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BELMONT, N.C. — Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina has filed a lawsuit against the federal government, charging that its new rule mandating the inclusion of contraceptive services in employee health insurance violates the school’s religious freedom.
The interim federal rule, which requires private employer-provided health benefits to include the full range of “preventive services” for women, is part of the new health bill.
“We believe it will be a test case. This is the first lawsuit to challenge the HHS rule mandating contraception, sterilization and other ‘preventive services,’” said Lori Windham, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit public-interest law firm that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the college.
The filing asks for a court order to free the college from the federal mandate. The government is required to respond to the complaint within 60 days. Windham said she could not comment on whether other Catholic institutions or dioceses had contacted the Becket Fund to explore legal challenges to the federal rule.
At present, the controversial federal regulation, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, provides a narrow exemption for religious institutions engaged in work with others of the same faith. Those that serve people of other faiths or no faith will likely not be allowed to opt out of the mandate, which requires the provision of sterilization and abortifacients — such as Plan B and Ella.
“The issue is the right of Belmont Abbey College, which has always publicly identified itself and functioned as a Catholic college, to freely exercise the constitutional right to operate in accord with the public and authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church,” said Benectine Abbot Placid Solari of Belmont Abbey and the ex officio chancellor of the college.
“It is a matter of the fundamental rights guaranteed to our citizens by the Constitution, and it is time that someone stood up for these fundamental rights.”
“No employee or student of Belmont Abbey College is being coerced into accepting the faith or moral beliefs of the Catholic Church. The college, however, will be required by the federal government to act contrary to its own faith convictions,” said the abbot.
Belmont Abbey College is no stranger to such disputes. It has already been under investigation by the EEOC (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) for refusing to cover contraception in its employee health plan. The EEOC continues to investigate this dispute.
In a statement issued Nov. 10, the Becket Fund noted that while “the government has already provided thousands of waivers for a variety of special-interest groups, including McDonald’s and teachers’ unions, often for reasons of commercial convenience, it refused to accommodate religious organizations.
“Instead, the government permitted a religious exemption so narrowly defined that it prompted the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to note that even Jesus’ ministry would not qualify.”
Windham contends that the new regulation “is riddled with exceptions. It’s a violation of the Constitution when you make exceptions for secular purposes, but not for religious conscience.”
She notes that the controversial rule not only requires the provision of services that violate Catholic moral teaching, it also mandates “counseling” for these services. “Catholic institutions are being asked to fund speech that is contrary to their beliefs,” she charged.
Windham reports that more than 100,000 respondents signaled their opposition to the HHS rule, after being invited to do so by the government. Sept. 30 was the last date for providing comment, and HHS has not confirmed when it will issue a final ruling that might result in a broadened religious exemption.
Richard Doerflinger, the chief lobbyist on life issues for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, confirmed in a previous interview that HHS has signaled it will probably broaden the exemption, but not to the satisfaction of the conference.
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the USCCB, said the conference is “waiting to see if and when the exemption is changed before we take any steps.”
HHS has established August 2012 as the formal deadline for providing services mandated by the new health bill.
Asked how much lead time Catholics institutions would need to respond to an unacceptable final rule, Sister Mary Ann said she did not know, but it appeared that the bishops were at least not publicly discussing back-up plans “when the rules might change.”
But if the U.S. bishops’ conference has yet to issue a formal legal challenge to the HHS regulation, the bishops have been marshaling their forces to oppose what they perceive as an increasingly aggressive federal effort to impinge on the First Amendment rights of Catholic institutions.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, the USCCB president, has already moved to establish a new ad hoc committee on religious liberty, appointing Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., to head that initiative.
Yesterday, Bishop Lori announced that a number of high-profile Church leaders would join the committee, including Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta, Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle and Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington.
The committee’s brain trust includes Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus; Richard Garnett, associate dean and professor of law and political science at the University of Notre Dame Law School; John Garvey, president of The Catholic University of America; and Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School.
Joan Frawley Desmond is the Register’s senior editor.
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contreception is against church teachings???
This mandate deserves to go down in ignominy.
i thought it was only against church teachings if you were intentionally planning on not having a baby in the first place and if the female was on the pill…. Weird.
