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Friday, January 27, 2012

The Unconscionable Consequences of Conscience Exemptions

By Jamie L. Manson
Edito’s Note: This article was first published January 25 by the National Catholic Reporter.
Of all of the reactions that I’ve read to the Department of Health and Human Service’s refusal to change the rules on contraception coverage, I’ve noticed that few commentators have referred to the formal name of the government mandate the bishops are fighting.
The provision is called the Affordable Care Act. This new law is intended to ensure the just treatment of women and couples who cannot afford adequate medical treatment when it comes to contraceptives and who want to raise families in a safe, responsible manner.
This act is a promising attempt to prevent unwanted pregnancies and offers perhaps the most ethical and realistic approach to reducing the abortion rate.
The bishops’ reaction was characterized by increasingly typical cries of victimization and hysteria. This self-pity only further diminishes the seriousness with which U.S. Catholics take the hierarchy. The sad truth is, if the numbers of Catholics leaving the church are any indication, most Catholics in the United States probably see the hierarchy more as victimizers than victimized.
Some have labeled this decision as President Barack Obama’s attack on Catholics, echoing the inflammatory, paranoid spin bishops are putting on any government decision that doesn’t go their way lately. This decision is not an attack on Catholics, but rather a groundbreaking move to protect women and to guarantee them greater access to adequate, affordable health care.
The decision demonstrates that protecting women’s health, safety and freedom is part of the common good. In this way, it reflects a key element of Catholic social justice teaching: promotion of the common good and protection of individual freedom.
Although the hierarchy has historically argued otherwise, the conscience of an individual Catholic laywoman or layman is not ipso facto inferior to the conscience of any bishop. As David DeCosse argued so articulately in NCR earlier this week, the model of conscience used by most bishops "emphasizes obedience, law, and hierarchical authority and thus departs from the Catholic tradition’s close linkage of conscience, practical reason, and freedom."
The decision affirms the Catholic principle of the "primacy of conscience." According to the Catechism, "A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his [sic] conscience" (No. 1790). Informing the conscience is a "life long task" (No. 1784) and "To this purpose, man [sic] strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his [sic] gifts" (No. 1788).
Lay Catholics will be permitted to exert their practical reason and freedom of conscience to choose, in an informed way, the medical practices and treatments that are healthiest for them and their families.
The hierarchy claims that this decision will force Catholics to either obey the law or violate their consciences. But whose consciences will be violated? According to the Guttmacher Institute, 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women (and, by association, their male partners) have used some form of contraception.
Perhaps Obama has learned, as many Catholic laypeople have, that the definition of the Catholic church encompasses far more people than the hierarchy. The church includes laypeople, theologians and ethicists who have, with good reason, rejected this doctrine. The majority of the church has refused to receive this teaching. Perhaps Obama saw, as many of us do, the bishops’ actions as an attempt to legislate beliefs that they cannot get their own people to obey.
In making this decision, the president represented the needs of the people and protected the civil rights of women and workers. This includes not only Catholic women and men, but also the many non-Catholics who are employed by organizations affiliated with the Catholic church. These workers will no longer be subjugated to a church teaching that, compared with other religious tradition, is rather extreme. Even conservative evangelicals do not object to the use of contraception within marriage.
Once women are allowed access to oral contraceptives, the hierarchy will be able to honor an overlooked provision in the church’s teaching. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 14 percent of women use oral contraceptives for purposes other than birth control. That is more than one in 10 prescriptions. According to Humanae Vitae, women can take the pill for medical purposes. For decades, the church has prevented these women from receiving essential medical treatment and has therefore acted contrary to its own doctrine.
When an employee obtains a prescription for the pill, the hierarchy does not know whether the purpose is medical or contraceptive. They assume, of course, that the pill is used for contraception. By allowing the hierarchy this exemption, the government would have allowed the church to continue to make decisions about their employees’ private, sexual lives.
If the bishops had been allowed that power, then they should have had exerted equal power in refusing to pay for prescriptions for Viagara, Cialis and other sexual performance drugs for men. They should have demanded the right to know how men would use these drugs. Are they using the drugs with their wives? Girlfriends? Mistresses? Would the church ever intrude on heterosexual men and their personal sexual lives in this way?
Perhaps the most important accomplishment achieved through this decision is the government’s refusal to create a precedent for religious organizations to get a pass from obeying civil rights laws. A few decades ago, individuals and organizations whose religious beliefs opposed desegregation wanted to be exempt from the Civil Rights Act. We can all look back in gratitude that the government refused their request.
If the bishops had gotten their way, it would have opened up a Pandora’s box in which any religious group could claim exemptions from obeying a multitude of laws on religious grounds. I have little doubt that part of what propelled this fight was the bishops’ desire to set a precedent on which they could base their refusal to provide benefits to employees in same-sex marriages and civil unions.
The fact is, Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies take in millions of dollars in federal and state grants every year. They should be accountable to the same civil rights laws given to other agencies that receive the same funding.
Some Catholic leaders have argued that, in order to meet the "narrow" exemption requirement, hospitals, schools, universities and social service agencies that do not want to comply with this new law will be forced to seriously reduce the number of people they employ and serve.
If this should happen, it might be one of the worst cases of the church’s honoring one teaching at the expense of dozens of others.
For more than a century, Catholic social justice teaching has argued for the rights of workers, especially the right to adequate medical benefits. More than a dozen church documents teach the preferential option for the poor, workplace justice, the protection of women’s rights, the primacy of the person and the common good.
There is only one teaching on contraception. It is a teaching that disregards the findings of the Majority Report of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control. It is a teaching that has also been rejected by the sensus fidelium.
Nevertheless, as leaders of Catholic institutions spend the next year adjusting to this new law, Catholic organizations will still contemplate turning away the sick, the poor, the orphan and others in need because they do not want to obey the civil rights laws set by the government that funds them. They are entertaining the possibility of violating dozens of social justice teachings in order to keep a hard line on a rule that almost no one accepts or follows.
Jamie L. Manson received her Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School, where she studied Catholic theology and sexual ethics. Her columns for NCR earned her a first prize Catholic Press Association award for Best Column/Regular Commentary in 2010.

