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Host Rick Howick interviews guests on a variety of topics. On this week’s program, Rick welcomes back one of our favorite guests, Daryl Sequeira from Servite High School in Anaheim. Daryl is the ‘chair’ of the theology department at Servite.
Our topic of conversation today is the following: the new nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
Originally broadcast on 7/14/18
This week marked a great victory for the pro-life movement, especially here in California, as the Supreme Court ruled in favor of protecting the free speech rights of California pro-life pregnancy clinics against a state law known as AB 775.
Labeled with the misnomer of the ‘Reproductive FACT Act,’ AB 775 was signed into law in late 2015 after pro-abortion activists launched an undercover video campaign to discredit our work. It specifically targeted licensed clinics like ours and pregnancy counseling centers, most of whom are faith-based, to post signs or disclosures about the availability of ‘free or low-cost’ family planning and abortion services – in direct violation of our core beliefs.
In January 2016, when the law went into effect, we reluctantly posted the signs. Why? Because we knew that pro-abortion activists would not stop at the law’s passage, and would step up the pressure on local authorities to enforce it, which carries fines of up to $1,000 per violation. That’s exactly what happened just a few months later in Los Angeles.
But several brave pro-life leaders of licensed clinics and counseling centers, stepped up as lead plaintiffs to challenge the law. Represented by the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), they sought a preliminary injunction against enforcement of AB 775. After being rejected by the 9th Circuit, the Supreme Court’s ruling in NIFLA v Becerra grants California’s estimated 170 pro-life clinics and centers a much-needed reprieve from AB 775’s enforcement.
Our patients are always informed up front that we do not refer or provide abortion. Laws like AB 775 have no basis other than to coerce faith-based organizations to tow a state-directed pro-abortion agenda.
Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion gets to the heart of AB 775’s problem:
[H]ere the State requires primarily pro-life pregnancy centers to promote the State’s own preferred message advertising abortions. This compels individuals to contradict their most deeply held beliefs, beliefs grounded in basic philosophical, ethical, or religious precepts, or all of these.
Every pregnant woman facing an unplanned pregnancy deserves to know the truth about her options – to be fully informed before making a decision. That includes giving her an opportunity to see her unborn child during an ultrasound. Our experience shows that nearly 80% who do will choose life.
While we can and should celebrate the Supreme Court’s ruling, we cannot forget that the threats to life, free speech, and religious liberty in California and our country are still very real. St. Mother Teresa wisely observed that, “the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”
At Obria, no matter how pro-abortion activists will try to portray us, our doctors, nurses, and staff know that coercion is never the answer. But rather, our model of care is built on the foundation of Christ’s love. Love for the mother and love for the child, no matter what.
Clare Venegas is interim executive director of Obria Medical Clinics of Southern California (OMCSoCal.org). She is a wife and mother of three children attending Catholic school.
Washington D.C., Jul 9, 2018 / 07:25 pm (CNA/EWTN News) – President Donald Trump announced Monday night he is nominating Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created when Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement June 27.
In a brief speech after the announcement, Kavanaugh spoke about the importance of his Catholic upbringing and how it has affected his career.
The July 9 announcement came after much speculation over how Trump will choose to shape the Supreme Court during his first term. This is the second vacancy he has filled; previously, he appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
Confirmation hearings are expected to begin shortly in the Senate.
Trump said that Kavanaugh “has devoted his life to public service.”
After being introduced, Kavanaugh said he is “deeply honored” to be nominated.
“The motto of my Jesuit high school was ‘men for others’,” said Kavanaugh, who graduated from Georgetown Preparatory School near Washington, D.C. “I have tried to live that creed.”
“I am part of the vibrant Catholic community in the D.C. area,” he said at his nomination. “The members of that community disagree about many things, but we are united in our commitment to serve.”
Kavanaugh highlighted his commitment to service, both in and out of the courtroom. He volunteers serving meals to the homeless, coaching his daughter’s basketball team, and tutoring at an elementary school.
He made special mention of Msgr. John Enzler, President and CEO of Catholic Charities, who was present at the announcement.
