Since his ascension to the Papal throne Pope Benedict has regularly exhorted Western nations, to defend their Christian heritage against the secular, relativist ideology which assaults it, and to recover it where it has been lost.

            This assault became clear again on November 3 when seven judges of the European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to remove all crucifixes in public schools. The order met immediate resistance by mayors throughout Italy and elsewhere.

            On Independence Day in Poland, November 11, President Lech Kaczynski, announced that “nobody in Poland will accept the message that you cannot hang crucifixes in schools.” In Poland religious symbols were banned during the 50-year rule of Soviet-controlled Communist atheist governments. Next day, Lech Walesa, the former president and leader of the Solidarity liberation movement stated: “We must respect minorities but also protect the rights of the majority.”

            In Greece, Archbhishop Ieronymos of Athens and Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church, urged all Europeans to oppose the ruling, saying the Court is ignoring the role of Christianity in the creation of Europe’s identity and values (LifeSiteNews.com, Nov. 17, 2009).

High stakes drama in the U.S.

            As the Catholic Church in Europe stands at the beginning of a new role vis-à-vis a new European Executive, Charter (Lisbon Treaty), Judiciary, and Parliament, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in the United States (USCCB) found themselves suddenly in the midst of a firefight about Obama’s health reform.

            During 2008 the USCCB had taken a position in favour of health reform. They wanted coverage for 31 million uninsured Americans, maintain insurance for legal immigrants, and cover 12 million illegal immigrants. This  “general principle,” politically speaking, brought them into the camp of the Democrats and President Obama. Catholics voted 53% for Obama in the November 2008 elections.

            Once the Obama administration came to power it took only days for pro-life observers to confirm their fears that the  regime was radically anti-life (See “50 days,” and “100 days” of Obama on C.I.’s website). That brought into play the bishops’ other “universal principle,” the right to life of every human person. On October 8, 2009, the USCCB announced that despite its desire for health reform it would rally the faithful against any health reform that included taxpayer-funded abortion.

            Four tension-filled weeks saw the House producing a pro-abortion bill, the bishops sending weekly messages to House and Senate, some 40 Democrats wavering, and House speaker Nancy Pelosi, determined to have her pro-abortion  way, yet caving in on the last day, November 7, allowing a vote on the Stupak-Pitt amendment which removed abortion from the Bill. The abortion issue, practically dormant during the 2008 campaign, is now fully reignited, thanks in no small measure to the USCCB’s efforts to unite pro-life Catholics.

            Yet the battle is far from over. On November 14 the Senate adopted its legislative final proposal, including massive government subsidies for abortion, bringing everything back to square one.

Principles, but not politics

            Meanwhile at their annual fall meeting in Baltimore, Cardinal Francis George, president of the USCCB, explained that the bishops do not approve specific means to be employed in the proposed health policy, but rather emphasize principles, such as universal access to healthcare and the right to life of every human person.

            Bishop William Murphy, chairman of the Domestic Justice Committee, also confirmed the bishops’ desire to emphasize “principles,” not “politics.” The bishops do not do politics, he said, but we are in a world of politics. The bishops, therefore, look for a “principled position” that will support a law to prevent the use of taxpayer money for abortion.

Difficulties

            As noted, the U.S. bishops’ desire for universal access to health care in their country had moved them to support the Democrats’ health reform in the first place. The Church’s “general  principle” that abortion is “an intrinsic evil” that may never be supported, moved the  bishops to oppose the final legislation.

            In other words, the two principles are not equal in value. The condemnation of killing the unborn falls under the fifth Commandment and must be adhered to by all believing Christians and certainly by all Catholics.  The same is not true for the belief in universal healthcare for everybody. There is no “divine right” to healthcare for everybody. If universal healthcare is accepted it will be because the political circumstances, including the country’s economy, will allow its implementation. But if “politics” adds abortion, or if the economy cannot bear the financial strains, that desire may have to be dropped or to be reconfigured.