When Government Becomes God

North Carolina state law requires certain medical insurances to cover such things as contraception, sterilization and abortions. But it has an exemption for religious institutions.

However, the federal government wants to eliminate that exemption.

A Catholic college in Belmont, N.C., once more is afoul of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which has rules that Belmont Abbey College's decision to remove contraception from its faculty health care policy, in accordance with Catholic teaching, discriminated against women.

So do you obey your religious beliefs, or the federal government?

The capriciousness of putting politics into health care is at work in this case. The EEOC had already given the "all clear" to Belmont in March. Apparently someone at EEOC remembered that the new messiah lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and the decision was reversed.

College president Dr. William Thierfelder writes:

“The teaching of the Catholic Church on this moral issue is clear. The responsibility of the College as a Catholic College sponsored by the monks of Belmont Abbey to follow Church teaching is equally clear. There was no other course of action possible if we were to operate in fidelity to our mission and to our identity as a Catholic College.”

Who knows how this one will shake out. But you can bet that if the government annexes health care into its bosom, there will be many more such stories and tough decisions to be made.