To the editor:
I feel that Bishop Clark’s letter concerning health benefits places responsibility to live a Christ-centered life, based on Roman Catholic teaching, on the wrong group. Is it an employer’s responsibility to dictate how employees manifest their belief or the employee’s? I feel it is each individual Roman Catholic’s responsibility to witness the teachings of the Church and live a life as modeled by Jesus Christ.
Professed Roman Catholics have been working for secular businesses for centuries. It is their responsibility to not access heath benefits of which the Church disapproves, not their employers’. Does the Diocese of Rochester only employ Catholics? Are there no employees of the Jewish faith? Muslim? Protestants? Do Catholic schools, including the regional high schools, only employ Catholics? I find this hard to believe. Would you deny them health benefits?
The issues that plague our Church have nothing to do with government regulations, but rather the unwillingness of those to profess to be Catholic to truly live the faith in their daily lives and not just on Saturday night or Sunday morning.
If the Bishop does not have faith in the ability of Catholics to resist these types of temptations, then why should any of us?
Frank Muscato
Rochester
