by Chris Bodenner
A reader makes an important distinction in the debate over requiring religious institutions that serve the public to provide insurance that covers contraception:
Critics frame the issue as forcing the church to violate its theological stance on contraception. I have never seen this theological claim carefully defended. Yes, Catholics believe that individuals commit sin when those individuals use contraception. However, it has never been the theological position of the church that individuals and organizations have a moral requirement to coerce others to not use contraception. A good Catholic business owner who buys insurance for his workers is not expected to confess as a sin the fact that this insurance covers contraception. He is expected to confess if he or she uses contraception.
The new policy does not encourage individuals to use contraception against their will. Indeed, these religious organizations are still free to make the moral case to their employees that using contraception is wrong. I see no place in Catholic theology that supports the notion that the employer who pays for insurance that covers contraception is immoral.
If a church employee pays for pornography with wages paid to him by the church, do we say that the church is to blame or that the church paid for the pornography? No. If a person gets drunk on beer brewed by monks, are the monks committing the sin of debauchery by proxy? No. Is the Lord God Himself morally at fault for all anal sex because he induced men into this behavior by putting pleasurable nerve endings in the prostate? No.
The Church has a very well-articulated theology in which neither sins nor forgiveness are transitive across people (with the specific exception of original sin). As I understand a millennium of Church teaching regarding free will, sin, and forgiveness, the couple choosing to use contraceptives are morally culpable for that decision, regardless of whether they paid for the contraception out of pocket or via insurance. Similarly, the person or organization who paid for such insurance is not morally at fault for the freely-chosen decisions of all of the beneficiaries.
The Dish 