Catholicism

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:

• Lenten Sacrifices 2010
• Lenten Sacrifices 2011

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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:

• The Contraception Mandate: A Defining Moment
• When Is a Compromise Not a Compromise?

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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:

• 2011 About.com Catholicism Readers' Choice Awards Finalists
• 2011 About.com Catholicism Readers' Choice Awards Winners

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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:

• Novena to the Holy Ghost
• Daily Reminder E-Mail for the Novena to the Holy Ghost
• Reader Question: Why Holy Ghost?

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President Barack Obama has just announced his "compromise" on the contraceptive mandate that requires religious organizations to provide insurance that offers free contraception to all of their female workers.

As I predicted this morning (see "The Contraception Mandate: A Defining Moment"), the President had no intention of meeting his opponents part way. His remarks made it plain that, despite the administration's attempts to portray the new version of the mandate as addressing the concerns of, among others, the nation's Catholic bishops, President Obama regards the new version as equal in its essentials to the old version.

President Obama is correct: No substantive change has been made. The new version is simply an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the public. As administration officials told the New York Times this morning, the compromise was designed to "shore up support among wavering Democrats, who have also expressed doubt about the rule, along with more liberal religious organizations and charities, who oppose the rule but not as vehemently as the Catholic leadership."

The new version of the contraceptive mandate is essentially a shell game. As the White House Fact Sheet on Women's Preventive Services and Religious Institutions summarizes the changes:

• Religious organizations will not have to provide contraceptive coverage or refer their employees to organizations that provide contraception.


• Religious organizations will not be required to subsidize the cost of contraception.


• Contraception coverage will be offered to women by their employers’ insurance companies directly, with no role for religious employers who oppose contraception.


• Insurance companies will be required to provide contraception coverage to these women free of charge.

The problem is obvious: Insurance companies provide nothing "free of charge." To do so would decrease their profits, and they have no desire to do so. More importantly, the new version of the mandate does not require them to do so.

Let me say that again: The new version of the mandate does not require insurance companies to eat the costs of providing contraceptives "free of charge."

So how will insurance companies make up the money they spend on providing contraceptives to women who are employed by religious institutions?

By raising premiums.

Who pays the premiums?

The religious institutions who object to providing contraceptives to their employees.

In a White House conference call this morning before the President's announcement, administration officials tried to wave away this obvious objection to the new version of the mandate. Insurance companies, they argued, would voluntarily eat the costs because they will come out ahead, since bringing a pregnancy to term costs an insurance company more than preventing a pregnancy.

But that's not the way that the insurance industry works. The insurance industry covers the expected costs of expected pregnancies through higher premiums on those cohorts of women who are in their childbearing years. When the number of expected pregnancies for a particular cohort increases, they increase insurance premiums.

The insurance companies will cover the cost of the new version of the contraceptive mandate in the exact same way.

And here's the kicker: That's exactly what the insurance companies would have done under the original version of the mandate.

All that has changed is how the mandate is presented to the public. If the new version of the mandate stands, Catholic hospitals and charities will still be required to pay for contraception for their employees. The insurance companies, the Obama administration, and the administration's supporters will simply pretend that they are not doing so.

When is a compromise not a compromise? When it changes nothing.

I would not be surprised to learn that the administration had planned this all along: Announce the contraceptive mandate to celebrate the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, expecting the Catholic Church and other religious organizations to oppose it; weather the storm for a few weeks; then announce the "new" version of the mandate to rounds of applause from "wavering Democrats" and "more liberal religious organizations and charities."

It's a smart public-relations move. It will make it much harder for religious leaders to explain to the public why the new mandate is no different from the old mandate. And because of that, it may even have bought President Obama a second term in the White House.

What it did not do, however, is address the very real attack on religious freedom that the contraceptive mandate represents. Nor did it provide any moral justification for Catholics to support this administration and this President.

Catholics and all others concerned with the free exercise of religion have to ask themselves this: If this is how Barack Obama treats religious freedom when he is running for reelection, what will he feel he can do once he has won a second term?

More on the Contraceptive Mandate:

• The Contraception Mandate: A Defining Moment

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Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of words have been spilled over the past few weeks regarding the Obama administration's attempt to force religious organizations to provide female employees with insurance that covers the cost of contraceptives. The debate has taken a predictable form: Opponents of the administration's actions, especially those associated with the Catholic Church, have portrayed the mandate as an all-out attack on religious freedom, while supporters have applauded the administration for it's "commitment to women's health." Some supporters have even attempted to redefine religious freedom to claim that not providing contraceptive coverage to female employees who desire it is an infringement of their religious freedom. (The latter argument would have been regarded as ludicrous only 20 or 30 years ago, but today it is asking too much for people to understand that the "free exercise of religion" means the freedom to exercise one's religion as it should be exercised, not as one chooses, according to one's own whims, to exercise it.)

