The Catholic religion, following out the Lord’s command, has always numbered care of the sick among the Corporal Works of Mercy and a requirement of charity. We know that the immense costs of health care cannot be borne by everyone in society from private resources and so government becomes involved. But we know the sad progression of events once government, any government, intervenes in the private business of individual citizens. Time out of mind — citizens of truly free countries have known that what the government does it 1) does badly and 2) seeks to control absolutely.

So, Catholics have to walk a narrow line to be sure that what we are bound to wish in Christian charity does not turn out to be a death wish, by expanding an increasingly totalitarian government seeking absolute control of our economic system by controlling health care, its largest single component.
We just finished Fortnight for Freedom and the Catholic people who participated in it actively deserve credit for so doing. Nationally we are bereft of the Catholic leadership we used to have. But looking at the whole situation I am convinced, as a private person, that Catholics can have religious freedom pure and intact if they want it.

You and I know that Americans are startlingly oblivious as to what goes on in the political world around us. We know that many in government are wasteful and many are inept. We are asked over and over again to punish altogether lightly astounding

defalcations on the part of government. We know that presidents lie and that high government officials desert their duty, and that

41 percent of our people have not bothered to consider the health care law and its consequences at all. And the few who do are forced into reading largely unintelligible court opinions.

One almost wishes for Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France early in the 19th century. He was by some lights at once an aspiring leader and a terrible tyrant. He set for himself the task of revising into a code the laws of France with one aim, namely that any Frenchman who could read could understand the law and its consequences. Judges could not interpret the law but could only say whether or not a given law applied to a perspective case. Lawyers decried this development, but it seems the French people liked it.

As Catholic people we have to work toward a sensible system of health care that will allow patients to collaborate with their physicians in arranging their own health care and at the same time make it available to all. To me this will be a difficult task requiring a great deal of effort. It should be guided by health care professionals, and not by government minions.

The point of all of this is that we really have no business as Catholics to condemn Obamacare totally, unless we have something to put in its place. To make it a mere partisan issue is not only to abandon hope but to abandon the poor and destitute among us, and that we cannot do.

It also occurs to me that we have to remind ourselves, especially in this political season with charges and counter-charges volleying through the air, that envy is a capital sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2539) teaches that envy is a capital sin. It refers to the sadness at the sight of another’s goods and the immoderate desire to acquire them for oneself, even unjustly. When it wishes grave harm to a neighbor it is a mortal sin. St. Augustine saw envy as “the diabolical sin.” He said, “From envy are born hatred, detraction, calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbor, and displeasure by his prosperity.” The catechism further observes, “Envy represents a form of sadness and therefore a refusal of charity; the baptized person should struggle against it. Envy often comes from pride; the baptized person should train himself to live in humility.”