Elephant in the Room

The Church, or rather those in leadership positions within the Church, should see the national controversy over Obama's birth control mandate (for now the burden of insurance companies) as a golden opportunity to educate the faithful on the reasons behind the Church's teaching on artificial birth control. Instead of just playing defense against the outside political establishment, bishops and pastors should be pursuing an internal catechetical offensive geared to lay Catholics in the pews on Sunday. Now that the issue has been so dramatically brought to the fore, why not take the time to catechize the faithful on this sensitive subject, rather than simply talking about the First Amendment violation and the chutzpah of the federal government? For an example of this, check out the Archdiocese of Saint Louis' flashy new Youtube video on the subject:


It's not a bad clip per se, but in fact, from the perspective of a serious Catholic, this issue is very much about the "pill", contrary to the video's assertion. The video presents birth control as almost a sideshow, just a red herring for the real bête noire, an overreaching government, when in fact birth control is a major theme in all of this from the Church's perspective. It's understandable for politicians to focus more on the power grab of the Executive Branch and the First Amendment, but Church leaders need to reexamine how they have presented the Church's teaching on the subject of birth control over the past several decades, rather than just tackle the political angle of the controversy.

Harsh statistics reveal the sad truth that the overwhelming majority of Catholics use birth control. And yet these same Catholics receive Holy Communion time and time again. This is a serious problem that requires serious attention. Clearly, someone, or some group of people, dropped the ball when it came to proper catechesis on the subject. (Add this to a long list.) This is a problem that has been decades in the making, and now it is laid bare for all to see. I've watched interview after interview of bishops and cardinals being grilled on various secular news outlets, and the interlocutor, without fail, gleefully reminds the prelate about the gaping disparity between most Catholics and their bishops on the subject of birth control. It's an awkward moment, to say the least.

On the one hand, this issue is being portrayed by politicians and Church leaders as an unprecedented assault by the government on religious freedom, and that is certainly true. The other side to this issue that I find perhaps more important, the elephant in the room, if you will, is the in-house business relating to the Catholic Church and the fact that so many of its members, sadly, sharply diverge from official Church teaching on a specific issue pertaining to the moral life. And then related to this is the scandal of observing so many so-called Catholic politicians on the left dutifully circle the wagons in support of this mandate. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand comes to mind, and who could forget Kathleen Sebelius? What is being done on this front? How long will such public, grave dissidence, the source of so much confusion to lay Catholics, be tolerated by Church leaders? Don't strong public scandals call for a strong public reaction from the leadership? And I'm not talking about issuing statements.