SNL cold open ridicules Sebelius, Obamacare

Jay Carney Compares HHS Questions To Birtherism

HHS Mandate Hurts the Poor

A good article from the Heritage Foundation. It deals with (quite obviously) with the ramifications of the unconstitutional HHS Mandate and its effect on Catholic Charities. It includes the following You Tube video:

Justice Dept: to Colorado Family: Give Up Your Religion or Your Business

From: CNSNews.com

The Justice Department last week presented the Newland family of Colorado--who own Hercules Industries, a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning business--with what amounted to an ultimatum: Give up your religion or your business.

“Hercules Industries has ‘made no showing of a religious belief which requires that [it] engage in the [HVAC] business,” the Justice Department said in a formal filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.

In response to the Justice Department’s argument that the Newlands can either give up practicing their religion or give up owning their business, the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the family, said in a reply brief: "[T]o the extent the government is arguing that its Mandate does not really burden the Newlands because they are free to abandon their jobs, their livelihoods, and their property so that others can take over Hercules and comply, this expulsion from business would be an extreme form of government burden.”

Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and its mandate that individuals must buy health insurance, this suit which seeks to protect a small business from being forced to take actions that violate the moral and religious beliefs of the family that owns it is likely to be the next major court battle over Obamacare.

At stake is whether businesses are protected by the First Amendment—the part of the Bill of Rights that guarantees not only the free exercise of religion but also freedom of speech and of the press.

The Justice Department’s filing was made in Newland v. Sebelius--a suit brought by William, Paul and James Newland, and their sister, Christine Ketterhagen, who are Roman Catholics, and who together own Colorado-based Hercules Industries.

The Newland family founded Hercules in 1962 and have maintained it as a family-owned business ever since—growing it to the point where they now employ 265 people.

The Newlands’ lawsuit challenges a regulation that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finalized earlier this year that requires virtually all health plans to cover--without cost-sharing--sterilizations and all Food-and-Drug Administration approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions.

Under the Obamacare law, businesses that have more than 50 employees must provide health insurance to their employees or face a penalty. To satisfy the mandate, the insurance must include the cost-sharing-free sterilization-contraception-abortifacient benefit. The regulation takes effect on Aug. 1, which means that as soon as any business starts a new plan-year for its health-insurance program after that date it will need to comply with Sebelius's rule.

The Catholic Church, to which the Newlands belong, teaches that sterilization, contraception and abortion are intrinsically immoral. Last month, the Catholic bishops of the United States unanimously adopted a statement declaring Sebelius’s regulation an “unjust and illegal mandate” and a “violation of personal civil rights.”

While much of the media attention on Sebelius’ regulation has focused on the fact that it will apply to famous Catholic religious institutions such as Catholic University and the University of Notre Dame, the Catholic bishops have repeatedly pointed out that the regulation also violates the First Amendment-protected religious liberty of lay Catholic individuals. That includes employees who will be forced to pay insurance premiums on insurance plans that violate the teachings of their faith and business owners who will be forced to provide such plans.

In their unanimous statement, the Catholic bishops declared that Sebelius’s regulation created a class of Americans “with no conscience protection at all: individuals who, in their daily lives, strive constantly to act in accordance with their faith and moral values. They, too, face a government mandate to aid in providing ‘services’ contrary to those values—whether in their sponsoring of, and payment for, insurance as employers; their payment of insurance premiums as employees; or as insurers themselves—without even the semblance of an exemption.”

The Newlands currently run a self-insurance plan, providing their employees with generous health-care coverage that is consistent with the teachings of the Newlands' church in that it does not cover sterilizations, contraception and abortifacients. They are precisely among the class of people that the unanimous Catholic bishops said have “no conscience protection at all” under Sebelius's regulation.

In their complaint against the Obama administration, which was prepared by the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Newlands clearly explained why they could not comply with Sebelius’s regulation without violating their religious faith.

Catholic Bishops Unanimous ‘In Our Vigorous Opposition to This Unjust and Illegal Mandate

From: CNSNews.com

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold most of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—AKA Obamacare—sets the stage for an historically unprecedented confrontation between Roman Catholics and the federal government over whether Catholics remain free to exercise their religion in the United States of America.

The court’s decision leaves untouched the “preventive services” provision in the legislation under which the Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation that will require virtually all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.

On June 14, the Catholic bishops of the United States—representing dioceses from Los Angeles to New York, from New Orleans to Chicago, from Miami to Seattle, and from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco—unanimously adopted a document that cited their “vigorous opposition to this unjust and illegal mandate.”

Because the Catholic Church holds that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion are morally wrong, and because the individual mandate in Obamacare will force virtually all individuals in the United States to purchase government approved health-care plans, Obamacare—as upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday—will require all Catholic laypersons in the United States to buy health insurance plans that violate the teachings of their faith.

The HHS regulation will also require Catholic hospitals, universities and charitable organizations to purchase health insurance plans that violate the Catholic faith.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius—a Catholic who has been ordered by her archbishop not to take Holy Communion until she recants her position in favor of legal abortion and goes to confession—has given most employers until Aug. 1 to comply with this regulation. She has allowed religiously affiliated non-profit organizations (such as Catholic hospitals, schools, and charities)  that do not currently cover sterilizations, artificial contraceptives, or abortifacients an additional year--until Aug. 1, 2013--to comply with the mandate and then violate the teachings of their faith.

Forty-three Catholic dioceses and institutions—including the archdiocese of Washington, D.C., St. Louis and New York, the University of Notre Dame and Catholic University—have filed lawsuits against the sterilzation-contraception-abortifacient mandate arguing that it violates the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

Since the Catholics filed their lawsuits, President Obama has boasted about the contraception mandate in public speeches.

Bishop Dolan: White House is "strangling" Catholic Church

Kathleen Sebelius's Orwellian Assault On the First Amendment

Kathleen Sebellius this past Friday delivered a commencement address at Georgetown University. CNS.com has a fine article with video of the speech. In her comments she seemed to respond to the criticism of Catholic Bishops by quoting from President Kennedy's famous speech on September 12,1960. She stated:

“In his talk to Protestant ministers,” Sebelius said, “Kennedy talked about his vision of religion and the public square, and he said he believed in an America, and I quote, ‘where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against us all.’” 

George Orwell would be impressed by this brand of double speak. Let's see if I have this right. The federal government is trying to force the Catholic Church and other faith based institutions to violate the most principled tenets of their faith or face sanctions for failure to comply and it's the church that's trying to impose its values?

