-255x255.jpg)
The Obama administration has misled the public about the meaning of its new contraception coverage requirement, according to a fact sheet released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Health and Human Services’ new mandate “forces religious insurers to write policies that violate their beliefs, forces religious employers and schools to sponsor and subsidize coverage that violates their beliefs, and forces religious employees and students to purchase coverage that violates their beliefs,” the conference declared on Feb. 6.
The bishops’ clarification came less than a week after an Obama administration official defended the mandate, which requires most employers and many religious institutions to cover contraception and sterilization in their health plans, in a Feb. 1 White House blog post.
Several points in the bishops’ statement, entitled “Six Things Everyone Should Know About the HHS Mandate,” responded directly to points made by Cecilia Muñoz of the White House Domestic Policy Council in her online statement on “Health Reform, Preventive Services and Religious Institutions.”
In her defense of the federal rule, finalized Jan. 20, over objections by Catholics and other groups, the administration’s domestic-policy council claimed that “churches are exempt from the new rules.”
She also denied that the policy would cover abortion-causing drugs and cited statistics from the Guttmacher Institute to support the claim that “98% of Catholic women have used contraception.”
These claims, according to the U.S. bishops, are either false or irrelevant.
“The mandate does not exempt Catholic charities, schools, universities or hospitals,” they explained. “These institutions are vital to the mission of the Church, but HHS does not deem them ‘religious employers’ worthy of conscience protection.”
Health and Human Services will allow certain religious ministries to opt out of the mandate, but only if they primarily employ and serve members of their own faith for the purpose of inculcating religious values.
Other faith-based institutions, the bishops argued, would lose their religious freedom “precisely because their purpose is to serve the common good of society” by serving people of all beliefs.
The White House official also claimed that “drugs that cause abortion are not covered by this policy.”
The bishops said this statement is false.
“By including all drugs approved by the FDA for use as contraceptives, the HHS mandate includes drugs that can induce abortion, such as ‘Ella,’ a close cousin of the abortion pill RU-486,” they maintained.
The White House has sought to focus attention on the freedom of individuals, stating that “no one will be forced to buy or use contraception” under the rule.
In response to this assertion of private choice, the bishops’ conference reminded the public that the mandate forces institutions “to pay for things they consider immoral,” since they must “sponsor and subsidize coverage” of contraception, sterilization and abortifacients.
The U.S. bishops also responded directly to the White House’s claim that 28 U.S. states already require insurance companies to cover contraception.
Health and Human Services’ new mandate, they pointed out, “is much stricter than existing state mandates,” because its exemption, which was allegedly drafted by the ACLU, has previously been implemented in only three states.
“Even without a religious exemption, religious employers can already avoid the contraceptive mandates in 28 states by self-insuring their prescription-drug coverage, dropping that coverage altogether, or opting for regulation under a federal law that pre-empts state law,” the bishops noted.
But the new federal mandate “closes off all these avenues of relief.”
Catholics and non-Catholics of various political stripes have already spoken out against the mandate, adding their voices to those of more than 160 U.S. bishops.
In correspondence made public on Feb. 6, Pepperdine University professor Doug Kmiec, a prominent backer and former appointee of the administration, rebuked the president, saying he may withdraw his endorsement in 2012 over the contraception-coverage mandate.
In other news, the editorial board of USA Today disagreed with the Obama administration’s claim that its recent contraception mandate respects the religious freedom of groups who will be forced to comply with it.
The board said that justifications offered by Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “sidestep the central issue” of religious freedom.
Sebelius penned a Feb. 5 article in USA Today arguing that the narrow religious exemption included in the recent contraception mandate is an attempt to “strike the right balance” between respecting religious beliefs and providing “preventive health services.”
USA Today ran an accompanying editorial article arguing that the Obama administration has “failed” to strike this balance and has instead devised a policy that is “contrary to both Catholic doctrine and constitutional guarantees of religious freedom.”
In her article, Sebelius defended free coverage of “preventive services” as “one of the key benefits of the 2010 health-care law.”
She argued that “virtually all American women use contraception at some point in their lives” and that contraception has health benefits but is often prohibitively expensive.
USA Today responded in its editorial that good medical intentions “are not sufficient grounds to override religious freedom.”
It noted that the government is free to, and in fact, already does, promote contraception in other ways that do not coerce religious organizations to violate their teachings.
Sebelius said that the administration recognized that “many religious organizations have deeply held beliefs” opposing the requirements of the mandate and has provided an exemption for “religious organizations that primarily employ people of their own faith.”
The editorial acknowledged that an exemption exists for many “churches and other houses of worship,” but observed that this exemption does not extend to “organizations that employ or serve large numbers of people of different faiths,” which is a defining element “of many Catholic colleges, hospitals and charities.”
Sebelius also justified the mandate by arguing that 28 states already “require contraception to be covered by insurance” and eight of these states do not allow for a religious exemption.
The editorial responded by pointing out that the majority of these states have even “broader exemptions” than that offered by the federal mandate, and several others that do not have an explicit exemption still provide ways for organizations with moral objections to “get around the mandate.”
“The First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom deserves more weight than the administration allowed,” the editorial said.
It added that individuals freely choose employers and should therefore be able to choose to work for an institution that does not offer free contraception coverage.
The board argued that the government “should never try to force a religiously affiliated institution to violate a central tenet of its faith.”
USA Today editors urged the Obama administration to “reopen discussion with those affected” negatively by the mandate and seek a compromise that will “widen the exemption in a suitable way.”
Yet another important update on Feb. 6:
The U.S. bishops are united in their resolve not to comply with the HHS mandate requiring Catholic organizations to provide insurance coverage for contraception and sterilization, according to Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind.
“We cannot and we will not comply with this unjust federal order. We cannot and we will not accept this egregious affront to our religious liberty,” Bishop Rhoades said in a Feb. 2 statement to be read at all parishes in the diocese.
The mandate’s implications are “grave,” he added. It negatively impacts the Catholic Church and “strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty.”
The Department of Health and Human Services’ new rule requires almost all employers to provide insurance plans that cover sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacient drugs. Its religious exemption will not cover most Catholic institutions like health systems, universities and charities.
“In the coming months, we must focus our energies on fighting this unjust mandate and defending our religious liberty,” Bishop Rhoades said. “I exhort all men and women of good will to be engaged on this issue.”
“We must hold firm and be courageous in this matter. We must be united in our defense of the religious liberty granted us by God and protected in our nation’s Constitution.”
The bishop previously criticized the mandate at a Jan. 26 press conference.
“We will not comply with this. We will not violate our conscience,” he said. “The U.S. bishops are united in this, and I think that this refusal to exempt religious institutions that serve the common good, which we are doing, is really an unprecedented decision.”
The rule is unprecedented in that it attempts to force religious institutions, other institutions and individuals to do things Catholics consider immoral and sinful, he added.
“We made it very clear to the administration we can’t violate our conscience, (but) that didn’t seem to matter to them,” the bishop said.
Albert Gutierrez, president and CEO of Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center, said at the same press Jan. 26 conference that both his hospital and the Catholic Health Association are “disappointed” that the definition of religious employer was not broadened by the HHS.
“This was a missed opportunity to be clear on appropriate conscience protection,” Gutierrez said.
Bishop Rhoades urged Catholics to “pray hard” and to ask political candidates about their position on religious liberty in general and conscience protection specifically.
His Feb. 2 letter exhorted Catholics to commit themselves to prayer and sacrifice for truth, justice and the restoration of religious liberty.
He recommended Catholics and others visit the U.S. bishops’ website to learn about the mandate and how to support the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, which would reverse it.
More than 150 U.S. bishops have spoken against the mandate.
Feb. 1 update below.
On Feb. 1, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia issued an action alert on the Health and Human Services mandate, joining more than 100 other bishops in voicing objection to violation of Catholic conscience in health care.
“Bishops and lay Catholic leaders across the United States have made it clear that we cannot comply with this unjust law without compromising our convictions and undermining the Catholic identity of many of our service ministries,” he wrote. “This is not just another important issue among the many we need to be concerned about. This ruling is different. This ruling interferes with the basic right of Catholic citizens to organize and work for the common good as Catholics in the public square.”
Jan. 31 story below.
Catholics may have to suffer for the integrity of their institutions, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb., announced in his response to the Obama administration’s contraception mandate.
“We cannot and will not comply with this unjust decree. Like the martyrs of old, we must be prepared to accept suffering, which could include heavy fines and imprisonment,” Bishop Bruskewitz wrote in a letter he ordered to be read at every Sunday Mass in his diocese on Jan. 29.
“Our American religious liberty is in grave jeopardy,” he warned, describing the impact of new rules that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has instituted as part of federal health-care reform.
Those rules, confirmed as final on Jan. 20, will require most religious employers to cover contraception and sterilization, including some abortion-causing drugs, in new health-care plans. Sebelius has given religious groups an extra year to comply, but rejected calls for a broader exemption clause.
“This means that all of our Catholic schools, hospitals, social-service agencies and the like will be forced to participate in evil,” Bishop Bruskewitz explained.
The bishop recalled that the Church “has pleaded with President Obama to rescind this edict, but all pleas have been met with scorn and have fallen on deaf ears.”
He described Secretary Sebelius as a “bitter fallen-away Catholic” and called her one-year deadline extension for non-exempt religious employers “an act of mockery” because, he noted, “during that year, they must ‘refer’ people to the insurance that covers wicked deeds.”
A proposed U.S. Senate bill, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, would amend the health-care law to let employers opt out of covering some services. Bishop Bruskewitz urged Catholics to call their elected representatives in support of the bill and to protest the “outrage” of the contraception mandate.
Meanwhile, he said, the faithful should “pray and do penance that this matter may be resolved.”
The bishop of Lincoln was one of a large number of U.S. Church leaders voicing alarm over the weekend in letters distributed to parishes and read at Mass regarding the Health and Human Services order.
In the Diocese of Phoenix, Catholics heard a message from Bishop Thomas Olmsted, who declared that people of faith would not be “made second-class citizens” and “stripped of their God-given rights.”
In Marquette, Mich., Bishop Alexander Sample said that if the rule takes effect, “we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences or to drop health coverage for our employees and suffer the penalties for doing so.”
New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond stressed the need for action in his letter to the faithful over the weekend, as he decried the “unprecedented attack on religious liberty” by which the state was “violating our rights to make choices based on our morals and Church teaching.”
Archbishop Aymond of New Orleans hopes that continued discussions between the Catholic Church and the White House can break the current deadlock over the contraception mandate.
“I do not think this a time when you just declare war or pick up your marbles and go home. We have to sit at the table and come up with some options, conversations and dialogue,” he told EWTN News on Jan. 27.
“Hopefully, through that, we can come to some better understanding, and the administration of our government can come to some better understanding. But we must engage in this and be very careful we do so with thought, prayer and, obviously, with respect.”
Archbishop Aymond says that the Catholic Church cannot and will not comprise on such matters.
“I think it’s very important that if we are to follow our conscience and the teachings of the Church we cannot roll over and play dead,” he said.
This past Sunday, all the parishes in the New Orleans archdiocese heard a letter read from Archbishop Aymond that explained the Church’s position.
“We are as the prophets of old in the Old Testament, or as Jesus Christ himself, and all those people over our 2,000-year tradition that have stood for, and have been very vocal about, the truth.