“40 years ago, I was an altar boy for Fr. John,” said Kavanaugh, adding that they now serve the homeless together through his work with Catholic Charities.
Kavanaugh currently serves on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, and has done so since 2006. Previously, he worked in the George W. Bush White House.
Bush said that Kavanaugh “is a brilliant jurist who has faithfully applied the Constitution and laws throughout his 12 years on the D.C. Circuit. He is a fine husband, father, and friend — a man of the highest integrity.”
Kavanaugh clerked for Justice Kennedy.
He received his undergraduate and law degrees from Yale University. He and his wife, Ashley, have two daughters.
On abortion, not much is known regarding his personal views. Kavanaugh recently wrote a decision that prevented a pregnant undocumented minor in federal custody from receiving an abortion. The decision was overturned by another court.
Kavanaugh has written dissents in the past opposing undocumented persons voting in union elections and was opposed to expanding visas to foreign workers when there were Americans who could do the job.
His 2015 ruling on the HHS contraception mandate was met with a mixed response. While he sided with Priests for Life in their case against the Obama administration, he appeared to acknowledge a “compelling” interest in the availability of government-provided contraception, which had previously been recognized by members of the Supreme Court.
In a case involving the Washington Metro’s prohibition on religious-themed advertisements, including an ad by the Archdiocese of Washington, Kavanaugh was “unrelenting” in his questioning of the Metro’s lawyer, saying that he believed the prohibition was “discriminatory.”
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 June 26 that a California law that placed requirements on crisis pregnancy centers that oppose abortion violated the First Amendment.
In its decision in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra, the court found that the law changes the content of the clinic’s speech “by compelling petitioners to speak a particular message,” and that the law went further than being a mere “regulation of professional conduct that incidentally burdens speech.”
The state law in question is the Reproductive FACT Act, which says pregnancy centers must post notices in their facilities about where low-cost abortion services are available and also must disclose if they have medical personnel on staff.
During the oral arguments March 20, some of the justices expressed concerns that the law might be about specifically targeting crisis pregnancy centers instead of providing information about abortion, and the decision mentions that, if the goal of the law were merely providing information about abortion to the public, that goal could be accomplished in more effective ways that do not require speakers to deliver unwanted speech.
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, praised the ruling as “an important victory for the free speech rights of pro-life organizations.”
“The Supreme Court today has affirmed that the First Amendment protects the right of all organizations to choose for themselves not only what to say, but what not to say,” he said in a statement.
“This includes allowing pro-life pregnancy care centers to continue providing life-affirming support to both mother and child without being forced by governments to provide free advertising for the violent act of abortion in direct violation of the center’s pro-life convictions,” he said.
The USCCB and several other faith-based groups filed a friend-of-the-court brief before the Supreme Court supporting the pro-life pregnancy centers in the case.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, who is co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, said in a statement that “pregnancy centers want no part of a law requiring them to tell a woman where to go to kill her child. Thankfully, today the Supreme Court recognized their First Amendment right to free speech — and to refrain from speaking.”
“Crisis pregnancy centers like NIFLA serve women and children according to their religious mission, and California should respect that,” said Mark Rienzi, president of Becket, which is a nonprofit religious liberty law firm. “This ruling proves that when it comes to important issues, the government doesn’t get to tell people what to believe, and it also doesn’t get to tell people what to say about it.”
Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion of the court, and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch. Kennedy filed a concurring opinion which Roberts, Alito and Gorsuch joined. Justice Stephen Breyer filed a dissenting opinion and was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Immediately after the Supreme Court sent the contraceptive case back to the lower courts May 16, some called the decision a punt — the football analogy of sending the ball back to the other team — or in this case the lower courts.
But the analogy falls short on a practical level because the seven consolidated cases in Zubik will be sent back to the lower courts with a very different look — bearing the stamp of being vacated by the nation’s high court.
The 3rd, 5th, 10th and D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — which ruled in favor of the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate and did not see it as posing a substantial burden to the petitioners’ free exercise of religion — now must give another look at the issue equipped with the new information submitted to the Supreme Court showing a possible compromise.
