Cardinal George’s letters

As president of the US bishops conference, Cardinal Francis George send a letter to President-elect Barack Obama after he won the election, and another just before he was inaugurated. They expressed goodwill and hope.

Now he’s written one to Illinois Catholics, expressing great concern about the threat to the free exercise of conscience informed by faith, if pending legislation in the state is allowed to pass.

Here’s the text:

Before the Illinois General Assembly there is a proposal (HB 2354, the “Reproductive Health and Access Act”) that would remove the right to conscientious objection to abortion and related procedures for all health care workers. Thirty years ago, we were told that abortion is a rare but necessary tragedy and that abortion providers should not be legally punished. Today we are being told that abortion is a human right and that those who qualify it in any manner or who will not provide it should be legally punished.

Good and reasoned argument. Shows the incoherence of the abortion movement.

This proposed law will drive Catholic doctors and nurses from health care and will make it impossible for Catholic hospitals to continue to be places where life is always respected, where no one is deliberately killed. In our country, we recognize conscientious objection to war, even though defending one’s country is a noble and moral act. We recognize the conscientious objection of those doctors who will not cooperate in administering the death penalty, even for terrible crimes. Why do some Illinois legislators want to take away conscientious objection to abortion?

More Socratic reasoning. (George is a philosopher.) Would love to hear serious attempts to answer these questions.

The enemies of human life and religious freedom in Illinois are well funded. Pressure on legislators is great and is increasing. I ask you to contact your Representative this week to express your dismay that the Illinois legislature, elected democratically, would debate a bill that removes freedom of conscientious decision-making for health care workers as a condition of their employment. If, as we are told, the State should not come between a doctor and a mother, then surely all can agree that the State should not come between a health care worker and God.

Is even one politician responding to these great points?

We have, unfortunately, had to get used to the fact that our laws no longer protect unborn human life; now we are to get used to the fact that our laws will no longer protect conscience. In 1844, Abraham Lincoln broke with his own party, the often anti-Catholic Whigs, and proposed: “Resolved, that the guarantee of the rights of conscience, as found in our Constitution, is most sacred and inviolable, and one that belongs no less to the Catholic, than to the Protestant; and that all attempts to abridge or interfere with these rights, either of Catholic or Protestant, directly or indirectly, have our decided disapprobation, and shall ever have our most effective opposition.” Illinois HB 2354 betrays the legacy of Lincoln in his home State.

And Obama’s home state. Which is all the more intriguing, because Obama favors this move, and yet he highly admires and tries to emulate Lincoln.

This proposed law will rend the already fragile garment of our civic unity and further alienate many from our government. Catholics and all people of good will should work to ensure its defeat.

And he concludes graciously…

I also ask you to thank those legislators who are courageously opposing HB 2354 and to pray for those who are supporting it.