“I think we must do that too.”
Archbishop Aymond spoke to EWTN News during a Jan. 22–Feb. 1 ad limina visit to Rome, where he and 21 other bishops from several southern U.S. states briefed the Pope and various Vatican departments on the state of the Church in their region.
He said that the issue of religious freedom in the United States was “brought up either directly or indirectly in almost every one of our meetings.”
The general consensus was that the present situation is “very tragic and very disappointing,” especially because the idea “that someone from outside can tell us what is moral and what is not and how we should form our conscience” is alien to the traditions of the United States.
The bishops also made sure they raised the issue at a Jan. 23 meeting with staff from the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See.
“I think what is very interesting is that in the United States we make many exceptions and alterations for many religious groups. And so I find this very confusing why they’ve come out with such strength in this circumstance,” he said.
Ultimately, Archbishop Aymond feels that Catholics have to become better at explaining what the Church teaches when talking to others.
“How do we present these things not just as ‘the teachings of the Church?’” was the question one bishop asked Pope Benedict in their Jan. 27 meeting.
Archbishop Aymond thinks that the answer lies with Catholics “knowing our faith and knowing it well.” There also has to be a “respectfulness and a courtesy” when entering into conversation with other people, he said.
“I think one of the characteristics of people in general is that if other people don’t agree with us we can easily write them off and just say, ‘You’re different.’”
By “remaining in conversation” and “sharing our faith,” however, Catholics have “a real opportunity for evangelization.”
In the short term, Archbishop Aymond would like all American Catholics to pray and be “in solidarity” with each other as the Church seeks to address the issue of the contraception mandate with the Obama administration.
We cannot sit back and just allow people to take our liberty away from us, he said.
Pope Benedict XVI issued his own warning to the U.S. Church just before Health and Human Services finalized the mandate.
In remarks to bishops of the mid-Atlantic states on Jan. 19, the Pope said all U.S. Catholics must “realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres.”
The U.S. Catholic bishops’ chairman for religious liberty says the Obama administration’s contraception mandate tramples “the mandate of Jesus Christ” by requiring Catholic employers to choose between violating their consciences and denying services to non-Catholics.
Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., who chairs the U.S. Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, denounced the mandate in a Jan. 27 guest article in The Washington Post.
Bishop Lori warned of the “horrific” and “alarming” consequences that would come from forcing Catholic organizations to limit their services to members of their own faith in order to protect their religious liberty.
“In short, the administration is dictating that Catholic institutions and individual employers violate what America has always considered inviolable: their religious liberty and freedom of conscience,” he said.
Bishop Lori explained that, by their nature, Catholic institutions follow their founder, Jesus Christ, by serving people “based on need, not creed.”
He noted that Catholic school educators were honored for their contributions to America at a Jan. 25 White House ceremony. In part, he said, these educators were able to make a difference because their schools are open to students of all faiths or no faith at all.
Catholic schools in the United States teach more than 300,000 non-Catholic students, he said, including up to 90% of students in inner-city Catholic schools and over 40% of students in Catholic colleges and universities around the country.
The bishop also pointed out that Catholic hospitals serve one out of six people who seek hospital care annually.
“Not all of them are Catholic, and being a Catholic has never been a requirement to receive healing care,” he said.
Bishop Lori also pointed out that Catholic Charities served the needs of more than 10 million people in America last year without distinguishing between Catholics and non-Catholics.
In order to continue their ministry without violating the tenets of their faith, these Catholic organizations and others across the country may be forced “not to feed or clothe, heal or educate practically anyone of another faith or creed,” he said.
To force this decision would be detrimental to the common good and particularly to the poor and needy of society, he warned.
Bishop Lori finished by saying that forcing Catholic organizations to choose between following Obama’s mandate and Jesus’ mandate “strikes at the very heart of the right to religious liberty on which our country was founded.”
Jan. 27 story below.
Bishop James Conley of Denver is calling the Obama administration’s contraception and sterilization mandate “a death knell for religious liberty in the United States.”
“The bell is tolling for religious liberty in America. All of us should listen well,” Bishop Conley said in a Jan. 25 column.
Although religious leaders of many different faiths raised concerns when the plan was first proposed, their voices “fell on deaf ears” Bishop Conley said.
“Let’s be clear,” Bishop Conley wrote, “this plan does nothing to respect religious freedom.”
Rather than using this year to “adapt,” Bishop Conley said that Catholics must unify and fight the “flagrant disregard” for the constitutional protection of the First Amendment.
Catholics who believe that the conscience clause in the proposed health-care plan respects Catholic teaching and religious freedom must “face the facts” Bishop Conley said.
“Compromising with pro-choice, pro-contraceptive political agendas can have dangerous consequences.”
He warned that if the proposed health-care plan goes into effect unchanged, then the Catholic Church will no longer have legal protection for the unhindered expression of religion.
“The freedom to practice our religious faith is in jeopardy.”
The bishop said that all Catholics need to support the passage of the “Respect for Rights of Conscience Act” that is currently before Congress. Christians, he said, should also “join us by praying for a return to justice” and begin contacting their representatives.
Every Christian “has an interest in defending liberty,” Bishop Conley said. “Now is the time. The bell tolls for us all.
Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, Ill., has also asked parishes, schools, hospitals and religious houses to insert the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel into the intercessions at Sunday Mass to pray for Catholics’ freedom.
“It is God’s invincible archangel who commands the heavenly host, and it is the enemies of God who will ultimately be defeated,” the bishop said in a Jan. 24 letter to the Catholics of his diocese.
The prayer should take place in the general intercessions before the concluding prayer, Bishop Jenky said. He asked that the intention of the prayer be announced as “for the freedom of the Catholic Church in America.”
The St. Michael prayer was authored by Pope Leo XIII and was once commonly said in U.S. Catholic parishes as part of a petition for the freedom of Soviet Russia.
He said it is his duty to summon the local Church into “spiritual and temporal combat in defense of Catholic Christianity.”
“If these regulations are put into effect, they could close down every Catholic school, hospital and the other public ministries of our Church, which is perhaps their underlying intention,” Bishop Jenky said. “What is perfectly clear is that this is a bigoted and blanket attack on the First Amendment rights of every Catholic believer.”
Bishop Jenky stated that the president does not have the authority under the U.S. Constitution to “require our cooperation with what we consider to be intrinsic evil and mortal sin.”
“I am honestly horrified that the nation I have always loved has come to this hateful and radical step in religious intolerance.”
The bishop pledged that the Church will never abandon its commitment to the gospel of life and called on the faithful to “vigorously” oppose what he called an “unprecedented governmental assault upon the moral convictions of our faith.”
Bishop Jenky also struck an encouraging note.
“Have faith! Have courage! Fight boldly for what you believe!” he said. “I strongly urge you not to be intimidated by extremist politicians or the malice of the cultural secularists arrayed against us.”
Invoking the First Letter of John, he said Catholics should always remember that “the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
The new federal contraception mandate is “like a slap in the face” that says “To hell with you” to Catholics and religious freedom, Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh said.
“This is government by fiat that attacks the rights of everyone, not only Catholics; not only people of all religion. At no other time in memory or history has there been such a governmental intrusion on freedom, not only with regard to religion, but even across the board with all citizens,” Bishop Zubik wrote in the Jan. 27 edition of the Pittsburgh Catholic.
“Kathleen Sebelius (Health and Human Services Secretary) and, through her, the Obama administration, have said, ‘To hell with you’ to the Catholic faithful of the United States,” he charged, adding that the administration has damned Catholics’ religious beliefs, religious liberty and freedom of conscience.
The mandate’s religious exemption is narrow and will not “practically speaking” apply to many Catholic health systems, educational institutions, charities and other organizations, the bishop said. It will apply in “virtually every instance where the Catholic Church serves as an employer.”
Bishop Zubik said the mandate treats pregnancy as a disease and “forces every employer to subsidize an ideology or pay a penalty while searching for alternatives to health-care coverage.” It also undermines health-care reform by “inextricably linking it to the zealotry of pro-abortion bureaucrats.”
He said the mandate tells Catholics “not only to violate our beliefs, but to pay directly for that violation,” as well as to “subsidize the imposition of a contraceptive and abortion culture on every person in the United States.”
The bishop asked Catholics to write to President Obama, Secretary Sebelius, their senators and members of Congress.
“This mandate can be changed by congressional pressure. The only way that action will happen is if you and I take action,” Bishop Zubik said.
“Let them know that you and I will not allow ourselves to be pushed around (or worse yet) be dismissed because of our Catholic faith.”
Jan. 25 article below.
Mandatory insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacient drugs is an “attack” on religious freedom that Catholics must oppose, Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis said.
“The Church cannot, and will not, be silent in the face of this grave threat to religious liberty and the sanctity of human life,” Archbishop Carlson said in his Jan. 23 column for the St. Louis Review.
“We bishops will speak out boldly, at every opportunity, in protest against all efforts to violate the right to life and the right to act according to one’s conscience.”
On Jan. 20, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the administration would not expand a religious exemption for employers who object to its “preventative services” mandate (which the Register’s Joan Frawley Desmond reported on here).
Religious organizations continue to object to the rule.
Archbishop Carlson called on every pastor in the Archdiocese of St. Louis to urge the archdiocese’s Catholics to join the bishops in opposing the regulation and to write members of Congress.
“We will not be silent, but will the voice of the Church be heard? Only if you join us in giving witness to the right to life and the right to religious freedom!”
In his column, the archbishop said that the mandate’s religious exemption is “so narrowly crafted” that Catholic health-care providers, educational institutions and social-services agencies would have to be listed in the tax code as a church or similar entity, make the instruction of religious doctrine their organizational purpose, and generally refuse to hire or serve non-Catholics to qualify.
He cited Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan’s comments that the mandate violates freedom of conscience guaranteed by the First Amendment and several federal laws. Requiring those who object to purchase coverage for sterilization and contraceptives is “a radical incursion” into freedom of conscience.
Archbishop Dolan wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on the subject, stating: “This latest erosion of our first freedom should make all Americans pause. When the government tampers with a freedom so fundamental to the life of our nation, one shudders to think what lies ahead.”
“The Catholic Church defends religious liberty, including freedom of conscience, for everyone,” the New York archbishop said.
With this decision, the cardinal-designate wrote, “the Obama administration has failed to show the same respect for the consciences of Catholics and others who object to treating pregnancy as a disease.”
“Even Jesus and his disciples would not qualify for the exemption,” Cardinal-designate Dolan noted, “because they were committed to serve those of other faiths.”
“Scarcely two weeks ago, in its Hosanna-Tabor decision upholding the right of churches to make ministerial hiring decisions, the Supreme Court unanimously and enthusiastically reaffirmed these long-standing and foundational principles of religious freedom,” he recalled.
The court, he said, made it clear that religious institutions had the right “to control their internal affairs.”
But the Obama administration “has veered in the opposite direction.”
“It has refused to exempt religious institutions that serve the common good, including Catholic schools, charities and hospitals, from its sweeping new health-care mandate that requires employers to purchase contraception, including abortion-producing drugs, and sterilization coverage for their employees.”
Cardinal-designate Dolan called the move “an unprecedented incursion into freedom of conscience” that forces an “unacceptable dilemma” on believers: “Stop serving people of all faiths in their ministries, so that they will fall under the narrow exemption, or stop providing health-care coverage to their own employees.”