Although the justices’ unanimous decision in Zubik v. Burwell took many by surprise, others said they saw something like this coming when the Supreme Court essentially showed its hand asking both sides to provide ways to implement the contraceptive mandate that would satisfy both sides.
“Contrary to most press coverage, this was not a punt,” said Michael McConnell, a law professor at Stanford Law School in California, writing about the Zubik ruling. He described the decision as “a compromise in which the Little Sisters won the case but no precedent was set for the future. This is unorthodox, but arguably Solomonic,” he added.
Hannah Smith, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the Little Sisters of the Poor in the case, similarly didn’t buy the sports analogy that grabbed headlines.
“I don’t see it as a punt at all,” she told Catholic News Service May 27. She said the Supreme Court was not just returning the cases to the lower courts but was “very specific in its order and outlined several points” such as forbidding the government from levying fines on the groups that objected to the contraceptive coverage, erasing previous court decisions and telling the courts to essentially find a feasible resolution.
In other words, when the court sent these cases back, it also sent guidelines for a new way forward.
Smith said the court’s decision was essentially telling the federal government: “You can do this in a different way, now you have to go back and do it.”
She said it is going to take some time for this to work through the courts and she couldn’t predict a time frame for it.
It has already been nearly five years that religious groups have been involved in challenging the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. The Department of Health and Human Services announced an “interim final rule” in August 2011 requiring that coverage of contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration be included in most employees’ health plans. The rule provided a narrow religious exemption to the mandate that only applied to houses of worship and did not include most religious universities, schools, social service agencies, outreach ministries or health care providers.
The plaintiffs don’t seem daunted by the time it is taking for a resolution. Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl said in a statement after the Supreme Court’s decision that the court’s opinion offered a path forward but “this struggle will continue.”
The Washington Archdiocese is one of seven plaintiffs in the consolidated Zubik case.
Now the question for both sides is whether the courts follow the Supreme Court’s cue and find a compromise.
In a post for scotusblog.com, University of Notre Dame law professor Richard Garnett wrote that the courts could possibly “extend unwarranted deference to the government’s assertions about ‘compelling interests’ and the least restrictive ways of accomplishing them or engage in ungenerous second-guessing of religious claimants’ descriptions of the burdens imposed by government action on their religious exercise.”
Legal experts say the government could either decline to cooperate on a solution or could change its regulations to implement the Supreme Court’s opinion and adopt a less restrictive alternative for religious employers who currently would need to have a third party to provide contraceptive coverage through their health insurance. However, the government would still need to determine how to accommodate religious objectors that self-insure.
While the final outcome hangs in the balance, Garnett said the case itself highlights a troubling sign about the accommodation of religion.
“To the extent, the right to religious freedom is regarded as a luxury good, a license to do wrong, or as special pleading by the culture war’s losers, it is increasingly vulnerable,” Garnett wrote. “This should concern us all, because believers and nonbelievers alike benefit from a legal and cultural commitment to religious freedom and have a stake in the legal regime that respects and protects it.”
WASHINGTON (CNS) — All eyes are once again on what seems to be an evenly divided Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments April 18 in a major case impacting a U.S. immigration policy.
After the 90 minutes of oral arguments in United States v. Texas, the eight Supreme Court justices must now determine if the U.S. president can temporarily protect undocumented parents of American citizens from deportation and give them temporary work permits.
At issue are President Barack Obama’s 2015 executive actions expanding a 2012 program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and creating the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, known as DAPA.
The program had been put on hold last November by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, upholding a Texas-based federal judge’s injunction against Obama’s actions.
Twenty-six states, including Texas, are suing the federal government in the case, saying the president went too far with his actions. Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller said the president was not just putting a temporary block on deportations, but giving undocumented immigrants a “lawful presence” in this country that would enable them to qualify for benefits such as Social Security and Medicare.
The justices spent a lot of time focused on the phrase “lawful presence,” and Chief Justice John Roberts in particular quizzed U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. about it before noting that being lawfully present, having a license and a job did not necessarily mean someone was legally present in the United States.
Verrilli pointed out that the primary issue at stake was the “pressing human concern” to avoid breaking up families of U.S. citizen children.