The most telling part of the quote is her failure to comprehend its double meaning. When JFK, as she quotes said: "and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against us all.’”, JFK was defending the core principle of "Freedom of Religion" as stated in the First Amendment. JFK was alleviating historic sensibilities that held that to elect a Catholic would subject the United States to Papal governance, thereby undoing the first amendment. He expressed himself in such a way as to be true to himself while reassuring all to his commitment to defend people of all faiths. Kathleen Sebelius, Barack Obama and the rest would have us believe that compelling Americans to violate their faith is an effort on our part to impose our faith on everyone else. In truth those who object to this unlawful compulsion are evoking the true spirit of Kennedy's speech.

Kathleen Sebelius has taken it to another level. With her at Obama's right hand they are engaged in an insidious campaign, the worst effort to undo the First Amendment since the "Alien" and "Sedition" Acts. The HHS Mandate as a critical component of Obamacare and advanced by the HHS Secretary is the most despicable action taken by a President since Woodrow Wilson endorsed D.W. Griffith's "The Birth Of A Nation".  

I am a  child of Irish Catholic parents and an alumni of twelve years of Catholic schools I was fed a steady diet of JFK, the one and only Catholic President. Both of my parents turned twenty one in 1960 and proudly voted for JFK. My mother told me the story of my great grandmother,at the age of 70 staying up to watch election returns until 3AM, because having lived through Al Smith's 1928 campaign she was convinced that a Catholic could never be elected President. My mother also tells of my grandmother who was often required to list her religion on job applications. Then of course there's the infamous "No Irish Need Apply". What would my grandmother and great grandmother have to say if they were compelled to violate their faith? Whatever, they might have said just doesn't matter because Kathleen Sebelius just doesn't care. 

Sebelius Quotes JFK To Defend Unconstitutional HHS Mandate

From: CNSNews.com

Speaking at a graduation ceremony for Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute on Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius quoted President John F. Kennedy in what may have been a rebuttal to the Catholic bishops of the United States who have criticized Sebelius for issuing a health-care regulation that the bishops have described as "an unprecedented attack on religious liberty" and an "unjust law" that Catholics in good conscience cannot obey.

Towards the end of her speech, Sebelius talked about the “very serious debates underway” in America on many issues, including “health care,” and that public policy leaders are needed to move the debates forward.

She then noted that John F. Kennedy had been criticized by some people in his 1960 campaign for president because he was a Catholic.

“Some of then-Senator Kennedy’s opponents attacked him for his religion, suggesting that electing the first Catholic president would undermine the separation of church and state, a fundamental principle in our unique democracy," Sebelius said. "Now the furor over the course of the campaign grew so loud that Senator Kennedy chose to deliver a speech about his beliefs just seven weeks before that November election.”
Kennedy delivered the speech on Sept. 12, 1960.

“In his talk to Protestant ministers,” Sebelius said, “Kennedy talked about his vision of religion and the public square, and he said he believed in an America, and I quote, ‘where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against us all.’”

“And here we are more than 50 years later and that conversation, about the intersection of our nation’s long tradition of religious freedom with policy decisions in the public square continues,” said Sebelius..

Sebelius told the students that to engage in debates, such as ones dealing with religion and public policy, will require them to follow their “own moral compass.”

“Contributing to these debates will require more than just the quantitative skills you’ve learned at Georgetown,” she said. “It will also require the ethical skills you have honed--the ability to weigh different views, to see issues from others points of view, and in the end, to be true to your own moral compass.”

“These debates can also be contentious. But that’s a strength of our country, not a weakness,” she said, adding, “The conversations can be painful, But it’s through this process of conversation and compromise that we actually move forward, together, step by step, towards that ‘more perfect union.’”

The regulation issued by Sebelius will require virtually all health-care plans in the United States to cover, without any fees or co-pay, sterilizations for women as well as all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortion. This regulation will force Catholics individuals to purchase health care plans that violate the teachings of their faith and Catholic institutions and business owners to either violate church teachings of drop health-care coverage for their employees.

Some Catholic institutions--including EWTN and Ave Maria University--have already sued the federal government saying that the regulation violates their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religions.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, who heads the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's highest judicial authority, has said that Catholic employers cannot obey the regulation because doing so would constitute "formal cooperation" in evil. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked Sebelius to rescind the regulation but she has refused. Both President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have boasted about the regulation in campaign speeches.

The bishops have argued that the amendment is a straightforward violation of the basic constitutionally protected right of the individual not to be ordered by the government to act against his or her conscience or religious beliefs. Advocates of the regulation have depicted the bishops' opposition to it as an effort by the bishops to impose on American women their views on sterlization and contraception.

This week, the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., where Georgetown is located, criticized the university, which describes itself as a Catholic school, for honoring Sebelius by inviting her to give a graduation address.

In a May 15 statement, the office of the archdiocese of Washington, D.C., said, “Given the dramatic impact this [health care] mandate will have on Georgetown and all Catholic institutions, it is understandable that Catholics across the country would find shocking the choice of Secretary Sebelius, the architect of the mandate, to receive such special recognition at a Catholic university. It is also understandable that Catholics would view this as a challenge to the bishops.” (Note: the statement from the archdiocese was not signed by Archbishop Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who oversees the diocese.)

In its May 10 editorial, the The Catholic Standard (Archdiocese of Washington) said,  “As is well known, Secretary Sebelius is the architect of the ‘HHS mandate,’ now federal law, which requires all employers -- including religious institutions -- to provide health insurance coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraceptives for its employees and redefines religious ministry to exclude Catholic social services, hospitals and universities if they serve or employ non-Catholics. Given her position, it is disappointing that she would be the person that Georgetown University would choose to honor.”

“… Georgetown has undergone secularization, due in no small part to the fact that much of its leadership and faculty find their inspiration in sources other than the Gospel and Catholic teaching,” stated the editorial.

“Many are quite clear that they reflect the values of the secular culture of our age. Thus the selection of Secretary Sebelius for special recognition, while disappointing, is not surprising.”

The editorial in The Catholic Standard, which was unsigned, accused Georgetown of not standing with the Catholic bishops.

It read: “With all of the people struggling so hard to preserve freedom of religion, and with all that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has said in defense of this important value, Georgetown's choice of the architect of the radical challenge of such freedom for special recognition can only be seen as a statement of where the university stands -- certainly not with the Catholic bishops.”

