Today marks a long-fought, significant win for my friends at the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D. (I’m on the board of regents there). Patrick Reilly from the Cardinal Newman Society tells the good news:
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Biden administration is violating the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Its implementation of the Affordable Care Act infringes upon the conscience rights of Catholic organizations without making a reasonable effort to avoid conflicts with the First Amendment. The rule forces medical facilities and programs that receive federal money from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to perform “sex reassignment” procedures, and religious organizations are not exempted. Any employer receiving HHS funds must also cover such “sex reassignment” procedures as well as abortion and sterilization in their employee health insurance plans.
It’s this latter requirement that directly impacts the University of Mary, which has been fighting the rule together with the Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Mary of the Presentation, Diocese of Fargo, State of North Dakota and Becket Fund attorneys since November 2016. The Trump administration halted the rule for a short while, but the Biden administration reinstated it as part of an authoritarian campaign to force gender ideology upon Americans — but Friday’s ruling dealt a severe blow to the administration.
“This is all a profound relief,” University of Mary President Msgr. James Shea told me on Friday. He admitted that the University had not been eager to take on the federal government: “We did not take this course of action lightly and were under no illusions that it was a trivial matter to challenge a powerful agency. . . . But we felt we had no choice.”
Health-related programs are among the University of Mary’s most important contributions to Catholic education. The university offers quality programs in nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech and language pathology, radiologic technology, respiratory therapy, exercise science, athletic training and social work. It is one of only a few American institutions offering a master’s degree in bioethics, in partnership with the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
Firmly grounded in Catholic teaching, these programs are of great value to the Church and to Catholic healthcare, graduating students who are prepared to meet today’s enormous ethical challenges.
“The integrity of our mission as a Catholic university is so important to us at the University of Mary,” Msgr. Shea told me, “and we have been painstaking and intentional in crafting our policies and plans so that we can sincerely welcome and serve all persons while also defending our resolve to conduct the university and all of its activities in accord with Catholic teaching.”
Read more here.
Monsignor Shea was awarded the Becket Fund’s Canterbury Medal this past spring on behalf of Becket’s medical plaintiffs. He gave a beautiful remarks, one that was a rallying cry for Christians to be Christians, to overwhelm the world with the light of the Gospel:
Let’s just consider for a moment the possibility that modern progressive secularists might be harassing us not out of malice, at least not at first, but because we haven’t convinced them that we’re for real, that there’s such a thing as fierce, unyielding allegiance to the invisible world.
They just can’t believe that we’re for real, because otherwise how could they think that we would trade in our ancient beliefs for some weird, new religion with doctrines and precepts like these?:
The Little Sisters of the Poor have to pay for my morning-after pills or else they can’t care for the dying.
The University of Mary and the Religious Sisters of Mercy have to pay for my sex change or else they can’t provide education or health care.
A religion with such beliefs is literally unbelievable, and yet it comes at us furiously, armed with inquisitions and excommunication, banishing our core convictions straight out of the American Constitutional order, seeding and ripening the bitter fruit of division and alienation. “Who would believe what we have heard?” (Isaiah 53:1).
There must be some kind of misunderstanding.
So what could we do to convince an unbelieving world with clarity that we really exist?
How about if we began to wave our arms and say something like this: we see your compelling state interest in dignity, health, equality, and freedom… and we’ll raise you double. Your regulations and rules claim to achieve certain ends in regard to dignity, health, equality, and freedom, but we have a body of practices and beliefs about sex, marriage, and parenting that achieve the same ends in a more effective way, in a way that better supports the vulnerable and children and those who are suffering the most, and we have empirical data to support our position.
Moreover, you tell us not to hate people with gender dysphoria, but how could we ever hate them? How could we ever bear rancor in our hearts for women and men who carry in their lives and personal experience such pain and bewilderment? You want us to be tolerant, but we won’t be tolerant. We can do much better than tolerance. Instead of just tolerating people, we’ll rush out to meet them, we’ll embrace them as they are. We’ll say, “Hello. I won’t pay for your sex change surgery, but that doesn’t mean that you’re a bothersome problem, that you’re my enemy. And those who tell you that I’m your enemy are lying to you. I’ll listen to you and care for you as long as I can and in every way that I can. You are not a problem. You are my brother, my sister, and God put you in my life for a purpose. In darkness and confusion, you can count on me for genuine support and to speak the truth in love.”
You don’t have to go to Bismarck in the winter to appreciate the witness they give to how to live. I think that every time I’m on campus: If these people are our next generation of leaders, raising families, we’ll be okay. This is because they live as if they’ve actually heard the Sermon on the Mount. How about more of us do the same?