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Self worth for Blue Monday

145 Self-Esteem Quotes Below

We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light. ~Mary Dunbar

When people believe in themselves they have the first secret of success. ~Norman Vincent Peale

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Don’t you dare, for one more second, surround yourself with people who are not aware of the greatness that you are. ~Jo Blackwell-Preston

There is a Divine and Infinite potential within every soul, an intimate access to the mind of God and the passion of the Universe ~K. Allen Kay

Yours is the energy that makes your world. There are no limitations to the self except those you believe in. ~Jane Roberts

Your chances of success in any undertaking can always be measured by your belief in yourself. ~Robert Collier

I wish I could show you, When you are lonely or in darkness, The astonishing light of your own being. ~Hafiz

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.

~Yogi Bhajan

Building Self Esteem Quotes – You Matter!

Tell me how a person judges his or her self-esteem and I will tell you how that person operates at work, in love, in sex, in parenting, in every important aspect of existence – and how high he or she is likely to rise. The reputation you have with yourself – your self-esteem – is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life. ~Nathaniel Branden

Having a low opinion of yourself is not "modesty". It’s self-destruction. Holding your uniqueness in high regard is not "egotism". It’s a necessary precondition to happiness and success. ~Bobbe Sommer

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love & affection. ~Buddha

Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves. ~Nathaniel Branden

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. ~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Appreciation and self-love are the most important tools that you could ever nurture. Appreciation of others, and the appreciation of yourself is the closest vibrational match to your Source Energy of anything that we’ve ever witnessed anywhere in the Universe. ~Abraham

Everybody is unique. Compare not yourself with anybody else lest you spoil God’s curriculum. ~Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer

All things splendid have been achieved by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance. ~Bruce Barton

By being yourself, you put something wonderful in the world that was not there before. ~Edwin Elliot

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. ~Malcolm S. Forbes

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid. ~Albert Einstein

Building Self Esteem Quotes –

You Are Unique!Wouldn’t it be powerful if you fell in love with yourself so deeply that you would do just about anything if you knew it would make you happy? This is precisely how much life loves you and wants you to nurture yourself. The deeper you love yourself, the more the universe will affirm your worth. Then you can enjoy a lifelong love affair that brings you the richest fulfillment from inside out. ~Alan Cohen

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you will ever own. ~Mary Schmich

There is so much love in your heart that you could heal the planet.~Louise Hay

Whatever you are doing, love yourself for doing it. Whatever you are feeling, love yourself for feeling it. ~Thaddeus Golas

You are as amazing as you let yourself be. Let me repeat that. You are as amazing as you let yourself be. ~Elizabeth Alraune

Twitter index: Twitterers recount sad moments on the ‘most depressing day of the year’ – Yahoo! News

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The Essence of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

To simplify, Ellis also talks about the three main irrational beliefs:

1. "I must be outstandingly competent, or I am worthless."
2. "Others must treat me considerately, or they are absolutely rotten."
3. "The world should always give me happiness, or I will die."

