Cardinal Dolan is at it Again. Well, Duh!

From my good friend Rocco Palmo at Whispers in the Loggia  (http://www.whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com) comes the latest in the Timtown Follies:  http://www.whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2012/05/crux-of-suit.html

Apparently His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Ph.D., D.D., Archbishop of New York and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (http://www.usccb.org), has asserted that the Obama Administration, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA, so-called "Obamacare") is attempting to "strangle" the Roman Catholic Church, and religious entities in general, with its requirement that religious employers provide contraceptive and abortion services to their employers. Previously, Dolan had argued that the Obama Administration was waging a "war" on the Church, and on organized religion in the United States.

Lord, spare us from our friends.

Sharp-eyed readers will have observed that Cardinal Dolan holds not one, but two doctorates, in Philosophy and Divinity. The D.D. refers to the degree of Doctor of Divinity, a largely-honorary distinction routinely granted to bishops on their elevation to the episcopate. The Ph.D. is an earned doctorate from Georgetown University, which Dolan as a young priest (of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis) earned in the normal course of academic study. Dolan's Ph.D. is in History, earned under the tutelage of the late Rev. Msgr. John Tracey Ellis, generally regarded as the dean of American Church historians, and the most-eminent scholar of the Church in America.

You read that right. An academic historian has stated that the secular power has declared "war" on the Church.

White-robed army of martyrs, pray for us!

Apart from the hysteria over the idea that a secular republic's expectation that all of its constituents, secular and religious, would adhere to the same set of rules (Constitution, Amendment I, Establishment Clause; Constitution, Amendment XIV, Equal Protection Clause) - as is required by the same framework document that allows ministers of religion freely to practice their religion - constitutes a "war" on religion - which it manifestly does not - one is flabbergasted by the idea that an historian, who should know better, would compare statutes and administrative rules of the modern, bureaucratic nation-state with the crimes against humanity perpetrated against religion throughout history.

For the purpose of this argument, let us only consider those Christians who are united in faith to the Bishop of Rome. There is certainly much to be said about abuses directed against Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Zoroastrians, atheists, etc. But Dolan is a Roman Catholic bishop, and claims his authority to speak on the basis of that status. So we shall limit our discussion to the fate that has too-often befallen those united in faith to the Successor of Peter.

There are two principal rights that Christians, so defined, have been put in peril of losing for failure, or refusal to bow to the rule of secular law. The first is the right to life; the second is the right to enjoy property.

Does Dolan propose that he, or any of his co-religionists, are put in jeopardy of their secular, natural, biological life for failure or refusal to submit to the requirements of the PPACA? The early Christians were put to death by the Roman Empire, not for blasphemy, not for heresy (or even heterodoxy), but for atheism. The grounds for condemnation of early followers of Christ (even before St. Isidore coined the term "Christians") was refusal to worship the gods in the approved manner, by publicly burning incense while invoking the gods. Tertullian, in De corona militis, relates the tale of a Christian soldier martyred for refusal to wear his proper, prescribed uniform at the appointed time. The soldier refused to don a grass crown, specified as the appropriate headgear for a pay formation, preferring a crown of glory in the next world to a uniform crown in this world, and so was martyred. Does Dolan really think that death is the fate that awaits Catholics, or their institutions, who fail, or refuse to adhere to the provisions of the PPACA?

No such assertion has been made. Dolan limits himself to arguing that the Obama Administration is "at war" with the Church, is "strangl[ing]" the Church, but death is not on the horizon. A war to the death, without death? Well, Duh!

Does Dolan propose that he, or any of his co-religionists, are reduced to the status of dhimmi by the provisions of the PPACA? This might come closer to the point that Dolan is trying to make, by the most obtuse and obscure of all possible routes. The argument could be made, that Christians are being reduced to a level of citizenship where they are tolerated, if they pay specific fees and/or taxes for the privilege of not being molested, or oppressed by the government.*

This does not so much appear to be the case. At least, this argument has not appeared in this specific form. Dolan and his confreres do not argue that Christians are being forced to buy toleration. Rather, the argument appears to be that the citizenship status of Christians is diminished by the requirement in the PPACA that Church employers purchase a government-mandated product. There are two principal objections to this argument.

First, as noted above, Church employers are not being singled out for mandatory purchases. All employers, religious as well as secular, are required by the PPACA to purchase/provide such health insurance. This satisfies both of the Constitutional requirements listed above, by not giving a financial break to religious entities, and by treating all entities equally.

Second is the simple fact that it is not the faithful who are labor under the mandate to purchase health-insurance coverage that includes contraceptive and abortion services. Rather, corporate entities have that requirement. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court's wrong-headed ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, corporations and other business entities, which are legal fictions, are not, by definition, natural persons. They do not enjoy the rights and privileges of natural persons. They are not clothed with "the inherent dignity of the human person," to borrow a majestic phrase from the Magisterium.

Far from "making war" on Church employers, or "depriving them of their rights," the PPACA in fact confers on Church employers rights to which those entities are not entitled. Far from making "war" on religion, as Dolan suggests, the Obama Administration honors the separate sphere in which religion functions.

That is what the Constitution requires the United States to do. Well, Duh!

*Note:  I do not for a moment imagine that, if this is the argument that Dolan attempts to make, that he is playing to the "Obama-as-Muslim" crowd, or employing their arguments/rhetoric. Dolan has enough rhetorical issues as it is, without having to adopt bad argumentation from the political fringe.