To the editor:

Since the possibility that our health insurance system may be fundamentally restructured is real, as Catholics it’s vital that we carefully study the options under consideration, because it’s clear that many of reform options contravene Church teaching.

We can all agree that the goal of providing affordable coverage for those who lack health insurance is a moral imperative, but it’s also important that we strive for truth when it comes to the facts. You may have heard the figure of 45 million as the number of uninsured. 

However, as reported by Factcheck.org, the non-partisan research arm of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, 26% of the uninsured are currently eligible for some form of public coverage but do not make use of it; 20% of the uninsured have family incomes in excess of $75,000 and either decline to spend money for employer-sponsored insurance or are otherwise not able to obtain it; 40% of the uninsured are young, and although insurance coverage isn’t offered to some of them, many turn down their employer-sponsored insurance. Some unknown percent--estimates are about 10%--are illegal aliens. So, although it’s a complicated issue, the number of uninsured reported in the media is misleading and is being used to create a sense of urgency to garner political momentum for reform.

Far more critical than that, however, are two crucial issues that should deeply concern all Catholics regarding the legislation favored by the Obama Administration: abortion and euthanasia. Beyond mandating tax payer-funded abortion on demand, President Obama is actively seeking the repeal of the “conscience clause” regulation issued by the Bush Administration. If he were successful, the enforcement of federal conscience protections, including Church Amendments, would be nullified, which would jeopardize the existence of Catholic hospitals and their employees. 

Moreover, during the mark-up of the Kennedy-Dodd health care bill, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee approved provisions to require health insurance plans to contract with organizations such as Planned Parenthood that provide abortions. That would expand the frequency of this heinous act, which Catholics simply cannot support.

With respect to euthanasia, in the medical journal, The Lancet, President Obama’s special health policy advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, indicated that he supports “comparative effectiveness research,” which is code for rationing care at the end of life. Dr. Emanuel supports the so-called “complete lives system,” which effectively discriminates against the elderly and justifies withholding care based upon a global utilization formula with a predetermined—i.e., limited--amount of available services. That would put us on a glide path to euthanasia, which is how such policies began in places like the Netherlands.

As the debate over health care reform continues, it’s incumbent upon Catholics to make their voices heard, from priests in the pulpit to lay people contacting their elected officials to express their strong objections. Although we should support the broad goals of reform, the message from the pulpit should include the limits of Catholic support based on the moral acceptability of the proposed legislation.

Indeed, we all can and should support reform that expands coverage to those in need, but not at the expense of the unborn and our elderly, which, as Pope Benedict has stated, are non-negotiable, since they are among the most serious moral teachings of the Church.

If there's a latent certainty in the threat of another lethal attack on U.S. soil it's that it will be entirely unpredicted, an event that parallels our recent economic calamity in magnitude and ferocity.  As for the asymmetrical threat scenarios, our vulnerabilities are wide-ranging and expert opinion as to the likelihood of a biological or nuclear attack are equally mixed.

However, just as the strategic peculiarities of 9/11 were only recognized in retrospect, there's no reason to suspect our intelligence agencies, their formidable capabilities notwithstanding, will be able to both predict and protect us against even the most likely threat scenarios.  What we do know is that this enemy views war as a multi-decade event, where tactical patience and innovative exploitation of vulnerabilities collude for maximum casualties. 

Indeed, unlike Americans, who tend to view the world as benign and generous in spirit as themselves, and whose understanding of the threat al-Qaeda presents rapidly attenuates with the passage of years, Osama bin Laden's characterization of his war with the West generally and America specifically, is unambiguous.  Recall his October 2001 explanation for 9/11:  He suggested that we look to what happened 80 years ago.  Most Americans would shrug their shoulders in candid confusion, but those with a better appreciation of history will recall the abolition of the Caliphate after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

It's a vastly complicated history, one that would make most of us roll our eyes even if we had the patience to wade through it, but for the radical Islamists, it's as real and compelling as if the American Revolutionary War had been lost--just last year.  Indeed, besides bin Laden's grimly serious assertion, we have al-Qaeda spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith, who in 2007 stated that al-Qaeda’s objective is “to kill 4 million Americans—2 million of them children—and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands.” As he explained, this is what justice requires to balance the scales for casualties supposedly inflicted on Muslims by the United States and Israel.

When American puzzlement with such savagery is transformed into strategic appeasement, which is surely happening under the Obama Administration, we can be assured that newly formed tactical fissures are a serious threat, one that this sleepless malice will surely exploit.  If you review the foreign affairs journals and think tanks across the political spectrum, from the Council on Foreign Relations to the American Enterprise Institute, and everything in between, it seems a consensual, if tacit, understanding has been reached, that somehow this enemy's resolve, so evident on the morning of 9/11, has mysteriously abated.

That's understandable to some extent, because the challenges to the new administration, which the daft vice president, Joseph Biden inadvertently alluded to last year, are as real as they are numerous.  From North Korea to Iran, the withdrawal of American combat troops in Iraq (made possible, of course, because of former President Bush's surge, which, to this day, Obama et al have remained agnostic), the nascent conflagration in Afghanistan and the very real tinderbox, Pakistan, Mr. Obama is not focused on the apparently nebulous threat of a devastating attack on American soil.

You may remember the 'chatter' that our intelligence agencies routinely reported in the post-9/11 years, and how they plagued our nation's nerves and kept our military on high alert.  We haven't heard anything in that regard in quite some time.  Indeed, a kind of reassuring calm has descended on us, if only because of the renewed threats that have materialized.  That doesn't mean the threat of a serious attack isn't possible. 

Indeed, with the relatively easy access to fissile material, not to mention biological agents, and the recognition that we were caught completely off guard eight years ago, coupled with the singular determination of this enemy, an attack of cataclysmic magnitude is more likely than any of us can imagine.