“One can only wonder how the selection of Secretary Sebelius for such a prominent role as a featured speaker can be reconciled with the stated Catholic mission and identity of Georgetown University,” said the editorial.  “Secretary Sebelius' vision on what constitutes faith-based institutions presents the most direct challenge to religious freedom in recent history.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has said the HHS contraceptive mandate is an “unprecedented” attack on religious freedom and therefore it should be rescinded. In a Mar. 2 letter, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, head of the USCCB, wrote: “religious freedom is under attack, and we will not cease our struggle to protect it. … We have made it clear in no uncertain terms to the government that we are not at peace with its invasive attempt to curtail the religious freedom we cherish as Catholics and Americans. We did not ask for this fight, but we will not run from it.”

In a May 14 statement, Georgetown President John DeGioia said, “Some have interpreted the invitation of Secretary Sebelius as a challenge to the USCCB. It was not.”

“The Secretary’s presence on our campus should not be viewed as an endorsement of her views,” he added.

A Controversy at Post-Catholic Georgetown

From: Minding the Campus

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, is scheduled to speak Friday at a Georgetown University commencement event, setting off protests among Catholics and others who believe the Obamacare mandate violates religious liberty. So far, some 25,000 people have signed petitions asking for the invitation to be withdrawn. On campus, the reaction seems more tepid: only 9 of the 1500-plus faculty members and just 3 of the 55 resident Jesuits are known to have joined the protest.

For President Obama, the speech sets up a likely win-win outcome: dispatching a nominal Catholic to a nominally Catholic university that yearns to be secular (the question, "Is Georgetown still a Catholic university?" has been asked since the mid-60s) either provokes an angry response that would fit the "war against women" scenario, or a trifling one demonstrating that the Catholic bishops have bluster, but few troops behind them, even on a Jesuit campus.

Georgetown reacted to the protests by walking the announcement back a bit. Though Sebelius is listed as one of the commencement speakers at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, a university email later said she was to speak at an annual "student and faculty awards event."

The Archdiocese of Washington released a statement today (May 15) saying "it is understandable that Catholics across the country would find shocking the choice of Secretary Sebelius, the architect of the mandate, to receive such special recognition at a Catholic university."

Sebelius is an unusually provocative choice by Georgetown. Catholic politicians understand that they cannot rise in the Democratic Party without defying their church on some basic issues, abortion most obviously.

(Senator Robert Casey, Jr. is an exception so far, but he arrived on the national scene running against Rick Santorum.) Of the roster of Catholic pols who have seen the light and converted to the Democratic Party's position on abortion--Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Joe Biden, et al.--Sebelius has probably been the defector inflicting the most damage since Teddy Kennedy.

Friend and Protector of George Tiller

As governor of Kansas she vetoed four anti-abortion bills and was unusually close to the late partial-birth-abortion specialist George Tiller, assassinated by an anti-abortion zealot in 2009. She protected Tiller from litigation and criminal prosecution and he became one of her major political donors. The Sebelius administration destroyed subpoenaed documents sought for years in criminal proceedings against Planned Parenthood for failure to report large numbers of child rapes. The originals somehow disappeared in 2005 and the copies were "routinely" discarded or destroyed by a Sebelius appointee in 2009. Planned Parenthood is also a large and regular donor to Sebelius.

The bishops (and the Vatican) have grown weary of big-name Catholics who abandon the fundamentals of their faith whenever politics requires it. The Bishops are also wary of Catholic colleges celebrating non-Catholics who oppose the church's basic principles. Their 2004 statement said Catholic colleges should make their values clear: "The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

President Obama's appearance at Notre Dame was enormously controversial because of his stance on abortion, but even some opponents were willing to let that one go, rather than reject a sitting president. One who didn't let it pass was Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law professor and U.S. ambassador to the Vatican under George W. Bush. She was scheduled to receive a high Catholic honor, the Laetare Medal, on Obama-day at Notre Dame, and quietly declined to appear.

Some Catholic colleges, for their part, are nervous about having the hierarchy telling them what to do. For Georgetown, the most post-Catholic of the nation's prominent Catholic colleges (it pointedly covered up religiously imagery when Obama spoke there), this isn't much of a dilemma.

After the 15 minutes of fame of Sandra Fluke, the single woman who said she needed a $3000 contraception subsidy to get through three years at Georgetown Law school, Georgetown President John DeGioia praised Fluke (her "expression of conscience was in the tradition of the deepest values we share as a people"), while waving off the strong anti-Obamacare statement of the bishops as merely one of many opinions on the issue.

("Many, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, have offered important perspectives on this issue.")

But Georgetown can still dust off its fading Catholic values when it has to. Recently 94 faculty members cited Catholic social thought on the duty to the poor. But that was to denounce a visitor to the campus as insufficiently Catholic--not Sebelius of course, but budget-cutting Republican Congressman Paul Ryan.

Time to Rename the Catholic Church?

From: Real Clear Religion

It's time for the Catholic Church to restructure and rename itself. It's the only way to acknowledge the schism that has taken place over the last 40 years and is now reaching a crisis point.

Taking a cue from Judaism, the Church should now be divided into Orthodox and Reform camps. The liberals would be known as Orthodox Catholics. Conservatives would be Reform Catholics. You read that correctly.

Let me back up and explain.

This would make things like the recent decision by Georgetown University to let Kathleen Sebelius to speak at a graduation ceremony easier to debate.

Kathleen Sebelius, of course, is the Secretary of the Department Health and Human Services. She is a Catholic who is implementing President Obama's health care mandate, which will eliminate the first amendment rights of conscience for Catholics who do not want to pay for birth control. She is set to speak at the commencement of the Georgetown School of Public Policy on May 18.

There has been an uproar about Sebelius speaking at Georgetown, and a defense of the decision among other Catholics.

I am a part-time teacher at Georgetown University. It's a summer contract position teaching visiting high school kids, so I am far from being regular faculty or even that knowledgeable about the inner workings of the school (I also went to high school at Georgetown Prep). But in the three summers I've been there I have learned that Georgetown is not just one university, but several. There are conservative and liberal Catholics on campus, as well as all other kinds of people. Many conservative Catholics have insisted that Georgetown is no longer Catholic. In fact, Georgetown, a school in the Jesuit tradition, is Catholic -- that is, it represents the Catholic Church in America. And the Catholic Church, like Georgetown, is divided.

In fact the Church is so divided that it is now time to give the different factions their own names. I don't mean this sarcastically or with malice; as a journalist I simply believe that it will help us speak about Catholicism in the early 21st Century with clarity. It would also relieve tensions in the Church because each side, Reform and Orthodox, would know exactly what the other side believes in. When Catholics like the Kennedys or Andrew Sullivan or Kathleen Sebelius speak in favor of gay marriage or contraception, it would no longer be a shock or a scandal. Because giving each side their own designation beforehand would cut down on the outrage that often follows their individual pronouncements.

