THE POPE'S DIVISIONS V. THE PRESIDENT: WHEN DIVISION MULTIPLIES

On the eve of World War II, in 1935, Josef Stalin met with French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval.  Laval asked Stalin to improve the situation of Catholics living in the Soviet Union as to not provoke a quarrel with the Pope. Stalin showed his brutal sense of humor and was said to respond” “The Pope?...How many divisions has the Pope?”

Conflict between Church and State appear throughout history, even in the United States. Government attack on religious liberty took an alarming turn under the Obama administration.  The president’s order through Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), that religious-based employees must include insurance for birth control, sterilization and abortifacient pills, pitched church-state conflict to a new level. 

The policy was planned to go into effective January 1, 2014, but successful litigation by church groups, which includes Long Island’s Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre as plaintiff, has delayed implementation.  The case races to the Supreme Court for clarification and a decision later this year.

The Executive Order directs religious-based employers (which include hospitals, schools and social services agencies) to provide medical insurance coverage that includes medical procedures that may violate religious beliefs of the church-sponsoring organization and that are contrary to their religious observance. Churches themselves were left exempt, but not church-affiliated agencies.

President Obama had previously promised broad conscience exemptions for church employers when he was first pitching his healthcare reform.  Were churches bamboozled?  Were clergy duped when they signed aboard in support of Obamacare believing that there would be a conscience exemption?  Even Vice President Joseph Biden said “the mandate would be seen as a government intrusion on organized religion." The Obama order is a dangerous stretching of constitutional limits of the First Amendment's Free Exercise clause.

Obama’s provocative “HHS Mandate” elides in time with an unprecedented act of the United Nations a few months ago.  Kirsten Sandberg, speaking as Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, criticized the Vatican for non-compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.  She attacked Catholic Church teachings on homosexuality, abortion and gender equality.  Church spokesmen contend the United Nations exceeded its mandate in taking on moral teachings of a specific church organization. Vatican City is not even a member of the U.N.; it is a “permanent observer state.” The Catholic Church was the only church specifically referenced in the report, although, arguably, there are prevalent examples of egregious mistreatment of women and gays by the codes of other religions, supported by the national states where they are found. 

The HHS Mandate is but one example of tensions.  The fronts of the battle between government and the church are legion:  media bias against the churches,  legal threat to the sanctity of marriage, hate crimes legislation hamstringing church expression with the threat of civil liability, controversies about religious symbols in public forum and the secularization of our religious feasts, and federal taxes spent on morally divisive measures, such as abortion.

Why would a government want to attack religion? Perhaps it is that religion and the Church is too powerful, and represents the last barrier to collectivist government. Whether it was Rev. Martin Luther King crashing through civil rights barriers in Selma, Alabama, or John Paul II with Solidarity in Poland, Churches are formidable competition to overreaching government.

Stalin asked how many divisions had the Pope. He, through his legacy, would know one day in the shipyards of Gdansk.

The Obama challenge to religious liberty through the so-called “HHS Mandate” has ignited opposition from churched people.  Can our government or any government eventually do in the Church?  Not really. Not for long. I remember the words of Cardinal Ercole Consalvi. After having imprisoned Pius VII in Fontainebleau, Napoleon drew up a Concordat which he brought to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Consalvi. Consalvi rejected the document. The Emperor shouted: "If this document remains unsigned, I shall destroy the Roman Catholic Church." To which Consalvi answered: "Your Majesty, if popes, cardinals, bishops and priests have not succeeded in destroying the Church in the course of nineteen centuries, how do you expect to do so in your life time?"

How many divisions has the Pope? Not many. But maybe enough to change the course of the HHS mandate.