As I write, administration officials have leaked word to major news outlets, including the New York Times, indicating that the Obama administration will offer a "compromise" later today. As the Times reports, however, the "compromise" is not designed to "mollify the Catholic bishops who have waged war against the rule," but to "shore up support among wavering Democrats, who have also expressed doubt about the rule, along with more liberal religious organizations and charities, who oppose the rule but not as vehemently as the Catholic leadership."

When is a compromise not a compromise? When the one offering the compromise has no intention of meeting his opponent part way. (UPDATE: See my coverage of President Obama's "compromise" in "When Is a Compromise Not a Compromise?")

From the beginning, the Obama administration has seemed strangely tone-deaf on the contraception mandate. Members of the administration have acted genuinely surprised that Catholics who supported the President's healthcare reform would oppose requiring religious organizations to provide contraceptive coverage.

That, I think, is because the administration simply does not see religious freedom, as traditionally defined, as an important issue. To justify forcing the Catholic Church to engage in material cooperation with an immoral act—because that is what the Catholic Church teaches artificial contraception to be—requires the administration to say, in essence (if not out loud), that religious beliefs that run counter to the administration's ideas of public health do not enjoy the protection of religious freedom.

Defenders of the Obama administration have tried to downplay the significance of the contraceptive mandate, making entirely irrelevant arguments about the number of Catholic women who, in defiance of Church teaching, use artificial contraception. The Obama administration, however, clearly regards this as a defining moment, and all Catholics in the United States—whether they comply with Church teaching or defy it—should see it as a defining moment as well.

If all that is required to force the Catholic Church to cooperate materially in acts that she regards as objectively immoral is a concern for "public health," then the administration could, quite reasonably, require that all hosts used for Communion be made of rice (so that they will be gluten-free), and all wine be alcohol-free. That such requirements would invalidate the sacrament would be of no concern to the federal government. Alcoholics and those who cannot tolerate gluten would be better off, in the government's eyes; the fact that they would be worse off spiritually is irrelevant.

The administration could make a similar argument for forcing the Catholic Church to recognize "marriages" between homosexuals. The lifestyle of "unmarried" homosexuals is, studies show, more fraught with physical dangers than the lifestyle of homosexuals in committed monogamous relationships. The fact that the Church regards homosexual activity, no matter the context in which it takes place, as objectively immoral is once again irrelevant. The needs of "public health" would trump the traditional understanding of religious freedom.

The ordination of women and of practicing homosexuals (even "married" ones) might not be able to be justified on the grounds of public health, but it could certainly be justified on the basis of anti discrimination laws. Just as many Catholic women currently use contraception despite the Church's teaching, many Catholics regard the priesthood as merely a role, even though the Church teaches that the Sacrament of Holy Orders is restricted to men only. Is it not a violation of a women's "religious freedom" to be denied ordination?

We could multiply examples ad infinitum, but there is no need to do so. The point is clear: Any Catholic who supports the Obama administration in this attack on religious liberty is helping to open a door that can and will be used in the future to launch further attacks. That is why many Protestant communions that long ago tossed out their historic teaching on contraception, some of which even pay today for contraception and (sometimes) abortions for their employees, are standing with the Catholic Church in opposing the Obama administration.

In the end, this battle is about more than whether you approve of, or even use, contraception yourself. This battle is about who gets to decide what the Catholic Church teaches, and how the Catholic Church practices her Faith.

Any Catholic who supports the Obama administration on the contraceptive mandate is saying, in effect, "The United States government, not the successors of the apostles, is the true arbiter of Catholic teaching and practice."

This is not merely a political battle; it is a spiritual one. Anyone who does not understand that places his or her soul in grave danger.

And anyone who does understand that, and still supports the Obama administration, needs our prayers.

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In the traditional Roman Catholic calendar (the calendar still used in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, also known as the Traditional Latin Mass), the three Sundays before Lent were a special pre-Lenten period--"the front porch of Lent," as our parish priest likes to say. Those Sundays were called Septuagesima Sunday, Sexagesima Sunday, and Quinquagesima Sunday--from the Latin words meaning 70, 60, and 50, roughly the number of days each falls before Easter Sunday.

But the Latin Rite Church, in both the old (pre-1970) and new liturgical calendars, has nothing on the Eastern Church, both Catholic and Orthodox. For Eastern Christians who calculate Easter according to the Gregorian calendar, the preparation for Lent begins four Sundays before Western Ash Wednesday. (Eastern Christians don't celebrate Ash Wednesday as the first day of Lent; instead, they begin Lent on Clean Monday, two days before Ash Wednesday.)

The fourth Sunday before Clean Monday is the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee, and on that day, the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18:10-14) is read, to turn the thoughts of the congregation to repentance. The next Sunday is the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) reminds us that it's never too late to repent of our sins and to return to our Father.

