Departmental Papers (Sociology)

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of this Version

11-2016

Publication Source

Religions

Volume

7

Issue

11

Start Page

1

Last Page

11

DOI

10.3390/rel7110131

Abstract

This paper explores continuity and change in the American Catholic hierarchy’s promotion of and later reliance on religious freedom. With an analysis spanning more than 50 years, it first traces the pressures for reform that created the Declaration more than 50 years ago, demonstrating that American bishops were crucial actors in the Declaration’s existence and passage, and that this was the case because of the strong legitimacy pressures they were under as Roman Catholic leaders in a predominantly Protestant country. The paper then turns to a summary of how the Birth Control Mandate of the Affordable Care Act once again created pressures for legitimacy for the American Catholic hierarchy, pressures which were again articulated in terms of critiques of hypocrisy. It demonstrates that although the specific critique changed, accusations of hypocrisy remain central in discussions of the Catholic Church’s stance on the Birth Control Mandate in the Affordable Care Act.

Copyright/Permission Statement

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).

Keywords

Roman Catholic bishops, religious freedom, Affordable Care Act, Vatican II

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Date Posted: 25 June 2018

This document has been peer reviewed.