Non-exempt religious groups have been granted an additional year to comply with the mandate, a concession the future cardinal ridiculed, “as if we might suddenly be more willing to violate our consciences 12 months from now.”
“Never before in U.S. history has the federal government forced citizens to directly purchase a product that violates their beliefs,” Archbishop Carlson said.
Lay Catholic action is particularly necessary, Archbishop Carlson stressed.
“All too often, the Pope and the bishops are not taken seriously. We are ‘expected’ to speak out on these issues, people say; it’s part of our job.”
“Only when the Catholic community as a whole joins us in refusing to accept the ‘radical secularism’ of government officials, legislators and judges, will the voice of the Church be heard in all its strength and moral clarity,” the archbishop wrote.
Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles also urged lay Catholics to defend the faith in the wake of the HHS decision.
“In this case, the government is imposing a narrow, radically individualistic idea of religion,” Archbishop Gomez said in a column published this week in his archdiocesan newspaper, The Tidings.
“As many have noted,” Archbishop Gomez said, the exemption for religious groups is so narrow that “much of what Jesus Christ did would not qualify as a ‘religious’ ministry.”
Everything the Church does, including health care, education and ministry to the poor, is “religious,” he emphasized. “All of our ministries and institutions are motivated by our love for God and our mission to spread the Gospel.”
“We don’t do these things,” he added, “because we are social workers or philanthropists. We do them because we are disciples.”
Archbishop Gomez said that what he finds most disturbing about the recent announcement is the government’s attempt to redefine Catholic charities, hospitals and colleges as non-religious institutions.
The administration is “presuming to have to competence and authority” to define what “religious faith is and how believers should express their faith commitments,” he warned.
“These are powers our government has never before assumed itself to have.”
He called on all Catholics, especially the laity, to “step up to their responsibilities for the Church’s mission” and “to be leaders in helping to shape the values and moral foundations of America’s future.”
The archbishop also noted the “prophetic advice” that Pope Benedict gave in his Jan. 19 address to U.S. bishops.
The Pope told the bishops of “the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity” that has the “courage to counter a reductive secularism” which is determining “the future of American society.”
Archbishop Gomez encouraged Catholics to pray for the nation’s leaders and entrusted his intentions to Mary Immaculate, patroness of America.
U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., is also speaking out. He thinks that the Obama administration’s decision is an attempt to force “Catholic health care to cease to be.”
“That’s the end goal here. I think we have to be very blunt about it,” he said in a Jan. 23 interview with EWTN News.
The congressman also responded to President Obama’s Jan. 22 statement on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion in the United States.
President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to abortion, which he called a “fundamental constitutional right.” He added that the 1973 decision “also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.”
Smith said that President Obama’s statement reveals his “bigotry and prejudice against the unborn child,” whom he fails to include as a family member.
He also observed that the president’s professed commitment to avoid interfering with the private matters of citizens is inconsistent with his administration’s Jan. 20 decision. Smith said that the mandate violates the conscience rights not only of those who object to contraception, but also those who object to abortion. The congressman warned that the “misguided” policy might be a foreshadowing of further coercive abortion policies in the future.
He said that Americans must realize the significance of the threats being posed by the Obama administration’s attacks on conscience rights.
“The mask is off,” he said. “It’s about time we woke up.”
Joseph Pronechen: Bishops Call for 'Rosary Novena for Life and Liberty'
Matthew Warner: Thank God for the HHS Mandate
Comments
Post a Comment
Repeat after me, “Separation between church and state.” It’s a beautiful thing.
HHS needs to know how damaging their decision is if the Catholic Hospitals and Schools will need to close. I am horrified that my son who had a heart transplant in a Catholic hospital a few years ago would not have been given his new heart because the Catholic Doctors would not be able to work.
The good news is at least the Democrat mask is slipping ... this election year there may be fewer “Charlie Brown Catholics” trusting the “Party of Death” as they once again conveniently wrap themselves in the chasuble language of the Church and spin out their disingenuous tired old mantra of:
“Just judge us Democrat candidates on a “WIDE” range of issues—on abortion, yes; but also on food policy, the arms race, human rights, education, social justice, the environment, military expenditures etc. etc.”
Sound familiar??? Grow up Charlie Brown’s Catholics as Mz “Lucy” Sebelius et alia “Progressives” will promise, promise, promise “Catholic sounding” policies and again yank the “Catholic football” away at the last moment and as Charlie lands on his fanny once again as the Democrats hand out stones instead of loaves, and serpents instead of bread sticks and then bill us quadruple for it.
I am ashamed of my country and wish I knew
a better one to live in, so many issues abortion,
Homosexuals etc are thrown up in our faces on a
Daily basis, now our government has
Taken away our right to practice religion, what
next? Please let me know who to write or what
to do I am so tired of minorities getting their
freedom instead of we the people who believe
as our ancestoriesdid once nation under God.
Irene Werth Kansas
As Father Mitch said this morning on the EWTN daily Mass homily- if the Obama administration gets away with this, next is forcing Catholic hospitals to PERFORM abortions.
Catholics of the US, unite. This mandate must not stand!
It is sickening that the majority of this country is of the faith and have morals, yet our tax dollars goes toward funding minority librals to live their filthy lifestyles of promisuity and culture of death.
Catholics are mandated by Jesus Christ to help the sick and the poor, and are also required to lead lives which are holy, and not immoral. Therefore the hospitals and other services may neither be closed nor offer services which are immoral. To meet our religious obligations, Catholics will be forced to break the law, albeit an immoral law. The staffs of the hospitals and other institutions should be made aware of this so that individuals can decide if they will stand with the Church. Those that do stand with the Church, including bishops, will eventually be arrested and put into jail. The term witness will take on new meaning, as the Church moves into a new era of persecution. Christ’s words to Peter, “And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” (Mt 16:18 Douay-Rheims) is our assurance that the Church will prevail.
The HHS Decision is like something out of a Fairytale where the villian King forgos his roundabout cruelty in refusing to ignore an evil and simply throws out an edict that forces the hero to choose between commiting that evil or being hung. However I find it to be a little less exciting and facinating when I know that it is happening in reality. Just as there is a differance between Fairytale and Fact, there is a differance between a government choosing not to procecute a particular type of evil and a government that COMMANDS that an evil be committed.
By doing this our govenment is claiming power not only over matters of the world, as well it should, but also over the matters of the heart. We are facing not a Fairytale King, but a tyrant Emperor back from the early days of the Apostolic age. And guess what? He is hunting us down and forcing us to worship false gods. Apostles and Martyrs, pray for us…...
Sweet work, Irene! There should be a prolife poerty contest or something. It would be cool to have a bunch of student think about the issue, and it would give a lot of brand new unique ways to put the pro life message out there. Dose anyone know where I can find a contest like that?
There are some signs of a growing consensus that lay and religious Catholics must arise to speak up intelligently in accurate, vivid language to urge America to return to her founding principles starting THIS November – a *dire necessity*!
.
We have only nine short, crazy months to earn victory through Prayer and to activate the POWER OF EACH: that is, to write to inform and to warn the wider community on this ruthless, anti-conscience power move by “Christian” President Obama, to contact key people, to organize within parishes, to help develop TURNOUT for E-DAY and finally to VOTE for blessed freedom in every voting booth, come November! Now, to the crucial VIVID LANGUAGE strategy:
.
Which of the following two descriptors is more effective for generating interest, mental images and subsequent Catholic and allied action: should we say President Obama ‘treats us as “useful idiots”’ OR should we insist he ‘treats us like LOWER ANIMALS without consciences’? Pending others’ comments, I strongly prefer the latter because “useful idiots” has been applied well beyond the narrow Marxist strategy to cases of using naïve citizens to push a *wide range* of agenda.
.
THE problem is that a “useful idiots” label involves mainly intellectual and educational deficiencies which too readily lead to distracting arguments. In contrast, seeing oneself as being treated like a LOWER ANIMAL without a conscience makes one immediately see the Obama ATTACK on God’s Beautiful Gift of being made in His Image—with a dignity placing us immeasurably above mere animals. This realization is followed by unavoidable focus on our possibly bowing under great pressure to Obama Abuse yet knowing that immediately upon our death, we face our FINAL Judgment where passing or failing *for Eternity* can depend on how we responded to prompts from our *CONSCIENCE*. Hence the enormous evil in President Obama’s treating us as LOWER ANIMALS is exposed as totally uncaring and glaringly insulting, constituting yet another case of ZERO EMPATHY he also exhibits toward Jesus Christ re Jesus’ aborted children. President Obama simply doesn’t care about stressing Catholics and other God-respecting people via his creations of “conscience-crises” for us.
.
President Obama won’t remind you he has doubts about Eternal Life and so will NOT be influenced by our concerns for the role of conscience in our personal eternal destiny. He has only a subjective definition of sin. To see that and much more, please do STUDY this most informative Interview of Barack H. Obama:
.
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctpolitics/2008/11/obamas_fascinat.html
.
Since First Lady Michelle Obama will be active in his campaigns, it is proper and Just to first ask Mrs. Obama whether SHE cares about Catholic citizens who must face unnecessary conscience-problems created by President Obama’s choice of a “health-care” design whose rule gravely DISSES freedom of conscience. Secondly, if Michelle goes along with that design, we ask whether they had thought about the Bad Image they present of God being an IDIOT who would bless their design while simultaneously giving us a *conscience* which is God-designed to be inherently against their design. Thirdly, we ask claimed-Christian President Obama to say whether or not he rejects Romans 3:8 – ‘do no evil that good may come of it’ and to explain exactly *how* his choice of design and insurance-rule respects Romans 3:8.
.
THE question for Catholics especially is whether there really is a growing consensus to FIGHT this satanic evil! The battle will not be won without use of truthful vivid language to jar busy minds into sober thinking and action.
While the Bishops will not be silent, talk won’t change anything. Civil disobedience will likely be required. Do the Bishops have the fortitude for that type of action? The people in the pews will be watching and observing.
Has anyone heard one cardinal suggest civil disobedience? Have we heard any utterance from our bishops about closing all Catholic schools, hospitals and social service agencies before we comply with such a mandate? Draw the line in the sand with a date and time of closure for all affected institutions strategically placed before the election and give those employees maps to the unemployment line if Obama does not back down. Archbishop Carlson said that lay Catholic action is particularly necesary. However, cardinals wear red for a reason. It is time for our bishops to act like leaders! If they lead then we will follow! The Pope is taken seriously because he acts like a man and fearlessly preaches what the Church teaches in and out of season. The office of bishop is not taken seriously because so many have been negligent in their duty to stand up on the difficult issues. The clergy must get in the game! When was the last time you heard a homily on contraception and how it has destroyed the moral fiber of our world!
Sign me up as a future inmate of the Catholic Gulag.
Open letter to President Obama & Secretary Sibelius:
Subject: The HHS Mandate on Contraception and Sterilization
You cannot tell us how to live our Faith! Giving us “a year to think about it” is more than foolish, it is hopeless, for we will never abandon our Faith! Your disrespect in this is simply unconscionable! We cannot and we will not be silent in the face of such blatant disregard for our beliefs. We will not stand for this brazen attack on our First Amendment rights!