Someone who knows that firsthand was seated in the court listening to the arguments. Six-year-old Sophie Cruz, from Los Angeles, might not have been able to explain the legalese used by the attorneys and justices, but she did know that her parents could face deportation if Obama’s plan to block deportations was lifted.
Sophie brought her concern to Pope Francis on his visit to the United States last September, crossing a security line to give the pope a note begging that her parents be allowed to stay in this country.
The plight of such families also was supported by many who gathered in front of the Supreme Court long before the oral arguments began. They carried placards saying: “Fight for families,” and “Love your neighbor” while a mariachi band played alongside them.
In early March the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and several other Catholic organizations joined in filing friend of the court briefs urging the Supreme Court to support the Obama administration’s actions that would temporarily protect from deportation more than 4 million immigrants in the country illegally and enable some immigrants to legally work in the United States.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wondered if the president can defer deportations for millions of people without specific congressional authorization, calling it a “legislative task, not an executive task.”
“It’s as if the president is defining the policy and the Congress is executing it,” he added, noting: “That’s just upside down.”
A key issue in the arguments was not just immigration but whether the states had the legal standing to challenge the president’s executive actions.
Part of the concern voiced by Texas officials is over the issuing of driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, which Keller noted was an issue for the state because of the cost.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she understands frustrations with obtaining licenses because there are often long lines and it’s not an ideal situation, but she seemed to indicate that this was surmountable.
She stressed that the 4 million immigrants who might be given a temporary reprieve from deportation “are living in the shadows” and “are here whether we want them or not,” adding that the government had limited resources available for deportations.
Thomas Saenz, a lawyer representing three undocumented mothers of U.S. citizen children, told the court his clients live in “daily fear that they will be separated from their families and detained or removed from their homes.”
More than 325 immigration groups, civil rights, labor and social service organizations have filed amicus briefs to urge the high court to uphold the Obama administration’s executive actions. In addition to the USCCB, other Catholic groups filing briefs included the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., or CLINIC, and as least three Catholic colleges, which joined in a brief with more than 75 education and children’s advocacy organizations.
Other briefs were filed by House Democrats and a group of more than 60 entrepreneurs and business leaders including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
The court is expected to rule on the case in June. If the decision is a 4-4 split, it would leave in place the appeals court ruling blocking the Obama administration’s plan.
WASHINGTON (CNS) — In the end, the women religious decided it would be good to sing after all.
That wasn’t on the agenda for the sunny 90-minute rally in front of the Supreme Court March 23 in support of the plaintiffs in Zubik v. Burwell. But it had a calming effect and sometimes even silenced a competing rally in support of the government, so it seemed like the right thing to do.
There were several spontaneous renditions of “Let There Be Peace on Earth,” “God Bless America” and “God Bless the USA” from the Little Sisters of the Poor and groups of Dominican and Carmelite sisters.
On March 2, a rally of more than 3,000 participants surrounded and attempted to drown out a pro-life rally of about 200 during oral arguments on a Texas abortion law. This time, the proportions were reversed.
A competing rally organized by the National Women’s Law Center, the American Humanist Association and Catholics for Choice, among other groups, had many fewer participants than the several hundred who turned out in support of the Little Sisters and the other plaintiffs, including Oklahoma Wesleyan University, East Texas Baptist University, Southern Nazarene University and Geneva College, a Presbyterian institution, and the Archdiocese of Washington, the dioceses of Pittsburgh and Erie, Pennsylvania, and Priests for Life.
Mother Regina Marie Gorman of the Carmelite Sisters of Los Angeles, who delivered the closing prayer, announced, with a big smile, that it would be apt for all the Catholics to sing the Marian antiphon “Salve Regina,” traditionally sung after evening prayers.
“Salve Regina, Mater Misericordiae” (“Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy”) was a serene conclusion to an orderly rally punctuated with chants of “Let them serve!” as the court heard oral arguments in the case brought by several Catholic and other faith-based entities against the federal government’s requirement that most employers, including religious employers, cover contraceptives for their workers.