Forty years after Vatican II, the liberal philosophy of 1960s Catholicism has become a hardened orthodoxy. Liberal Catholics are as doctrinaire and dogmatic as the most reactionary medieval pope. They believe in peace (forgetting that the U.S. military allows said peace), social justice (except for the unborn), sexual freedom (poverty has nothing to do with broken families), and massive government spending (even if we can't afford it).

Is there a more predictable writer in America, particularly when it comes to Catholicism, than Maureen Dowd? When Chris Matthews addresses Catholicism on Hardball, is there any doubt what he will say? Has Andrew Sullivan read a single copy of any one of the dozens of books written by Pope Benedict? To ask the question is to answer it.

Conservative Catholics, on the other hand, are the real reformers.

A couple weeks ago I was at Georgetown to hear Representative Paul Ryan speak about his budget. The man stood there for more than an hour and presented fact after fact after fact about the economic catastrophe that is headed our way if the United States does not control its spending. The Catholic left, including both students and faculty at Georgetown, are protesting Ryan's budget. I should note that I disagree with Ryan slowing the rate of growth (not cutting) programs that serve the poor. But he is spot on when it comes to the absolute necessity of reforming social security and medicare.

The reaction on the Catholic left to Ryan's speech was remarkably fact free. There was a lot of screaming about cutting off the poor, but no engagement with the entitlement spending bomb that could ultimately bring down the economy. There has been a similar dynamic in the reaction to the Vatican's criticism of the orthodoxy, that is to say liberalism, of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious -- i.e., the nuns in the Unites States.

The Vatican is trying to reform the liberal orthodoxy of many women's religious orders in the United States. In reading the coverage of the issue, I noticed (I was not surprised) that whereas liberals like Georgetown professor and columnist E.J. Dionne were basing their arguments entirely on feelings, the conservative, or Reform, Catholics like George Weigel were citing facts. The response on the Catholic left was to accuse George Weigel -- official biographer of the pope, baseball fan and one of the most sanguine people I know -- of wanting to ethnic cleanse the nuns.

I'm sorry, but that kind of calumny indicates that the National Catholic Reporter represents not a different point of view, but a different religion. It's Orthodox Catholicism, a 1960s model where argument is based on emotions and feelings more than facts.

Finally, a very important word about Georgetown University. I noted above that Georgetown, like the Catholic Church in America, is divided. This does not mean that there is acrimony on campus; in fact, all I've seen is the opposite. It is a community where people like each other and the work they are doing, and where you can see a Reform (i.e. conservative) Catholic like Fr. James Schall next to Fr. Thomas Reese, an Orthodox (i.e. liberal) Jesuit who criticized Paul Ryan's budget on CNN the day Ryan spoke at the university.

Simply calling the different philosophies by their right names would only increase understanding of what the problem is. It would leave us free to stop expecting the other side to change.

White House: Colleges Also Forced to Institute HHS Mandate

From: LifeNews.com

The White House announced today that colleges and universities will also be forced to join religious employers in instituting the new HHS mandate that requires them to provide coverage for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions.


The Health and Human Services Department released information Friday afternoon saying college student health care plans will be treated like employees’ plans — making them subject to the mandate the Obama administration put in place that has upset pro-life groups for its violation of religious liberties.

The decision means college students — who already get abortions at the highest rate compared with women in other age categories, will be able to get free birth control pills, Plan B pills and the ella drug that causes early-term abortions days after conception.

The nation’s biggest abortion business is already applauding the decision, as it means insurance companies will pay for drugs Planned Parenthood dispenses, providing a taxpayer-funded windfall for the abortion giant.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards said in a statement, “For many women, especially college students, birth control is not only a health care issue, it is a financial issue. Covering birth control with no co-pays means college students will not have to choose between paying for tuition and books, or paying for basic health care like birth control.”

“The proposal released today make clears that the Obama administration is fulfilling its promise that women will have access to birth control coverage, with no costly co-pays and no additional hurdles, no matter where they work,” she said.

Leading pro-abortion group NARAL also applauded the Obama administration’s proposal.

“Today the Obama administration took the next step in making sure women get insurance coverage of contraception,” Keenan said. “This fair-minded process reinforces President Obama’s thoughtful approach to working with health-care providers and other employers to ensure that we achieve the ultimate goal of improving women’s lives. The American public stands strongly behind the president as he and his team make the promise of near-universal contraceptive coverage a reality.”

In the proposal the Obama administration put forward today, HHS noted three options for self-employed firms and asked for public comment on them. One option has them providing coverage for birth control and abortion-causing drugs, a second has them paying for the benefits indirectly, and a third option would have the state health insurance exchanges created under Obamacare provide the coverage — all at taxpayer expense.

Polling data shows Americans are strongly opposed to the Obama mandate. A February Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveyfinds 38 percent of likely voters think health insurance companies should be required by law to cover the morning after pill without co-payments or other charges to the patient. But 50 percent of Americans disagree and oppose this requirement while 13 percent are undecided.

 

Also in February, a CNN survey indicated half of Americans oppose the new mandate pro-abortion President Barack Obama put in place that requires religious employers to pay for birth control or drugs that can cause abortions.

 

The new Obama mandate that requires religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees could result in fines as much as $2,000 per employee or $100 each day if they refuse to comply.

Despite a vote in the Senate against overturning it, nation’s Catholic bishops and leading pro-life groups vow to continue fighting the Obama mandate that forces religious employers to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortion.

The mandate has already become the subject of several lawsuits.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen state attorneys general have signed onto a joint letter Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning started coordinating  against the controversial Obama mandate requiring religious employers to cover birth control and drugs that can cause abortions.

Bruning has contacted each of his colleagues in 49 states and has already been joined by a dozen, including South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. Together, the three lawmakers have co-signed a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebilius, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis over the Obama mandate.

Also, the largest Catholic pro-life group and Catholic television station have filed suit against the new Obama mandate that forces religious employers like them to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs in employee health insurance. The EWTN Global Catholic Network filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama against the Department of Health & Human Services, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and other government agencies seeking to stop the imposition of the anti-conscience mandate as well as asking the court for a declaratory judgment that the mandate is unconstitutional.

