On After Abortion blog today, I wrote about the U.S. visit of the icon painting of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the patron saint of post-abortion work and workers like Theresa Bonopartis of Lumina:

"St. Clements Island (Md) is the original landing place of European Settlers in search of Religious Freedom. Father Andrew White, SJ, whose journal was found concerning the trip, was among those on the two ships, the Ark and the Dove. 'For the Catholics aboard the Ark and the Dove, it was to escape persecution and being marginalized socially and economically.For the Protestants, it was to seek a better life and like their Catholic shipmates, be open to opportunities the New World offered – opportunities that made the risks worthwhile.'"

How sadly ironic. Practicing, faithful Catholics and Protestants have long been marginalized socially and are now even legally persecuted, just for believing what we believe, for standing up for those beliefs in every aspect of life.

Would that happen to a Muslim in this country? No. Should it happen to anyone of any faith? No.

Yet we practicing Catholics, Jews and Protestants are being told--by ObamaCare--that we have no choice but to allow *all* abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization (e.g., tubal ligations) to be provided and/or indirectly paid for (thus sanctioned) by our religious-based health institutions, when it is all prohibited as against our religion except in cases of protecting the mother's physical health and/or life:

ENCYCLICAL LETTER
HUMANAE VITAE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
PAUL VI

Lawful Therapeutic Means [contraception]

15. On the other hand, the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever. (19)

So if you are are advised by your OB/GYN to have a tubal ligation (say, after the last child is born) for your HEALTH, then the Catholic Church is fine with that, and the Catholic HOSPITAL can do this. But it goes against the Catholic religion if it's just a wink-wink-nod-nod agreement between doctor and patient to "say" that that's necessary, if it in fact is not.

ObamaCare = destruction of freedom of religion in the United States Of America. Nothing less.

If you find that impossible to believe, it's perhaps because you get at least some of your news from the Mainstream Media and/or the likes of Bill Maher, Chris Matthews, Jon Stewart and parodist Colbert.

It could also be because you don't know much about what Catholics are supposed to really believe if they really are Catholics.

Try this instead, from the Catholic Medical Association, aka "the horse's mouth", instead of those trying to marginalize Catholic doctors and other medical professionals:

Because President Obama’s HHS mandate defines abortion-causing drugs, contraception, and sterilization for women as “preventive” services, and demands full subsidy of their cost by all Americans:

• The beliefs of millions of Christians, Jews, and Muslims have been blatantly trampled upon and their religious freedom has been violated. The beliefs and institutions of the Catholic Church in particular have been attacked and undermined;
• A new definition of “religious employer” -- and of religion itself -- is being imposed by regulatory fiat. If this definition stands as public policy, countless religious institutions will be forced to abandon their beliefs or be driven from the public square, despite their constitutional rights and despite decades of service to America. Moreover, the religious freedom and conscience rights of individual American citizens and business owners have now been subjected to an unprecedented attack;
• Abortion drugs, contraception, and sterilization will be channeled to millions of young people, increasingly without their parents’ knowledge and consent;
• The practice of authentic medicine and the rights of faithful and pro-life healthcare professionals are now more likely to be undermined by a federal government demonstrably hostile to conscience rights, religious freedom, and religious institutions.

Muslims too would be restricted in practicing their religion, if they established and ran hospitals the way the Catholics have done:

Some Shiite groups, such as the Ismailis, do not permit abortions to take place at all. In case of infringements of this law, abortions before day 40 are penalized with a monetary fee. Other Shiite groups such as the Zaydites allow abortions to be performed up to day 120, equating an abortion up to this point with contraception.

...

Most of the Maliki jurists (legal scholars) described abortion as completely forbidden. In their view, when the semen settles in the womb, it is expected to develop into a living baby and it should not be disturbed by anyone. According to Ibn Jawziyyah, when the womb has retained the semen, it is not permitted for the husband and wife, or one of them or the master of the slave-wife, to induce an abortion. After ensoulment, however, abortion is prohibited absolutely and is akin to murder.

 Ensoulment is generally considered to be after the first four months (120 days) of pregnancy :

The [Muslim] scholars all agree that abortion is forbidden after the first four months of pregnancy, since by that time the soul has entered the embryo but it would allow the use of ...(the "morning-after pill"), as long as it could be reasonably assumed that the fertilized egg has not become implanted on the wall of the uterus. Most scholars say that abortion is legal under Islamic Shari'ah (law), when done for valid reasons and when completed before the soul enters the embryo. To abort a baby for such vain reasons as wanting to keep a woman’s youthful figure, are not valid.

So, if there were Muslim hospitals, even a few of them, they would be forced to go against their religious beliefs too, by being forced to conduct and pay for abortions and later-term, labor-inducing-for-abortion-reasons drugs after the fourth month.

Consider this, then: Catholics run over "600 hospitals and 1,400 long-term care and other health facilities in all 50 states."

It's the "largest group of nonprofit health care providers in the nation."

