Detroit auxiliary gives wide-ranging interview on HHS mandate, critics
Detroit — Shortly after the Stand Up For Religious Freedom rallies on March 23, Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Michael Byrnes sat down with The Michigan Catholic’s editorial board for an in-depth discussion of the Obama administration’s contraception mandate and its impact on religious institutions. The Michigan Catholic began with the bishop by asking about the nationwide rallies:
THE MICHIGAN CATHOLIC: Does it give you heart, does it encourage you, to see so many Catholics and others coming out and supporting the Church on this issue?
Bishop Byrnes: Yeah, it was very encouraging. I was especially encouraged by the large number of youth that were there, particularly when the Students for Life kind of upstaged (rally organizer) Dr. (Monica) Miller — that was very cool. The broad support from a variety of different parishes was very encouraging.
MCN: Has there been more public support than you expected?
Bishop Byrnes: I don’t know about support, as far as the general public goes. I was pleased that it made it into the paper — at least the online version of the Free Press that I get. It’s at least getting some public notice, but in general, I don’t feel like from the public point of view that they’ve caught that there’s a freedom issue going on here. So I’m a little mixed about that.
MCN: Apart from the mandate itself, the Church takes a very serious stand on fertility and sexuality issues. Can you start by explaining what the Church’s stand is and why it takes that stand, especially when it comes to issues of contraception?
Bishop Byrnes: Well, the primary issue here in contraception is that we take seriously God’s creation of man and woman; his purpose for man and woman is very clearly family. “It is not good for man to be alone” means not just that he should have a partner, but that humans should live in human society and that when two become one flesh, that’s meant to be a permanent union, and it’s within that union that children should be brought forth.
We understand marriage to have two goods that must always be preserved throughout the marriage: One is the union of the couple. But actually the priority is on procreation — the gift of children. One of the things that contraception does is that it denies, effectively, that children are a gift, and that’s a broader issue that I think touches some of the other questions about our fertility practices. Children are seen as— I would contend, in the broader country and maybe the world — kind of a commodity that I have a right to have when I want it and I have a right not to have when I don’t want it. A child is always a gift from God. It’s not something we can exercise control over. And so the thing about contraception is that it protects only one of the goods of sexuality — namely the union of the partners — and it effectively excludes the possibility of procreation.
In teaching this, we’re not saying that parents should not be responsible about having children, but that they should recognize that the great gift of the sexual expression of marital intercourse is meant to protect two goods at the same time, and we shouldn’t exclude one on behalf of the other.
In a certain way, contraception demeans the marital act. As we’ve seen, it’s become almost in many circumstances recreational instead of a kind of holy union. When God says in the Bible that “the two shall become one flesh,” that’s what he’s talking about here! It’s a holy thing intended by God, and to turn it into recreational purposes is really demeaning. And it just changes the whole idea of what children are and who they are.
MCN: Some people don’t seem to understand that the Church simply can’t violate its conscience on this issue, that it’s not a matter of the Church just swallowing this pill — not to use a metaphor. And some people might suggest that the social ministries that the Church is engaged in might outweigh the evil of being forced to provide contraception. But then others cite James 2:10, “Whoever keeps the whole law but falls short in one particular has become guilty in respect to all of it.” Does that play into the Church’s thinking for why it’s simply not an option to violate our consciences on this issue?
Bishop Byrnes: Exactly. We don’t have exemptions. There’s no exemption from the moral law that we can just say “Well, I’m gonna claim that now.” (It’s not like) Jesus gives us, you know, nine out of 10 commandments — no problem, you’re OK, you’re batting .900. And that’s the idea behind the James passage.
The public understanding of the Church is so small, so lacking. In a lot of ways we’re sort of regarded as like another General Motors, or maybe an advanced Red Cross — that we’re a service industry in a certain way. And so as in any industry, you have policies and you can always change your policies.
(But) we understand ourselves as existing by the direct command of Jesus Christ and guided throughout the centuries by the Holy Spirit to carry on what Jesus teaches. We teach this because by the best of our understanding, this is what Jesus teaches, and we can’t go against that. It would be a total violation of who we are. Then they bring up that it’s not being received by our people. And that’s a failure in some part on us as the bishops and as priests who’ve not been able to really help our people really understand it and receive it, perhaps. That’s a failure, but it’s not evidence or a warrant for us to let go of the teachings and say “well, that didn’t work.” It would be a betrayal of Jesus Christ from our understanding.
MCN: A lot of the debate has focused on this religious exemption from this contraception mandate, but from the Church’s perspective, that’s not all that it’s about, is it? It’s also about a broader respect for conscience rights, such as private employers who might object to this rule. Is that a big consideration?
Bishop Byrnes: It is a big consideration, and it gets to another moral principle that the Church uses — that seems arcane, I know, it seems very mysterious — but the idea of formal and material cooperation with evil. And again, it’s something that’s almost entirely opaque to the modern mind: that to provide the means for another to commit what you understand to be a moral evil is to be in a certain way, an accomplice, to use a term that people understand. And to be an accomplice to moral evil, is evil.
And again it seems too difficult for the world to understand — in extraordinary cases they can get it —but I guess when they don’t understand this to be evil, it’s harder for them to understand. In that case, that’s where we’re concerned about our people, and all people of good will. We’re not the only ones that have this idea that supporting immoral acts is wrong and there are plenty of other Christians and people of other religious faiths working as doctors or pharmacists or employers of many people for whom this would be a tremendous burden of conscience.
