Wednesday February 15, 2012
What are you giving up for Lent?
It's a question to which we're often tempted to answer, "None of your business!" And rightly so, because "What are you giving up for Lent?" can be prying at best, rude at worst, and sometimes it really has no purpose other than allowing the other person to brag about his more demanding Lenten sacrifice.
But it doesn't have to be that way. As I wrote in "(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Jacob's Ladder":
Christ is the only way to salvation, but our fellow Christians are the girders that help us see Jacob's Ladder for what it is: the strong and sure path to Heaven.
We're all in this together; we don't have to—and shouldn't—bear our spiritual struggles alone. And so, as we're trying to figure out our own Lenten discipline while waiting for Lent 2012 to begin, "What are you giving up for Lent?" can be a legitimate question. But at the same time, it can be a hard one to ask, since others can take it wrongly.
So let's make it easier for all concerned. If you choose, you can share your Lenten sacrifice in What Are You Giving Up for Lent 2012? Doing so can help others decide on their own Lenten sacrifices, and seeing your own resolution on the screen may help you stick to it.
(Scaffolding for a range light on Lake Michigan; photo © Scott P. Richert)
What Readers Gave Up for Lent in Previous Years:
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Tuesday February 14, 2012
What's so expensive that no one can afford it, but so cheap that everyone can? Since today is Valentine's Day, you can be excused for thinking that the answer is "love." Unfortunately, that's not the answer I had in mind, though (once again on Valentine's Day) the correct answer—artificial contraception—is all too often confused with love.
The Obama administration and its apologists made one set of arguments to try to win support for the initial version of President Obama's contraception mandate, only to turn around last Friday, after offering a "revised" mandate, and contradict everything they had said.
The two arguments can be summed up as follows:
Original Contraception Mandate
- Artificial contraception is too expensive for working women to afford; therefore
- All employers, including religious institutions that believe the use of artificial contraception is objectively immoral, must pay for insurance policies that will cover the costs of artificial contraception.
"Revised" Contraception Mandate
- Artificial contraception is so inexpensive that
- Insurance companies, which stay in business by taking in more money than they pay out, will be able to provide artificial contraception to the female employees of religious institutions free of charge.
When one boils the administration's two contradictory arguments down to their essentials, the point that I was trying to make in When Is a Compromise Not a Compromise? becomes crystal-clear. One does not have to understand how insurance companies use actuarial tables and cohorts of the insured to ensure that they make the profit they wish to make every year; one needs only to acknowledge what profits are: the difference between the money that a company takes in and that which it pays out.
If insurance companies are forced to provide a service or product for free—in other words, if their expenses increase—they have only one way of maintaining their profits: by increasing income. And that increased income takes the form of higher premiums, which the Obama administration knows full well will be levied on the religious institutions that object to paying for artificial contraception.
That's why, only minutes after President Obama announced his "compromise," I called this a "shell game." The only thing that has changed is that the cost of paying for artificial contraception is being hidden through semantics. "Religious organizations will not be required to subsidize the cost of contraception," the White House says, yet that is exactly what will happen.
There were ways in which the Obama administration could have revised the contraception mandate that would have made it much harder, if not impossible, for insurance companies to pass the costs on to religious institutions that object to paying for artificial contraception.
President Obama could, for instance, have required insurance companies to provide contraceptive coverage to women who work at religious institutions as a separate policy altogether. Since he insists that artificial contraception is too expensive for working women to afford, he could have set price caps on the cost of that policy—say, five dollars per month. Insurance companies could then have arranged for bulk discounts with pharmaceutical companies. President Obama could even have helped the insurance companies out in their negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies by imposing price controls on the most commonly used forms of artificial contraception.
None of these things, of course, would be good in themselves, nor would they advance freedom. But, had President Obama done any or all of those things, one might be able to make a reasonable argument that he had actually tried to ensure that religious institutions would not not be required to spend a penny on something they regard as intrinsically immoral.
The fact that President Obama chose not to go that way—the fact that he chose instead to play a shell game, and to argue that artificial contraception is too expensive for women to afford, but too cheap for insurance companies not to be able to give it away for free—proves that this mandate is less about providing a "service" to women than it is about increasing the power of the state over the Church.
Make no mistake: If the "revised" mandate actually becomes law, it will be the first of many steps in forcing churches to bow before the power of Washington, D.C. That is what is at stake here: no more, and no less.
More on the Contraceptive Mandate:
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Tuesday February 14, 2012
Nominations for the 2012 About.com Catholicism Readers' Choice Awards end on Wednesday, February 15, at 11:59 P.M. EST. 
If you haven't made your nominations yet, it's not too late; and if you have made your nominations, now is your last chance to convince your friends and family to nominate the same people, organizations, and products. Remember: Only the top five nominees in each of the following ten categories will become a finalist and advance on to the voting round:
- Best Catholic Book of 2011
- Best Catholic Blog
- Best Catholic Website
- Best Catholic Podcast
- Best Catholic Magazine
- Best Catholic Newspaper
- Best Catholic iOS App
- Best Catholic Radio Show
- Best Catholic to Follow on Twitter
- Best Catholic Facebook Page
Currently, the categories with the fewest number of nominations are Best Catholic Magazine, Best Catholic Newspaper, and Best Catholic Radio Show. As a print journalist myself (in my day job), I'm partial to these "old media," and I hope that readers will take the opportunity presented by the low number of nominations to try to get their favorites into the finals!
After nominations close at 11:59 P.M. EST on February 15, 2012, I will tally up the nominations and choose five finalists in each category. Voting will begin at midnight EST on February 22, when I announce the finalists. (Sign up for the About.com Catholicism Newsletter to be notified automatically when voting begins.) Voting will end at 11:59 P.M. EST on March 21, 2012, and the winners will be announced on March 30.
Last Year's About.com Catholicism Readers' Choice Awards:
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Tuesday February 14, 2012
Those who are familiar with this week's novena might find it a bit out of place.
The Novena to the Holy Ghost is, we might say, the "mother of all novenas." For centuries, Catholics have prayed it between Ascension Thursday and Pentecost Sunday in memory of the nine days that the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Apostles spent in prayer before the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
But the novena can be prayed at any time of the year, and I like the idea of praying it in preparation for Lent. By asking for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we not only show our commitment to the spiritual struggle of the coming 40 days, but we also call to mind those areas of our spiritual life in which we need to place the most effort. And what better time to take stock of our spiritual lives?
To make it easier to remember to pray the novena each day, I have set up a daily reminder e-mail. Simply click on that link to sign up, and you will receive an e-mail each day with the links to that day's prayers.
(A dove is perched in a wall outside the Basilica of St. Agnes Outside the Walls, Rome, Italy. The dove is the traditional Christian symbol for the Holy Spirit. The basilica, a seventh-century church, sits over a fourth-century Christian catacomb. Photo © Scott P. Richert)
More on the Novena to the Holy Ghost:
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