Fr. Frank
Pavone
National Director, Priests for Life A lot of
attention was given recently to the Little Sisters of the Poor, and the way
that the Obama Administration wants to force them to cooperate in its plan
to expand access to contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs, and
sterilization. They are rightly saying “No,” and, like us at
Priests for Life, have said it through a federal lawsuit.
Like
the case of Priests for Life, their lawsuit initially resulted in a
judgment against them, with the court saying that the mandate did not in
fact pose a “substantial burden” to their religious freedom.
And like us, the Sisters went to the appellate court for an
emergency injunction against the mandate, which otherwise would have been
enforced against them starting on January 1.
This past New
Year’s Eve, the Little Sisters of the Poor and Priests for Life had
very similar experiences. December 31 came with no immediate protection
from the mandate, and the prospect of having it go into effect the next
day. December 31 also came with both groups having a request for an
emergency injunction in the hands of two different federal courts.
And the hours ticked by while we waited.
As morning turned
into afternoon, our attorney reminded us that in case the injunction were
denied, one of the things we could do was to send an emergency appeal to
the Supreme Court, and it would be assigned to one of the Justices to
either grant the injunction or not.
As things turned out, the
Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit granted the request of Priests for Life
for emergency injunction, just before
5pm. (Phone calls to the court just
before that said they were closed for the holiday, but we reached someone
who told us that everyone had left except the judges that were working on
our case, along with their clerks!)
For the Little Sisters of
the Poor, the request for emergency injunction was denied – and
hence, they had to take that second emergency step that we would have also
had to take: to go to the Supreme Court for the emergency injunction.
And before the day was over, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted
the temporary, emergency injunction for the Sisters. (In an odd twist of
appropriateness, a few hours later, we saw her on TV right here in NY City
pressing the button to lower the famous New Year’s Eve ball in Times
Square.)
I relate all this to paint a simple picture: two
Catholic groups, one run by religious sisters and one by priests, having to
demand, through emergency measures, that they not be forced to violate
their consciences. The group of sisters serves the poor; the group of
priests serves the poorest of the poor, the unborn. And both simply want to
do their work while worshiping God in the way they see fit.
Both of us got what we needed, at least for the moment. But the fact that
we had to fight for it – and still have to fight in the months to
come – is a sign of the fact that all of us always have to fight for
freedom. It can never be taken for granted.
