Archbishop Dolan Refuses To Cave-In

In the great 1948 “Oliver Twist” film, the excellent (and recently deceased; R.I.P.) John Howard Davies gives a dramatic rendition of the famous fight with Noah Claypole, the bully. Claypole is, of course, much bigger than he, and has been provoking him for some time. On that day, enough is enough.

One is reminded of Oliver Twist when he thinks of the present conflict between the White House and the US Bishops’ Conference. Like Oliver Twist, the bishops have been bullied for some time now; and like him, they have now decided enough is enough.

In the last days, Archbishop Nolan has released a new letter to his bishops. This letter is interesting in more than one way, and I would like to examine it with you;

1) There will be no cave-in and if the President think there will, he has another thought coming. The entire letter is worded so as to not leave any doubt.

2) In the entire letter there is an insistent, almost obsessive reminder of the issue really at stake: religious freedom.The words are mentioned many times, and always in italics. Once again, if the President thinks he will bully the Church into silence by deflecting on the issue of contraception, he is a fool. What he will get is an entire electoral campaign dominated by the issue of religious freedom, which will be so insistently hammered in the American heads as it is repeated in this letter.

3) The language does not reach the summit of clearness of the great Pope Pius X but it is extremely open, and shows a very clear will to go for the fisticuffs like brave young Oliver. The White House is treated with thinly veiled contempt, and exposed as a bunch of incompetent morons with no idea what they are talking about. Try this (emphases always mine):

The White House seems to think we bishops simply do not know or understand
Catholic teaching and so, taking a cue from its own definition of religious freedom, now has
nominated its own handpicked official Catholic teachers.

Meanwhile, in our recent debate in the senate, our opponents sought to obscure what is really a religious freedom issue by
maintaining that abortion inducing drugs and the like are a “woman’s health issue.” We will not
let this deception stand. Our commitment to seeking legislative remedies remains strong. And it
is about remedies to the assault on religious freedom. Period.

Take that, Adolf Hussein.

4) The attempt to persuade the bishops to cave-in are not only refused, but clearly condemned:

Instead, they advised the bishops’ conference that we should listen to the “enlightened” voices of
accommodation, such as the recent, hardly surprising yet terribly unfortunate editorial in
America.

5) In addition the openly defying tone toward White House officials (you have read an example under point 3) teaches the White House a lesson or two about “women issues”:

(By the way, the Church hardly needs to be lectured about health care for women. Thanks mostly to our Sisters, the Church is
the largest private provider of health care for women and their babies in the country.)

6) Please also note the decision to go for the legal confrontation has been taken, and it will be no laughing matter:

our bishops’ conference, many individual religious entities, and other people of good will are
working with some top-notch law firms who feel so strongly about this that they will represent us
pro bono. In the upcoming days, you will hear much more about this encouraging and welcome
development.

Make no mistake, say the bishops to Adolf Hussein: this issue is not going to go away, we will expose it as a shameless attack on religious freedom, and if you think we are influenced by the likes of America magazine you need to change advisors.

I can remember no issue whatsoever in which post – V II European Bishops (or Popes) had the guts to attack the Noah Claypoles of the day with such spirit.

Kudos to Archbishop Dolan and his troops. I am very confident there will be no cave-in, and every letter of this sort makes such an exercise more and more difficult to achieve for those among the bishops who might be tempted to just shut up and be vaguely and ineffectually “pastoral”, as too many of them have done for too often.In fact, it seems to me Archbishop Dolan is forcing all of his colleagues to close ranks and prepare for the fight, and is telling them the fight as expected of every one of them.

Mundabor