Your final goal may serve an exclusionary purpose. Do you hope, perhaps, to finally close down all Christian schools, hospitals, educational institutions and public ministries that do not agree with you?
If we let you get away with this, what will be your next incursion into our constitutional freedoms?
For you to try and bend the free will of Americans to your own will is more than despicable. It is disloyal and un-American, especially when examined in the light of the proud tradition of freedom that we have in this country. Your days in office are numbered if you hope to persecute our way of thinking or destroy a freedom that America has always enjoyed.
This will not be countenanced or tolerated. It will not stand! America is a land of freedom, where freedom of conscience has always been honored. Who would have ever dreamed that the day would come when we would have to pray for religious freedom in America!
Our ancestors came to America for freedom of religion, conscience, and of thought. You seem to want to destroy all that has been accomplished in that light! Are you going to turn back the tides of time to a place when persecution and intolerance reigned? Are you going to disappoint all Americans because of you intransigence, and your will to mold all to your way of thinking? Think about it!
if people want abortifacient contraception and sterilization, let them get these somewhere else. Do not force us to accept your “pig in a poke”, now or ever! It is simply not worth selling our souls for it! It is high time you realized that we support the tenets of our Faith! We will not bow down to your ideological principles! You have gone way too far! It is time to retreat!
In the Massachusetts schools, hours upon hours have been spent on activities to reduce bullying. I believe that the majority of students who still have the virtue of innocence and are not under the threat of not being allowed to exercise their conscience , can honestly know that bullies bash babies when abortions are performed. Hopefully they can wear arm-bands stating:“Bullies bash babies” , in keeping with the anti-bullying campaign.
Vivianne,excellent letter. I doubt that that depots will respond to your letter. Obama and his Admin with the Marxist Democrat Party are no different from Despots of Cuba, Venezuela, China, etc. I believe America is finally waking up to this fact.
It’s unfortunate that so many catholics were taken in by this president and his ‘social justice’ platform. We must all band together to elect a new leader of our country, and re-affirm our Catholic faith and re-align with the faith of our founding fathers. Does noone read the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution any more? Perhaps we should have a religious freedom day and everyone who believes in religion freedom wears purple. Does anyone know if there a form letter we can print, sign and send to Congress? Every Catholic church in America should have such a letter available at Mass and the rectory. Maybe every church should have a single letter signed by all parishoners.
Why aren’t Sebelius, Pelosi, Biden, Kerry and the likes ex-communicated? They only use their “Catholic Faith” credentials to bludgeon the Catholic Faith yet they given the sacraments and are proudly photographed with ashes on their foreheads. This kind of evil and hypocracy seen by lay Catholics causes them to contiunallly rethink what the Faith stands for. If the Church is lukewarm on such matters it will be spit from His mouth!
Well said Sister Alice. God bless you. Peace, Peter ~
PLease clergy, stand firm on this issue. Don’t decide to “go along” with Obama because “people will be deprived of care”. THe end game here is control of medicine by the government. LOok at the literature from the 1920’s and 1930’s by eugenacists in the USA!
I am playing the Devil’s Advocate.
Suppose, just suppose Obama does not back down. For whom the bell tolls has arrived in 2013. What oh what will the folks at USCCB and other “Catholic” instutions do? Quit? Shut down? Peterish, “What, I have said before, I do know this Man!” ???
Or, continue to operate, with Jesus of Nazareth, .... and be arrested…like Saul, er, The Apostle?
Hey Steve: I will see you in the Gulag. God Bless You
One of the reasons the gov’t. gets away with this is that the hierarchy has been pretty much silent on the B.C. issue, at least during my lifetime. And lay Catholics refuse to accept the Church’s teaching on family planning. This “crisis” has the same roots as gay “marriage”—Catholics’ failure to live up to Church teaching on marriage and family for several decades. P.S. Birth control in the U.S. was illegal until the 1965 Supreme Court case Griswold (Planned Parenthood) vs. Connecticut. This case also “invented” the “Constitutional right to privacy” which became the “justification” for the legalization of abortion in the Roe decision just eight years later in Roe. I have yet to hear that ever preached from the pulpit, even on Respect Life Sunday in October or on Roe’s anniversary on Jan. 22nd.
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Let’s try to tell the difference, shall we? The government requires that reproductive health coverages be made available to all employees. It does not require that anyone make use of them. The Bill of Rights does not entitle any person to impose his own moral standards on others. The function of the bishops should be teaching, not coercion. When they resort to coercion, they show themselves to have been unconvincing teachers.
More than prayer is required. There is an adage that goes like this: “You can pray for potatoes, but you have to pick up a hoe.”
Obama and his Govt. says that whatever they prescribe are the faith the peoople should adopt. Then what is the use of U S Constitution which gives freedom of conscince ? If I have freedom to be christian , I have the right to follow my faith. When my faith teaches me that I should not be a party direct or indirect to kill anyone including a child in womb and when my faith teaches me abstinence before marriage, how can Obama directs me to kill someone or compel me to avail of the sexworker ? If I do not obey his Govt. will I cease to be American citizen ? EVen Communists have better sense. In a country which has 78% christians and Muslims and Jews and Hindus who subscribe a different philosophy, how a Govt can think of kicking these citizens ang go ahead with their agenda ?
What is wrong with you Catholics, you whine as if you have no power when you hold all the power but won’t use it! You’ve had the power from day 1, the day Roe v. Wade came down but you complain and look for some one else to rescue the babies as if you are helpless to being and end of abortion-on-demand. Is not your belief in God as the giver of life? Do you not profess that belief every Sunday in Mass? Do you not pray the Lord’s Prayer where you pray for God’s will to be done on earth? Is it God’s will that He creates life to be aborted? Is God in contradiction with Himself? Or are Catholics in contradiction with their professed beliefs and prayers? Are not your professed beliefs spiritual beliefs? Is not the Lord’s Prayer a spiritual prayer? Then how can so many of you give your name identification and support to that worldly organization responsible for keep abortion-on-demand-the-law-of-the-land? How can so many of you complain that that worldly organization is behind the attempt to take our First Amendment Rights away from us as if you have no power. The power is not to flood Washington with letters of protest. That hasn’t worked in 39 years in this war being waged against God by this worldly organization. The ONLY thing that will work will be you Catholics who are endorsing what this worldly organization is doing with your name and support is to remove your name from that organization and stopping giving them any support until they end their support for abortion, same sex marriage, and now their attempt to take our First Amendment Rights away from our Church. STOP BEING DEMOCRATS! WHOSE SAYS CATHOLICS SHOULD BE DEMOCRATS? SUCH CATHOLICS ARE KILLING THE BABIES, DESTROYING THE MEANING OF MARRIAGE, AND NOW DESTROYING OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. THIS IS A SPIRITUAL WAR WE ARE IN, NOT A POLITCAL ONE. IT IS YOUR SPIRITUAL BELIEFS THAT ARE BEING TORN APART - THE RIGHT TO LIFE, MARRIAGE BETWEEN ONE AND ONE WOMAN, AND YOUR RIGHT TO EXERCISE YOUR BELIEFS WITHOUT GOVERNMENT INTERFERRANCE OR THREAT OF INTERRANCE.
WAKE UP, CATHOLICS, WE DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME LEFT. GET OUT OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY NOW AND TELL ‘EM YOU WILL NEVER RETURN UNTIL THEY RESPECT INNOCENT HUMAN LIFE, MARRIAGE AS GOD ESTABLISHED IT, AND OUR CONSTITUTION RIGHTS TO PRACTICE OF SPIRITUAL BELIEFS AND SPEAK OPENLY ABOUT THIS FROM THE PULPIT IN EVERY CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE COUNTRY.
“While the Bishops will not be silent, talk won’t change anything. Civil disobedience will likely be required. Do the Bishops have the fortitude for that type of action? The people in the pews will be watching and observing.”
To Gene:
Excuse me !, Unless you’re dead, or blind, the Bishops are lining up the next volley. I certainly hope you and the people you mentioned above are not “watching and observing” but encouraging, supporting and praying.
opps - I knew I should have waited a couple hours and re-read what I wrote before sending it. I didn’t listen to myself. Here are corrections to what I posted.
…bringing an end to abortion-on-demand. (line 4).
WHO SAYS CATHOLICS SHOULD BE DEMOCRATS? (line 20)
… BETWEEN ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN (line 25)
…BELIEFS WITHOUT GOVERNMENT INTERFERANCE OR THREAT OF INTERFERANCE (lines 26,27)
…AND OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS TO PRACTICE OUR SPIRITUAL BELIEFS (lines 31,32)
The only solution for the Obama administration to make all insurance policies cover contraception & abortion would be to socialize medicine. Everyone would have the same coverage and go where ever they want to procure their procedures. No more employer provided insurance. Simple as that. Then when we fill out our tax forms, we would have to designate that we do not want our tax dollars used for those procedures/drugs (I loath to call contraceptives, “medicine”). I fear Obama is in for a big wake up call….he may be awakening his own “Sleeping Giant” once Catholics & other Christians get moving on this!!!
To paraphrase Mr. Romney, Institutions are people, my friend. It is clear that what is really going on here has been obscured. The women who are employed by Catholic institutions have the same rights as any other woman in America, the right not to have their employer make private decisions for them. The bishops clearly want to be able to use their economic power rather than merely moral persuasion to control women’s lives. But under the Constitution, the Bishop can only tell (Catholic) women how to live, not force them to live that way. An American does not surrender their free exercise of religon by joining the Church. The religious freedom of the Church as an institution is trumped by the religious freedom of the individual person who is entitled to the opportunity to choose for themself not to use contraception or abortion.
I see history repeating itself in this matter. Recall Nathanson’s disclosure that the pro-abortion advocates of the late 1960’s (and forward) used an hierarchical (upon the bishops) attack to divide Catholics into two camps on abortion. NARAL was involved in a significant fashion in this bit of politics.
Today it’s NARAL, again, and Planned Parenthood whispering into the ear of Obama and his chief henchwoman (Sibelius) to ‘divide and conquer’ on any matter Catholic. No moral analysis, no conscience question, merely pure and simple politics.
Decades of American history and millions of preborn deaths have changed the landscape. No one anymore can honestly say the Catholic’s position that a severing of human sexuality from its natural procreative functionality is not related to a full range of life issues.
The Supreme Court’s very recent ruling (9-0) in ‘Hosanna Tabor’ also provides hope. There is a true bar against most governmental interference upon religious freedoms grounded in the Establishment Clause. Litigation may be necessary. It will, however, be successful; thus placing the ‘correlation of forces’ where, more or less, they ought to be in a free society.
Didn’t Jesus tell the Disciples that some evils can only be driven out by Prayer and Fasting. I am in total support of My church and Our Bishops, but do we the laity need to be invited by the Church to participate spiritually in bringing down this evil,I say no.
Cathy
Everyone should write to his or her Representative to support H.R. 1179. Everyone should also write to his or her Senators to support S. 1467. These bills are both called the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act.
Also, you can go to the White House’s website and sign an online petition asking the Administration to rescind this rule. It might not work, but at least it will make our objections known.
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petitions
We need to do all we can as laity to undo this rule.
the line has been drawn in the sand by the self worshiping Catholic goats, Protestant goats, Devil worshiping Masons, queers, atheists, nihilists,howling moonbats, and polytheist nature Caliphs of the planet oompah oompah… who will be our Catholic champion? Death before committing mortal sin!