The Denver-based Little Sisters, who operate nursing homes for the elderly poor, and 36 other groups are contesting the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. With the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the case has an uncertain future with the possibility of a 4-4 court deadlock, which means the rulings of the circuit courts, all but one of which have gone against the plaintiffs, will be upheld.
The Department of Health and Human Services has offered an “accommodation,” also known as a “work-around,” that allows objecting employers to acknowledge their opposition to contraceptive coverage by notifying HHS in a letter. This allows a third party to provide the coverage. The Little Sisters and other plaintiffs object to that, calling it a burden on their free exercise of religion, because they are still involved in allowing coverage they find objectionable.
“Today the Little Sisters make their last stand,” said Mother Mary Assumpta Long of the Dominican Sisters of Mary in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“Filling out a piece of paper is not the issue. Complicity is wrong and it is wrong in itself, and the government cannot make this otherwise.”
“The Supreme Court,” she continued, “is not the arbiter of sacred Scriptures.”
Mother Assumpta’s words were echoed inside the court, as Chief Justice John Roberts remarked of the plaintiffs, “They think that complicity is sinful.”
“Our request is not uniquely Catholic or religious. It’s American,” said Elise Italiano, executive director of communications for The Catholic University of America, another plaintiff.
Sister Loraine Marie Maguire, mother provincial for the Little Sisters of the Poor, released a statement that said, in part, “We find ourselves in a situation where the government is requiring us to include services in our religious health care plan that violate some of our deepest held religious beliefs as Little Sisters,” she said. “We don’t understand why the government is doing this when there is an easy solution that doesn’t involve us — it can provide these services on the (health-care) exchanges.”
At a special afternoon Mass for the Little Sisters at St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore struck a cautionary note in his homily: “It’s fair to say that this momentous issue of religious freedom has occupied much of our time and much of our energies,” he said. But the decision is now “in the hands of God.”
Archbishop Lori, who is chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, was in the courtroom for the oral arguments. “For all of us, especially those of us who are not lawyers, it’s a glimpse into the complexities of the law,” he said.
Reflecting on Holy Week, he added, “And so we do find rest in Jesus, even as controversies swirl around us. It’s never been easy to follow Jesus, and perhaps it never should be.”
“So let us be of good cheer,” he concluded. “Let us dare to hope. Let us dare to rejoice.”
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died of apparent natural causes Feb. 13 while in Texas on a hunting trip, once said in an interview that while he took his Catholic faith seriously, he never allowed it to influence his work on the high court.
“I don’t think there’s any such thing as a Catholic judge,” Scalia told The Catholic Review, Baltimore’s archdiocesan newspaper, in 2010. “There are good judges and bad judges. The only article in faith that plays any part in my judging is the commandment ‘Thou Shalt Not Lie.’”
Scalia said it wasn’t his job to make policy or law, but to “say only what the law provides.”
On the issue of abortion, for example, he told the Review that “if I genuinely thought the Constitution guaranteed a woman’s right to abortion, I would be on the other (side),” said Scalia, who long held that abortion is not guaranteed in the Constitution. “It would (have) nothing with my religion,” he said. “It has to do with my being a lawyer.”
He was widely regarded as an “originalist,” who said the best method for judging cases was examining what the Founding Fathers meant when writing the Constitution.
“My burden is not to show that originalism is perfect, but that it beats the other alternatives,” he said in a 2010 lecture.
Nominated to the high court in June 1986 by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the Senate that September, Scalia was the longest-serving member of the current Supreme Court. He was 79.
With his death, there are now five Catholics among the remaining eight justices.
According to an AP story, Scalia’s body was flown on a private plane from Texas to Virginia, arriving late the night of Feb. 14. No funeral arrangements had been announced as of midday Feb. 15.
Scalia was found dead the morning of Feb. 13 in his room at Cibolo Creek Ranch south of Marfa, Texas. The justice was part of a group of 30 or so guests on a hunting trip. Ranch owner John Poindexter told reporters that the justice seemed his usual self at dinner Feb. 12 but also noted Scalia had told his group he was tired and had turned in early. When Scalia didn’t appear for breakfast the next morning, Poindexter and another staff member went to check on him and found the justice in “in complete repose” in his room.