That represents 

12.6 percent of hospitals in the U.S., according to the Catholic Health Association of the U.S., accounting for 15.6 percent of all admissions and 14.5 percent of all hospital expenses, a total for Catholic hospitals in 2010 of $98.6 billion. Whom do these hospitals serve? Catholic hospitals handle more than their share of Medicare (16.6 percent) and Medicaid (13.65) discharges, meaning that more than one in six seniors and disabled patients get attention from these hospitals, and more than one in every eight low-income patients as well. Almost a third (32 percent) of these hospitals are located in rural areas, where patients usually have few other options for care.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air continues to sum up the line in the sand that Obama has drawn against Catholics:

[Catholic hospitals/centers] lead the sector in breast cancer screenings, nutrition programs, trauma, geriatric services, and social work. In most of these areas, other non-profits come close, but hospitals run by state and local governments fall significantly off the pace. Where patients have trouble paying for care, Catholic hospitals cover more of the costs. For instance, Catholic Health Services in Florida provides free care to families below 200 percent of federal poverty line, accepting Medicaid reimbursements as payment in full, and caps costs at 20 percent of household income for families that fall between 200 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty line.

Imagine the impact if these hospitals shut down, discounting the other 400-plus health centers and 1,500 specialized homes that the Catholic Church operates as part of its mission that would also disappear. Thanks to the economic models of these hospitals, no one will rush to buy them. One in six patients in the current system would have to vie for service in the remaining system, which would have to absorb almost $100 billion in costs each year to treat them. Over 120,000 beds would disappear from an already-stressed system. 

The poor and working class families that get assistance from Catholic benefactors would end up having to pay more for their care than they do under the current system. Rural patients would have to travel farther for medical care, and services like social work and breast-cancer screenings would fall to the less-efficient government-run institutions. That would not only impact the poor and working class patients, but would create much longer wait times for everyone else in the system. Finally, over a half-million people employed by Catholic hospitals now would lose their jobs almost overnight, which would have a big impact on the economy as well as on health care.

 I didn't realize that the Catholic Schools would have to close also, but I suppose it would be because they were forced to provide/pay for these prohibitions to our faith for their employees.

All this reality shows either the supreme ignorance or the supreme arrogance of Obama. As Morrissey writes:

If the HHS mandate forces the Catholic Church to fund and facilitate access to products and services they believe imperil souls, they will apply [St.] Ignatius’ principle and stick with salvation — which is the entire raison d’être of any religious organization.  The implications for public-sector spending and services is massive, and Obama may be pushing all in with only a pair of jacks.  Don’t count on the bishops to blink first.

If the bishops do blink first, it will be the definitive destruction of religious liberty--for Catholics--in this country.

Then, all of us are at risk, because once one founding principle is destroyed, none of the rest are safe either. 

Isn't this how it all started in Soviet Russia, against the Catholics?

And in the Roman Empire, against the Jews, and later, the early Christians? Even Rome at first allowed polytheistic beliefs but when it absorbed Judea, the land of the Israelites, that changed. And around 30 A.D., the Roman Empire "pronounced Christianity to be an 'illegal superstition,' a crime under Roman law." Like it is now a crime under U.S. law for any healthcare entity to disobey ObamaCare. For almost 300 years, the Roman Empire persecuted Christianity.

And isn't this how it all started in Nazi Germany, against the Jews and non-Nazi Catholics and others?

Here's how history repeats itself, in a nutshell:

"For his part, Obama naturally wanted to bring the church into line with everything else in his scheme of things. He knew he dare not simply eradicate it: that would not have been possible with such an international organisation, and he would have lost many Christian supporters had he tried to. His principal aim is to unify the country under a pro-universal-healthcare banner, and to come to an accommodation with the Catholics."

Obama may be incompetent, but his handlers certainly are not. They don't really care if Catholics have their religious freedom, because they think we are all bigots, racists, fear-mongerers, etc. They willingly let the MainStream Media (MSM) repeat those themes ad nauseum. They and Obama may be well-intentioned about healthcare, but even the best of intentions cannot be allowed to destroy any of the freedoms this nation was founded to preserve, that we (then) acknowledged were "endowed by our Creator."

Obama doesn't need to eradicate the Catholic Church and its faithful, per se. He's already legalized persecution of us with ObamaCare. That's all it takes, he thinks, to make us "get out of the way."

By the way, that quote about Obama trying to get "accommodations" from the Catholics? It's not real. It is a rhetorical device to show how the destruction of religious freedom really is happening here in the U.S.

I just changed three, simple phrases. That's all, folks. You see, History is beginning to repeat itself again, here, now, and the question really is: Are you going to let it?

"For his part, Hitler naturally wanted to bring the church into line with everything else in his scheme of things. He knew he dare not simply eradicate it: that would not have been possible with such an international organisation, and he would have lost many Christian supporters had he tried to. His principal aim was to unify the German Evangelical Church under a pro-Nazi banner, and to come to an accommodation with the Catholics."

~ Anton Gil, in his book, "An Honourable Defeat: A History of German Resistance to Hitler, 1933-1945"