Write your State Senators to discourage Obamacare and to pass the Rights to Conscience Act
DO NOT BE AFRAID
@Bay Area: As you put it, “The Bill of Rights does not entitle any person to impose his own moral standards on others.” Does that not apply to the imposition of moral standards (i.e. society’s “morality” that contraception and sterilization are perfectly normal) on Catholics?
@ Phil Stone: The problem isn’t whether or not female employees of Catholic institutions have access to contraceptives (they do, by the way… they can walk into any Public Health clinic or Planned Parenthood Center if they so choose and receive these services and products at no or very low cost, thanks to the American taxpayers). The problem is, it would require Catholic organizations and employers (and as a result, using the hard work of all their Catholic employees) to PAY for these services for their employees. THAT is the violation of conscience here. If Catholic employees working for a Catholic institution have to pay for what they find morally objectionable and wrong, that is coercion and it is against every principle this country was founded under (and against everything we as Catholics stand for with regard to free will).
It is no longer a matter of, “Well, I don’t personally agree with it, but I’m not going to stand in the way of letting someone else do what they feel is right.” Putting aside the fact that as Catholics we are called to encourage our brothers and sisters to form their consciences and grow in virtue, it has for some time now gone beyond that point. When my money goes to pay for someone’s birth control pills, I become tacitly complicit in her choice to use birth control (which is grave matter indeed).
I’d say it’s time for another Boston tea party, but if we were to throw all the birth control pills into the harbor the fish would become infertile and our drinking water would become contaminated and cause increased human infertility. Oh wait, that’s already happening (http://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/2008-02-19/cupido-birthcontrol.html).
Here’s one more for the Catholic gulag. :)
It’s time for ALL Catholics to properly develop and then apply their consciences to vote NOT Democrat, NOT Republican, NOT any political party, but VOTE CATHOLIC! That means pro-life is the starting point….without life, nothing else matters.
Reply to Cathy (01-31):
“Some evils” is key to your statement. Please do pray and fast; ultimely, whatever is done by Catholic Americans (and their supporters) politically it will only ‘work’ with the Trinity’s approval. To gain that approval we need to ask and to hope and, yes, even love our enemies, as we proceed. However, this is a timke when our Bishops have spoken. Active, on-the-ground, efforts are required.
Really, they think that’s suffering? them not getting their way and allowing others to make their own choices is suffering? its a horrible tragedy that the church can’t impose their beliefs on people who choose to think and act differently now? The christians aren’t the only ones in America, there are other people with their own beliefs. imposing the christian belief on them and forcing them to have children against their will is a god given right? if a woman is raped and impregnated against her will, the law of her country should force her to give birth to her attacker’s child? is that the christian way? what if a woman would be bringing her child up in a life worse than death?
how does this affect your religious freedom and liberty? it doesn’t prevent you from having children, it only gives other people who don’t think the same as you a chance to have their own choice. its just the church attempting to impose itself on the rest of the world, like it always does. what about the crusades, when the church senselessly slaughtered countless jews for no reason other than they had different beliefs, was that a tragedy or just a inconvenience? the church that mandated witch hunts and murdered countless people, this is the same church you are supporting today.
When my last son was born just a few years ago, the hospital informed me that the insurance company refused to pay for his circumcision because it was purely cosmetic (but I could pay for it on my own if I wanted it ... $300)! My other boys they did it to no problem just a few years prior. So I found it confusing, if they are trying to save insurance companies money, why they want to force insurance companies to pay for such objectionable things as birth control? I mean, shouldn’t people pay for it on their own if they want it? I know it is probably a simple link I am missing, probably an alterior motive such as population control or something? Just one more footing into their abyss they are trying to shove us into. Feel it people?
Bay Area,
The government can start it’s own organization, instead of forcing organizations started and run by the church to pay for their mandates.
Also ready for the Catholic gulag!
You want to REALLY scare these amoral Politicians ... if every Bishop in every Diocese across this hurting Country had one of these letters read to the Faithful the first Sunday of every month right up to and including the Sunday before the November Election ... THAT and only THAT would get their attention. Their cynical attitude of “How many Divisions does the Pope have?” would get a wake up call as the Popes “Captains” mobilized their troops.
This all seems surreal. This is an obvious attack on religious freedom and Catholics. How anybody can support the Obama administration’s decision is beyond me. Obama’s arrogance and disdain for Catholicism is appaling. This is a man who as a Senator would not vote to save the life of children that managed to survive abortions. This man spoke at Georgetown University and demanded that all pictures of Jesus be covered while he spoke. And let’s not forger about the Notre Dame scandal. I’m a practicing Catholic and showed an article about this current issue to my Mom (a nominal Catholic), and she saw no problem with it! What is going on with Catholics today? I shake my head and cant’ make sense of it. It’s heartbreaking. My state of California has no respect for the family or the traditional marriage (We’ve already voted for traditional marriage twice, only to have activist pro-homosexual judges say that your vote doesn’t count). We must inform nominal/non-practicing Catholics the importance of doing God’s will by protecting life and the family, and not follow their own fallible ideology. Other than praying, fasting and writing to your elected officials, I don’t know what else can be done. The Book of Revelations said that these days would come, unfortunately (or fortunately), sooner than some of us anticipated.
It was not read. However on Jan 22, it was preached about abortion in the homely. I still maintain that even if policy is reversed, it will NOT protect the private individual, nor those who work in the public sector. There is no justice in that—either reversal of policy protects ALL Catholics regardless or it does not.
Jesus, who is TRUTH ITSELF, made the claim “THE GATES OF HELL WILL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST MY CHURCH”! We are all in for a battle on this..I am given HOPE when Fr. Cameron, who writes for the Magnificat, gave the most passionate stirring homily on this situation that I’ve ever heard. He called it like it is indicating how EVIL and DIABOLICAL this decision is..and that the PRIESTS and BISHOPS need to LEAD on this..He also indicated this may lead to some type of MARTYDOM and it was a cause WORTH DYING FOR..My husband and I had to pinch ourselves..FINALLY THE WHOLE UNVARNISHED TRUTH!! I am ready to fight the Good Fight..
@ John smith:
Johnny, Johnny, Johnny…. Don’t you get it? We are idiots. We are dupes. Modern Science has told us that the unborn, living child of humans is human life, and we believed it. The Catholic Church has told us that because this is an innocent human life we can’t kill it, and we believed her too. But you’re missing the point!
Whether or not it is RIGHT for a woman to kill her child, the Church has still FORBADE US (it is the “forbade” AND “us” that is important, here) from killing a child. She called it murder. This means that to assist in killing a child by merely HANDING OVER the WEAPONS to do so to WHOEVER ASKS is also in violation of OUR CORE beliefs.
We mistakenly believe that to do this is to hand a handgun over to a man who says “Ahg! I’m ticked off at my ten-year-old son and if I get my hands on him I will kill him! YOU! Gimme that gun!” Oh yes, we are retarded for believing this in the first place, but this is our religion, this is our standard of behavior, this is our moral code. The government has seen fit to say that this man can murder proverbial his ten-year-old boy and that people who believe otherwise should ignore it and move on. But it has now proclaimed that people who believe otherwise MUST NOW PARTICIPATE in it.
You claim that we are forcing this belief on others. No, we can’t make them do anything. But we DO stand and protest because the government has removed the right of the civilian to defend its neighbor against the proverbial mugger that is abortion. How can you see fit to claim that we can just do our thing and you can just do yours when the whole point of this mandate is to say that we, the Catholic Church, can NO LONGER DO OUR THING? To help commit a sin violates our core moral code, and you say that we are shoving our code off on you? Even a retard like myself can see that here it is YOUR standard being forced onto US. You are saying, “It is perfectly moral to HELP A PERSON DO SOMETHING you believe is WRONG. If you don’t believe that, TOO BAD!”
@ EVERYONCE:
Yes, if even a retard can see this, then what are we to make of this mandate? It a deliberate attack on the Catholic Church! It is a declaration of war, plain and simple. They have said that we no longer have the authority to teach what we will, believe what we will, or uphold our beliefs and act as true standard-bearers of Christ! The Obama administration has gone beyond its rightful territory as lord over land and civil law and is marching it’s troops into the territories of Religion and Human Hearts.
We the Church, and ALL peoples of ALL Religions should stand! THIS IS OUR TERRITORY!!!! And we need to REGECT these FORGIEN FORCES from OUR LAND! To ignore this would be tantamount to this same invading government’s dismissal of the Nazi war on the rest of the world. Fellow believers of all creeds, you cannot wait until the New Nazi’s bomb your harbors! Because if they get that far, I highly doubt you can pull out an atom bomb to save all or our behinds. We ALL need to move, NOW!
To the Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, and Religous- Keep up the fight! The faithful are standing with you.
To the Obama Adminsitration- You have failed. We will NOT “knuckle under”. We will not bend. We will not break. Don’t get too comfortable with the view from the Oval Office, you will be leaving shortly after the November election.
Sad to say there was no letter from the Bishop read at our Parish Mass and if you look to our official Diocesan Newspaper there have been zero, zip, nada articles on this evil HHS Mandate ..... However there ARE favorable articles praising Mr. Obama for his stance on immigration ... including versions in Spanish.
As St. Thomas Moore famously said “Silence means agreement” so I guess that it IS ok to embrace and use evil means to obtain some “good”. It is wrong to say that “all of the Bishops” are opposed to mandated abortion coverage because my Bishop supports Obama and his silence on the HHS Mandate has to make me think that the so called immigration issues trump Abortion and that implicitly anyway 53 million dead babies and counting are just collateral damage ... here is the link ... see for yourself:
http://www.icatholic.org/search?q=obama&x=0&y=0
THIS WILL NOT STAND!!!
What I have not seen discussed and what is the greatest predictor of how we arrived at this sorrowful state of affairs and how the sorrow has and will increase is this: when we did not rise up as Catholics, led by our priests and bishops, at the first mention of legalized abortion prior to and leading up to Roe v Wade, we laid the fundamental path to where we are now. When we looked around us and saw that so many Catholics were voting for Hillary Clinton, we laid the way. When priests and bishops refused and continue to refuse to raise their voices against the immorality of contraception and abortion in their daily and Sunday Masses, we further pave the way to this present and continuing tragedies. There is no surprise to how and why we got here. The question is: how will we get out. The answer, as always, lies in suffering discipleship from each of us, led by visible and vocal priests and bishops. Priests, bishops, laity: wake up to your responsibilities for leadership! Priests and Bishops, Your uncatechised flock cries out to you for strong and visible example. Get in the public square. Be unafraid. Announce your intention to close your hospital, your parish school, your Catholic charity headquarters. We have Truth Himself on our side and it is only our own lack of faith and cowardice that prevents us from acting. Do it. Now.
We know abortion stops a beating Heart,
Just dousing life, like one would douse a Flame.
They’re snuffed, put out before they’ve had their start
And yet we let it happen just the same.
We fear our busy lives will grow more wild,
As Flames spread infants grow and take their toll.
And like a Flame, we fear the humble child
With little Hearts that flutter like the coals.
But who was it who built the hearty Flame?
Who played with matches, set it in the pit?
You shared your spark; you played the Fire’s game.
