Catholic Church, your name is inconsistency!

The Roman Catholic Church has been pushing hard for provisions like the Stupak-Pitts amendment to the health insurance legislation being considered by the Congress. They insist that if anyone gets federal money to buy health insurance, then taxpayers, including of course, Catholics, would be subsidizing abortion if the insurance companies write their policies to include abortion coverage, which of course is anathema to the Catholic Church. Now, in a sense this is true, in a vague, indirect way. But in the past, the same Catholic Church has been strongly in favor of Government money for students to attend Catholic schools, which in the same indirect way means that taxpayers would be subsidizing the teaching of Catholic doctrine, and that is just as much anathema to non-Catholic taxpayers.

After all, if it is against a Catholic's conscience to give taxpayer money to someone who will be using that money to buy an insurance policy that covers abortion, isn't it just as much an affront to the conscience of a Jew like myself to give taxpayer money to someone who will be using that money to send his child to a school where he will be taught that the Pope is infallible, or that Jesus was the Son of God born of a virgin?

I certainly have my problems with the proposed health-care legislation. And in fact the question of abortion coverage is of so little importance to me that the presence or absence of the Stupak-Pitts amendment language will not change my opinion on the bill. But the whole issue is somewhat laughable to me, since Catholics can get so worked up into a lather over Government money going to someone who might purchase an insurance policy that covers abortions, and yet not see how taxpayer subsidies to kids in parochial schools might bring the exact same reaction in others.