The current HHS ruling that religious affiliated employers must violate their consciences and offer insurance that opposes their moral teachings is not the first example of anti-Christian bias by the Obama administration. Several months back, the Administration ordered that Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic college connected with a Benedicitine abbey, be forced to offer contraception to its female employees (in this case, a complaint was brought before a NC department for the reason that the college offered something only men could obtain, but not women, and that only women can take chemical contraception. The NC office denied the complaint, and the case was seemingly closed until the Obama administration took it up). More recently, the EEOC took up the case of a fired teacher at a religious school (Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC)and argued that the school discriminated against the teacher when it fired her. The EEOC's argument was that the teacher, while defined as a minister, had the same duties as a lay teacher, and therefore wasn't a minister, and so was discriminated against. (The Supreme Court ruled against this, 9-0).
As I have read about this, in particular the reaction of the Catholic Bishops to this ruling, I noticed a general attitude that this ruling, indeed all the disasters that have befallen us since the inauguration of Barack Obama as President, would not have happened had not 54% of Catholics not voted for the man in the 2008 general election. Further, there is a sense that the self-same bishops that now condemn the predictable ruling based on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) put themselves in this pickle because they bought into Obama's ideas and support Obamacare. Rather than bemoaning such actions, I think a different perspective must be taken.
The American ideal is to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Despite Barack Obama's lack of a decent voting record (voting present is a cop-out), and hard-core support for abortion promotion, the fact still remains that many Americans see (or saw) Obama as a genuine concerned citizen who is trying to do his best for the country. I think this best describes the Catholic bishops, and other Christian support for Obama. This is laudable...to an extent.
I may be wrong, but I have yet to hear of any Christian group openly and consistently attack a Presidential administration either before or after their election. Sure, there may be criticisms of a person's policies or statements, but generally Christians will show at worst ambivalence, but generally respect for Presidential candidates and Presidents. My experience has been that Christian denominations have provided information to their members, sometimes particularly slanted due to one or more issues, but have not officially endorsed or condemned any candidate or president, unless they have deserved such attention. Not only does this support the American ideal, but this is truly a Christian attitude. I am specifically thinking of Flavius Constantius' (Constantine I's father) tolerant views of Christians. In direct juxtaposition to the official Roman policy of persecution of Christians, Constantius argued that Christians were model citizens, obeying the law, supporting the government, and not causing any problems...despite being persecuted. As Christians, particularly as Pope Leo XIII reminds us, we are to obey and support the State, provided the State doesn't require us to offend God (which the HHS ruling does).
To be short, I think that viciously attacking and condemning a candidate for President for a couple of policies is generally un-Christian. We must give all people the benefit of the doubt, because all men are created in the image and likeness of God. When Mitt Romney says that he believes that Obama is a good guy, he is, while not being a Christian, is acting more Christian-like than say Newt Gingrich (although much evidence has been amassed in the past 3 years that Gingrich is most likely right). There is a reason why certain men are elected bishops: they contain certain qualities that lend themselves to the office of bishop. For this reason, numerous bishops remained ambivalent or even somewhat supportive of Obamacare, providing certain caveats were met. In this regard, they were showing true Christian charity: they believed that Obama was attempting to solve the healthcare situation in the US.
This, however, doesn't not excuse naivete toward the out-and-out pro-abortionists that supported the law. To some extent, it seems that the bishops who were supportive, or at least gave Obama the benefit of the doubt, were blinded to all clues that hinted at the obvious fact that Obama, Pelosi, and Planned Parenthood were using Obamacare to force federal funding of abortion in an underhanded way. Of course, this isn't surprising the way the bishop's conference crafted the Faithful Citizenship document in a way to encourage the "seamless garment" argument that abortion isn't really the re-eminent moral issue of our time (which it is). Even then, some bishops argued that we needed to be cautious and didn't want to rock the boat unnecessarily (honestly, I don't know of a single bishop who has supported abortion, but would rather talk about helping the poor because its less messy).
The real blame lies solely with a President and his administration that has effectively put a wedge between many Catholics and their bishops. A cursory review of modern history reveals that such an action is entirely consistent with Communist and Socialist dictators: silence religion and/or kowtow it to the State. The Communists did this with the Russian Orthodox Church during the years of the Soviet Union (Patriarch Alexius was the last of the Communist-supported patriarchs). This is also seen in China today, as there are two Catholic Churches: a state-approved Church (which does not have the blessing of the Pope) and the True Church, which operates illegally and underground.
Is the President actively seeking to force the Church (and Communists and Socialists have been nearly unanimous on this issue: the single greatest threat to Socialism or Communism is the Catholic Church, which is why it operates so as to undermine or destroy it) to be subservient to the State, or is he simply misguided? I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
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