The astounding Hutzpah of the Catholic Church on religious liberty.
I was born in Cathollic hospital and sent my daughter to a Jesuit college (although both were basically secular institutions) so I grant that the Catholic Church has had some benefit to society, and there are millions and millions of devout Catholics that cast a much greater shadow than the Church hierarchy ever has.
However its actions of trying to take away the liberty of women to make their own religious decisions about their own bodies at related institutions (most of whom have only a slight connection to the Church today) may be many things but it is not a blow for religious freedom, it is rather an attempt to instill orthodoxy in its own members who are employees and coercion for non member employees in a policy that it is no longer able to get acceptance by persuading the merits of the case.
But when the Catholic Church Hierarchy starts to inject itself into the public debate about 'religious liberty' it is time to establish some historical context,
the Catholic Church has never been on the side of religious liberty and isn't on the side of religious liberty in this case either
First let's get rid of the current situation;
Prohibitting people from buying contraceptives is not an exercise in religious liberty.
If they are non Catholic employees you are restricting their religious creed on the subject.
If they are Catholic employees then you are trying to enforce a heirarchical interpretation of the proper Catholic orthodoxy, but again this is not extending religious liberty, it is enforcing religious orthodoxy.
But the Catholic Church arguing for religious liberty on this particular case has the hutzpah of Lyle and Eric Menendez pleading for mercy because they are orphans after they killed their parents.
Let's recall some of the high points of the Catholic Church and religious liberty
Up until the late 1800s the Catholic Church, for example, restricted access to the Bible so that they could enforce THEIR interpretation of orthodoxy, some examples
It wasn't until 1870 that it was legal for a commoner to own a bible in Italy.
Other examples
Pope Pius IX (1846-78) in November 1846 issued an encyclical letter in which he denounced all opponents of Roman Catholicism, among which he included “those insidious Bible Societies.” He said the Bible societies were “renewing the crafts of the ancient heretics” by distributing to “all kinds of men, even the least instructed, gratuitously and at immense expense, copies in vast numbers of the books of the Sacred Scriptures translated against the holiest rules of the Church into various vulgar tongues...” What a horrible crime! Distributing the Scriptures freely to all people! It was Pius IX who had himself and his fellow popes declared “infallible” at the Vatican I Council in 1870.
Pope Gregory XVI (1831-46) ratified the decrees of his predecessors, forbidding the free distribution of Scripture. In his encyclical of May 8, 1844, this Pope stated: “Moreover, we confirm and renew the decrees recited above, DELIVERED IN FORMER TIMES BY APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY, AGAINST THE PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, READING, AND POSSESSION OF BOOKS OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES TRANSLATED INTO THE VULGAR TONGUE
Pope Leo XII (1823-29) issued a bull to the Bishops in Ireland, May 3, 1824, in which he affirmed the Council of Trent and condemned Bible distribution. “It is no secret to you, venerable brethren, that a certain Society, vulgarly called The Bible Society, is audaciously spreading itself through the whole world. After despising the traditions of the holy Fathers, and in opposition to the well-known Decree of the Council of Trent, this Society has collected all its forces, and directs every means to one object,--the translation, or rather the perversion, of the Bible into the vernacular languages of all nations. ... IF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES BE EVERYWHERE INDISCRIMINATELY PUBLISHED, MORE EVIL THAN ADVANTAGE WILL ARISE THENCE, on account of the rashness of men”
It was during the reign of Pope Pius VII (1800-1823) that the modern Bible society movement began. The British and Foreign Bible Society was formed in March 1804, the purpose being “to encourage a wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment.” . . .. He characterized this practice as a “most crafty device, by which the very foundations of religion are undermined,” “a pestilence,” which he must “remedy and abolish,” “a defilement of the faith, eminently dangerous to souls.” Pope Pius VII also rebuked Archbishop Buhusz of Mohiley in Russia because of his endorsement of a newly formed Bible society (Kenneth Latourette, The Nineteenth Century in Europe, p. 448). The papal brief, dated September 3, 1816, declared that “if the Sacred Scriptures were allowed in the vulgar tongue everywhere without discrimination, more detriment than benefit would arise” (Jacobus, Roman Catholic and Protestant Versions Compared, p. 236).
6) Pope Leo X (1513-1521), who railed against Luther’s efforts to follow the biblical precept of faith alone and Scripture alone, called the fifth Lateran Council (1513-1517), which charged that no books should be printed except those approved by the Roman Catholic Church. “THEREFORE FOREVER THEREAFTER NO ONE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO PRINT ANY BOOK OR WRITING WITHOUT A PREVIOUS EXAMINATION, TO BE TESTIFIED BY MANUAL SUBSCRIPTION, BY THE PAPAL VICAR AND MASTER OF THE SACRED PALACE IN ROME
In England, too, laws were passed by the Catholic authorities against vernacular Bibles. The Constitutions of Thomas Arundel, issued in 1408 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, made this brash demand: “WE THEREFORE DECREE AND ORDAIN THAT NO MAN SHALL, HEREAFTER, BY HIS OWN AUTHORITY, TRANSLATE ANY TEXT OF THE SCRIPTURE INTO ENGLISH, OR ANY OTHER TONGUE, by way of a book, libel, or treatise, now lately set forth in the time of John Wyckliff, or since, or hereafter to be set forth, in part of in whole, privily or apertly, upon pain of greater excommunication, until the said translation be allowed by the ordinary of the place, or, if the case so require, by the council provincial”
The Council of Toulouse (1229) FORBADE THE LAITY TO POSSESS OR READ THE VERNACULAR TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE (Allix, Ecclesiastical History, II, p. 213). This council ordered that the bishops should appoint in each parish “one priest and two or three laics, who should engage upon oath to make a rigorous search after all heretics and their abettors, and for this purpose should visit every house from the garret to the cellar, together with all subterraneous places where they might conceal themselves”
and so on excerpted from http://www.wayoflife.org/files/4ef3f30d5ea4253059dc014c8c9f6db3-79.html
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