Priests for Life, a New York based international pro-life organization of Catholic clergy and laity, filed a lawsuit against the Obama Administration in an effort to seek injunctive relief from impending regulations that would require the organization to pay for employee health insurance that covers abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization.

The Obama administration asked a federal court to dismiss yet another lawsuit filed against the Obama administration over its mandate.

This was its first opportunity to explain to the court and the country why the mandate is not illegal and unconstitutional. The Obama administration did not defend the constitutionality of the mandate, but said the lawsuit should be thrown out because the administration plans to revise the mandate to make it on insurance companies to pay for coverage rather than employers, who will still have to make referrals.

“Plaintiff’s challenge to the preventive services coverage regulations is not fit for judicial review because defendants [Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius] have indicated that they will propose and finalize changes to the regulations that are intended to accommodate plaintiff’s religious objections to providing contraception coverage,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) wrote in its brief to the Washington, D.C. District Court.

Obama officials claim the mandate does not put forth any “immediate injury” to religious groups.

Luke Goodrich, Deputy General Counsel of the Becket Fund, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic university, says he thinks the Obama administrations argument will not stand up in court.

“It doesn’t argue that the mandate is legal; it doesn’t argue that the mandate is constitutional,” Goodrich said.

“Instead, it begs the court to ignore the lawsuit because the government plans to change the mandate at some unspecified date in the future.”

“Apparently, the administration has decided that the mandate, as written and finalized, is constitutionally indefensible,” said Hannah Smith, senior counsel at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty “Its only hope is to ask the court to look the other way based on an empty promise to possibly change the rules in the future.”
The panel that put together the mandate has been condemned for only having pro-abortion members even though polling shows Americans are opposed to the mandate.

More than 50 members of Congress banded together at a press conference to demand legislation to stop the new mandate pro-abortion President Barack Obama put in place forcing religious employers to pay for insurance coverage including birth control and abortion-inducing drugs.

Congressman Jeff Fortenberry held a press conference with supporters of the bipartisan, bicameral Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. His legislation would protect the religious liberty and conscience rights of every American who objects to being forced by the strong-arm of government to pay for drugs and procedures recently mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The Fortenberry bill currently has the support of approximately 220 Members of Congress and Senators, the most strongly-supported legislative remedy to the controversial HHS mandate.  This measure would repeal the controversial mandate, amending the 2010 health care law to preserve conscience rights for religious institutions, health care providers, and small businesses who pay for health care coverage.

H.R. 1179 enjoys the endorsements of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Right to Life Committee, Americans United for Life, and other organizations.  Numerous other organizations, including the Christian Medical Association and Family Research Council, have urged support of the bill.

Sen. Roy Blunt, a pro-life Missouri Republican, is putting forward the Blunt Amendment, #1520, again, and it is termed the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. According to information provided to LifeNews from pro-life sources on Capitol Hill, the Blunt Amendment will be the first amendment voted on when the Senate returns to the transportation bill. The amendment would allow employers to decline coverage of services in conflict with religious beliefs.

Republicans are moving swiftly with legislation, amendments, and potential hearings on the mandatethe Obama administration has put in place that forces religious employers to pay for birth control and abortion-inducing drugs for their employees.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops  issued a statement saying Obama’s revised mandate involves “needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions” and it urged Congress to overturn the rule and promised a potential lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the Republican presidential candidates had been taking verbal swings at Obama for imposing the original mandate on religious employers, which is not popular in the latest public opinion poll and which even some Democrats oppose.

Congressman Steve Scalise has led a bipartisan letter with 154 co-signers calling on the Obama Administration to reverse its mandate forcing religious organizations to include drugs that can cause abortion and birth control in the health care plans of their employees.

The original mandate was so egregious that even the normally reliably liberal and pro-abortion USA Today condemned it in an editorial titled, “Contraception mandate violates religious freedom.”

The administration initially approved a recommendation from the Institute of Medicine suggesting that it force insurance companies to pay for birth control and drugs that can cause abortions under the Obamacare government-run health care program.

The IOM recommendation, opposed by pro-life groups, called for the Obama administration to require insurance programs to include birth control — such as the morning after pill or the ella drug that causes an abortion days after conception — in the section of drugs and services insurance plans must cover under “preventative care.” The companies will likely pass the added costs on to consumers, requiring them to pay for birth control and, in some instances, drug-induced abortions of unborn children in their earliest days.

The HHS accepted the IOM guidelines that “require new health insurance plans to cover women’s preventive services” and those services include “FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling” — which include birth control drugs like Plan B and ella that can cause abortions. The Health and Human Services Department commissioned the report from the Institute, which advises the federal government and shut out pro-life groups in meetings leading up to the recommendations.

Bishops: Obama birth control compromise is dubious

From: USATODAY.com

U.S. Roman Catholic bishops called the Obama administration's pledge to soften an employer birth control mandate "dubious," saying Wednesday they would continue fighting for a broader religious exemption to the rule.

The policy, announced in January, requires nearly all employers to provide insurance coverage that includes free birth control for workers. Houses of worship are exempt; religiously affiliated charities, hospitals and schools are not.

Bishops and their supporters consider the religious exemption in the mandate unfairly narrow. In the face of intense protest, President Obama last month said insurance companies would pay for the coverage instead of religious employers. No details have been announced.

After meeting in Washington, the top committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said they would "continue to accept any invitation to dialogue with the executive branch to protect the religious freedom that is rightly ours.'" However, they called Obama's plan to address their concerns "unspecified and dubious."

"This is not about access to contraception, which is ubiquitous and inexpensive," the bishops said in a statement. "This is not about the church wanting to force anybody to do anything. It is instead about the federal government forcing the church — consisting of its faithful and all but a few of its institutions — to act against church teachings."

A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Sarah Lipton-Lubet, policy council for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that under the bishops' definition of religious freedom, women would be denied coverage for contraceptives "based on the employer's, not the woman's, personal beliefs."

"A woman's health care needs are what is most important in this debate, and her rights to live her life according to her beliefs, and the freedom to not have someone else's imposed on her," Lipton-Lubet said.

Catholic Bishops Unified in Vow to Fight Obama HHS Mandate

FROM: LifeNews.com

The nation’s Catholic bishops have released a new statement in which they say they are unified in their vow to fight the Obama HHS mandate that requires religious employers to purchase birth control and coverage for their employees that includes drugs that may cause abortions.

The U.S. bishops are strongly united in their ongoing and determined  efforts to protect religious freedom, the Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said in a statement LifeNews received.

The Administrative Committee, chaired by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, president of the USCCB, is the highest authority of the bishops’ conference outside the semi-annual sessions of the full body of bishops. The Committee’s membership consists of the elected chairmen of all the USCCB permanent committees and an elected bishop representative from each of the geographic regions of the USCCB.

The Administrative Committee said it was “strongly unified and intensely focused in its opposition to the various threats to religious freedom in our day.”

The bishops will continue their vigorous work of education on religious freedom, dialogue with the executive branch, legislative initiatives and efforts in the courts to defend religious freedom. They promised a longer statement on the principles at the heart of religious freedom, which will come later from the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty.

The bishops noted that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate that forces all private health plans to provide coverage of sterilization and contraceptives – including abortion-inducing drugs – called for an immediate response. Of particular concern, they said, are a religious exemption from the mandate that the bishops deem “arbitrarily narrow” and an “unspecified and dubious future ‘accommodation’’’ offered to other religious organizations that are denied the exemption.

The bishops thanked supporters from the Catholic community and beyond “who have stood firmly with us in our vigorous opposition to this unjust and illegal mandate.”


“It is your enthusiastic unity in defense of religious freedom that has made such a dramatic and positive impact in this historic public debate.”

The bishops said this dispute is not about access to contraceptives but about the government’s forcing the Church to provide them. Their concerns are not just for the Catholic Church but also for “those who recognize that their cherished beliefs may be next on the block.”

“Indeed, this is not about the Church wanting to force anybody to do anything; it is instead about the federal government forcing the Church – consisting of its faithful and all but a few of its institutions – to act against Church teachings,” they said.

The Church has worked for universal healthcare in the United States since 1919, they added, and said the current issue “is not a Republican or Democratic, a conservative or liberal issue; it is an American issue.”

The bishops called the HHS mandate “an unwarranted government definition of religion,” with government deciding who is a religious employer deserving exemption from the law.

“The introduction of this unprecedented defining of faith communities and their ministries has precipitated this struggle for religious freedom,” the bishops said.

“Government has no place defining religion and religious ministry,” they said.

“If this definition is allowed to stand, it will spread throughout federal law, weakening its healthy tradition of generous respect for religious freedom and diversity,” they said.

The bishops said the government’s foray into church governance “where government has no legal competence or authority” is beyond disturbing. Those deemed by HHS not to be “religious employers,” the bishops said, “will be forced by government to violate their own teachings within their very own institutions. This is not only an injustice in itself, but it also undermines the effective proclamation of those teachings to the faithful and to the world.”

The bishops also called the HHS mandate “a violation of personal civil rights.”  The new mandate creates a class of people “with no conscience protection at all: individuals who, in their daily lives, strive constantly to live in accordance with their faith and values,” the bishops said. “They too face a government mandate to aid in providing ‘services’ contrary to those values – whether in their sponsoring of, and payment for, insurance as employers; their payment of insurance premiums as employees, or as insurers themselves – without even the semblance of exemptions.”

The bishops called for the Catholic faithful, and all people of good will throughout the nation to join them in prayer and penance “for our leaders and for the complete protection of our First Freedom – religious liberty.”



The full statement can be found at: www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/upload/Admin-Religious-Freedom.pdf

Father Marcel Guarnizo Defends Not Giving Communion

From: CNSNews.com

Editor's Note: On Feb. 25, at a funeral Mass at St. John Neumann Parish in Gaithersburg, Md., Fr. Marcel Guarnizo very discreetly denied Holy Communion to Barbara Johnson, the daughter of the deceased. Johnson had entered the sacristy before the Mass along with another woman whom she made a point of announcing to Fr. Guarnizo as her “lover.” Since the incident, Johnson has told her version of what happened to several news organizations. Until now, Fr. Guarnizo has remained silent.

Fr. Guarnizo is a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Moscow, Russia—not of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., where he has been practicing his vocation in recent years. On March 9, the Archdiocese of Washington suspended his “faculties” to administer the sacraments within its borders.
Here, for the first time, in a written statement, Fr. Guarnizo begins to tell his story.

Fr. Marcel Guarnizo’s Response to the Eucharistic Incident

I would like to begin by once again sending my condolences to the Johnson family on the death of Mrs. Loetta Johnson.

I also feel obliged to answer questions from my parishioners, as well as from the public, about the incident on February 25th.

Here are the facts: On Saturday, February 25th I showed up to officiate at a funeral Mass for Mrs. Loetta Johnson. The arrangements for the Mass were also not my own. I wish to clarify that Ms. Barbara Johnson (the woman who has since complained to the press), has never been a parishioner of mine. In fact, I had never met her or her family until that morning.

The funeral celebration was to commence at 10:30a.m.

From 9:30 to 10:20, I was assigned to hear confessions for the parish and anyone in the funeral party who would have chosen to receive the sacrament.

A few minutes before the Mass began, Ms. Johnson came into the sacristy with another woman whom she announced as her “lover." Her revelation was completely unsolicited. As I attempted to follow Ms. Johnson, her lover stood in our narrow sacristy physically blocking my pathway to the door. I politely asked her to move and she refused.

I understand and agree it is the policy of the archdiocese to assume good faith when a Catholic presents himself for communion; like most priests I am not at all eager to withhold communion. But the ideal cannot always be achieved in life.

In the past ten days, many Catholics have referenced Canon 915 in regard to this specific circumstance. There are other reasons for denying communion which neither meet the threshold of Canon 915 or have any explicit connection to the discipline stated in that canon.

If a Quaker, a Lutheran or a Buddhist, desiring communion had introduced himself as such, before Mass, a priest would be obligated to withhold communion. If someone had shown up in my sacristy drunk, or high on drugs, no communion would have been possible either. If a Catholic, divorced and remarried (without an annulment) would make that known in my sacristy, they too according to Catholic doctrine, would be impeded from receiving communion. This has nothing to do with Canon 915. Ms. Johnson’s circumstances are precisely one of those relations which impede her access to communion according to Catholic teaching.

Ms. Johnson was a guest in our parish, not the arbitrer of how sacraments are dispensed in the Catholic Church.

In all of the above circumstances, I would have been placed in a similar uncomfortable position. Under these circumstances, I quietly withheld communion, so quietly that even the Eucharistic Minister standing four feet from me was not aware I had done so.  (In fact Ms. Johnson promptly chose to go to the Eucharistic minister to receive communion and did so.) There was no scandal, no “public reprimand” and no small lecture as some have reported.

---

 Details matter. Ms. Johnson was not kneeling when she approached for communion, she did not receive the cup as the press has reported she has stated. It is the policy of St. John Neumann parish never to distribute under both species during funerals.

During the two eulogies (nearly 25 minutes long), I quietly slipped for some minutes into the sacristy lavatory to recover from the migraine that was coming on. I never walked out on Mrs. Loetta Johnson’s funeral and the liturgy was carried out with the same reverence and care that I celebrate every Mass. I finished the Mass and accompanied the body of the deceased in formal procession to the hearse, which was headed to the cemetery. I am subject to occasional severe migraines, and because the pain at that point was becoming disabling, I communicated to our funeral director that I was incapacitated and he arranged one of my brother priests to be present at the cemetery to preside over the rite of burial.

Furthermore, as the testimony of the priest that was at the cemetery conveys, he was present when the Johnson family arrived, and in fact mentioned that being called to cover the burial rite is quite normal, as many priests for reasons much less significant than mine (rush hour traffic, for example) do not make the voyage to the cemetery. He routinely covers for them. This change in plans, was also invisible to the rest of the entourage. Regrets and information about my incapacitating migraine were duly conveyed to the Johnson family.

I have thanked the funeral director and the priest at the burial site, for their assistance that day. Mrs. Loetta Johnson was properly buried with every witness and ceremony a Catholic funeral can offer. I did not and would not refuse to accompany Barbara Johnson and her mother to the cemetery because she is gay or lives with a woman. I did not in any way seek to dishonor her memory, and my homily at the funeral should have made that quite evident to all in the pews, including the Johnson family.

I would like to extend again to Ms. Johnson and her family, my sincerest condolences on her mother’s death. I would never intentionally want or seek to embarrass anyone publicly or increase anyone’s emotional distress during such a difficult time. I did not seek or contrive these circumstances.

But I am going to defend my conduct in these instances, because what happened I believe contains a warning to the church. Such circumstances can and will be repeated multiple times over if the local church does not make clear to all Catholics that openly confessing sin is something one does to a priest in the confessional, not minutes before the Mass in which the Holy Eucharist is given.

I am confident that my own view, that I did the only thing a faithful Catholic priest could do in such an awkward situation, quietly, with no intention to hurt or embarrass, will be upheld.

Otherwise, any priest could--and many will--face the cruelest crisis of conscience that can be imposed. It seems to me, the lack of clarity on this most basic issue puts at risk other priests who wish to serve the Catholic Church in Washington D.C.

As to the latest allegations, I feel obliged to alleviate unnecessary suffering for the faithful at St. John Neumann and others who are following the case.

I wish to state that in conversation with Bishop Barry Knestout on the morning of March 13, he made it very clear that the whole of the case regarding the allegations of “intimidation” are circumscribed to two conversations; one with the funeral director and the other with a parish staff member present at the funeral.

These conversations took place on March 7th and 8th, one day before the archdiocese’s latest decision to withdraw faculties (not suspend, since Cardinal Wuerl is not my bishop) on the 9th of March. I am fully aware of both meetings. And indeed contrary to the statement read on Sunday, March 11th during all Masses at St. John Neumann, both instances have everything to do with the Eucharistic incident. There is no hidden other sin or “intimidation” allegations that they are working on, outside of these two meetings.

The meetings in question, occurred in our effort to document from people at the funeral Mass in written form a few facts about the nature of the incident. We have collected more than a few testimonies and affidavits, testifying to what really took place during the funeral liturgy.

My personal conversation with both parties in question were in my view civil, professional and in no way hostile. I respect both individuals in question and really do not know the nature of their grievance.

On March 13, I asked Bishop Knestout about detail on this matter but he stated that he was not at liberty to discuss the matter. I would only add for the record, that the letter removing me from pastoral work in the Archdiocese of Washington, was already signed and sealed and on the table when I met with Bishop Knestout on March 9, even before he asked me the first question about the alleged clash.

In the days to come I look forward to addressing any confusion about the above conversations if the archdiocese or the persons involved wish to talk about it publicly or privately.

I am grateful for all the good wishes and prayers I have received. And sincerely, having lost my own mother not long ago, I again extend my condolences to the Johnson family. I finally wish for the good of the Universal Church, the archdiocese, my parish and the peace of friends and strangers around the world, that the archdiocese would cease resolving what they call internal personnel matters of which they cannot speak, through the public media.

I remain my bishop’s and my Church’s, and above all Christ Jesus’ obedient servant,

Very truly yours,
Father Marcel Guarnizo

Catholic Bishops Prez: Our Rights Don't Depend on Obama

From: LifeNews.com

USCCB President Timothy Cardinal Dolan has issued a new letter to his fellow Catholic bishops that is one of the strongest condemnations yet of the revised Obama mandate that pro-life advocates have blasted for trampling on religious freedoms.

In the new letter issued Wednesday and co-signed by Bishop William Lori, Dolan condemns the mandate and urges support for the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, which would overturn the revision of the original mandate that forced religious employers to pay for birth control and drugs that cause abortions. The new mandate puts the onus for paying for them on insurance companies but religious employers may still have to pay and will be required to make referrals for their employees.

Dolan obliterates the mandate, saying religious rights and freedoms are a God-given right that and it “does not depend on any government’s decision to grant it.”

“If the government can, for example, tell Catholics that they cannot be in the insurance business today without violating their religious convictions, where does it end?” Dolan asks.

“The regulations would provide no protections for our great institutions—such as Catholic charities, hospitals, and universities—or for the individual faithful in the marketplace. The regulations struck at the heart of our fundamental right to religious liberty, which affects our ability to serve those outside our faith community,” Dolan says. “On Friday, February 10, the Administration issued the final rules. By their very terms, the rules were reaffirmed “without change.” The mandate to provide the illicit services remains. The exceedingly narrow exemption for churches remains. Despite the outcry, all the threats to religious liberty posed by the initial rules remain.”

Dolan calls on pro-life advocates and Catholics to support the Blunt Amendment, which will come up soon in the Senate.

“We all need to act now by contacting our legislators in support of the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act,” he says.

Tell Obama: Stop This Pro-Abortion Mandate

The full text of the letter appears below:

Dear Brother Bishops,

Since we last wrote to you concerning the critical efforts we are undertaking together to protect religious freedom in our beloved country, many of you have requested that we write once more to update you on the situation and to again request the assistance of all the faithful in this important work. We are happy to do so now.

First, we wish to express our heartfelt appreciation to you, and to all our sisters and brothers in Christ, for the remarkable witness of our unity in faith and strength of conviction during this past month. We have made our voices heard, and we will not cease from doing so until religious freedom is restored.

