Lent: Soapbox Sundays

This has been an eventful week for me on this blog. Hopefully I'm not boring anyone to tears. I'm no theologian or even a very good writer, but I hope that my slightly skewed perception of the Mysteries of the Rosary helps at least someone. This post is slightly different. I'm going to get on my personal soapbox about a current event. As you probably well-know by now, I'm a very passionate Catholic, Pro-life, wife, and mother. Right now the Obama administration is making my future in America look pretty bleak. The HHS mandate that is being debated all over the web is what makes my future look so poor. Basically, the way the Obama administration is planning on enforcing this mandate will make faithful Catholic break their own moral code. The Catholic Church is against birth control (and abortion). To hear the media, the Obama administration, and pro-abortion people (like Cecile Richards) talk, the Catholic Church is trying to prevent anyone from getting birth control (or abortions). However, the truth of the matter is that the Church just wants to be able to continue with the conscience clause that allowed Catholic institutions to NOT pay for, provide, or cover (via insurance) birth control (or abortion). Currently, there are so many places you can get birth control for very little cost, that it is utterly ridiculous to try to force the Catholic Church into being an unwilling provider. This mandate basically indicates that the current groups that hand out birth control (and abortions) willy-nilly aren't doing a good enough job, so they need the Catholic Church's assistance. The Obama administration is actually going so far as to say that non-compliance will force the shut-down of almost, if not all, Catholic institutions. That is preposterous! Right now, Catholic institutions are ranked NUMBER ONE by the federal government for providing care to the less fortunate. That even takes into account the points detracted from the Church's institutions for not providing birth control (or abortions). Yet, the O administration is willing to sacrifice the thousands of people the Church helps for birth control. How short-sighted is that? The Church's care of the less fortunate does NOT require tax money -- funding is typically voluntary donations (although individual institutions may apply for federal grants). However, without the Church's institutions for the less fortunate, the federal, state, and local governments will have to provide the same services, plus birth control (and abortion), out of OUR pockets. Yes folks, if the Church's charities are shut-down by this mandate, WE will all be financially responsible for taking up the slack. However, the government funded institutions that are currently in a position to compete with the Church are no where near as well-run, economical, or beneficial. In other words, the Church's institutions get much more bang per buck than the government ones. So, which makes more fiscal sense to you? Should we let the Church continue, through voluntary donations, take excellent care of the less fortunate, but not offer birth control (or abortion) as a service or coverage? Or should we force the Church to shut the doors of its charitable institutions and force the taxpayers to fund othe,r less economical, institutions that do offer birth control? Even if I weren't Catholic, I'd have to say the first option makes more fiscal sense...