You won, this is your prize! So please don’t quit!
Remember, though it this Fire’s in your hearth,
Though you claim the choice is in your rights,
The Flame is still a Flame before its birth;
A brilliant Beacon shining out of sight.
Shining Out of Sight by LoudDreamer(aka ME!)
The problem is that nobody cares anymore, I’ve met alot of people who are horrified by what abortion is and what contraceptives do are pro-choice because they don’t feel like they are allowed to speak out. They feel that they have no right to defent innocents when because evil is only evil for some people. This makes no sense! A life is a life, and wether it is robbed of its pursuit of happiness by being prevented from coming into exitance or of it’s life aswell by just plain being killed they are still being robbed of their rights, is our DUTY to care. How can we form “more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility” If domestic nomalcy is killing you kid, if only the radicals and murderers speak out?
I’ve written an signed petitions to both my Senators and my Representative, all of who are Democrats-I live in Connecticut. They have all said that they are in favor of this mandate because women should be free to choose. I wrote back, “What about our choice? Don’t we count? There should be Healthcare Plans that don’t cover any kind of contraception or abortion, so that those who are opposed to paying for it, like me, can have a right to choose. I’ve been unemployed for 3 years now, and I’ve chosen to go without healthcare, until I find a plan that is free of the evil our President has mandated upon us. As for Secretary Sebelius, she should have compassion for those of us who have a conscience, because, obviously, she does not!
I guess the Catholic Church wouldn’t be so upset if my ovaries were in a bank instead of my body.
The piece of this that legislation that just jumped out at me is the effect it will have on our underage youngsters who are covered under their parents’ medical plans.
Think about it: free access to oral contraceptives means free access for our 14-year-old daughters or the girlfriends of our 16-year-old sons who are covered on these plans, access without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Because think about it, recently passed laws now require physicians to demand that parents *leave the room* when they have conversations with our young teens about sex, and not to answer if we ask to know what is going on with our 12 or 15-year-old daughter. So a prescription may be given, and the prescription filled *for free* at any pharmacy that takes our health plan. Oh, and also, according to recently passed legislation, the pharmacists are not supposed to divulge to anyone what prescriptions customers have had filled, even when the customer is 11 years old, even when asked by the customer’s own parent.
So under the Obama plan, the 12-year-old daughter of Catholic parents may easily visit her family physician, ask for and receive an RX for oral contraceptives, without her parents’ knowledge or consent. She can then ask Mom to drive her to the mall (she’s not old enough to drive yet) where she can get the RX filled for free on her parents’ health plan, but without her parents ever finding out (the pharmacy having that gag order on it, too.)
Isn’t that well-thought-out? Secrecy and silence surrounding our daughters using powerful hormones to alter their developing body’s delicate chemistry. And they make sure we don’t know a thing about what our girls may be experimenting with, but, and this is the killer part! they do make sure that we *pay* for it, from our work health plan. . . even if we work for a Catholic organization.
What a neat trick! All the shiny billiard balls roll neatly right into the pockets and disappear. Voila! The table is empty; the game is over; the Culture of Death has won. Catholic families have the rug pulled out from under them.
If it weren’t so evil, I would say to our opponents, “hats off to you. Well played.”
Bay area stated:
““Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Let’s try to tell the difference, shall we? The government requires that reproductive health coverages be made available to all employees. It does not require that anyone make use of them. The Bill of Rights does not entitle any person to impose his own moral standards on others. The function of the bishops should be teaching, not coercion. When they resort to coercion, they show themselves to have been unconvincing teachers.”
I agree with this, and don’t something like 95 percent of practicing Catholics use oral contraceptives? Why are we blaming Obama for this when Catholics are taking the pill?
Like the gulag idea..except that were’re already in it. Next will be the armbands and patches on our outer garments. Let’s get the jump on the next mandate and design our own before the Administration does it for us. I for one will wear mine without reservation. In fact, if we take some overt, visible action to underscore this injustice, do you not think that the effect might be similar to lapel ribbions, which are available for every cause or condition under the sun? Without saying a word, people know who you are and what you stand for.Puts the issue out front and stimulates discourse, debate and in some instances, animosity. I have read the people are ready to accept some form of martyrdom. Wear your feelings on your sleeve and prepare to turn the other cheek.Anybody can manage a fine or go to jail. See Occupy fill in the blank.It requires fortitude( Oh! One of the cardinal virtues.)to move it from the keyboard to the street corner. No amount of letter writing will have the effect of moving this from the darkness and into the light. Over the top? Offensive to our Jewish brethern who suffered in the extreme simply for what they believed? Maybe…there are some who will say so. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,they, above all, should at least appreciate the symbolism. That having been said, all you artists and designers get to work out there.
PS- Rita….keep them in a shoebox under the bed if you like. Just don’t ask me to pay to make them dysfunctional.
Hey, Laura!
“The government requires that reproductive health coverages be made available to all employees. It does not require that anyone make use of them.”
No, but it requires that we assist people who want them in obtaining the drugs and procedures which violate our beleifs. Do you not understand? I, as a faithful Roman Catholic, am obligated to act according to my faith. We were told time in and time out by Christ and the Apostles that our actions work together with our faith and the grace of God to save us. (try reading James 2:14-26 where repeatedly we are told that “faith without works is dead”) If works can complete faith, than sin can make it hollow. This being so, if we are being COERCED to ASSIST someone who is SINNING and CONTRADICTING OUR FUNDEMEMTAL BELIEFS then it is our duty to RESIST! When someone says “Do something really bad, go on!” unless we actively try to avoide it, we are culpable. We need to fight this, even if it means jail or death.
The fact that terrorists attack innocent people dose not change the fact that doing so is evil. What if you turned on your television and and heard that the government has required that you must go down to your local school and help the Islamic extreamist diss western education by killing some poor child there at least once a month you or be thrown in jail? You would be outraged!(I hope) We feel the same way about being forced to help kill unborn children. Here, to be passive is to be guilty.
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Great idea, Bay area(said I with not a hint of sarcasim)!
No, really, it is. Religious matters are NOT ones under the domain of Ceaser, and history shows that when Ceaser forgets this we christians end up as LION FEED! They seek to make us conform to their agenda, to force us to comply with thier supreame lack of standards. No longer are they content telling us we can’t protect our fellow citizens they now seek to make us assist in ending their lives. Don’t you dare say that they aren’t citizens! Although the unborn child has not been yet born in the united states, their parents are citizens, which means they qualify even if their parents don’t want them to and have sepreate rights of their own! Dare we ignore the lessons learned in history?
We cannot allow ourselves to be made second class citizens, we cannot allow our unborn to reamin second class citizens. If the can force the Nazis can systematically strip the Jews of thier rights, then LEGALLY kill them, and if the Supreme court can systematically strip children of thier rights, and then LEGALLY kill THEM TOO, them they can and will do the same to us when they see the chance! And no, comparison of abortion to the Holocaust is NOT a reach. Check out this link:
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/kellmeyer/071101
Just suppose that all the bishops announce that all Catholic schools will close at the beginning of the school year in August or September 2012. This will give each public school district time to prepare to accommodate the extra students. Complaints that the Church has no right to do this can be answered by the fact that everyone, including parents of Catholic school students, pays school taxes. The extra students can be taught in the empty former Catholic school buildings for a reasonable rent. Or, the kids can be home schooled.
Surely, some inventive work-arounds can be devised for the other outreach.
Never get in bed with Caesar is the moral of this horrible whatever!
LETS GIVE OBAMA THE BOOT. And if he does not leave
we can force him out, just like he’s doing to
to catholic hospitals etc.
What troubles me is that it has taken this long for the hierarchy to figure out the agenda of the left. What causes such blindness to the liberal malefocense?
And do they really expect to turn the tide now that it has come in with such force? The left has taken the silence and support of the hierarchy as a mandate. It won’t be reversed with the preaching of ‘tolerance’.
I’m not impressed. When the bishops start to excommunicate the politicians involved—let us start with Pelosi—then I’ll start to be impressed. The bishops need 1) to make it very clear to the laity that contraceptive use/sterilization is sinful, 2) promote NPF usage, 3)offer physicians/hospital workers NFP-inservices (or whatever they are called) in the Catholic hospitals. If they do that, then I’ll be impressed.
Let’s see…same-sex marriage - a little upset (BTW, have a Starbucks), teaching kindergarteners about same sex marriage - a little upset, politicians who are supposedly Catholic supporting anti-Catholic legislation - a little upset, supposed Catholic colleges (who don’t know what a mandatum is) honoring decidedly anti-Cathlolic politicians - a little upset, and now the Catholic HHS secretary (at the behest of the most overtly anti-Catholic president in our history) telling the multi-million dollar health care industry that they must conform - and the bishops finally say something (asking the laity to act!). When are they going to really lead?
There is only one candidate for president who will completely eliminate this demonic government run abomination of medicine. He also happens to have one of the best anti-abortion ads I’ve seen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkAsLPrnJGc
quote: “life is precious, if we cannot protect life, we cannot protect liberty”
Cool. Now, where are the four letter words I did not see on Bishop Driscoll’s of Boise, similar letter….......
I WILL NOT COMPLY.
Kudos to those above commentators who take our many bishops to task…where were you?? ... Why don’t you really support Jesus, Mary and Joseph???
How about a plan requesting me to pay for servicemen in concentration camps killing Jews during WWII? Is the President telling me I should comply?
I have an inalienable right to protest against the President’s attack on freedom of conscience, and I will NOT be asking anyone for this right. Neither from the President nor anyone else. I got it, as well as the President got it from God, and nobody can take it from me.
I am coming from the county where there were prisoners of conscience. It was during time when communism ruled there.
I guess we will have people building new prisons for prisoners of conscience in the US.
I will not bow down to unjust and ungodly decision.
I will not say to Eve, you can take the apple as long as you are happy. It has nothing to do with love. It is ‘whatever’.
Does anyone know of an updated list of the Bishops who did NOT speak out?
I would would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!
Notwithstanding wild-eyed cries to the contrary, THE HEALTH CARE LAW DOES NOT FORCE EMPLOYERS TO ACT CONTRARY TO THEIR BELIEFS—unless one supposes the employers’ religion forbids even the payment of money to the government (all of us should enjoy such a religion).
Questions about the government requiring or prohibiting something that conflicts with someone’s faith are entirely real, but not new. The courts have occasionally confronted such issues and have generally ruled that the government cannot enact laws specifically aimed at a particular religion (which would be regarded a constraint on religious liberty contrary to the First Amendment), but can enact laws generally applicable to everyone or at least broad classes of people (e.g., laws concerning pollution, contracts, fraud, negligence, crimes, discrimination, employment, etc.) and can require everyone, including those who may object on religious grounds, to abide by them. Were it otherwise and people could opt out of this or that law with the excuse that their religion requires or allows it, the government and the rule of law could hardly operate. When moral binds for individuals can be anticipated, provisions may be added to laws affording some relief to conscientious objectors.
