EWTN News reports that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and other Catholic groups have appealed a court ruling that would require them to provide workplace accommodations for employees seeking abortions under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). The appeal claims that forcing Catholic employers to accommodate abortions violates religious freedom, yet this posture reveals the fundamental bankruptcy of a “Catholic” leadership that has spent decades surrendering the Faith to secular powers while now feigning resistance on a single regulatory front.
The Illusion of “Pro-Life” Resistance
The article presents the USCCB’s legal challenge as a defense of religious liberty against the “abortion mandate.” Laura Wolk Slavis, an attorney for Becket, declared: “In 250 years, our nation has never allowed the state to make the church support abortion — and now’s not the time to start.” This rhetoric is designed to evoke the image of a Church standing firm against the encroachments of a godless state. However, this posture is deeply misleading when one considers the broader context of the conciliar sect’s capitulation to the culture of death.
The USCCB, as a representative of the post-conciliar structures, has consistently failed to teach the faithful the fullness of Catholic doctrine on the sanctity of life. While opposing abortion in theory, these same “bishops” have refused to deny Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians, have promoted “seamless garment” rhetoric that equates abortion with other social issues, and have failed to excommunicate public supporters of abortion. Their legal challenge to the PWFA is not a principled stand for life but a defensive maneuver to protect the institutional interests of the conciliar bureaucracy.
As Pius XI taught in Quas Primas, the reign of Christ the King extends over all aspects of society, including the state and its laws. The conciliar sect, by contrast, operates within the framework of secular liberalism, seeking accommodations within a system that is fundamentally ordered against God. Their appeal to “religious freedom” is itself a concession to the modernist error that the Church must operate within the bounds set by secular authority, rather than asserting the Church’s divine right to govern herself and to demand that civil society conform to the law of God.
The PWFA and the Logic of Secularism
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, as interpreted by the EEOC under the Biden administration, requires employers to provide accommodations for employees seeking abortions. The court ruling in question narrowed this mandate to cases where the abortion is not “fully elective,” but still includes common pregnancy-related conditions such as nausea, vomiting, and anxiety. Daniel Blomberg, another Becket attorney, noted that some of these conditions are “literally the case for any pregnancy.”
This interpretation reveals the logic of the culture of death: any inconvenience or discomfort associated with pregnancy can be invoked as grounds for abortion. The conciliar sect’s response, however, is not to condemn this logic root and branch but to seek an exemption for itself. This is the typical modus operandi of the post-conciliar structures: they do not challenge the underlying premises of the secular order but merely seek to carve out a space for their own institutional survival.
The 1917 Code of Canon Law, in Canon 188.4, states that any office becomes vacant by the mere fact of public defection from the Catholic faith. The USCCB’s failure to unequivocally condemn abortion as a mortal sin and a crime against God, coupled with their willingness to operate within the framework of secular labor law, raises serious questions about their fidelity to the Catholic faith. Their legal maneuvering is not a defense of life but a symptom of their own spiritual decay.
The Silence on the True Remedy
The article is remarkable for what it does not say. There is no mention of the Church’s duty to preach the Gospel of Life, to catechize the faithful on the intrinsic evil of abortion, or to call for the conversion of the United States to Christ the King. There is no reference to the social reign of Christ, the necessity of Catholic education, or the importance of the sacraments in forming consciences.
Instead, the focus is entirely on legal strategy and institutional self-preservation. The USCCB’s appeal is framed as a matter of “religious liberty,” a concept that, while not inherently evil, has been co-opted by modernists to justify the privatization of religion and the exclusion of Catholic truth from the public square. True religious liberty, as taught by the Church, is the right of the truth to be preached and lived, not the right of error to flourish unchecked.
The conciliar sect’s approach to abortion is a microcosm of its broader failure: it has abandoned the supernatural mission of the Church in favor of naturalistic humanism. It seeks to protect its institutional interests while leaving the culture of death unchallenged. This is not the behavior of the true Church but of a paramasonic structure that has lost its way.
The Duty of the Faithful
The faithful must recognize that the USCCB and its affiliated organizations are not the true Church but representatives of a conciliar sect that has compromised with the world. The true Church, which endures in the faithful who profess the integral Catholic faith and are led by bishops with valid sacraments, calls for a radical rejection of abortion and all forms of cooperation with evil.
The remedy for the culture of death is not legal maneuvering but conversion — conversion of individuals, families, and nations to Christ the King. As Pius XI wrote, “The peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ.” Until the United States and all nations recognize the social reign of Christ, the culture of death will continue to advance, and the conciliar sect will continue to make its accommodations with the world.
The faithful must reject the false dichotomy of “religious liberty” versus “abortion mandate” and instead proclaim the fullness of Catholic truth: abortion is a mortal sin, a crime against God, and an abomination that cries out to heaven for vengeance. The Church’s mission is not to seek exemptions from secular law but to transform society in accordance with the law of God.
In conclusion, the USCCB’s appeal of the PWFA ruling is a symptom of the conciliar sect’s spiritual bankruptcy. It is a defensive maneuver that fails to address the root causes of the culture of death and that operates within the framework of secular liberalism. The faithful must look beyond the conciliar structures to the true Church, which alone has the authority and the mission to combat the culture of death and to establish the social reign of Christ the King.
Source:
Catholic bishops appeal court ruling that would mandate abortion accommodations (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 20.05.2026