The Freedom to Do Business

As in, I'd dare say, most communities, my town has a broad selection of churches of various denominations, including a fundamentalist Baptist church.

The pastor of this church is a graduate of Bob Jones University, a notoriously anti-Catholic institution in Greenville, South Carolina, and for several months now has run an article in our community's weekly newspaper calling Catholic doctrine on Baptism "false." My pastor, Father C, has recently had some trouble with a member of the fundamentalist church's flock:

In his dealings with our parish's bank, Father has had several interactions, both over the phone and in person, with a particular teller. Despite his repeated efforts to explain that his proper title is "Father," this woman has steadfastly refused to call him anything but "Mr C." When asked why she refused to call him "Father," she replied that she couldn't do so, as (according to her) Jesus prohibited use of that title in Matthew 23:9:

Call no one on earth your father, for you have but one Father in heaven. (Mt 23:9, NAB)

Father contacted the bank's human resources department to complain, and got a sympathetic ear, but not much else, so he's considering moving the parish's accounts to another bank.

We are blessed in America with a Constitution and Bill of Rights that guarantee, among other things, freedom of religion. As much as I disagree with and, frankly, dislike, what the teller has been taught in her church, she still has the right to believe what she does, and I won't begrudge her that right. On the other hand, that same Constitution and Bill of Rights give us, albeit not explicitly, the right to take our business to whatever companies we please. If I don't like the fact that a particular employee, while otherwise polite, refuses to render me a basic courtesy, then I don't have to continue going to that business.

The same principle applies with pharmacists and other medical professionals who exercise their privileges under medical conscience clauses, provisions in some state laws and corporate policies that allow a professional or institution to refuse to provide a product or service contrary to conscience (e.g. no abortions or prescriptions for contraceptives at a Catholic hospital). If, say, a woman wants to take "the pill," and her physician refuses to do so on moral grounds, the woman is just as free to get a second opinion from a doctor who has no such qualms as Father C is to take his banking business somewhere he'll get the courtesy he's owed.

Yet to think that there are people out there who don't seem to get this simple principle—the ones who'd love to force doctors and pharmacists and hospitals to act against their consciences....

PS: Getting back to the original premise of this post, Catholic Answers has a useful refutation of our fundamentalist friends' "call no man father" misinterpretation here.