Here, there is no need for such an exemption, since no employer is being “forced,” as some commentators rage, to act contrary to his or her belief. In keeping with the law, those with conscientious objections to providing their employees with qualifying health plans may decline to provide any health plans and pay an assessment instead or, alternatively, provide plans that do not qualify (e.g., ones without provisions they deem objectionable) and pay lower assessments. http://pnhp.org/blog/2011/03/15/employer-sponsored-health-plans-under-the-affordable-care-act/
The employers may not like paying the assessments or what the government will do with the money it receives. But that is not a moral dilemma of the sort supposed by many commentators, but rather a garden-variety gripe common to most taxpayers—who don’t much like paying taxes and who object to this or that action of the government. That is hardly call for a special “exemption” from the law. Should each of us feel free to deduct from our taxes the portion that we figure would be spent on those actions (e.g., wars, health care, whatever) each of us opposes?
As a catholic health care worker in a large catholic hospital system, I am seeing not a word from our CEO. We did however hear a strong homily Feb. 5 th at the cathedral in Ft. Worth. Unfortunately it seems our catholic health care organizations may be catholic in name only, like so many colleges.
Well the bishops and priests should have thought about this 4 years ago when they supported Obama, now the cow is out of the barn. What is worse is that priests are still supporting this jerk and the entire time they profess to be Christian and offer the Eucharist. Reminds me of the Scribes and Pharisees; woe to you blind guides!!
Gandalf in the lord of the rings (Bishop & staff): “I am a servant of the Secret Fire (Holy Spirit), wielder of the Flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun! Go back to the shadow. You shall not pass!”
The number 150 is only about 57% the Bishops in the USA. According to http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_Roman_Catholic_bishops_are_there_in_the_U.S and o.ther sources online there are approximately 270 to 370 active Bishops in the US. If we take the low number, 270, then that means 150/270 = 57%, approximately. I pray that those Bishops who have not spoken up would do so ASAP. Yours in Christ—Mark Kamoski.
Dudes, I’m leaving the Church over this! The bishops are so wrong about this issue. The Church as and EMPLOYER must follow the laws that pertain to employers—all of them! Catholic institutions want to make their employees second-class citizens by denying them the health care coverage that is mandated by law. Maybe they find that paying minimum wage also violates their tender consciences?
The blame as many have noted can be set upon the USCCB for being such cowards when it comes to using Canon Law 915. They should have started with the false pope of the American catholic church: Ted Kennedy & all of his apostles & disciples, including the likes of “sister” Teresa Kane & all of her types that discarded their wedding gowns (habits) for the rags of the world. When these “sisters” abandoned God’s children by leaving their teaching of school children for greener & “better” things. Now, we have Catholics that don’t know their faith or even care to know it, and now we have around 70% of “catholics”, not 95% as Laura came up with, using not only birth control, but, also abortion & most don’t even care about the “sex education” that their children are receiving. How many of these Bishops are even aware of what is being forced down onto the school children by Obama’s homosexual agenda. This man is completely EVIL, even though the previous editor of the NCR couldn’t see it. THE USCCB NEEDS TO START A DAY OF HOLY ADORATION, WITH A MASS & THE ROSARY/DIVINE MERCY CHAPLET, FASTING & PRAYER, AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK IN EVERY PARISH, asking Heaven to send the Holy Spirit down onto Obama for his conversion, repentance & salvation, & don’t stop until he gets right with God & he will put an end to his OBAMANISM, that is destroying our country & the world. For those few people that are blind to what Obama is doing: HE WANTS CONTROL OF EVERYTHING, INCLUDING CONTROLLING INSURANCE COMPANIES. Have a nice day. +JMJ+
“The Department of Health and Human Services’ new rule requires almost all employers to provide insurance plans that cover sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacient drugs. Its religious exemption will not cover most Catholic institutions like health systems, universities and charities.”
And what about individual Catholic employers? There are many business owners whose enterprises are not explicitly “Catholic,” even less so than Catholic hospitals, schools, and charities. They have to pay for it, too. Are the Bishops saying anything about that?
I always thought people should pay for their own birth control and abortion services. An employer should not be forced to pay. Unlike birth of a child,recreational sex has little public benefit. And any cost for providing abortion etc,is always passed on to the public in higher taxes or higher costs for products or services.Forcing a Catholic hospitals to pay means patients will have higher hospital bills, something many people already have trouble paying.But people love freebies.And the politican Obama gets the credit.
I am with Margaret on this—I would like to see a list of those bishops who did and didn’t speak up—what’s the quickest way to find that?
JMJ, you are 100% correct. This kind of demon is cast out only through prayer and fasting. All the emails, phone calls and petitions in the world won’t budge this one. We fight this with spiritual weapons.
The Catholic Church needs to understand how birth control is healthy for a society and why it’s morally correct to provide families the tools to only have children when they are ready. It’s not Barack Obama’s fault that the church is unwilling to budge on these ‘no-brainer’ social issues. Nobody is being told they have to use birth control (even though many who aught to don’t).
Well hey MKL, The Church has consistantly and constantly spoken out against abortion and infanticide since “The Sayings of the 12 Apostles” was written approximately 2000 years ago. Better known as the “Didache”, it is a simple and concise presentation. (Hey pssst!!! you can google it)!
The Bishops are only being consistent with the Apostles of Jesus Christ in instructing the faithful of the Church. Instead of leaving the Church, why not just “properly form your conscience”. If you wish to read the modern prophesy for this historic teaching (and still consistent), read the encyclical “Humani Vitae”.
MLK, there is NO sustenence found in the vomitus of these progressives, (socialists, marxists)
But hey, if you want modernism, why not get the Obamniac’s to follow pagan Roman law on children, where not only was abortion legal, but parents could abandon their unwanted “born” children, too! Just toss them outside or leave them at the city dump and no legal repurcussions. If only those pesky Christians quit going to the dumping grounds and trying to rescue them !! Bad Christians, huh !
Dear MKL. That is how Christ is making things straight in His Church. Abusive priests out. Non-Catholics people out. Christ already has shown He can do it, when He did it over the Bread of Life discourse. Christ still died for you but since you don’t want to respond to His call, and the fact that you are here means He called you, He will let you go back into the world and the old way of life. Remember, though, that He will be standing outside and looking for you. Regardless if it is in this life or after. He wants you to come and choose to love.
Blessings,
Greg.
Dear Scott: The Catholic Church already have given a tool that not only is better than artificial contraception but also allows higher chance to get pregnant than IVF. It is called NFP. And interestingly, Hindu and Muslim in India are learning it from Mother Theresa’s nuns.
Contraception is shutting the door on the face of God who is Love telling Him that He has no place in your private life. Contraception is telling your wife that she is only an object and you will not give fully yourself to her.
The Catholic Church calls contraception the biggest evil. The world is calling it the highest achievement. Before you fully declare on which side you are, please investigate. Then make a choice. You don’t need to agree with me or the Church. You don’t need to agree with God. You have free will to choose Him or the evil one.
Blessings,
Greg.
Feb. 7th: we have to remember that even if this proposed mandate is defeated, if Obama is given 4 more years in office he will have nothing to lose and will bring it in again. I do believe, as some have said, that in going against the Catholic Church (and other Religious groups such as Muslims and the Orthodox Coptic Church) Obama and Sebellius have truly ‘awakened a sleeping giant’ and this has brought most of our Bishops to stand together against this threat. But, unless they acknowledge the grave danger we are faced with by ‘Catholic’ politicians such as Sebellius, Pelosi, Biden, et al and inform them that because of their public stands against Church teaching, they are not to present themselves to receive Holy Communion. Pelosi openly mocks, not only the Catholic Church and her teachings, but also our Bishops so I believe Sebellius’ proposed mandate is a good thing…and all men and women of good faith will stand against this and against Obama and his attempts to radically control religion.
There must be a mandate for every Catholic who desires salvation to vote against the Culture of death and reject Obama in the coming election. To do otherwise must be anathema.
I believe there are 271 Active Bishops in the United States. 160 have spoken out…where are the rest? Why aren’t all Bishops, active and retired, speaking out against this?
Hey Scott,
I fail to understand how they are healthy. If someone wishes to wait to have children, why do they not wait to have se.x? If they are married, then why not simply use NFP? Theological arguments aside, Artifical Birth Control is not only deteriorating our nations values and undermining the basic principals of self control, is also an enviromental nightmare. How is that benificial for anyone? Check this link out: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/true-fish-tales
Thanks Greg and Steve, you are again affirming for me that to the Catholic, it’s a small world after all!
Thanks Greg and Steve. Well said.
Dear MKL: I wish you all the best. I really wish you. It is no sarcasm. God does not bless us because we are good. We are good because He blesses us. He blesses all of us, in the Church and outside, and I know He will keep blessing you too. I hope some day we will meet in much, much better circumstances!
Blessings,
Greg.
PS. Please do not receive Eucharist. If you don’t believe it is Body and Blood of Christ then why to bow down in front of a piece of bread? But because it IS HIS Body and Blood, you cannot take it in order not to condemn yourself. I cannot stop you, but I can only beg you not to. For yours and His sake.
Dear Florin. I start wondering if it is not Our Lady of Akita’s prediction going on…
‘LOUD’ is very prophetic here…all the drugs we take are being flushed into our ecosystem and are anything but environmentally friendly…NFP, meanwhile, may be The Church’s best gift to mankind in the US…Thanks, Fran
The bishops should have it that all parishes have members sign a petition against ObamaScare to be sent to washington. The parishes also should make arrangements to have a day in the US where we all go to the statehouses to march against this.
The atheism and immorality our govt. is trying to force us to comply with is disgusting and needs to be STOP!
Send a message right.in.the.White.House.living.room! There’s a way to do that. ==>>([url=http://wh.gov/kl3]http://wh.gov/kl3)[/url]
Stay focussed on the attack on religion and stop using “healthcare” as the term is not correct. Pregnancy is not a disease. A man or woman using contraception is a choice. Contraception does not heal or eliminate pain, as we all know there are horrible risks. it can create a healthcare need, but it is not healthcare and should not be considered as such.
Teddy beare - good idea, about having all parishes have members sign petitions, but I know of one or more parishes where the pastors will side step these types of issues out of fear of alienating a portion of the parish members. Sad but true.
How many of Catholic Bishops are female—please remind me? Oh, that’s right, zero. How may of them have wives and daughters. Oh, right. ZERO. There is no credibility here—Please stop using an anarchistic church structure to stroke your male egos and Lord over half of the human race—when you have not walked in their shoes. This is ridiculous and the Bishops need to enter, at the last, the 20th century. My mother was right when she left the church 40 years ago in disgust.
As for my own parish, the priests are FINALLY preaching from the pulpit. I still maintain, even if policy is reversed, it does nothing to protect the private individual who must pay for insurance out of pocket, persons who work in the public or private sector or for those who would simply like the offensive procedures removed from coverage options.
I’ve always been a very loyal democrat and have never even thought of voting republican, not even on the local level. But now my own party thinks nothing of throwing my faith under the bus.
I can’t believe that the President is this stupid, to turn his back on his most loyal voting block this close to an election. Doesn’t he want to be reelected? Well whatever his thing is now,I really no-longer care.
However, now I am willing to throw all those that stand against my faith under the bus,this coming election and from now on regardless of party affiliation and hope all Catholics feel the same.
Sincerely, Blaise Roche
I’m so glad the bishops are standing firm on this issue. However, I wonder why no one is challenging the “98% of all Catholic women have used birth control” statistic—the Guttmacher Institute (which is quoting that stat) has such an obvious agenda to promote abortion-they don’t even try to hide it! Why aren’t more people refuting this bogus statistic? Pray for our bishops, that they continue being good shepherds.
