...if you want to see creative, daring, lifegiving healthcare for women and their children, look at what the Church is doing.
And now understand why Catholics rightly
bristle when politicians and commentators characterize the Church as
backwards and insensitive when it comes to women’s health. Yes, the PR
experts advise them that this tactic is a proven ploy to take the
attention off the current urgent issue of religious freedom.
The marketers advise them that, if they can reduce the issue to one of
contraception, stereotyping the Church as opposed to women’s rights,
they have a chance of clouding the towering issue of the First Freedom.
But the Church should not be the ones on
the defensive here. We’re on the offensive when it comes to women’s
health, education, and welfare, here at home, and throughout the world.
We hardly need lectures on this issue from senators.
We just want to be left alone to live out
the imperatives of our faith to serve, teach, heal, feed, and care for
others. We cherish this, our earthly home, America, for its enshrined
freedom to do so. Those really concerned about women’s health would be
better off defending the Church’s freedom to continue its work.
A couple of years ago I visited a woman’s
prison. The warden asked me if I wanted to visit the expectant and new
mothers’ healthcare center. It then dawned on me that, of course, some
women would enter prison pregnant. I was so happy to see the expectant
moms, getting good health care for themselves and their unborn babies,
and to see the moms with babies under two getting classes in
childrearing and parenting skills, with the babies receiving tender care
right next to their moms. When I told the warden how grateful I was to
see such excellent care for these women and children, he replied, “Thank
yourself. Catholic Charities runs it.”
Read the rest at Dolan's blog.
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