From: People For Peace
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
N E W S J U S T I N
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2012
The long awaited pastoral letter of the US Catholic Church strongly attacking President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform is finally out. Under the healthcare employers must offer insurance that includes access to contraception. The big challenge is whether the letter will change the conscience of American people who for years have been using the contraceptives despite church’s opposition. Click here for full story US Bishops attack Obama healthcare reforms.
This is not the first time US bishops have attacked Obama on healthcare scheme. In March 2010 despite the fact that the reform would require most Americans to have health coverage that gives subsidies to help lower-income workers pay for coverage and creates state-based exchanges where the uninsured can compare and shop for plans, the U.S Catholic bishops severely opposed to the reform.
The Catholic Bishops’ attack was seen by some black minorities in the US as being racist, arguing that it was one of the reasons why black Catholic bishops are few in the US. Catholicism continues to be a minority religion in the black community, but these clergymen are pushing on.
Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry is one of just 16 black Catholic bishops in the United States. “Historically,” he said, “the Church in America has suffered from a lack of outreach to blacks, and the consequences are still with us today.”
About 24 percent of all Americans identify themselves as Catholic, but in the black community, the percentage is far lower. According to a CARA Catholic Poll, just 3 percent of American Catholics, or 3 million Americans, identify themselves as both black and Catholic.
Further, just 250 of America’s 40,000 priests and only 16 of the 434 bishops in the United States are black. Bishop Joseph Perry, 63, is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago. He grew up in an observant Catholic home in Chicago. His father was a laborer for the city in the sanitation department, and he also worked on the railroad.
Bishop Perry was one of six children. He attended various Catholic schools in Chicago and from a young age “had an affinity to the Church.” At age 9, he told his mother he wanted to be a priest. At 15, he entered the high school seminary and was eventually ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in 1975. He became a bishop in 1998 and today serves a region of Chicago that includes many poor, inner-city blacks.
“In the 19th century, Irish and German bishops focused on evangelizing in those communities, but little attention was paid to African-Americans,” he remarked.
“Historically, the Church in America has suffered from a lack of outreach to blacks, and the consequences are still with us today.” He noted that 37 of Chicago’s parishes are predominantly black.
Black minorities and Spanish Catholics received the bill full heartedly because the bill would be in favour of nearly 50 million Americans who do not have health-care coverage.
These are the categories of American poor who cannot afford to go to their doctor when they have symptoms that ought to be investigated. These categories of people cannot even buy simple and effective remedies such as antibiotics.
Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, Congo, supported the Oama healthcare scheme. Arguing during the second African synod in Rome he said that the issue of abortion should not prompt the U.S bishops to oppose Obama’s election.
According to bishop Pasinya what was important was the fact that Obama is the man who could signal a major step forward in peaceful relations between people of different ethnic groups and between the North and the South of the world.
Bishop Pasinya suggested that U.S bishops should look at Obama like the Old Testament story of Joseph and his brothers, who had sold him into slavery, could be a key for reading the last 500 years of African history, particularly the slave trade.
Like Joseph he said Obama should be seen as the Africans brought to America against their will as the first contributors to building a nation of people who would learn to accept one another and work together, describing him as a ‘divine sign’ and a sign from the Holy Spirit for the reconciliation of races and ethnic groups for peaceful human relations.
In Kenya some religious leaders opposed the new constitution, not because of abortion, but because politically it has emerged that anything the Prime Minister Raila Odinga supports is opposed to religious leaders who identify themselves with President Kibaki and his PNU Party.
Despite the cal by some of these religious leaders Kenyans still voted 98 percent for the constitution. They voted for it because this was the only constitution that would be the voice of the poor and Kenyans who did not have the voice and their rights continued to be denied.
In the escalating conflict over the new federal requirement that employers include contraception coverage without a co-pay in the insurance plans they make available to their employees, opposition from the Catholic church and its allies is making headway with a powerfully appealing claim: that when conscience and government policy collide, conscience must prevail.
The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To Hell with you!’ ”. This is because, while the policy grounds are fully persuasive – the ability to prevent or space pregnancy being an essential part of women’s health care, one that shouldn’t be withheld simply because a woman’s employer is church-affiliated.
