Unmask! Unmask!

I'd like to thank Fr. John Jenkins for finally coming clean with everyone and showing his true feelings on the issue of ND and the HHS mandate. Thanks to Riley for emailing me on this.

Recall that a court ruling against the university led to its weak-kneed capitulation to Obama's mandate that ND formally cooperate in sin. Recall also that it was Fr. Jenkins's decision to invite the president to ND where he insulted Catholicism and lied to those present about drafting reasonable conscience clauses and such.

Here is Fr. Jenkins's current take on the matter.

“Our complicity is not an evil so grave that we would compromise our conscience by going along,” Jenkins claimed, noting that it would cost Notre Dame $1 million per day if it did not comply.

Oh, so it is all about the money, then?

Then there's this:

“We’re complying under protest,” Fr. Jenkins responded. “We feel this is an infringement on religious freedom, but we have a variety of factors to consider, like legitimate government authority.” Father Jenkins sought to draw a distinction between Notre Dame giving out contraceptives directly and a third party distributing them: “I don’t see this as a scandal because we are not giving out contraceptives.”

This, dear readers, is very, very significant. ND's arguments in the HHS mandate case are pretty much the opposite of what Fr. Jenkins is saying here. In a very dirty nutshell, ND's attorneys say this is a problem whether ND is giving out contraceptives or not. The opposition says that ND should be fine because it isn't handing out contraceptives. Jenkins has effectively sided with them. This statement will probably come up again and again now.

And what is this crap about "legitimate government authority"? If it's a true infringement, then it isn't legitimate government authority. Even if the positive law allowed it, such a law would be immoral and therefore nobody would have an obligation to follow it. Whatever is going on here, trying to chalk it all up to "legitimate government authority" is just a cop out.

So again, thank you to Fr. Jenkins for letting us know whose side you're on.