Birth control is against the teachings of God (the one that gave us the 10 Commandments,in case you didn’t know) as it is stopping a new life & it quite often KILLS the new baby, sometimes it even kills the mother & of course it kills the love between husband & wife as the marriage is now just an act of lust without God being involved. The USCCB & every Catholic organization should be on board with this law suit as this is just a back door attack against God & His Church. Also, as we know, there are far too many “catholics” that are using various forms of birth control (sometimes with the “blessings” of bishops (by being quite about this & confused, timid priests that don’t want to rock the boat as it will cause a big drop in the collection basket. Have mercy on us dear Jesus as we are being led into the pits of hell by those that we trust. +JMJ+
@sampson: The Church’s teaching on human sexuality are worth understanding fully. They are reasonable, consistent, and beautiful. In a nutshell, the marital embrace intrinsically has both unitive and procreative aspects - bonding and babies. Deliberately separating them thwarts God’s design for us. More here: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a6.htm
The Catholic Church is against any form of artificial contraception, but it embraces natural family planning, which is very reliable when used correctly. The Catholic Church is prolife and anything terminates life after conception is completely contrary to its teachings. To force Catholic institution’s to provide services that are contrary to the basic teachings of the church is complete violation of freedom of religion.
Pope Paul VI was a prophet of our time. Every Catholic who hasn’t read his encyclical Humanae Vitae or heard a homily on it is greatly deprived. And if the posters above (enness and sampson) are Catholics, their ignorant responses are a reflection of their very poor knowledge of their faith which is due to poor catechesis as well as the failure of priests to preach on this topic over the past almost fifty years. Lets hope the Theology of the Body of Pope John Paul II will be taught to and embraced by our current youth and thereby return the faithful to orthodoxy on this issue.
Sampson, I hope you are in jest. If you are not may I suggest Humanae Vitae and the Catechism of the Catholic Church? I also suggest you read how contraceptive devices work and their negative side effects. I further suggest that you read the World Health Organization’s report that classifies artificial contraception as Class 1 carcinogens.
Pope Paul VI was a prophet of our time. Every Catholic who hasn’t read his encyclical Humanae Vitae or heard a homily on it is greatly deprived. And if the posters above (enness and sampson) are Catholics, their ignorant responses are a reflection of their very poor knowledge of their faith which is due to poor catechesis as well as the failure of priests to preach on this topic over the past almost fifty years. Lets hope the Theology of the Body of Pope John Paul II will be taught to and embraced by our current youth and thereby return the faithful to orthodoxy on this issue
@Mary Sallerrace: I’m pretty sure enness (11 Nov 3:09 PM) was saying the HHS mandate was terrible and deserves our firm opposition.
@Bruce in Kansas: great reply. Charitable and teaches at the same time.
For all: the time of testing approaches where ridicule will be heaped on the heads of Catholics. Like St. Peter admonished the first believers: be ready to give a reason for your faith. Do like Maggie and Bruce and study these issues so you understand what is being said and what is at stake. God bless!
@Bob S: You are right. enness’s statement was a good one. I thought he was writing about the school’s stand on the issue. Sorry. And yes, Bruce has a great post. It makes me sad that so many in our time (Catholics and nonCatholics alike) do not understand the Church on this issue. I do believe our current generaton of young people will step up to the plate to renew the Church. Too many in my own silly sixties generation did not get through the post Vatican II confusion without become “Catholics in name only” but God gave us wonderful popes and we will triumph in the end with the Grace of God. My own GYN doc is a convert and promotes the Church’s teaching (Creighton method) and does not prescribe BC. There is hope where God is allowed to work his miracles.
I think Obama is doing us a favor. (God bless and have mercy on that poor, [insert nice way of saying lunitic here] president) As constitutionally unsound this mandate is, as morrally unjust this mandate is, and as crazy as he is to do it right before the election, he is doing us a favor. Yes, it can turn out badly, very badly, but it can also be the biggest blessing of the 21 century. Haven’t you ever heard the saying “What ever is, is best”? (willcox: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/whatever-is-is-best/ )
What is the benifit of this? Well, it forces people who are Catholic only in name to either (a) leave, or (b) come back in union with the Chuch.
(a): Nothing hurts God more than when we sit on the fence. It is a picket fence, and he takes the pain of sitting on the spiky divider so we don’t have to. It also makes it nigh on impossible to change their minds. They don’t even care enough about what they think is true to change they way they refer to themselves, let alone ponder the validity of thier beliefs! If they pick a side, it is a sad but easier way of us showing them their arguments faults, because someone who is taking a stand is forced to stand against the “enemy logic,” but someone who is floating just drifts about, unperturbed by the opposing voices who blow him so sweetly on his way.
(b): Now ask yourself, what ISN’T joyful about option b?
This is a time for protest, but it is also a time for teaching. Gear up your secular arguments to save our rights and your theological to save the souls of the fallen away. I don’t know if we will help anyone, but I still feel the need to thank our dearest president for volenteering to become the Welcome Mat: Thank you, President Barack H. Obama! May you be smeared with the dirt from many boots as our bretheren finally come home.
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