Bishop Murry’s letter appalling

Bishop Murry’s letter appalling

As a Roman Catholic, I am ap- palled by Bishop Murry’s letter that was distributed to every church in the Youngstown Diocese last Saturday and Sunday. The letter pertained to the recent ruling by the U.S. Department of Health, which announced that all employers in America must offer their employees health-care coverage that includes drugs used for the purposes of sterilization, abortion and contraception.

Hypocrisy is a bad word in the human vocabulary, and our Catholic Church is full of it. Insurance companies must offer equal coverage to every employee, and they must be cognizant of the fact that there are many workers of various religious denominations, atheists and agnostics. The Department of Health’s rule covers everyone getting drugs and services for sterilization, abortion and contraception. Essentially, people should be able to buy needed drugs and services and health-care insurance should pay.

An enormous number of couples use some form of birth control, and difficult as it may be for some people to accept, there are serious situations in which a woman may need to have an abortion, which, by the way, is a legal option in this country.

The population of this Earth is over 7 billion people, of which one-third lives in poverty, and millions upon millions are starving. In the face of this abomination, the Catholic Church is still clinging to a policy against any form of birth control.

Bishop Murry’s letter states, “We cannot, we will not, comply with this unjust law...” Well, the truth of the matter is that we cannot “cherry pick” which provisions of the health-care law we choose to comply with. The truth is also that we are not a flock of sheep fearing death, ruin and excommunication just because we do not agree with the Catholic Church. The ultimate truth is that we have been given tremendous gifts by God, two of which include the ability to reason and our own free will. We must use these to think for ourselves, distinguish bad from good and help our fellow human beings.

We should not teach people to disobey laws. They are made to protect every citizen of any faith or no faith. This act is unworthy of a church.

I do not want our bishop or any leader of the Catholic Church to derail any medical reforms for citizens of America. I am grateful that we have a government that is trying to protect every citizen with health care so that they can get the medicine, treatment and services needed, including contraception, sterilization and abortion.

We should recoil from hypocrisy and enjoy the freedom of religion and from religion that is a protection of our Constitution.

Valentino DeVito, Girard