By mid-afternoon Feb. 13, Judge Cinderela Guevara of Presidio County, Texas, determined he had died of natural causes. Before making her ruling, she said, she consulted with sheriff’s investigators, who were on the scene and who said there were no signs of foul play. Guevara said she also talked with Scalia’s physician in Washington; a few days before his hunting trip, the jurist told his doctor he was not feeling well.
The Scalia family felt a private autopsy was unnecessary and requested that his body be returned to Washington as soon as possible, according to Chris Lujan of Sunset Funeral Homes in El Paso, Texas, about 195 miles northwest of Marfa. The facility received Scalia’s body and handled the transport of his remains to Virginia.
“We are all deeply saddened by the sudden and unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia,” said Bishop Paul S. Loverde of Arlington, Virginia, the diocese Scalia and his wife of nearly 56 years, Maureen McCarthy Scalia, called home.
“His presence among us encouraged us to be faithful to our own responsibilities whether familial, religious or vocational. His wisdom brought clarity to issues. His witness to truth enabled us to seek to do the same,” the bishop said in a statement.
Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl said of Scalia: “I admired his strong and unwavering faith in the Lord and his dedication to serving our country by upholding the U.S. Constitution.” He noted that every year, Scalia attended the Red Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington. The Mass is celebrated to invoke God’s blessings on those who work in the administration of justice.
Besides his wife, Scalia is survived by the couple’s five sons and four daughters as well as 36 grandchildren. Their son, Father Paul Scalia, is a priest of the Arlington Diocese.
Born in Trenton, New Jersey, March 11, 1936, and raised on Long Island, Antonin “Nino” Gregory Scalia was an only child. His father, Salvatore, was an Italian immigrant from Sicily, who worked as a clerk and was a graduate student when his son was born. Salvatore eventually became a college professor. Antonin’s mother, born in Trenton to Italian immigrant parents, was an elementary school teacher.
In 1953, young Antonin graduated first in his class from Jesuit-run Xavier High School in the New York borough of Manhattan. He graduated from Jesuit-run Georgetown University in 1957, and went on to Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 1960.
Scalia moved to Cleveland, practicing law there with the firm of Jones, Day, Cockley and Reavis until 1967. He then joined the faculty of the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville. He took a leave in 1971 when President Richard Nixon appointed him general counsel for the Office of Telecommunications Policy.
He left the university in 1974, when he was appointed assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at Department of Justice. In 1977, Scalia returned to teaching. He was on the faculty at the University of Chicago Law School. He also was a visiting professor at the law schools of Georgetown and Stanford University.
In 1982, Reagan nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where he served until being named to the Supreme Court.
In other reaction in Washington to Scalia’s death, The Catholic University of America in a Feb. 15 statement called him “a man who loved his family, his faith, his country and the Constitution that established it.”
“He insisted that there is no such thing as a Catholic judge, only good and bad ones,” the university said. “But in his 30 years on the Supreme Court, he offered a model for American Catholics of how we might serve both God and country.”
In 1994, Catholic University honored Scalia with the James Cardinal Gibbons Medal, given for service to the nation, the Catholic Church or the university. In 1999, the university gave Scalia an honorary degree.
In 2010, the St. Thomas More Society of Maryland honored Scalia with its “Man for All Seasons Award,” given to members of the legal profession who embody the ideals of St. Thomas More.
Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese of the Military Services said Feb. 15 that Scalia “was a brilliant jurist who contributed much to the country and I mourn his passing. We are all poorer, because he no longer walks among us, but richer, because of the gifts he shared with us.”
In 1992, Scalia told a group of high school students at Washington’s Georgetown Visitation High School that, as Catholics, they might feel out of step with the rest of the world, but they should learn to accept it and take pride in it.
He said he was raised a Catholic when the religion was not in the mainstream.
“When I was the age of you young ladies, the church provided obtrusive reminders that we were different,’’ he said, referring to meatless Fridays and Sunday morning fasts before receiving Communion. These practices “were not just to toughen us up’’ but to “require us to be out of step,’’ he said.