MCN: How would the Church answer supporters of the mandate who say this is more about women’s access to contraception versus the Church’s right not to provide it?
Bishop Byrnes: Well, I think for one thing, maybe we can make a couple of distinctions. I know that there are some health conditions that a woman can contract for whom birth control pills support their health. I know from my own history, my mother had to have a hysterectomy or else she would have died on the table, and essentially she took birth control pills for the estrogen, for the hormonal treatment.
That’s a medical condition that’s being treated, and we’re supportive of that. We would not understand this as a medical issue. Pregnancy is not a disease to be prevented. And there are other non-chemical ways that don’t affect a woman’s health in which to prevent pregnancy. There’s the one obvious one.
Also, contraception is elective, based on one’s personal choices. And somebody said it’s about $50 a month. You pay more than that for your monthly cable bill, more than that for your cellphone bill. Access to it is very easy and relatively cheap.
MCN: A couple weeks after this mandate became public, the White House and the Obama administration announced what they called a “compromise” to the issue, which to my knowledge stated that rather than the religious institutions paying for the birth control, that it would be the insurance companies who would have that financial burden. But the United States bishops came out against that amendment. What was the problem with that compromise?
Bishop Byrnes: In a sense it was a compromise without a compromise. Just on the base principle of realism, insurance companies are there to make money. They are not going to absorb the cost out of the goodness of their hearts to provide funding for contraceptive care. It’s still going to come out of the premiums that are paid for the plan in general. So it’s a compromise in words, which is nice, but it’s not a compromise in the reality of that material cooperation with something we regard as moral evil.=
MCN: What about people who might say that the Church sometimes employs people who are not Catholic — that the Church is forcing its beliefs upon its employees by not providing them the choice to have contraception in their health plan?
Bishop Byrnes: Well, I’d say they know who they’re working for. And in that respect it’s at least a mutual choice. I’d also say that — again, going back to that earlier answer — we’re not dealing with a medical condition, per se; we’re dealing with another kind of issue. I know that’s a popular thing to throw at us, but by not providing them contraception for free, we’re in no way preventing them from purchasing them themselves, or I suppose even purchasing a rider to the insurance policy that would allow them to get them at a reduced cost that they would pay. So I think there’s ways around that that may or may not be morally acceptable, but I think there’s a negotiable space there. But we’re not forcing them not to buy contraceptives. We’re just saying we’re not going to pay for them.
MCN: Other people bring up the argument that the Church sometimes receives government grants, government money to run their institutions, their hospitals, their universities, and that because of that, critics might say that the Church should be forced to abide by whatever rules the government sets. What’s wrong with that kind of thinking?
Bishop Byrnes: Well, I think the government makes a decision to support activities that they see as beneficial to the common good. And within that, it’s kind of a contractual situation.
I know there are other cases where the government has decided not to fund Catholic agencies for some of the things they do because we do not provide the kinds of services like this — the whole situation in Illinois with the foster care — that they decided “well, since you’re not going to play by our rules, we’re going to take away the money.” And that’s their prerogative. But the ones who suffer most are the poor foster kids that are not being cared for, or the migrants, immigrants and refugees who are not being cared for. And even the public media has noted that the (Church’s services are the) best people out there, especially the migration and refugee services that the bishops provided, was one of the top. So the common good suffers, and that’s something to be noted here.
But what they’re doing is going beyond that because they’re saying on the one hand, “we’re going to contract for these services that support the common good, but now we’re going to tell you what you have to do internally.” And that’s breaching that wall between church and state. They’re saying — and this gets back to the religious exemption thing — “we’re going to define what it means to be a religious employer.” And (they’re saying) these people aren’t because they’re in league with us. And they’re invading the internal workings of these institutions.
MCN: With all the attention this has gotten, do think it’s become somewhat of a teachable moment for the Church, especially on its beliefs on sexuality and contraception? Is this good in a sense that it gets this issue back before the public and gives the Church a platform to talk about its beliefs?
Bishop Byrnes: I think so, very much. In fact, somebody spoke on our “ad limina” visit with one of the officials of the (Vatican’s) Secretariat of State. He mentioned something very similar to that, just acknowledging that especially about contraception, there’s been so little reception of the teaching — and a lot of Catholics just don’t understand it, he said, but they do understand freedom. Like you say, I think it’s a very teachable moment, and I hope we’re able to mobilize well enough to take advantage of that.
MCN: What would you say is the No. 1 misconception the public has about this contraception mandate, about this issue in general?
Bishop Byrnes: That it’s about contraception, and what I’ve seen in the paper that it’s about denying women rights over their own bodies. And from our point of view, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about religious freedom, and it’s about this unwarranted definition of what religion means. That it means simply what happens on Sunday.
MCN: Now that the rallies are over, what would you say are some of the best things that Catholics who care deeply about this issue can do to stand up and make their voices heard and help fight this mandate?
Bishop Byrnes: The United States bishops are in the process of considering pursuing litigation, and so that’s one avenue of addressing this. But what we really need is legislative address to this issue and a statutory recognition of the rights of both institutions and individuals. And I’d say whatever people can do to promote this legislative reform would be helpful. I just got information about the Michigan Catholic Conference Legislative Advocacy Network today. That would be a very good thing to direct people to. They’ve set up a pretty user-friendly way of contacting one’s legislators to encourage that. Legislators listen. If enough people bend their ear, if they’re not entirely ideologically set against it, they’ll listen.
MCN: Your Excellency, thank you for the time. We can definitely keep praying.
Bishop Byrnes: Amen.
