As a teacher of the Catholic faith in a Catholic school, it’s sometimes difficult to be relevant and have only a few people really angry at me. If you want to get half of the class angry at you, speak about the injustice of war. If you want to get a different section of the class fuming, give a lesson about the ethics of homosexual acts. The problem with these issues that frequently come up if one pays any attention to modern society is that they can become intensely political.
As a Catholic, I should be teaching above politics. After all, Jesus wouldn’t really endorse a political party. It is a mistake, however, to believe that Jesus would not take a firm stance on moral issues that are political only in a secondary sense. While politics has no place in a Religion classroom, morality absolutely does.
I have seen this distinction blurred many times in the past couple of weeks as two issues have exploded all over Facebook and the national media. I am speaking of course about the Health and Human Services mandate that requires Catholic organizations to provide for things that Catholic teaching determines to be morally unacceptable, and the Susan G. Komen metaphorical tennis match with Planned Parenthood. I have seen several comments on the blogosphere (and have heard comments from my students) that reduce the Church’s controversial positions that relate to these events to a base political opinion. This is not only unfair to the Church, but it also entirely misses the point.
The Church is not only completely free to take firm stands on issues that are in the first place ethical and only secondarily political (see The United States Constitution, Bill of Rights for reference), but it is morally obligated to do so (see Christifideles Laici). As a teacher of the Catholic faith I have a special obligation to make known the moral teachings of Christ to all of my students who are going out in the world to face that culture and sociopolitical climate.
This moral imperative requires me to teach my students about the ways that contraceptives damage relationships and close a couple off to authentic spousal love in the image of the Divine Love. It requires me to talk about the practical negative consequences associated with The Almighty Pill and the contraceptive mentality that comes with it. And it is certainly my moral obligation to speak about the great injustice that has been stricken upon Catholic institutions by the HHSfiat that determined the Federal Government may tell religious organizations that they must use their own funds to pay for so-called ‘health’ services in the insurance that they provide for their employees.
This is a not a political matter, though it has serious political ramifications. This is an attack on fundamental religious liberty. It refuses to acknowledge that every human being has the right to follow his own conscience so long as this does not violate the basic rights of another. It is absurd to suggest that people have a right to be provided contraception that is paid for by someone else, as if pregnancy is the worst of diseases that needs to be cured from society. But of course all of these points have already been made at length by ourUnited StatesBishops. Let us continue to support them in their efforts to combat this ridiculously immoral mandate.
In recent days, The Susan G. Komen foundation has been under attack for its ‘petty politics’ when it chose to withdraw contributions to Planned Parenthood. The Axis of Evil, as I call Planned Parenthood, was of course horrified that Komen would have the audacity to stop giving them free money. The AoE rolled up its sleeves and pummeled Komen into submission with an aggressive media blitz bemoaning the injustice of a breast cancer organization no longer funding a company that does not provide any more breast cancer screening services that can be done by yourself in your own home. Komen may or may not have caved to this bullying, depending on how you read some of the press releases.
These are things that my students need to know about. They need to be able to make informed decisions about the causes that they will support or fight. This is not petty politics; this is being Christ in the world. Christ stood up against injustice and sin. He took a stand against institutions of violence by turning violence on its head. He revealed the dignity of human life by becoming human himself. In order to teach Christ, I must teach these things as well.