An Open Letter to Kathleen Sebelius
Secretary, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services

Secretary Sebelius:

I write to you as one Catholic woman to another.

Let me begin by thanking you. For the past few decades, Church leaders have called for unity among Catholics, without much success. You, in one swift action, have largely achieved it with a single HHS mandate.

But I have questions, having been raised a Catholic girl in Ohio like you.

Were you absent from history class the day we learned about religious freedom? That it was a basic premise upon which our country was founded? And have you forgotten what the priests and nuns taught us in religion class? That you, like every human being, will face a reckoning for your actions in this life when you enter the next? If they are to be believed, then all the earthly power in the world won’t exempt you.

There are loud voices in this country that profess to speak for women. Well, having come from a family of six girls that provided me with a living laboratory for studying what makes women healthy and happy, I can assure you that real women love their fertility, and for the vast majority, babies are their ultimate joy.

Time after time I’ve observed the most educated and career-minded of women realize this on giving birth. To deny it is simply blind.

So why would you advance measures that will thwart nature for millions of women and erode their happiness? And why on earth would a Catholic girl like you want to force Catholic institutions to provide contraceptive and sterilization services for their employees? I thought that Choice, not Force, was the rallying cry of the day.

Maybe our President can be forgiven for his assault on the Catholic Church. He doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t know that it represents the ultimate good. For all its flaws, it’s the only institution left on earth that adheres to the truth in the midst of chaos. The enduring phrase “the Church in its infinite wisdom” exists for good reason.

But you do understand the Church. Or at least you probably did as a little girl.

So please take out your Baltimore Catechism and your sixth-grade history book, and review them. And then work with the President to rescind the mandate. Because, as for all of us, your time on earth is short.

Marie T. Sullivan

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Marie T. Sullivan is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer