Catholic Bishop Stands His Ground on Obamacare Rule

From: CNS News

As many Americans start to enroll in the Obamacare health insurance exchanges on Oct. 1, the position of Bishop Paul S. Loverde, head of the Catholic diocese of Arlington, Va., on the law’s mandate that nearly all health insurance plans include contraception, sterilizations, and abortifacient drugs without co-pays has not changed and is clear: “We cannot--we will not--comply with this unjust law.”

Bishop Loverde made that statement in a joint letter with Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo of the Richmond Diocese to the Catholics of Virginia--some 700,000 of them--on Jan. 30, 2012. Bishop Loverde’s office confirmed this week that, given the mandate has not been changed or rescinded, the bishops’ position has not changed.

Back in March 2012, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) described the Obamacare rule as an “unjust and illegal mandate” that violates religious freedom under the First Amendment, and noted that it affects employers and nearly all individuals -- a “violation of personal civil rights.”


On the mandate, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), “almost all employers, including Catholic employers, will be forced to offer their employees’ health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs and contraception,” explained Bp. Loverde in the letter. “Almost all health insurers will be forced to include those ‘services’ in the health policies they write. And almost all individuals will be forced to buy that coverage as a part of their policies.”

“In so ruling, the administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty,” said the bishop. “And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so). The administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply [from 2012].”

“We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law,” said Bp. Loverde.

“People of faith cannot be made second-class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God-given rights.”

Drug Stores Roll Out Plan B, Put Policies in Place for Employees Who Morally Object to Abortifacients

Plan B One Step, which, as its label states, "works mainly by preventing ovulaiton (egg release)," as well as by preventing "attachment of a fertilized egg to the uterus (implantation)." (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)

The HHS mandate applies to nearly all individuals and employers in the United States, with a few exceptions for strictly religious persons or entities, such as a priest or pastor or a religious order. Individuals who object -- for moral, religious, or other reasons -- to paying for health insurance that provides contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs cannot opt-out. They must buy health insurance under the Obamacare law or pay a penalty to the IRS.

The law goes into fuller effect on Jan. 1, 2014. As mandated, people who do not get insurance through their employer or from the government (Medicaid, Medicare) are required to apply for coverage through the Obamacare health insurance exchanges starting on Oct. 1 of this year.

Back on March 20, 2013, the general counsel’s office at the USCCB submitted comments to the Department of Health and Human Services about the regulation. In the 23-page document, the lawyers for the USCCB explain that “the mandate is unchanged,” and that, “For reasons discussed more fully in our earlier comments, we believe the mandate should be rescinded.” (Read here: USCCB Comments to HHS.pdf)

In their conclusion, the USCCB general counsel’s office said, “In short, the [Obama] Administration continues to propose: (a) an unjust and unlawful mandate; [and] (b) no exemption or ‘accommodation’ at all for most stakeholders in the health insurance process, such as individual employees and for-profit employers ….”

In a videotaped statement posted on July 29, 2013, Bishop Loverde commented further on the HHS mandate, stating, “As Catholics, and with many others, we are seeking to protect religious liberty, which continues to be threatened by the current administration. The HHS mandate, unless repealed, will force employers, including Catholic organizations, and persons of conscience [individuals] to provide insurance that will include contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs. All of these procedures and drugs violate the dignity of the marital act, and in the case of the abortifacient drugs, attack life itself.”

He further said, “We must be free as Catholics, to not only worship God in our churches but also to practice and live the faith in the public square in the daily living of life. Therefore, we have the right to oppose any and all governmental coercive mandates that encroach upon religious liberty, and the responsibility to make clear that such policies violate our First Amendment freedom.”

“Yes, religious liberty is a serious issue. We must be involved in its defense,” said Bishop Loverde.

There are about 403,000 Catholics in the diocese of Arlington, which covers northern Virginia, near the nation’s capital, with 67 parishes. For the Richmond diocese, which covers central and southern Virginia, there are about 230,000 Catholics and 151 parishes (churches).

There are 78 million Catholics in the United States. In February 2012, all 181 Catholic bishops in the United States publicly denounced the Obamacare mandate as a violation of religious liberty under the First Amendment.

ishop Loverde made that statement in a joint letter with Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo of the Richmond Diocese to the Catholics of Virginia--some 700,000 of them--on Jan. 30, 2012. Bishop Loverde’s office confirmed this week that, given the mandate has not been changed or rescinded, the bishops’ position has not changed - See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/catholic-bishop-stands-his-ground-obamacare-rule-we-cannot-we-will#sthash.lLclqjpK.dpuf

As many Americans start to enroll in the Obamacare health insurance exchanges on Oct. 1, the position of  Bishop Paul S. Loverde, head of the Catholic diocese of Arlington, Va., on the law’s mandate that nearly all health insurance plans include contraception, sterilizations, and abortifacient drugs without co-pays has not changed and is clear: “We cannot--we will not--comply with this unjust law.” - See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/catholic-bishop-stands-his-ground-obamacare-rule-we-cannot-we-will#sthash.lLclqjpK.dpuf

As many Americans start to enroll in the Obamacare health insurance exchanges on Oct. 1, the position of  Bishop Paul S. Loverde, head of the Catholic diocese of Arlington, Va., on the law’s mandate that nearly all health insurance plans include contraception, sterilizations, and abortifacient drugs without co-pays has not changed and is clear: “We cannot--we will not--comply with this unjust law.”
Bishop Loverde made that statement in a joint letter with Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo of the Richmond Diocese to the Catholics of Virginia--some 700,000 of them--on Jan. 30, 2012. Bishop Loverde’s office confirmed this week that, given the mandate has not been changed or rescinded, the bishops’ position has not changed.
- See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/catholic-bishop-stands-his-ground-obamacare-rule-we-cannot-we-will#sthash.lLclqjpK.dpuf

No Deal! Bishops to Administration: You Can't Force Catholics to Act Against Faith

From: CNS News

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement on Thursday signaling to the Obama Administration that the bishops will not make a separate deal to exempt Catholic institutions from an Obamacare mandate that requires health-care plans to cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs that leaves lay Catholic business owners and individual employees still subject to the mandate.

“In obedience to our Judeo-Christian heritage, we have consistently taught our people to live their lives during the week to reflect the same beliefs that they proclaim on the Sabbath,” said Cardinal Dolan. “We cannot now abandon them to be forced to violate their morally well-informed consciences.”

The cardinal said the bishops will also continue to support the many lawsuits against the regulation--including those brought by private busineses--that are moving forward in federal courts around the country.

The Catholic Association, a group of Catholic laypersons dedicated to advancing the principles of the Catholic Church, issued a statement supporting the bishops' stand in defending the religious freedom of all Americans.

“We stand with the bishops today in rejecting the proposed ‘accommodation’ which still violates the religious freedom of Americans," said The Catholic Association.

"The bishops have recognized in their statement that when the religious freedom of one is compromised, the religious freedom of everyone is compromised, whether they be their own affiliated institutions or non-Catholic institutions or for-profit employers," said the association. "We call on this administration to provide an acceptable exemption for people of faith, and to put an end to its anti-religious liberty policies.”

Cardinal Dolan's statement was specifically responding to a new version of the Obamacare regulation that the Department of Health and Human Services proposed last week. The new proposal would slightly modify how Obamacare defines the “religious” institutions that can be exempted from the sterilization-contraceptive-abortifacient mandate. However, the proposed new version of the regulation would still force Catholic non-profits (such as hospitals, charities and colleges) to buy health care plans from carriers that, in turn, would be required to set up theoretically cost-free separate policies to provide free sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients to all beneficiaries. Further, the new proposal would provide no relief at all to individual Catholic lay people, whether they own a business or are employees.

Cardinal Dolan noted that the bishops will continue to judge the Obamacare regulation within the framework they laid out in a document the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops initially published last March and that all U.S. Catholic bishops unanimously approved in June.

“Third, the bishops explained that the ‘HHS mandate creates still a third class, those with no conscience protection at all:individuals who, in their daily lives, strive constantly to act in accordance with their faith and moral values,” said Cardinal Dolan, citing the bishops' unanimous declaration.

“This includes employers sponsoring and subsidizing the coverage, insurers writing it, and beneficiaries paying individual premiums for it. Friday's action confirms that HHS has no intention to provide any exemption or accommodation at all to this ‘third class.’”

Cardinal Dolan’s statement included some placatory language, and the bishops seemed to be taking care to indicate they were not yet closing the door to working with the administration to find an outcome that will allow American Catholics to live both according to their faith and according to whatever final Obamacare regulations the administration ultimately decides to enforce.

“Because the stakes are so high, we will not cease from our effort to assure that healthcare for all does not mean freedom for few,” said Cardinal Dolan.

“Throughout the past year, we have been assured by the Administration that we will not have to refer, pay for, or negotiate for the mandated coverage," the Cardinal said. "We remain eager for the Administration to fulfill that pledge and to find acceptable solutions—we will affirm any genuine progress that is made, and we will redouble our efforts to overcome obstacles or setbacks. Thus, we welcome and will take seriously the Administration's invitation to submit our concerns through formal comments, and we will do so in the hope that an acceptable solution can be found that respects the consciences of all. At the same time, we will continue to stand united with brother bishops, religious institutions, and individual citizens who seek redress in the courts for as long as this is necessary.”

In an analysis published last August, the National Catholic Bioethics Center said that in keeping with Catholic moral teaching all Catholic business owners should drop health insurance coverage for all of their employees by no later than next January if the sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate is not lifted.

Last year, when the initial regulation was finalized, many of the nation’s Catholic bishops wrote letters to their congregations, declaring: “We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”

HHS Mandate Revisions Will Force Religious Groups to Cover Abortions

From: LifeNews.com

On Friday, the Obama administration released proposed revisions to the controversial HHS mandate. The revisions offer no help for religious businesses, individuals or non-profit religious groups that don’t want to be forced to obey it.


A leading pro-life source on Capitol Hill provided an analysis to LifeNews about how the proposals play out.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued the notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the requirement that all insurance plans cover “all Food and Drug Administration approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.”

The proposed rule is being issued in response to the many faith-based institutions and religious business owners that continue to object to this mandate on grounds that it forces them to violate their deeply held religious or moral objections to some or all such coverage – especially coverage that includes the morning-after pill (Plan B) or week-after pill (ella) that causes abortions.

“The proposed rule is open for comment until April 5, 2013.  However, it is extremely similar to proposals rejected by pro-life leaders in the past,” the source told LifeNews.
The proposed rule would:

• · Have NO impact on businesses run by people of faith, such as Tyndale House (a publisher of the Bible), Hobby Lobby and Hercules Industries. (If you would like fact sheets and background on each of the businesses that have filed suits against the mandate, please feel free to contact me or Allison Hines).
• · Provide NO options for individuals seeking plans that accommodate their values on the exchanges.
• · Continue to only apply the full exemption to churches and their auxiliary institutions. It appears that this narrow exemption will NOT apply to nonprofits like the University of Notre Dame, Wheaton College and Catholic Charities. Note: the exemption is modified so that it no longer specifies that churches must have inculcation of religious values as their purpose and primarily employ and serve people of their same faith. Even though those specifics are no longer listed, the exemption continues to apply only to a small category of entities (Churches, Integrated Auxiliaries, and Conventions or Associations of Churches).
• · Non-profit religious organizations will have to involuntarily comply with the mandate through a series of new requirements on insurance companies and third party administrators(in the case of self-insured plans). HHS refers to this as an accommodation, and will only make it available to a nonprofit entity that “holds itself out as a religious organization.” The arrangement will work as follows:
  • o Fully Insured Plans–In the case of a non-profit religious organization that indicates it opposes providing all or part of the mandated coverage, their insurance company will provide the coverage to the covered employees anyway through a “seamless process” under the justification that the coverage is actually free because it will reduce labor and delivery costs in the long run.
  • o Self-Insured Plans–In the case of a self-insured plan, the third party administrator will contract with another insurance company to provide the coverage, and the insurance company will be compensated by paying less in “Federally-facilitated Exchange user fees.”

Another leading source explained to LifeNews further about the mandate revisions.

The source said, “Due to a misleading press release from HHS and other factors, some media and others have thought that HHS has now substantially expanded its “religious employer” exemption from the mandate. They note that the old four-prong test for qualifying as a “religious employer” has now been reduced to just one prongs.”

“The Departments believe that this proposal would not expand the universe of employer plans that would qualify for the exemption beyond that which was intended in the 2012 final rules. As previously noted, when the Departments first defined religious employer, the primary goal was to exempt the group health plans of houses of worship. Section 6033(a)(3)(A)(i) and (iii) of the Code refers to churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations of churches, as well as to the exclusively religious activities of any religious order. By restricting the exemption primarily to group health plans established or maintained by churches, synagogues, mosques, and other houses of worship, and religious orders, the fourth prong of the current definition of religious employer would alone suffice to meet the goal.”

The pro-life source added, “So HHS dropped the other three prongs of the four-prong definition because it doesn’t need them. This one prong alone does roughly the same job.”

The changes are drawing strong condemnation from pro-life groups like Americans United for Life.

“With another phony compromise, the Obama Administration continues to insult the intelligence of the American people and trample our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights,” said AUL’s President Charmaine Yoest. “Our Freedom of Conscience, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment has been violated by Obamacare and these new regulations do not resolve the offense.”

 “The phony compromise from Health and Human Services only serves to illustrate the problem with Obamacare,” said Dr. Yoest. “The Obama Administration is trying to gerrymander the regulations but continues to leave most Americans without their Constitutional freedoms. The regulation is clear that the Obama Administration’s intent is to limit religious liberty to houses of worship. Meanwhile Christian universities, for-profit businesses – like the Bible publisher Tyndale and Hobby Lobby – or individuals are still forced to subsidize Big Abortion. The Obama Administration’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) violates the First Amendment Conscience rights of Americans, and that must be stopped.”

Hobby Lobby Will Defy Obama HHS Mandate, Risk Millions in Fines

From: LifeNews.com

Following a decision by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor denying Hobby Lobby’s request for an exemption from the Obama administration’s HHS mandate, the Christian retail company said it will defy the mandate.


As LifeNews reported, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has refused to act favorably on an emergency appeal Hobby Lobby stores filed to stop enforcement of the HHS mandate against it.

After a federal court denied a request to temporarily stop enforcement of the abortion pill mandate against the Christian-operated business Hobby Lobby, it took its HHS mandate lawsuit to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor denied its request to block the mandate and the millions of dollars in fines it will be subjected to starting January 1 for not complying.

Sotomayor said Hobby Lobby did not show it met the legal standard for blocking enforcement on an emergency basis, but said the company can continue with its lawsuit in lower court.

Now, an attorney for Hobby Lobby says it will defy the mandate and potentially risk potential fines of up to $1.3 million per day.

Kyle Duncan, an attorney for the pro-life legal group Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said in a statement that hobby Lobby doesn’t plan to offer its employees insurance that would cover the drug while its lawsuit is pending.

“The company will continue to provide health insurance to all qualified employees,” Duncan said. “To remain true to their faith, it is not their intention, as a company, to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.”

The most recent polling data from December 2012 shows Americans support a religious exemption to the mandate.

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