After the Sunday of the Prodigal Son comes Meatfare Sunday, which (for those Eastern Christians on the Gregorian calendar) in 2012 falls on February 12. The Eastern Christian discipline for the Lenten fast was historically much stricter than the rules for fasting in the Western Church, and Meatfare Sunday was the last day on which Eastern Christians could eat any meat. The following Sunday, Cheesefare Sunday, is the last day on which Eastern Christians can eat any dairy products. (Cheesefare Sunday is also known as Forgiveness Sunday, because at the end of Divine Liturgy that day, the faithful ask one another for forgiveness, in order to enter Lent with a clean conscience and as a true Christian community.)

Over the years, many Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox relaxed the fasting rules for Lent, but in recent years, quite a few have returned to the traditional discipline, which forbids the use of eggs as well as meat and dairy products. It's a rigorous regimen, but one which Eastern Christians who practice it say bears great spiritual fruit. And it's something to keep in mind the next time we Western Catholics think that our 40 days of Lent seems too long!

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Because the date of Easter changes every year (see When Is Easter?), the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period of penance and preparation before Easter, changes also. (See When Is Lent? for details.)

In the traditional Roman Catholic calendar, the one still used today in the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass (the Traditional Latin Mass), the preparation for Lent has already begun. The three Sundays before Lent begins used to be known (in order) as Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima--from the Latin words for 70, 60, and 50, because they were (roughly) 70, 60, and 50 days before Easter. In 2012, Septuagesima Sunday was February 5.

This pre-Lenten period was designed to ease Christians into the Lenten fast, and the Mass itself reflected this. Starting on Septuagesima, the Gloria and the Alleluia were omitted from the Mass, and the Gospel readings started to focus on the coming of the Kingdom of God.

While these three Sundays are no longer marked in the calendar used in the Ordinary Form of the Mass, we can still take advantage of these few weeks before Lent to start planning our Lenten discipline. That way, when Ash Wednesday comes, we can begin Lent with the proper attitude, preparing our souls for the commemoration of Christ's Death on Good Friday, and His Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

More on Lent:

• When Does Lent Start?
• When Is Ash Wednesday 2012?
• What Are the Rules for Fasting and Abstinence?
• How Are the 40 Days of Lent Calculated?

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February is the Month of the Holy Family, so what better way to mark the month than with a Novena to the Holy Family? This novena is also particularly appropriate as our novena this week, as we make our final preparations for the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday (or, for Eastern Catholics, on Clean Monday).

The Holy Family should always be the model for our own family life, and the primary classroom of the Faith for our children. And there is no better time than Lent, when we strip away the distractions of life through fasting and concentrate on prayer and Christian charity, to strengthen our family and bring it closer to the example of the Holy Family.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, pray for us!

(Icon of the Holy Family in the Adoration Chapel, St. Thomas More Catholic Church, Decatur, GA. Photo © flickr user andycoan; licensed under CC BY 2.0)

More on the Holy Family:

• Prayers for February: The Month of the Holy Family

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So there I was, at a free (!) beer tasting at the Olympic Tavern in Rockford, Illinois, and all I could think about was poor old Saint Patrick. I suppose it was inevitable; after all, the beer tasting was six weeks to the day before Saint Patrick's Day, and one of the beers the Olympic Tavern was serving was Guinness Foreign Extra Stout. As I sipped the exceedingly small sample of this extraordinary beer (there are only 20 cases of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout in all of Rockford, a city of 150,000 people), I started to wonder why the dear bishop, of whom there are no stories involving tippling, much less drunkenness, had become identified with a yearly festival of excess.

It would be politically incorrect, of course, to suggest that the exuberant imbibing that takes place on Saint Patrick's Day has anything to do with a certain propensity of the Irish for beer and whiskey. More importantly, I don't think that national traits are the determining factor in this case; after all, the French are quite fond of their wine, but they don't run through cases of it every year on the feast day of Saint Joan of Arc.

Rather, I suspect that the reason Saint Patrick's Day has been taken to heart by so many Catholics (and not just the Irish) is because it falls, every year, in the season of Lent. While the Lenten fast is no longer as strict as in centuries past, Saint Patrick's Day still provides an excuse for easing up on our Lenten discipline just a wee bit (or perhaps more than a wee bit). Even today, in dioceses with large numbers of Catholics of Irish descent, if Saint Patrick's Day falls on a Friday bishops routinely dispense the faithful from the obligation to abstain from meat, so that they can enjoy their corned beef—accompanied, of course, by a Guinness or three, and maybe a shot of whiskey.

In that sense, the popular celebration of Saint Patrick's Day is much like that of Mardi Gras. It may not be Catholic per se, but it has its roots in one of the oldest Catholic customs—the observance of Lent.

(Saint Patrick in a detail from a bronze door on Saint Patrick's Cathedral, New York City. Photo © Scott P. Richert)

More on Saint Patrick and Saint Patrick's Day:

• When Is Saint Patrick's Day 2012?
• The Breastplate of Saint Patrick

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