5 day forecast
Abetting evil
Share with others:
The May 27 editorial "Unhealthy Point" should have been titled "Missing the Point." The editor suggests that the lawsuits brought by the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh and 42 other dioceses and Catholic institutions against a rule that requires them to cover FDA-approved contraceptives under their medical insurance plans have been brought without real cause and that the Catholic plaintiffs are making "a big deal out of nothing" in regard to this issue.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The Roman Catholic Church believes that contraception is intrinsically evil (Section 2370 of Catechism of Roman Catholic Church).
The mandate in question requires the Catholic plaintiffs to essentially aid and abet the commission of acts that they believe to be intrinsically evil.
If that coercive mandate does not provide a real cause for these lawsuits, I do not know what does.
The fact that the Catholic plaintiffs do not have to pay for these contraceptives and that certain of the church's employees may not subscribe to the church's doctrine regarding contraception is completely irrelevant.
What is relevant is that because of the existence of the Catholic plaintiffs' medical insurance plan combined with this federal mandate, their employees are now able to obtain contraceptives free of cost when they presumably are otherwise unable to do so.
Hence, the Catholic plaintiffs become unwilling co-participants in a scheme that encourages and enables the commission of the very intrinsically evil acts that the Catholic plaintiffs condemn.
M. LAWRENCE SHIELDS III
Aspinwall
First Published June 13, 2012 12:00 am