Just like Kenya with old constitution where almost 98 percent could not be heard, in America with Obama’s new policy, it is very obvious with the 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women who, just like other American women, have exercised their own consciences and availed themselves of birth control at some point during their reproductive lives, this policy has fulfilled their desires.
The organization Catholic for Choice, whose magazine is pointedly entitled Conscience, is calling on its supporters to “tell our local media that the bishops are out of touch with the lived reality of the Catholic people” and “do not speak for us on this decision.”
Currently a majority (55 percent) of Americans agree that “employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost.” Four-in-ten (40 percent) disagree with this requirement.
According to key breakdowns, 58 percent of all Catholics agree employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception. That slides down to 52 percent for Catholic voters, 50 percent for white Catholics.
While 61 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans say employer plans should cover contraception, 50 percent of white mainline Protestants want the coverage. However, for evangelical Protestants, that drops to 38 percent.
And perhaps of greater note among election-watchers: Women are significantly more likely than men to agree that employers should be required to provide health care plans that cover contraception (62 percent vs. 47 percent respectively).
A second poll, also released this week from Public Policy Polling, has similar findings. This poll, conducted at the request of Planned Parenthood, finds…a majority of voters, including a majority of Catholics, don’t believe Catholic hospitals and universities should be exempted from providing the benefit.
Independent voters support this benefit by a 55/36 margin; in fact, a majority of voters in every racial, age and religious category that the polls track express support. In particular, a 53 percent majority of Catholic voters, who were over sampled as part of this poll, favor the benefit, including fully 62 percent of Catholics who identify themselves as independents.
Congressional leaders and Republican presidential candidates joined Catholic religious groups on Wednesday in denouncing the Obama administration’s mandate requiring health insurers to offer birth control coverage.
The issue has heated up since Jan. 20, when Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius issued a final rule requiring that all women have access to free preventive care services, including contraceptives.
The rule includes an exemption for churches and houses of worship, but not for other religious institutions such as hospitals, universities and charities.
The debate began when presidential contender Rick Santorum-himself a catholic-accused President Baraka Obama of “declaring war on the Catholic Church”, when Obama’s policies on healthcare-contraceptives- were being dictated/imposed on Catholics against the teaching of that church.
The Obama administration has said the so-called “Obamacare”was a medical-healthcare policy that seeks to provide/make medical insurance affordable to all, including the poor, women-children. “It is not a law to impose contraceptives use or abortion practices on Catholics,” one democratic congress woman from Texas said (Adds Nyabonyi Kazungu in US).
Since Pope Paul VI issued the papal encyclical letter- entitled Humanae Vitae: On the Regulation of Birth in 1968, the vast majority of Catholics continue to use contraceptives, especially in minimizing the spread of the HIV virus that causes Aids.
Most members of the Pontifical Commission, set up by Pope Paul’s predecessor Pope John XXIII, argued it was time for the Church to face the realities of the modern world. They said that with the increasing emancipation of women and the introduction of safe contraceptives the time had come for the Church to change its position.
Contraception is nothing new; history records people using various methods of birth control four thousand years ago. Ancient people swallowed potions to cause temporary sterility; they used linens, wool, or animal skins as barrier methods; they fumigated the uterus with poison to keep it from bearing life.
Most American Catholics increasingly put more faith in society’s values than they do in the Church’s values. Many Americans still identify themselves as Catholics. However, the spirit of Catholicism is rarely found in contemporary American society.
When John XXIII was appointed Pope in 1960, he felt that the Church needed to become more in touch with the modern world. An ecumenical council was called, and Vatican II lasted from 1962-1965. Vatican II was one of the most important events in the history of the Church.
The Church restructured its philosophy in order to become a more inclusive and open organization. In the mid 1960’s, most American Catholics viewed Vatican II as a positive event. They were hopeful that the Council would strengthen the Church and unite Catholics throughout the United States.
There are two groups of American Catholics who place greater importance on society’s values than on Church values. One group views the doctrine of the Church as an authoritarian list of rules and regulations. Those who follow the rules are the “good” people. Those who do not follow the rules are the “bad” people. This is a superficial way to view the Church.
The second group of American Catholics, who place greater importance on society’s values than on Church values, has a more accurate and profound view of Catholicism. These Catholics recognize that the message of the Church goes beyond a list of “do’s” and “don’ts.” They realize that at the heart of Catholic doctrine lies the authentic message of Jesus.
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