Cardinal Dolan said this in reaction to a sit down he had with White House officials. In the meeting, the White House essentially tried to convince the Catholic authorities present (who were chosen by the USCCB) that they were and continue to be wrong in their interpretation of THEIR OWN Catholic beliefs! In brief, Catholics should get with the times. Also, it has been made clear that any adjustment, exception or compromise is off the table. This might seem oversimplified, but it's the truth.
Ok, so how can we look at this and understand what's going on here. What have we seen throughout history that there seems to be a norm in relation to power as it is found in daily life as well as in politics. It is one of our prideful human flaws to exercise power that we find ourselves in possession of and expecting others to accept it. Not only that, but when we get a little taste of power we often desire more of it so that we can have a firmer grip and a fuller control over whatever it is that we already control. Now, before you say, "Not me!" just hear me out and I think that you'll find it's not only true, but that it is possible to resist this temptation through a loving perspective.
Take, for example, one of the most potentially beautiful/destructive categories of relationships: siblings. The older sibling finds him/herself in a situation of power and while this is important to note it doesn't give the older sibling the right to control the younger sibling. Yet, without fail, every older sibling I have ever met has at some time sought to control different parts of their younger counterpart's lives. Granted many of these things are small, like snagging the last cookie away from the younger brother cause he, "Had too many already...". Silly, but it's part of control. Be it through verbal manipulation, scare tactics, the old "I'll tell if you do/don't" or the even older brute force strategy, the desire to mold the will of the other to one's match one's own will is seen manifested clearly and uncontroversially in siblings and that's why I chose this example. With four younger siblings, I confess that have used these and more in my selfish actions and it is these types of actions that deny my siblings at least part of their free will.
We see this in every stage of life, be it in high school when popularity is power, in the workforce where money, position and influence are power, in abusive marriages where strength and the ability to provide security (outside of abuse) can be power, in politics where political office, media platform and money are power and in the divisions of the international world where military power provides the means of control. Why does this seem to be a natural tendency and why is it wrong to want to control people in the first place?
This is where that loving perspective I mentioned earlier comes in. In order to take a "love"ing perspective, we must first ask the question of what love is? The very best and most concise definition of love that I've ever heard is the one I've gotten from a St Mary's Campus Minister for Texas A&M Marcel LeJeune and it is this:
"Love is willing only good for another, despite the cost to oneself"
Short and easy to remember, but also very deep. I should note that willing the good of others includes action and not simply good intentions. Now, what is the one factor that goes into love that, without it, love has no possibility to exist or even to grow into existence? Selflessness can be developed. Courage can be mustered up. Good intentions can come to be through empathy, but what is the one thing that is absolutely essential for love to exist?
It's free will. Love simply cannot exist without the presence of free will. Why else would God allow us to sin? Why would he let us turn away from Him even though it is better for us to choose God and to praise Him in everything we do. God doesn't need praise; we do. So what we can understand is that IF God made us and was controlling our every move so that we did not sin, it would mean that we would have no free will then we would not be our own persons but only extensions of God. That would mean that God doesn't love us. "Gasp!" "Kill the heretic!" Hear me out.
The thing about God is that He does love us, and Jesus is living, dying and rising proof of that. Love can't exist without the allowing of the free will of the one being loved. It follows then, if love is impossible without free will and the permission of free will, that where love doesn't exist a loving perspective is impossible. Confused yet?
So how does this all relate back to the desire for control? Well, basically what I've been getting at is that with a loving perspective we are able to withdraw from the want to control others so that they can experience freedom.
Freedom. If our country was founded on a single value or idea, it was freedom. It was liberty. It was the ability to know that we will be free to live our lives as citizens of the United States, made up of people from all over the world with every different faith. There can also be peace between people of all faiths and non-faiths. That we can live together without having our free will be stripped away. This is what the United States was made to mean but the desire for control is gripping those who find themselves in positions of power.
Some people within multiple branches of our government do not see that the beliefs Catholics profess against contraception are beliefs that can be considered permissible. This is an undermining of the most important principle that our country was founded and it is a result of some who have power who refuse to respect my faith and the faith of over a billion.
So, what our government lacks is a loving perspective or even a tolerant perspective, but I don't blame the government because they are a reflection of us as a culture. A culture that wants to be purely secular and many of those (many of us) who have faith are too embarrassed about our religious beliefs to boldly defend them. I think that all of this represents a spiritual and intellectual immaturity, and ultimately it boils down to the desire for control. Spiritually, we have no understanding of what true love is, and even less of a will to carry it out. Intellectually, we can't see that historically and logically when the state starts taking away freedom, little by little the country will take more and more control. We can see this in any relationship where an entity with power uses it to control a weaker or less devious entity.
You know how people say power is addictive? Well, I think I think they're slightly off. I think it's control that's addictive. It's not the ability that people crave. It's exercising control to better their own cause that drives the desire to control. I could write about this forever but I think one thing needs to be said.
Control is not freedom. The forced buying of anything, much less something believed to be evil is not freedom.
No Freedom = No Love
Lovelessness = Godlessness
Godlessness = Serious Problems for Everybody
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