifice is not to uphold civil society. It is to refuse to participate in it.

Toward the end of their statement, the 15 bishops who signed this statement called on every U.S. Catholic to join in a “great national campaign” on behalf of religious liberty. More specifically, they called for a “Fortnight for Freedom” concluding with the Fourth of July when U.S. dioceses can celebrate both religious liberty and martyrs who have died for the Catholic cause.

As Independence Day approaches, I have a prediction. I predict that rank-and-file American Catholics will ignore this call. They will see that the issue at hand has more to do with women’s health than with religious liberty. And in the spirit of Vatican II, which referred to the church as the “People of God,” they will refuse to allow these 15 men to speak for them. Whatever moral capital U.S. bishops have in the wake of the sex abuse scandal that rocked the nation for decades will be insufficient to win over lay Catholics to what has been for at least a half a century a lost cause.

These 15 clerics write that American Catholics “must have the courage not to obey” unjust laws.  I think the courage called for today is something else–the courage not to obey those who no longer speak for them.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Stephen Prothero.

• Copyright 2012 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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