GOVERNMENT & PUBLIC BIGOTRY AGAINST PRIESTS & THE CHURCH

The following news story is very telling about the unwarranted incursion of government and others into the practice and teachings of religion.

Catholic Chaplain Ruled Victim of Bias at US Federal Agency

Washington, Mar. 1, 2007 (Canes.com)

A US federal tribunal has reinstated a Catholic chaplain at the National Institutes of Health (NIGH), finding that the priest was the victim of anti-Catholic discrimination.

Father Henry Heffernan was removed from his post at the NIH because “the agency discriminated against [Heffernan] on the basis of religion,” ruled the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The NIH case against Father Heffernan was based on the priest’s refusal to accept the agency’s call for a “generic” chaplaincy, in which ministers of different religious backgrounds performed services for all denominations. Father Heffernan had insisted that Catholic sacraments can only be administered by Catholic priests.

In an earlier finding in favor of the priest, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said that Father Heffernan was the victim of a “discriminatory and retaliatory animus.” NIH supervisors, the EEOC reported, had made openly anti-Catholic jokes and boasted of their determination to remove the Catholic chaplain.

Irving Kator, an attorney for Father Heffernan, commented that the NIH behavior had been “an astonishing abuse of First Amendment rights.” The agency, he said, “was punishing a Catholic priest for embracing his religion.”

Part of the trouble is that Protestant ministers with non-liturgical traditions (unlike Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians and Catholics) often do not really understand or respect matters like ordination and established ceremonials or sacraments). It is a blind spot in their training. They think that anyone can do it. We see a similar phenomenon in the emergence of so-called “non-denominational” churches. There is no such thing and Catholics should not be suckered in by such efforts at proselytization. Non-denominational churches are all Protestant churches!

I know one Catholic priest who was dismissed from active service in the Navy because Protestant ministers complained that priests were never passed over for promotion while they routinely lost officers. Of course, there are so many Protestant chaplains, and applicants, that they are falling over each other. There is a dire shortage of Catholic priests, now made even worse by efforts to appease resentful Protestants. Another priest friend had to litigate against the government, with no real support from the bishops, when he was told that he could not pass out pro-life literature at his services. He won his case as well, by the way.

There was a story a few years ago about a military base where the commander was Catholic and close to the contract priest who offered Sunday Mass.  Together they established a Knights of Columbus Council that met regularly on the base.  However, when a new commander came on board, from an Evangelical background, he forbade the Knights of Columbus from meeting on the base and restricted the activities of the priest as well.  That case also went to court as I recall.

Recently there was the issue of US military use of vaccines derived from aborted children. Can a Catholic who views collaboration with abortion as murder and a mortal sin be obliged to take such medical obscenities? This story is still being played out. It should be noted that many Catholics have taken such vaccines, unaware of their immoral sources.

Outside of the military, our children are told that they cannot pray or mention God at commencement ceremonies. Ministers and priests who offer prayers for political assemblies throughout the nation are told to make generic prayers and not to make the sign of the cross or to mention the name Jesus.

I recall a prayer service at a nursing home (one established in Washington DC with an old Congressional mandate) where an Episcopalian priestess (the paid chaplain) told the clergy that we could each offer a short prayer, but not to mention the name Jesus. Out of hundreds of patients there had been one Jewish lady (who had already died) and several agnostics. Most of the clergy duly complied. A Baptist minister and I looked at each other with the same expression of upset. “How do you feel about this?” I asked. “Not so good,” he responded.

I got up when it was my turn and started with the sign of the cross, talked about our hope and healing in Christ, the saving name of Jesus and ended with a Hail Mary for good measure. The minister was smiling throughout, even during the Marian prayer. He got up and began to preach. He must have mentioned the name Jesus thirty or forty times. The chaplain stared at both of us with a killing glance. Each minister should have been allowed to offer the prayers of his (or her faith). I am not offended by differences, only by censorship and bigotry. The rabbi offered his prayer to God, and even finished with a little Hebrew. We were not offended, but neither should his prayer have represented the boundary to our own. If a Muslim Imam had been there, or in a parliament or courtroom, I would expect him to pray his prayer without guidance from me or anyone else.

I must add that this same nursing home chaplain often tried to give Holy Communion to Catholics, even though they rightly rejected her and her sacrament as bogus (at least from an RC perspective).  A friend of mine took over for me there and he was threatened by the Episcopalian priestess for giving Last Rites to hospice patients “without her permission”.  The Catholic nurse who regularly called the priest almost lost her job over this.  The priestess was certainly free to take care of her own and the Protestant community, but she had no right to play priest with Catholics.