“How many of Catholic Bishops are female—please remind me? Oh, that’s right, zero. How may of them have wives and daughters. Oh, right. ZERO. There is no credibility here—Please stop using an anarchistic church structure to stroke your male egos and Lord over half of the human race—when you have not walked in their shoes. This is ridiculous and the Bishops need to enter, at the last, the 20th century.”
thank God the bishops haven’t since the current century’s morals suck (i think you meant the 21st century). look at what we have now: widespread divorce, children born out of wedlock, people cohabitating and not even bothering to get married, all of which were taboo and practically nonexistent prior to the so-called sexual revolution. what ever happened to the idea that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? unless you think this is progress, i find the push for so called “reproductive rights” to be a complete joke that is leading if anything to society’s decline. the fact that all of these relevant and common sense teachings (sex only in marriage, abstinence outside of it, natural family planning and not reducing sex as an act simply for pleasure, etc) are being defended by celibate men just impresses me even more.
Read the Book Hitlers Cross they did the same things to the churches in Germany forced compromises.
This article cites some 160 Bishops and there are 194 Dioceses. Are there still some Bishops who need some backbone?
What do you expect from the first president ever to say this is not a christian country.
I think it is a golden opportunity for the presidential canidates to use this aganist president Obama.Hopefully,making many catholics aware of whats going on and not to vote for him again.Catholics need to wake up and not vote for someone who violates what Jesus Christ said.
I agree with the Catholic Bishops that the Obama Administration is attacking the first amendment and separation of Church and State. Also, Obama’s Health Care Law infringes on the beliefs of the Catholic Church. This an absolute attack on our beliefs which is protected by the The Constitution of The United States. I will fight this law at every turn in a lawful manner.
“widespread divorce, children born out of wedlock, people cohabitating and not even bothering to get married”
Other than the divorce thing, what’s your problem? Oh no, not cohabitating!! And children born out of wedlock - I guess that’s only a step up from abortion as far as you people are concerned. And as for “cohabitating and not even bothering to get married” - even if they do get married, you people still judge them for ever having cohabited in the first place.
You people always have a bone to pick with society and it’s never the right one. Why don’t you keep your judgemental archaic noses out of other people’s family business and instead focus your energies on things like world hunger or the environment? Maybe then you can do something productive and actually make a contribution for once in your pathetic little lives.
Athenian, it sounds as if you are speaking from the shallowness of your own pathetic little life.
@ athenian_oracle: “You people always have a bone to pick with society and it’s never the right one”.
.
Actually “We People” are the People of God whose just commands are never “a bone to pick”—nor wrong. Unlike me and you, God is perfect and Error-free. Your seeing God’s influence as “people [who] always have a bone to pick with society and it’s never the right one” means that you are currently impossible for fruitful communication. Perhaps after the election you might become more thoughtful.
Civil disobedience yes, but do not close down…then Obama gets what he wants. Refuse to comply. I am a teacher. My livelihood is at stake, our home and my children along with the passing of the faith of countless numbers of my students. Take away my health insurance but don’t leave me without a job! Refuse to pay the penalties. Lock the doors and keep teaching!
July 2nd: Mags, I agree - if every Cardinal and Bishop and Catholic Institution refuses to comply but without shutting down, that will be the most powerful statement - and all Obama would be able to do is fine them (don’t pay the fine) or send his storm troopers out to arrest Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, religious and faithful Catholics and non-Catholics who stand strong together in defense of freedom of religion and all freedoms. Let us pray that all will follow the wisdom and the guidance of the Holy Spirit and then, whatever may happen, all shall be well! peace.
@mags
“Take away my health insurance but don’t leave me without a job! Refuse to pay the penalties. Lock the doors and keep teaching!”
Now, that’s a good way to handle this attack on the Church, a good old fashion strike against the federal government. I like it.
The Obama/Democrat Congressional “penalty” taxes won’t kick in until the IRS is organized enough to asses them. Meanwhile, hopefully the Catholic Democrats will come to their spiritual senses and register out of the pro-abortion party, receive the sacrament of penance for their sins of having joined the Democrat Party which is “an organization that denies human rights” (a sin against the 5th Commandment according to Life In Christ - Instructions in the Catholic Faith published 1958. It’s ironic that this sin is one identified by the Church as being against “thou shalt not murder” some 15 years before Roe v Wade). Catholics hold the key to ending abortion because Catholics are the single, largest voting block for the Democrat Party. Do you think that what has been happening in our country and the Church is a punishment by God for those Catholics continued support for the pro-abortion party?
florin - Sorry to disappoint, but no. My “sad little life” involves a lovely baby on the way, a happy marriage (in which my husband and I are equals - neither of us has to “obey” the other), and a wonderful career as an educator.
William - I see the hateful words posted on this website as being the words of people, not God. I am not as confused about authorship as you seem to be. My communication skills are in-tact. I have a PhD and teach courses at the post secondary level. I encourage my students to read texts thoroughly and critically - a skill I could not help them to cultivate if I were hindered by the limitations you accuse me of having. As for the election - I really don’t care. I am not a citizen of your country, nor do I live in it. I am watching from afar in a country that takes care of its people and does not treat its women, children, homosexuals, and minorities so terribly.
athenian_oracle
“I am not a citizen of your country, nor do I live in it. I am watching from afar in a country that takes care of its people and does not treat its women, children, homosexuals, and minorities so terribly.”
If you don’t live here how do you know that “women, children, homosexuals, and minorities” are treated “so terribly?”
‘athenian_oracle’ - pretty ostentatious to choose a name like this…and since you are not a citizen of our country, why do you think you have the right to judge how we treat our citizens? Our minorities are given food stamps, supplements to rent beautiful homes, well equipped, they are given enough money to purchase car and televisions and other items; women are doing just fine and homosexuals, the majority of them, have now problem with our country. Radical homosexuals who take part in ‘gay pride parades’ and act out sexually during those parades, even with children present, do not represent the majority of homosexuals. Why don’t you say what country you live in so we can compare?
Stilbelieve - I know it’s hard for Americans to imagine, but it is actually possible to be educated in the social and political issues of another country. Americans are usually so caught up in navel-gazing that they find this concept hard to grasp.
Florin - I am a Canadian citizen. I never claimed that my country was perfect, but we certainly treat our people far better than you do - and we get along with the rest of the world far better too. I find it laughable that you think these minorities are doing just fine. Ask the women who are constantly defending their own reproductive rights - or the homosexuals who are denied human rights on the grounds of their sexuality! I’m sure a stack of food stamps will make them feel better!
Cut the crap athenian…and stop pretending you have children or are from Canada…you’re obviously a liberal dupe coming to this site to spout your talking points. Who ever hears of Canada in the world view..and if you don’t like Americans or Catholic tradition, then butt out and stop letting your liberal masters send you here to spout your pathetic nonsense. I don’t believe you’re from Canada, I don’t believe you have children…minorities before Obama were doing just fine ... don’t worry about women defending their ‘reproductive rights ’ (you’re probably not even a woman) - for liberals like you that means defending the right to terminate the life of her preborn baby even when she can feel the baby kicking…and these women you worry so much about are exploited by the anti-life crowd, especially by Planned Parenthood…their people are trained to deceive women FOR THE MONEY. CEOs and other management personnel are beginning to expose the agenda of Planned Parenthood which is the same as it was when founded by Margaret Sanger - to exterminate undesirables - the ‘minorities’ you are so concerned about…don’t worry about your food stamps…I’m sure Obama will let you keep them.
@athenian_oracle
“I see the hateful words posted on this website as being the words of people, not God. I am not as confused about authorship as you seem to be. My communication skills are in-tact. I have a PhD and teach courses at the post secondary level. I encourage my students to read texts thoroughly and critically”
“Ask the women who are constantly defending their own reproductive rights - or the homosexuals who are denied human rights on the grounds of their sexuality!”
Let’s see, you said, “I see the hateful words posted on this website as being the words of people, not God.” Now, where would one find the “words” of “God.” I would guess the bible. But I would bet athenian_oracle has a better source.
You don’t have to believe that I’m from Canada, that I’m a woman, or that I am currently 27 weeks pregnant but still support a woman’s right to have control over her own body, but that’s fine with me. I guess you only require “evidence” when we’re not talking about a pretend omnipotent being.
And to the other poster, the words on this site are most certainly not the words of God - unless each author here and every commenter thereafter who perpetuates the hate (oh sorry, “word of God”) is being possessed and used as a vessel for posting on the Internet.
@athenian_oracle
“You don’t have to believe that I’m from Canada, that I’m a woman, or that I am currently 27 weeks pregnant but still support a woman’s right to have control over her own body, but that’s fine with me.”
So, you believe that a woman has the right “to have control over her own body?” Then why are there no women’s movement to end laws against “street” prostitution? Why are there no women’s movement to end laws against taking non-prescription narcotics; or taking their own lives?
You said, “I guess you only require ‘evidence’ when we’re not talking about a pretend omnipotent being.”
When we are talking about “a pretend omnipotent being” we are talking about “belief.” Now there is evidence for that belief, but it still comes down to a “belief.” Unlike the baby in your womb; we know that is a baby by nature and science. And something else is known about that baby; the color of its hair, the shape of its nose, the size of its feet are all there the moment it was conceived; nothing but oxygen, food, water, warmth and protection are added by the mother enabling that new life to grow, a growth designed to never stop once begun.
stilbelieve - I am in awe of your ability to completely side-step any issue you obviously have no desire to actually address in your responses. I find logic-based arguments with my car to be more fruitful than a dialogue with you. I especially appreciated how you decided to avoid the issue of reproductive rights (of the woman) and instead start lamenting about narcotics and prostitution (and in a way that is completely nonsensical, I might add).
athenian_oracle
Bear with me, athenian_oracle, I am a man after all and can only focus on one thing at a time. With that said, I will zero in on what you said, to which I was replying: “...I…still support a woman’s right to have control over her own body….”
You see, I did not decide “to avoid the issue of reproductive rights (of the woman” in my reply; I took your argument/position on a “journey” to see if it is legitimate. Your “position” of a “woman’s rights” concerning “reproduction” is based on her “right to have control over her own body,” according to you. Where does that “right” come from? God? The State? If it is from God, then God has some say so in the matter. And he has spoken - “Thou shall not murder.” He also has something to say about fornication. If it is from the State, then law makers have some say so. In this case, lawmakers have said women can not sell their bodies for sex without a licence. Nor can women, or men inject narcotics into their own body unless authorized by the State. Nor can they kill their own body. And for that matter, a woman or man can’t decide to go out in public without any clothes on.
So, using the argument that a woman can do whatever she wants with her own body isn’t a valid argument for this article. Just what is she not being allowed to do with her own body that caused you to use that argument?
I cannot believe the Democratic Party will not tolerate religious freedom. The logic used to justify what they are doing is so faulty that anyone can see through it.
Separation of Church and State means the State cannot tell a religion to act against its moral principles. That is the First Ammendment - Freedom of Religion.
Yes, separation is a beautiful thing. Keep government out of my religion. I cannot believe the Democratic Party will not tolerate religious freedom. The logic used to justify what they are doing is so faulty that anyone can see through it.
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give The National Catholic Register permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.