In my old neighborhood in a patch at the north end of Spokane, Washington, not only was John F. Kennedy a saint, but the family from which he came was viewed as the norm – that is, a brood of nine or more kids, each a year or so apart. Birth control in the mid-1960s was the rhythm method, and its failed efficacy was evident in the size of the clans. “The I-got-rhythm method,” my dad called it.  Today, it’s the rare Roman Catholic family in America that produces enough children to field its own baseball team. What that tells you is that most young parents in good standing with the church are practicing a method of birth control abhorred by the clerical elite. Specifically, according to a survey by the respected Guttmacher Institute, 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used birth control other than church-approved natural methods (rhythm!).  It’s worth keeping this figure in mind as we parse the latest campaign trail grenade thrown by Republican leaders, ever eager to cast the opposition party as militant secularists. The phony political outrage is one thing. But the policy at the core of the issue – a federal rule that insurance plans, including those at many Catholic-run hospitals and universities, cover birth control – is a step too far. There are ways to resolve this delicate struggle between conscience and accepted medical practice.  The administration has already granted an exemption to institutions that cover a strictly religious employee pool. Perhaps a larger resolution can come from that kind of flexibility, in the same way that churches in states where same-sex marriage is legal can take a pass.  First, the politics. Newt Gingrich, who became a Catholic after violating the church’s age-old sanction against adultery, says the new provision is evidence that the Obama administration is waging a “war on the Catholic Church.” Mitt Romney is late to the parade, but is now using some of the same language, even though he was never able to prevent his Massachusetts plan from offering birth control. Rick Santorum, and the dopey dropout from the race, Rick Perry, have consistently accused the president of fighting a “war on religion.”  This is an unfortunate and expedient dumbing down of a word weighted with genuine tragedy.  A war on Christians is certainly being waged from West Africa to parts of Egypt, where vigilantes have murdered worshipers and burned churches. The Iraq war, started by a president who wore his religion on his cowboy boots, resulted in upward of 600,000 Christians having to flee their longtime homes, as sectarian hatreds flared with the conflict. Those are wars on Christians – people slaughtered, or displaced, for their faith. A rule in the new health care act that mandates access to birth control methods already used by most Catholics does not a war make.  Those who worship in the church of their ancestors yet ignore much of its outdated and even medieval dogma are dismissed as “cafeteria Catholics,” cruising the theological food court to pick and choose their beliefs. But the reality, backed by survey after survey, is that most Americans in the church are in fact cafeteria Catholics.  The latest snapshot of the faithful, brought out last year by the National Catholic Reporter, found that most members of the church believe in the core theological constructs, but ignore the church’s teachings on sex – always the great hang-up. Only one in five Catholics said that church leaders were the proper arbiters in such matters as divorce, abortion, sexual conduct, homosexuality and abortion. Even fewer people, only 10 percent of Catholics, believe that the church should have the final say about contraceptive use.  By contrast, almost 70 percent believe that “helping the poor” is very important to being a Catholic.  The church position on birth control is tied, in its modern incarnation, to Pope Paul VI’s 1968 Humanae Vitae, in which he said that contraception was “intrinsically wrong.” All the evidence now suggests that on this issue, American Catholics believe it is the church’s position that is intrinsically wrong.  American Catholics love the tradition, the sense of community and the cultural ties that connect them to distant struggles from Ireland to Africa. They are going to ignore church rulings on birth control and homosexuality, and continue to show up at Mass, to baptize their children, cheer at weddings and weep at funerals, no matter what the bishops tell them.  Eventually, the church position will catch up to the beliefs and practices of 21st-century Catholics. This transition is already under way. Witness Pope Benedict’s suggestion in 2010 that condom use is acceptable in some cases.  But the point is that the living church will change from within, by the will of its faithful. And that’s why the Obama administration should allow the church to find a third way. The change shouldn’t come from the government.  Roughly one in six patients in the United States are cared for in a Catholic hospital. Millions of those patients are not Catholic. So why should they be denied birth control, which doctors and social scientists say is a proper tool for healthy living? It gets even trickier when religious institutions take government money, and dole out policies at odds with the Constitution’s establishment clause.  There must be a third way. When I lived in Italy, my kids could opt out of the religion class at the local public school by learning about road signs (or deconstructing John Lennon’s “Imagine,” as they did once).  Last month, the administration extended the time until August of 2013 for religious institutions to comply with the law. In that window, surely a workable balance can be found.  In 2008, Obama won the Catholic vote, with 54 percent. He should carry it again this year, given that his governing philosophy of economic fairness and help for the poor is consistent with the majority sentiment of most Catholics. It would be a pity if this one issue got in the way.
The outrage of Republican presidential candidates over a "war on religion" shouldn't distract us from the real possibility of compromise on health care insurance and contraception.