Patum Peperium: I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church and the House of Kennedy will not overpower it, Part IV

Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

"Barack's now the last brother."

July 2009:

"Most Holy Father, I asked President Obama to personally hand deliver this letter to you. As a man of deep faith himself, he understands how important my Roman Catholic faith is to me, and I am deeply grateful to him.

I hope this letter finds you in good health. I pray that you have all of God's blessings as you lead our Church and inspire our world during these challenging times.

I am writing with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my own health declines. I was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, and, although I continue treatment, the disease is taking its toll on me. I am 77 years old and preparing for the next passage of life. [...]

I also want you to know that even though I am ill, I am committed to do everything I can to achieve access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life. I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the health care field and will continue to advocate for it as my colleagues in the Senate and I work to develop an overall national health policy that guarantees health care for everyone.

"I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic, Your Holiness, and though I have fallen short through human failings, I have never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings. I continue to pray for God's blessings on you and our Church and would be most thankful for your prayers for me."

-- Senator Ted Kennedy

September 30, 2011:

MRS. OBAMA: Yes! (Applause.) The night is young. (Applause) Thank you so much. Can everybody hear me?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Fired up!

MRS. OBAMA: Can you hear me? (Applause.) All right. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with all of you tonight. You’re looking good, too. (Laughter.) I want to thank you. I want to start by thanking Patrick for that very powerful, passionate introduction. He is tremendous, and he has been a friend, a supporter, an advocate, a role model -- just a pillar of strength. And we love you. We love your family. Let’s give him a round of applause. (Applause.) Thank you so much, Patrick.

And I also want to thank [...]

But there’s a reason why you all are here tonight, and it’s not just because it’s a nice evening and a Friday night. You’re here because you know that we stand at a fundamental crossroads for our country. You’re here because you know that in just 13 months, we’re going to make a choice that will impact our lives for decades to come. [...]

Because as First Lady, I have the privilege and the delight and the honor of traveling all across this country, meeting folks from all different backgrounds and hearing what’s going on in their lives. [...] And I know that amidst all the chatter and the debates, it can be hard to see clearly what’s really at stake. And these issues are complicated, and folks are busy. [...]

But the fact is that in just a little over a year from now, we are going to make a decision between two very different visions for this country -- very different.

[...]

And let’s not forget what it meant when my husband appointed those two brilliant Supreme Court justices, and for the first time in history, our daughters and our sons watched three women take their seats on our nation’s highest court. (Applause.) A beautiful sight.

But let’s not forget the impact that their decisions will have on our lives for decades to come -– on our privacy and security, on whether we can speak freely, worship openly, and love whoever we choose.

That is what’s at stake in this election. (Applause.)

-- Michelle Obama, fundraiser in Rhode Island

February 11, 2012 :

But the bishops hadn’t caved, and even if they had lost the first battle of the spin-cycle, they certainly hadn’t lost the war. It’s a war they are determined to fight and win, legislatively and/or judicially, and they will do so with the solidarity of allies across the American religious spectrum.

The USCCB’s developed statement on the administration’s “accommodation” came late on Friday, about 6:30 p.m. EST, but irrespective of the timing, the statement made several things abundantly clear:

1) There was no “deal” with the administration and no “deal” was possible under the terms laid out in Friday’s “accommodation.”

2) The “accommodation” failed to address the legitimate concerns of key actors in the heath-care system, including “self-insured religious employers,” “religious and secular for-profit employers,” “secular non-profit employers,” and individuals, such that the proposed new regulations were, simply, “unacceptable.”

3) The “accommodation” continued the disturbing process of “needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions” and threatened “government coercion of religious people and groups . . .”

4) Thus the religious freedom of institutions and men and women of conscience remained gravely imperiled by the tweaked HHS mandate and “the only solution to this . . . problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.”

Now there is the sound-bite for anyone wishing to explain the opinion of real “Catholic leaders” on the Sunday talk shows and during the coming weeks: “Don’t revise, rescind.”

This is not, in other words, a situation analogous to conscription laws, where a humane society makes provision for the pacifist’s conscientious objection to a just law. In the case of the HHS mandate, tweaked or untweaked, the law itself is unjust, and must be fought until it is undone.

This USCCB critique of the tweaked mandate was spelled out further in a letter to the entire body of American bishops signed by Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan and the four other bishops with lead responsibility for the Catholic response to HHS. The letter was originally sent Friday night to a closed website that only bishops can access, but it promptly leaked (and may well have been deliberately leaked). The letter bluntly stated that the administration’s new policy “does not meet our standard of respecting the religious liberty and moral convictions of all stakeholders in the health coverage transaction.”

Then came the commitment to pursue the war against the mandate on all fronts:

“We remain fully committed to the defense of our religious liberty and we strongly protest the violation of our freedom of religion that has not been addressed. We continue to work for the repeal of the mandate. We have grave reservations that the government is intruding in the definition of who is and who is not a religious employer . . .”

The media spin notwithstanding, this is not a matter of “shifts” on “birth control” by the administration; it’s a matter of a grotesque overreach by state power, one that threatens the entire fabric of civil society as well as the first of American liberties, religious freedom. That is why the judicial challenge to the HHS mandate will be mounted on an ecumenical and inter-religious basis, as the protest against the mandate has been. And that is why legislative attempts to reverse what Obama and Sebelius have wrought have drawn bipartisan support.

Perhaps, one day, Sister Carol Keehan and Father John Jenkins will grasp this. But the bishops have, and they’re ultimately the Catholic leaders who count. Whatever the defects in the bishops’ ability to play the spin-cycle game with dexterity, what counts here is the substance, and on the substance there is solid and durable agreement among the bishops. And that, too, counts, for it is on the substance that the war will be fought, and won.

-- George Weigel, Don't Revise, Rescind