Category: Eye on the Capitol

Catholics are deeply involved in the debate over health care reform. Led by the bishops, acting through the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholics have pressed three major points: 1) health care should be accessible to all; 2) abortion is not health care and government funds should not pay for it; and 3) immigrants should have access to health care.

These positions should surprise no one. The bishops have embraced the idea that all Americans should have access to affordable health care since 1919. And the bishops have consistently opposed funding abortion and supported humane policies for immigrants.

Abortion proponents raised a public outcry after passage of the House health care bill earlier this month.

They criticized action taken by 240 members of the House of Representatives to approve an amendment offered by Representative Bart Stupak (D-Michigan). The Stupak amendment maintains a “status quo” approach to the federal funding of abortion.

The inclusion of the Stupak amendment in the House bill shocked those who would like taxpayers to pay for abortion coverage. Their reaction has been to misrepresent the amendment’s impact by suggesting that it will reach beyond current law.

They are wrong.

At the end of nearly every legislative floor period, one or two issues galvanize citizen interest. For the floor period that ended on November 5, a debate over how to best instruct schoolchildren about sexuality was one such issue.

In early November, the Assembly debated and narrowly passed Assembly Bill 428. This bill, described by supporters as the “Healthy Youth Act,” would change the rules for providing sex education in important ways.

Supreme court opinions at the state or federal level offer insights into how society changes its mind on key questions. Over the past 40-plus years, the rulings of the Wisconsin Supreme Court on matters related to religion show such a change — a change more favorable in its treatment of religion.

Article 1, Section 18, of the Wisconsin Constitution says the following:  “The right of every person to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of conscience shall never be infringed; nor shall any person be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, without consent; nor shall any control of, or interference with, the rights of conscience be permitted, or any preference be given by law to any religious establishments or modes of worship; nor shall any money be drawn from the treasury for the benefit of religious societies, or religious or theological seminaries.”

In 1919, the U.S. bishops endorsed the idea that all Americans should have access to affordable health care. Ninety years later we are still waiting for that idea to be realized and our nation is engaged in a serious debate as to whether the vision of 1919 will finally come to pass.

In the short term, the outcome of the debate is in doubt. Thoughtful people have raised legitimate concerns about the cost of the program and the proper balance between the public and private sectors. And no plan can include abortion in any package of mandated benefits and issues.

But in the long term, the realities of the economic upheaval currently underway will make reform inevitable. For the trends in our society that make universal access to health care attractive are not going away.

The state budget is a fixture of every legislative session. It holds “center stage” for the first several months of every odd-numbered year before it becomes law. Once it is adopted, the legislature turns its attention to other matters.

Every budget reflects the fiscal and political reality in which it is debated and enacted. The 2009 budget was shaped first and foremost by Wisconsin’s dire fiscal situation and the obligation of the governor and legislature to deal with a more than six billion-dollar gap between spending commitments and available revenues.

Last fall, I mentioned that the principle of solidarity is one theme of Catholic social teaching that has special relevance in tough economic times.

Solidarity is the recognition that all human life is social and that we are connected to each other. Solidarity reminds us, as Pope John Paul II once wrote, “all are responsible for all.”

Just as people are connected, so too are the issues and public policies that reflect our way of life. A number of issues currently being discussed at the State Capitol drive this reality home.

Budgets are mostly about numbers. Numbers of taxes collected and numbers of dollars spent. But budgets are also fundamentally about people and the priorities of the community. In ways large and small, budgets can affirm values and arrange laws and policies in ways that favor personal choices.

Budgets are generally not the place to settle questions like whether abortion should be legal. But individual budget items can encourage or discourage women who are facing the choice of whether to carry a pregnancy to term and give life to the child they carry.

Whenever we at the Wisconsin Catholic Conference talked to groups last year about the US Bishops’ statement on political responsibility, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, we emphasized that faithful citizenship is about more than voting. It is about doing the hard work of citizenship on a year-round basis.

In the coming weeks, Catholics around the state who want to live out their call to be faithful citizens will have a chance to do so — by attending one of six hearings on the 2009 budget bill. The hearings, conducted by the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance will take place over a two-week period beginning on Monday, March 23, and concluding on Friday, April 3.

Anyone who wants to know how much our society values vulnerable children need only take note of two hearings held in the same city, Madison, on the same day, February 4th, to get an answer: nowhere near as much as we should.

Beginning at 10 a.m., a joint hearing by the two legislative committees that address issues affecting children and families heard testimony from a variety of perspectives on “The State of Wisconsin’s Families and Children in an Economic Crisis.”