In executing its HHS contraception edict, the Obama regime has simultaneously squelched Catholic military chaplains and promoted an inaccurate but state-sponsored version of "Catholicism."  This scary, couldn't-happen-here stuff provides us with two very important lessons.

First, the facts.  National Review has reported that the U.S. Army tried to strong-arm military chaplains into not reading their bishops' letters of condemnation of the recent HHS contraception mandate.  When this failed, the army was successful in editing the texts of the sermons to specifically exclude the statement "We cannot -- we will not -- comply with this unjust law."

This happened while, at the same time, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and others were subverting true Catholicism and promoting their own state-sponsored religion with the slimy use of schoolyard peer pressure.

Obama, from www.barackobama.com and repeated in USA Today:

Most women -- including 98 percent of Catholic women -- who have had sex have used contraception, according to a study by the Guttmacher Institute[.]

Even if accurate¹, this 98% statistic is a typically dishonest Obama utterance in that it describes "sexually experienced" Catholic women who have ever had sex and ever used birth control -- not those who are currently using it, or those who once used it but choose no longer to do so.  Using this logic, Obama could pass a law requiring all Catholics to sin simply because we know that 100% of Catholics have sinned (this, of course, is exactly what HHS has done).

When the same Guttmacher study turns to current usage of contraception, it considers only women who refer to themselves as "sexually active women who are not pregnant, postpartum or trying to get pregnant" and as "at risk of unintended pregnancy."  Excluding Catholic women who do not identify as "sexually active" or "trying to get pregnant" while including those who do identify as "at risk of unintended pregnancy" is blatant data-mining, on the very verge of excluding observant Catholics by definition...which suits Obama just fine.

Nancy Pelosi maintained Obama's fiction with her creepy take on the situation:

First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.

The Army-Obama-Pelosi coordination is obvious and troubling.

There are two very important lessons here.  First, there is no doubt that a state-sponsored war on Catholicism is actively underway.  This is not surprising, because the Obama election has been consistently misinterpreted to give validation to full liberalism, and full liberalism is founded on the pernicious myth of personal "selfism."

This loveless and disordered brand of freedom, with libertinism being its most visible manifestation, relies heavily on the shaky architecture of relativism (a different set of rules for each individual).  Libertines hate nothing more than to hear the words "You should not."  Full liberalism is therefore naturally threatened by -- and, if possible, demands the irrelevance of -- any significant objective moral system. 

The Catholic Church, with its dogma, magisterial authority, and two-thousand-year-old tradition, is the most visible and significant source of objective morals and norms in the world today.  It is liberal enemy number one.

Fortunately, the Catholic Church has overcome state-sponsored enemies many times before.  However, it has always done so with only the one-two punch of God's grace and human witness.  This gets to the second lesson. 

Lay Catholics -- not just bishops and priests -- must bear witness through their thoughts, words, and actions.  The mere fact that Obama, Pelosi, and others have accurately cited cafeteria Catholic practices as tenets of the state-sponsored faith proves Christ's words: "He who is not with me is against me" (Matt 12:30). 

As with all of His teaching, Christ said it, and He meant it.  Any faith that lacks external manifestations is false, and Christians must "not give others to understand, because of their passivity ... that they do not hold their faith to be the most important thing in their lives"².  Obama's and Pelosi's eager exploitation proves that Catholic-lite is not helpful in the witness and apostolate departments.

Regardless of how Catholics voted in 2008, they probably didn't anticipate having to choose between unjust government policies and their faith.  Although it may not seem so, such a choice is a gift -- a gift of the opportunity to visibly demonstrate one's convictions and faith.  It is an opportunity that, if courageously taken, will accrue interest in the soul bank and be of incorruptible benefit.  As Pope Pius XI said, "[l]et us thank God that he makes us live among the present problems.  It is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre."  Catholics, now is your chance.  An incredible opportunity has presented itself: the opportunity of witness.

So what's it going to be?  For or against?

¹ Consider a conflict that would never pass Sarbanes-Oxley muster: the President has cited data from the Guttmacher Institute, which as of Planned Parenthood's last tax filing (Schedule I-l, Form 990), had been funded by Planned Parenthood and whose founder, Alan Guttmacher, is a former Planned Parenthood President.

² Conversation with God, Francis Fernandez, p. 211.