There is this thing wrong in many of the churches that, because Church and State are separate and the State makes the schools, the Church feels itself absolved from any duty in the direction of education of youth. The State is permitted to mold children from the age of six up through the time when they are going through colleges, where many of the professors are agnostics and atheists. But now the Church is awakening to the fact that children should be reared in the way of Christian faith from the nursery upward. I believe that there is in this country to-day a great spritual awakening, and the Church is beginning to see that it has turned over entirely too many of its functions to the State.
Vice President Thomas Marshall. This quote was printed in the Catholic weekly journal America (vol. 11, no. 7, May 30, 1914).
I’m a strong advocate of public schools, so I wouldn’t go so far as the Vice President does here, but the point he makes about churches absolving themselves of responsibility for public services is a good one. If churches really don’t want women to have health insurance that includes contraceptives, then they should start offering it themselves and be prepared to pay for all the consequences of it.