Scalia noted the sense of “differentness’’ should have enabled Catholics “to be strong enough on bigger issues’’ such as abortion, contraception and divorce.
He also spoke of what he called the necessary distinction between church and state.
“The business of the state is not God’s business,’’ he said.
A few weeks ago, I received a New Year’s card that read, “This will be the best year yet.” We Little Sisters of the Poor are fervently praying that 2016 will be remembered as the year we were able to return to our quiet lives at the service of the elderly after a happy resolution to our long legal struggle over the HHS Contraceptive Mandate.
Although we had never before involved ourselves in politics, in March of 2012 we felt compelled to publicly voice our opposition to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Contraceptive Mandate. Since then our convictions, based on Catholic teaching, have taken us from the District Court of Colorado to the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court, and finally to the U.S. Supreme Court, where our case will be heard in oral argument this March.
Along the way we have received hundreds of supportive notes, along with more than a few negative comments, including the following, often voiced with a note of disdain: “Why don’t you stop being so stubborn and just sign the form?” This question refers, of course, to the so-called “accommodation,” which the federal government hoped would silence all the conscientious objections to the Mandate.
Form 700, more commonly called “the form” or “the piece of paper,” is not what a lot of people think it is. Contrary to how it is often presented, Form 700 is neither a simple declaration of conscientious objection, nor an “opt out” regarding the HHS Contraceptive Mandate. Form 700 is a permission slip. Signing it would allow HHS to commandeer the infrastructure of our health care plan in order to use it to distribute abortifacients and contraceptives to our employees. In other words, signing Form 700 would involve us in formal cooperation with wrongdoing, which is never permissible under Catholic doctrine.
Not only would such cooperation with moral evil constitute grave sin on our part, but it would likely also cause scandal, leading others to sin as well. This is serious stuff, especially for women like us who are devoted to the service of the Church. Through our vow of hospitality we are bound, in the eyes of God and the Church, to upholding the sanctity of human life, from the moment of conception until natural death. Very simply, Form 700 involves the taking of innocent human life. That is why we cannot “just sign the form.”
Throughout the four years of this legal journey I have found courage by turning to the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us on our earthly pilgrimage. Specifically, I often think of St. Thomas More, and of the Old Testament figure Eleazar.
The story of St. Thomas More is well known, thanks in part to the classic movie, A Man for All Seasons. Thomas More was imprisoned for refusing to sign an oath acknowledging Anne Boleyn as King Henry VIII’s legitimate wife and recognizing the king’s authority as head of the newly formed Church of England. A year later he was beheaded after famously proclaiming that he was “the king’s good servant but God’s first.”
Each time I watch A Man for All Seasons I am inspired by Thomas More’s responses to those who tried to persuade him to “just sign the oath.” Using the proverbial “everyone else is doing it” argument, the Duke of Norfolk suggests, “Why can’t you do as I did and come with us, for fellowship?” Refusing to compromise his convictions, Thomas responds, “And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for doing your conscience, and I am sent to hell for not doing mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?”
St. Thomas More’s daughter then pleads with him to consider the impact of his actions on the family, suggesting that he “take this oath with your lips, but think otherwise in your heart.” Again Thomas resists the temptation to fall into dissimulation. “Daughter,” he responds, “what is an oath but words you speak to God?” Obviously, St. Thomas More couldn’t “just sign the form.”
Thomas More’s integrity is indeed inspiring, but my favorite martyr of religious liberty is Eleazar, described in the Second Book of Maccabees as “one of the foremost scribes, a man advanced in age and of noble appearance.” As he faced torture and death because he refused to defile himself by eating the king’s food, friends of the old man pulled him aside and tried to persuade him to “fake it” by secretly eating his own provisions. But Eleazar feared the scandal he might cause the younger men by compromising the prescriptions of their faith, so he died honorably, proving himself worthy of his old age and “leaving in his death a model of nobility and an unforgettable example of virtue” (2 Mac 6:31).
