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Timothy Cardinal Dolan ramped up the rhetoric in his battle with the White House over contraception policy yesterday — and promised some political payback.
“Don’t impose your teaching upon us and make us do as a church what we find unconscionable to do!” the freshly minted prince of the church told a roaring crowd of 1,000 at Holy Trinity Diocesan HS in Hicksville, LI, referring to a government plan to mandate that religious institutions provide free contraception to workers.
“The Health and Human Services fight is a freedom-of-religion battle. It is not about contraception. It is not about women’s health,” Dolan said.
“No, we are talking about an unwarranted, unprecedented, radical intrusion into the interior life of, integrity of a church’s ability to teach, serve and sanctify on its own.”
In a blistering attack interlaced with humor, Dolan never mentioned President Obama by name — only his policies. And the cardinal promised to put the political muscle of 78 million American Catholics to work against the enemies of free religion.
“President Johnson said, as an American, I look to the church — I look to religion as a beehive. If you leave them alone, they’re going to give you tons of their honey. But if you stick your head in there, you’re going to get stung bad.”
The cardinal, dressed in black and wearing his priestly collar, warned that the sting may come in the voting booth.
“I’d recommend starting voter-registration drives at our parishes. Not only is it going to help churches, it is going to help our American republic. More voters the better.”
And he said he’s confident he’s not alone in the fight.
“We look up and see people who share our values and our vision,” he said.
Washington softened its stance on the contraception issue last month, saying insurers would foot the bill — not the church’s schools, hospitals or clinics directly.
But on his blog, Dolan said he and the bishops “are still as worried as ever” about the proposed regulation by the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Dolan, the de-facto leader of the American Catholic Church, didn’t shy away from other controversies.
“I thought there’s a vocation, a call to marriage, responsible entry into marriage,” he said. “I don’t recall a right to marriage. Now we hear there is a right to sterilization, abortion and chemical contraception.”
He continued, “I suppose we could say there might be some doctor who would say to a man who is suffering some sort of sexual dysfunction, ‘You ought to start visiting a prostitute to help you, and I will write you a prescription, and I hope the government will pay for it.’
“We live in an era that seems to discover new rights every day and then expects government and culture and society to pay for it. The church emphasizes responsibility more than rights.”
The St. Louis native started off his 50-minute speech with lighter fare — baseball.
“When I got here, somebody said, ‘Are you going to be a Mets fan or a Yankees fan?’ I said in this instance, I can be pro-choice.”
After the laughs, the cardinal came out swinging.