The therapist uses his or her skills to argue against these irrational ideas in therapy, or, even better, leads the client to make the arguments. For example, the therapist may ask…

1. Is there any evidence for this belief?
2. What is the evidence against this belief?
3. What is the worst that can happen if you give up this belief?
4. And what is the best that can happen?

In addition to argument, the REBT therapist uses any other techniques that assist the client in changing their beliefs. They might use group therapy, use unconditional positive regard, provide risk-taking activities, assertiveness training, empathy training, perhaps using role playing techniques to do so, encourage self-management through behavior modification techniques, use systematic desensitization, and so on.

Unconditional self-acceptance

Ellis has come to emphasize more and more the importance of what he calls "unconditional self-acceptance." He says that, in REBT, no one is damned, no matter how awful their actions, and we should accept ourselves for what we are rather than for what we have achieved.

One approach he mentions is to convince the client of the intrinsic value of him or herself as a human being. Just being alive provides you with value.

He notes that most theories make a great deal out of self-esteem and ego-strength and similar concepts. We are naturally evaluating creatures, and that is fine. But we go from evaluating our traits and our actions to evaluating this vague holistic entity called "self." How can we do this? And what good does it do? Only harm, he believes.

There are, he says, legitimate reasons for promoting one’s self or ego: We want to stay alive and be healthy, we want to enjoy life, and so on. But there are far more ways in which promoting the self or ego does harm, as exemplified by these irrational beliefs:

I am special or I am damned.
I must be loved or cared for.
I must be immortal.
I am either good or bad.
I must prove myself.
I must have everything that I want.

He believes very strongly that self-evaluation leads to depression and repression, and avoidance of change. The best thing for human health is that we should stop evaluating ourselves altogether!

But perhaps this idea of a self or an ego is overdrawn. Ellis is quite skeptical about the existence of a "true" or "real" self, ala Horney or Rogers. He especially dislikes the idea that there is a conflict between a self promoted by actualization versus one promoted by society. In fact, he says, one’s nature and one’s society are more likely to be mutually supporting than antagonistic.

He certainly sees no evidence for a transpersonal self or soul. Buddhism, for example, does quite well without it! And he is skeptical about the altered states of consciousness mystical traditions and transpersonal psychology recommend. In fact, he sees these states as being more inauthentic than transcendent!

On the other hand, he sees his approach as coming out of the ancient Stoic tradition, and supported by such philosophers as Spinoza. He sees additional similarities in existentialism and existential psychology. Any approach that puts the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the individual and his or her beliefs is likely to have commonalities with Ellis’s REBT.

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OCAL: "recovery from mental illness" support consumers of mental health services, advocate for the improvement of area mental health services.

A touching story

Last week, I took my grandchildren to a restaurant. My six-year-old grandson
asked if he could say grace. As we bowed our heads he said, "God is good,

God is great. Thank you for the food, and I would even thank you more if Nana

gets us ice cream for dessert and liberty and justice for all! Amen!"

Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby, I heard a woman
remark, "That’s what’s wrong with this country. Kids today don’t even know

how to pray. Asking God for ice cream! Why, I never!"

Hearing this, my grandson burst into tears and asked me, "Did I do it wrong? Is
God mad at me?"
As I held him and assured him that he had done a terrific job, and God was

certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table. He winked

at my grandson and said, "I happen to know that God thought that was a
great prayer."

"Really?" my grandson asked. "Cross my heart," the man replied. Then, in a

theatrical whisper, he added (indicating the woman whose remark had started
this whole thing), "Too bad she never asks God for ice cream. A little ice cream

is good for the soul sometimes."

Naturally, I bought my grandchildren ice cream at the end of the meal. My grandson
stared at his for a moment, and then did something I will remember the rest
of my life.

He picked up his sundae and without a word, walked over and placed it in
front of the woman. With a big smile he told her, "Here, this is for you.

Shove it up your ass, you grouchy old bitch! "

The End

OCAL: "recovery from mental illness" support consumers of mental health services, advocate for the improvement of area mental health services.

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These are big wolves and do we need them ?