JOB DID SHOW HIS PATIENCE, AFTER ALL THAT

It’s the future. Catholic hierarchy failed to convince secular authorities that religious freedom under the First Amendment meant the government could not force church-backed organizations to buy insurance that gave its employees free contraceptives and paid abortions, and the other sexual passes.

Now (it is still the future) Catholic hospitals, schools and colleges, charities and other eleemosynary organizations must pay the government stiff fines for failing to provide their employees such insurance coverage. For Catholics, it has always been God and country. Now they must choose. The University of Notre Dame [I hope as a ’51 grad] chooses God. Its accountants tell it that the university will go broke in matter of a year or two by defying the government. It will have to dig into its massive endowment of several billion dollars to say alive. Meanwhile, many of its Protestant and Jewish professors decamp along with a Catholic or two.

Elsewhere in the Catholic community of health-givers, educators and charities, many groups hang tough. Some, especially hospitals, have to close because of the onset of federal regulation overseen by bureaucrats whose hubris braces the overarching power of regulation.

People – Catholic and non-Catholics – who had jobs are now unemployed. Patients and impoverished clients are now without the help they were getting. Public institutions performing similar tasks are now flooded with imperiled people seeking help. Some what-have-we-wrought?-politicians emerge with the closures.

But what of the Church and its loyal members who have upheld doctrine over material wellbeing? They are beginning to understand the minds of countless Catholics who suffered persecution in the past, whether that be the “mild” type encountered by immigrant Irish and Italians in the early part of the 20^th century or that of the priests and nuns tortured and sometimes executed by the Nazis or the Christians killed by gnawing lions in the Coliseum of ancient Rome.

These, perhaps, soon to be persecuted Catholic leaders and church members will feel more like the Christians who manage to exist in countries ruled by Sharia law. Or like the Chinese Catholics that refuse to follow the state-imposed church.

But, what of the rank- and-file Catholic? Even before the ham-handed government lowered the boom, fallen- away Catholics undoubtedly outnumbered the practicing Catholic. What about the nominal Catholics who attend Mass most Sundays but believe contraception is okay? Are they standing with the brave and loyal Catholic hospital administrators and university presidents and charity executives who pay fines or close shop rather than violate their consciences?

So, let’s suppose all this bad stuff happens. The Church will suffer. More brickbats will be tossed. News purveyors will pile on, portraying practicing Catholics as dupes of the papist Vatican. Neighbors will become naysayers of Catholic teaching. Churchgoer numbers will probably fall precipitously.

And God will let it happen.

Historically, persecution has weakened the Church before it grows stronger. Like immunization, a little bit of the bug grows resistance to the disease.   

Job was beset with deaths in his family, boils and other painful afflictions. This Old Testament figure still cited when someone is said to have “the patience of Job,” is meant to be the consolation for sufferers. His misfortune is not a sign of hatred, says the Catholic Encyclopedia, but the proof of Divine love.

Could it be that God will permit the United States mandate-behemoth to force a pillow over the mouth and nostrils of the Church to encourage it to struggle for life, life more vigorous for the effort?

Job came out all right. He’s in Heaven.

His – ours? – was a struggle. We must continue to struggle.