Notre Dame Just Didn’t Want Their Formal Cooperation With Evil to be Mandated

Apparently, Notre Dame just wanted the glory all to themselves?!?!

This kind of turned out as we thought, didn’t it?  One would have to conclude that Notre Dame only joined in the fight against the HHS mandate for fundraising reasons at this point.  “We want to look as persecuted as the Little Sisters and have people rally around us, too!”  That was our guess all along. Sorry to you who wasted money donating to ND for that.  

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The University of Notre Dame told its employees Tuesday that they will continue to receive no-cost birth control coverage in a reversal from what the university told its faculty and staff last week.

The Roman Catholic university in northern Indiana sent an email to employees saying its insurance provider is continuing to offer contraception coverage not funded by the university. Notre Dame notified employees a week earlier that contraception coverage would end Jan. 1.

That step came after President Donald Trump’s decision in early October allowing employers and universities to cite religious or moral objections to end birth control coverage that was available under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

Notre Dame spokesman Dennis Brown said the university had believed insurance companies would discontinue the no-cost coverage at year’s end but has been told by its provider Meritain Health that it would continue such coverage indefinitely.

So, in other words, Notre Dame was simply counting on the insurance companies to get them out of the backlash of their intention to have contraception covered for their employees and students.

The university fought the federal health care law’s original mandate on religious grounds, but that lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed on Oct. 17, after the Trump administration removed the requirement.

Let’s look at the scorecard here. The Notre Dame doubters were totally right here. Notre Dame fought the HHS mandate, supposedly on religious grounds. Notre Dame didn’t want to pay for the birth control coverage. Trump waives the mandate. Notre Dame assumes insurance company will end free coverage. Insurance company does not, but Notre Dame is fine with the free coverage because:

Notre Dame, as a Catholic institution, follows Catholic teaching about the use of contraceptives and engaged in the recent lawsuit to protect its freedom to act in accord with its principles,” Notre Dame said in a statement. “Recognizing, however, the plurality of religious and other convictions among its employees, it will not interfere with the provision of contraceptives that will be administered and funded independently of the University.

Let’s look at what Humane Vitae says about birth control:

 

14. Therefore We base Our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. (14) Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary. (15)

Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means. (16)

Neither is it valid to argue, as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one, or that such intercourse would merge with procreative acts of past and future to form a single entity, and so be qualified by exactly the same moral goodness as these. Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good,” it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (18)—in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general. Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.

And:

Consequences of Artificial Methods

17. Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.

So all you who hold a “plurality of religious and other convictions”, you’re on your own. Your salvation is apparently not Notre Dame’s problem.  They’re just fine with supporting something hurting the moral fabric of society and taking the lives of innocent children because, you know, tolerance and all.

Meritain Health is a subsidiary of Aetna, which didn’t immediately comment on whether it made coverage changes to accommodate Notre Dame.

Three Notre Dame students were among five women who joined a lawsuit filed last week challenging Trump’s rollback of the birth control coverage rule.

And, they were probably all Catholic.  Sigh.

The lawsuit filed by the National Women’s Law Center and Americans United for Separation of Church and State argues the new rules violate the equal protection and due process guarantees of the U.S. Constitution and the non-discrimination provision of the Affordable Care Act.

Last week, Notre Dame notified students who receive the school’s insurance plan that their no-cost contraceptive coverage would continue until August. The university said Tuesday that students will be able to choose such coverage after August separately through Aetna Student Health.

A spokeswoman for the National Women’s Law Center didn’t immediately comment on the impact of Notre Dame’s decision.

And so the students of Notre Dame are on their own, too.  Bravo, Fr. Jenkins, et. al.  Sorry, you can’t wash your hands of it, Notre Dame.  Not one employee or student should ever be allowed by the institution to have access to something so spiritually, morally and spiritually damning as artificial birth control.  Please note, Humane Vitae is addressed to ALL of human creation and does not exclude “a plurality of religious and other convictions.”

Back to Humanae Vitae:

18. It is to be anticipated that perhaps not everyone will easily accept this particular teaching. There is too much clamorous outcry against the voice of the Church, and this is intensified by modern means of communication. But it comes as no surprise to the Church that she, no less than her divine Founder, is destined to be a “sign of contradiction.” (22) She does not, because of this, evade the duty imposed on her of proclaiming humbly but firmly the entire moral law, both natural and evangelical.

Since the Church did not make either of these laws, she cannot be their arbiter—only their guardian and interpreter. It could never be right for her to declare lawful what is in fact unlawful, since that, by its very nature, is always opposed to the true good of man.

In preserving intact the whole moral law of marriage, the Church is convinced that she is contributing to the creation of a truly human civilization. She urges man not to betray his personal responsibilities by putting all his faith in technical expedients. In this way she defends the dignity of husband and wife. This course of action shows that the Church, loyal to the example and teaching of the divine Savior, is sincere and unselfish in her regard for men whom she strives to help even now during this earthly pilgrimage “to share God’s life as sons of the living God, the Father of all men.” (23)

And Fr. Jenkins, you might want to pay particular attention to this:

To Priests

28. And now, beloved sons, you who are priests, you who in virtue of your sacred office act as counselors and spiritual leaders both of individual men and women and of families—We turn to you filled with great confidence. For it is your principal duty—We are speaking especially to you who teach moral theology—to spell out clearly and completely the Church’s teaching on marriage. In the performance of your ministry you must be the first to give an example of that sincere obedience, inward as well as outward, which is due to the magisterium of the Church. For, as you know, the pastors of the Church enjoy a special light of the Holy Spirit in teaching the truth. (39) And this, rather than the arguments they put forward, is why you are bound to such obedience. Nor will it escape you that if men’s peace of soul and the unity of the Christian people are to be preserved, then it is of the utmost importance that in moral as well as in dogmatic theology all should obey the magisterium of the Church and should speak as with one voice. Therefore We make Our own the anxious words of the great Apostle Paul and with all Our heart We renew Our appeal to you: “I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” (40)