The Diocese of Madison's public stance that any church employee in that diocese will receive a warning and then termination if they were discovered to be using artificial birth control made headlines this week. This warning was given by a spokesperson for the diocese as a new Wisconsin law went into effect mandating all insurance plans in Wisconsin offer "the pill." Obviously, someone would have to flaunt their use of the pill for the diocese to know because there are privacy laws that prevent the diocese from knowing what medications an employee is taking. I am not sure if this is really a matter of church vs. state, as the media is making it out to be, as much as it is an issue of connecting health care to employment. If the basic right to health care were not connected to a specific employer, this story would be a huge non-issue.Last August, the Wisconsin bishops put out a joint letter opposing this new health coverage mandate. They try to state that the pill is not a Catholic issue because it falls into the realm of the natural law, "which is inscribed in the mind and heart of all human beings." Although I do not deny their basic natural law argument that there are inclinations for happiness deposited deep in our hearts by the divine, the theologians of the Middle Ages would have expected to find their natural law principles to be present in other cultures. This is not the case. Their logic is faulty even by Catholic natural law standards. In addition, the natural law inclination they are referring to regards the desire to have and raise children (an inclination that priests are not supposed to follow). Somehow, this got twisted into "never use the pill." I have more to say, but will save it for another day...
A Faithful Catholic
