Fortnight for Freedom was a fizzle.
Our Catholic bishops started out leading a political parade in the
spring.
But when they looked behind them in the fall, they discovered
that almost nobody was following.
What happened?
A few groups got in line.
The Knights of Columbus were very active.
EWTN had several programs devoted to Fortnight.
There were some rallies
around the country.
A lot of money was spent on pamphlets and videos.
There was an opening Mass in Baltimore and a closing Mass in Washington,
D.C.
But there was hardly any talk about it in the pews.
The average
Catholic hardly even noticed a Fortnight for Freedom was happening.
Why didn't this movement catch fire?
Four reasons, I think.
First, perhaps some of our language was hyperbolic. When language is perceived as exaggerated, it is not taken seriously.
Bishops and Catholic publications used words like "alarming,"
"unprecedented" and "unconscionable" about the HHS mandate.
But most
people did not see it as an existential threat to our religious liberty.
They saw it as a disagreement over government policy.
Everybody exaggerated, not just the church.
Conservatives like newly minted Catholic Newt Gingrich accused the
Obama administration of "waging war on religion."
Liberals, like the
talking heads on MSNBC, accused the Republican Party of waging "war on
women."
Neither side really believed its own rhetoric.
Second, the statement that this was unprecedented was not historically accurate.
Bishops said that never before had people been required to violate
their religious conscience to comply with the law.
But every day, we tax
Quakers and other religious pacifists to support wars. Jehovah's
Witnesses pay Medicare taxes for blood transfusions. Seventh-day
Adventists in the military must report to duty on Saturdays. Mormons had
to give up their cherished practice of polygamy as the price for
bringing Utah into the Union. The fact is that religious liberty has
never been absolute.
Third, the Catholic church is not a convincing defender of religious liberty because of our own history.
The church only very recently came to accept religious liberty. For
most of its history, the Catholic church vigorously opposed freedom of
religion.
Pope Pius IX and his Syllabus of Errors, issued in 1859,
condemned freedom of religion and said "error has no rights."
That is
why Protestants were so fearful at the prospect of the election of a
Catholic in 1960.
It was not until five years later, in 1965, that the
church accepted religious liberty at the Second Vatican Council in its
declaration Dignitatis Humanae. The church did an about-face and accepted what it had heretofore condemned.
In recent years, Catholics have not been consistent defenders of the
religious liberty. For example, when Muslims sought to build a
recreation center with a mosque near ground zero in New York, we did not
defend their right to do so. Cardinal Timothy Dolan suggested they move
elsewhere.
Fourth, the Fortnight for Freedom was perceived as a partisan effort to influence the election.
The bishops, of course, did not intend to be partisan and
vociferously denied that they were partisan, but both sides of the
political equation perceived "Fortnight" as an effort to defeat
President Barack Obama. I went to one Knights of Columbus meeting that
ended with a blunt appeal to "get behind our bishops" and defeat the
president.
Although the many bishops were unified on "Fortnight," the faithful
were not. Catholics simply don't agree on what policies we should
follow. Witness the two vice presidential candidates, Joe Biden and Paul
Ryan.
In my parish, we held a discussion on five religious liberty issues:
gay marriage; the HHS mandate and the definition of religious
organizations; immigration; prayer in public forums; and abortion. We
had about 100 people participate. We could not agree on a single public
policy for any of the five issues. If Catholics talking among themselves
cannot agree, how can we lead a political movement?
The main issue was the HHS regulation's requirement that all
insurance policies provided by private employers should cover
contraception. The big problem was, and still is, that the religious
exemption was too narrowly drawn.
I spoke about the HHS mandate and
unequivocally called upon the Obama administration to reverse its
position. I got a fair amount of criticism from both sides. Some thought
I did not hit hard enough; others thought I hit it too hard. Most said
nothing. Obviously, we do not agree.
Some people feel the problem is that many of our institutions are not really Catholic. Their religious identity is weak or gone.
Many of our hospitals are now owned by large secular systems or even
hedge funds. Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., for
instance, is owned by a large secular chain, MedStar.
Catholic Charities in most dioceses are principally funded by
government contracts and grants, not by the church. It is Caesar's coin
that pays the bills.
Our universities and colleges rely on government grants and student
loans, not the church. Most of our institutions of higher learning are
only vestigially Catholic, as George Weigel once put it.
What are the lessons learned from "Fortnight"? As a pastor, I can see three.
First, let the laity lead. It is the laypeople who have competence in
the secular world. That is the church's own teaching at Vatican II in Lumen Gentium, No. 33. Laypeople are the ones called to be salt of the earth and light for the world.
Second, tone down the rhetoric a bit. Our policy disputes are not an
existential threat to religion. Our statements have to be accurate and
narrowly drawn.
Third, educate the church first before you blow the bugle to line up the troops.
[Fr. Peter Daly is a priest at the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.,
and has been pastor of St. John Vianney parish in Prince Frederick, Md.,
since 1994.]