Catholic fanaticism?

Recently the Catholic establishment put out the message that a proposed new law would take away religious freedom from Catholics.

My understanding of the proposal is that no actual Catholic believer would have been forced to stop believing anything, or would have been prevented from attending a worship service. Rather Catholic institutions in the health care business would not be allowed to decide on their delivery of services on the basis of merely religious teachings.

In other words, a Catholic health care service would (according to the new law) not be allowed

to refuse to provide a health service on the grounds that the Pope (or a holy book as interpreted by Catholic leaders) said it was wrong.

Since not everyone believes in the teachings of the Catholic Church, that is not an attack upon the Catholic Church or its members. It is merely upholding the freedom of people who are not Catholics to live their lives as they see fit.

I've skipped a step here; so, please allow me to back up. I, for one, don't agree with a universal ban on abortion. Nor, I believe, does the CC. However, there are cases where I think a woman should be allowed to have an abortion and the CC would disagree. Now, suppose that a woman asked for an abortion from a CC associated hospital. Would it be an infringement upon Catholic religious beliefs if the hospital were not allowed to say "no, because that is contrary to our beliefs"?

One immediate side-issue is the case of doctors whose conscience would not allow them to perform abortions. I certainly don't think they should be forced to carry out the procedure. On the other hand, are we to imagine that any health care facility (hospitals or clinics) only employee the most conservative Catholics? After all, 98% of Catholics in the USA use birth control, contrary to the pronouncements of the hierarchy.

So, there are some details here that matter.

However, the key point, as I see it, concerns fanaticism and the automatic assumption that if someone believes something on the basis of their religion, there can be no criticism, discussion or analysis of it. That automatic assumption leads to fanaticism and intolerance.

A basic principle of tolerance and non-fanaticism is at stake here. A Catholic can attempt to persuade me to change my mind about any issue. I would listen. But if the argument is "The Pope says....", or "The Bible says so", then that's not a good reason. The Catholic has to appeal to some general facts or principles agreed to by non-believers. Otherwise, the demand that I follow the Catholic notion is nothing but fanaticism.

And in this case, it does seem that fanaticism has triumphed.

Otherwise intelligent commentaries upon this issue failed to make this point. There was too much focus upon the issue of "weak or wishy-washy Obama". It is also true that if Catholics behave differently than their hierarchy recommend, and if Catholics can afford birth control whether or not their health insurance pays for it, then the upshot of all this will be that the poor or working class will be denied benefits available to the more prosperous. And that is heinous, as others have pointed out. It would be, once again, a retreat to the sort of dark world which existed in the 1850's when doctors and other professionals had smaller families while denying birth control to working families.

Acknowledgment: The basic point I make above derives, I believe, from a paper Richard Rorty wrote about democracy.