I hope that these reflections help to clarify why we cannot “just sign the form” with regard to the HHS Contraceptive Mandate’s so-called accommodation. To do so would allow the federal government to commandeer our health plan. It could cause scandal by giving the example that it’s okay to ignore clearly stated Catholic doctrine. And it would no doubt lead to the taking of innocent human life through the use of abortifacient drugs. Inspired by Eleazar and St. Thomas More, we feel compelled to affirm that we wish to be good citizens and servants our nation’s elderly, but faithful daughters of the Church first.
Sister Constance Veit is the communications director for the Little Sisters of the Poor in the United States.
What do 207 members of Congress, 50 Catholic theologians, 13 law professors, nine professional associations and two prominent women’s organizations have in common with the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the American Islamic Congress, the General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists and the International Society of Krishna Consciousness?
These individuals and organizations are just a sampling of the many people who have come to the aid of the Little Sisters of the Poor in support of our lawsuit over the HHS Contraceptive Mandate. They signed on to one of 43 amicus, or “friend of the court,” briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 11.
Together with the Little Sisters, our elderly Residents and their families in 27 homes across the country, they have said, “We’ll have NUN of it” with regard to the federal government’s demand that we offer contraceptives, abortifacient drugs and sterilization procedures as part of our employee health benefits.
We Little Sisters of the Poor are profoundly humbled and grateful to so many people from diverse walks of life who have supported us on this legal journey, which will soon reach its culmination in the Supreme Court. To all of them we wish to offer a very humble and heartfelt thank you!
Some of those who have signed amicus briefs, like our Sisters in the consecrated life, are longtime friends. For others, we can only marvel at the way our paths have crossed. Though the amicus briefs consider our case from varying perspectives, all turn to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) to bolster their arguments.
RFRA was passed by Congress in the wake of a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting constitutional protections for religious liberty. It puts two qualifications on the government’s ability to impose limits on religious freedom: a “compelling interest” in favor of the common good and use of the “least restrictive means” possible.
In his signing remarks in 1993, President Bill Clinton noted “what a broad coalition of Americans came together to make this bill a reality.” Adding that this coalition crossed “ideological and religious lines,” President Clinton praised “the shared desire … to protect perhaps the most precious of all American liberties, religious freedom.”
Reading through the amicus briefs written on our behalf, I was humbled by “what a broad coalition of Americans” has come together once again to help defend religious liberty. What I found most striking were the concerns and fears expressed by our brothers and sisters of other faith groups, especially those representing religious traditions that claim relatively few American followers.
These minority religious groups note that our case represents an attempt by bureaucrats to question “the accuracy and reasonableness” of our sincerely held religious beliefs. They fear that “allowing government to second-guess religious beliefs and favor some religious groups over others uniquely harms the very minority religions that RFRA was designed to protect.” Adherents of minority religions “would have the most to lose,” they contend, if the government’s current position were to prevail.
I am also particularly grateful to our Southern Baptist friends for clearly articulating the reality that “a fundamental aspect of Christian doctrine is its requirement that faith must govern every aspect of a Christian’s life … The exercise of the Christian religion must guide and determine a Christian’s decisions, words, and deeds in every facet of life, including seemingly ‘secular’ matters like the administration of insurance and the provision of certain drugs and devices.” Their amicus brief describes Christian faith as holistic and broad in scope, noting that Christians have “a spiritual obligation to interact with and influence the culture outside the church doors.”
Space has allowed me to cite just a few examples from the 43 amicus briefs submitted on our behalf. Nonetheless, we Little Sisters are indebted to every group and to each individual who has voiced their support for our cause. You can read the amicus briefs at www.becketfund.org/littlesistersamicus/
With only a few weeks to go before our day in court, what is left to do in order to ensure the success of our case? Our foundress, Saint Jeanne Jugan, often said, “Pray, you have need of grace … If God is with us, it will be accomplished.” And so we Little Sisters turn to prayer, and ask you to join us in praying for a just resolution to our case, so that we may continue to minister to needy elderly persons across this great nation for many years to come. Please join us in saying “I’ll have NUN of it” with regard to the current threat to our religious liberty!
Sister Constance Veit is the communications director for the Little Sisters of the Poor in the United States.
If you would like one of the Little Sisters’ “I’ll Have NUN of It” buttons, visit LittleSistersofthePoor.org.