As we know, on January 20, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a decision to issue final regulations that would force practically all employers, including many religious institutions, to pay for abortion inducing drugs, sterilizations, and contraception. The regulations would provide no protections for our great institutions—such as Catholic charities, hospitals, and universities—or for the individual faithful in the marketplace. The regulations struck at the heart of our fundamental right to religious liberty, which affects our ability to serve those outside our faith community.

Since January 20, the reaction was immediate and sustained. We came together, joined by people of every creed and political persuasion, to make one thing resoundingly clear: we stand united against any attempt to deny or weaken the right to religious liberty upon which our country was founded.

On Friday, February 10, the Administration issued the final rules. By their very terms, the rules were reaffirmed “without change.” The mandate to provide the illicit services remains. The exceedingly narrow exemption for churches remains. Despite the outcry, all the threats to religious liberty posed by the initial rules remain.

Religious freedom is a fundamental right of all. This right does not depend on any government’s decision to grant it: it is God-given, and just societies recognize and respect its free exercise. The free exercise of religion extends well beyond the freedom of worship. It also forbids government from forcing people or groups to violate their most deeply held religious convictions, and from interfering in the internal affairs of religious organizations.

Recent actions by the Administration have attempted to reduce this free exercise to a “privilege” arbitrarily granted by the government as a mere exemption from an all-encompassing, extreme form of secularism. The exemption is too narrowly defined, because it does not exempt most non-profit religious employers, the religiously affiliated insurer, the self-insured employer, the for-profit religious employer, or other private businesses owned and operated by people who rightly object to paying for abortion inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. And because it is instituted only by executive whim, even this unduly narrow exemption can be taken away easily.

In the United States, religious liberty does not depend on the benevolence of who is regulating us. It is our “first freedom” and respect for it must be broad and inclusive—not narrow and exclusive. Catholics and other people of faith and good will are not second class citizens. And it is not for the government to decide which of our ministries is “religious enough” to warrant religious freedom protection.

This is not just about contraception, abortion-causing drugs, and sterilization—although all should recognize the injustices involved in making them part of a universal mandated health care program. It is not about Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals. It is about people of faith. This is first and foremost a matter of religious liberty for all. If the government can, for example, tell Catholics that they cannot be in the insurance business today without violating their religious convictions, where does it end? This violates the constitutional limits on our government, and the basic rights upon which our country was founded.

Much remains to be done. We cannot rest when faced with so grave a threat to the religious liberty for which our parents and grandparents fought. In this moment in history we must work diligently to preserve religious liberty and to remove all threats to the practice of our faith in the public square. This is our heritage as Americans. President Obama should rescind the mandate, or at the very least, provide full and effective measures to protect religious liberty and conscience.

Above all, dear brothers, we rely on the help of the Lord in this important struggle. We all need to act now by contacting our legislators in support of the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, which can be done through our action alert on www.usccb.org/conscience.

We invite you to share the contents of this letter with the faithful of your diocese in whatever form, or by whatever means, you consider most suitable. Let us continue to pray for a quick and complete resolution to this and all threats to religious liberty and the exercise of our faith in our great country.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan
Archbishop of New York
President, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Most Reverend William E. Lori
Bishop of Bridgeport
Chairman, Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty

Seven states sue over contraception mandate

From: The Hill's Healthwatch

Seven state attorneys general sued the Obama administration Thursday over its order requiring some religious employers to cover birth control in their employees’ healthcare plans.

In the suit, the states argue that the White House infringed on the religious freedoms protected by the First Amendment.

“This violation of the [First] Amendment is a threat to every American, regardless of religious faith,” Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said in a news release. “We will not stand idly by while our constitutionally guaranteed liberties are discarded by an administration that has sworn to uphold them.”

The attorneys general from Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas also joined the lawsuit.

The White House policy requires most employers to include contraception in their employees’ healthcare plans without charging a co-pay. Churches and houses of worship are exempt. Institutions such as Catholic hospitals do not have to provide the coverage directly, but their employees still must receive contraception through their insurance companies with no co-pay.

The Health and Human Services Department has said it will delay the requirements for religious employers for one year. But the states’ lawsuit, which was joined by several Catholic organizations, states that HHS has already finalized the rule and therefore Catholic institutions are subject to the mandate now.

HHS has also said it will use that yearlong delay to decide how its policy will work with religious employers that self-insure.

2,500 Religious Leaders Sign Letter Protesting Obama Mandate | LifeNews.com

From: LifeNews.com

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins led a news conference today during which he is unveiling a new letter signed by more than 2,500 Catholic, evangelical, Protestant, Jewish and other religious leaders opposing the new Obamacare mandate.

The leaders are urging President Obama to reverse his mandate decision and protect the conscience rights of those who have moral and religious opposition to funding or providing contraceptives and abortifacients.

Perkins was joined by Dr. Richard Land, President, Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and Bishop Harry Jackson, Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church in unveiling the letter.

The text of the letter follows:

Dear President Obama:

The undersigned pastors and Christian leaders all write to raise serious concerns over what some have called the “contraception mandate” stemming from the action of Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on August 1st, 2010 to mandate that all health insurance plans in the individual and group market cover all FDA approved “contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures,” including abortifacient drugs and other devices that can destroy life in its early stages.

This mandate was not necessary, nor warranted under the provision of “preventive care services for women” contained in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Worse still is the fact that the mandate essentially ignores the conscience rights of many Catholic and Protestant Americans. Our country was founded on certain freedoms, the first of which is the freedom of religion. The ability of a religious person to follow their conscience without fearing government intervention has long been a protected right for Americans. It is unfathomable to picture a country that would deny religious freedoms.

On August 1, 2011, your Administration granted a narrow exemption that only covers houses of worship. However, the fact remains that the vast majority of religious organizations will be required to choose either to violate their consciences or drop their health coverage for employees. This mandate is all the more egregious for including drugs and devices that are known and scientifically shown to function in ways that can cause abortions, including varieties of the morning-after-pill, both before and after implantation. The conscience rights of those who object to such drugs, let alone object to being forced to cover such drugs, is clearly violated by the Administration action.

Due to significant opposition to this mandate, many people of faith hoped that the Administration would chose to protect the conscience rights of all people who have moral or religious objections to covering contraceptives and sterilization procedures and accordingly submitted comments to your Administration totaling over 200,000. In the face of this outcry, your Administration issued a press release on January 20, 2012 that offers groups only a one year reprieve on being forced to violate the tenants of their faith. Worse still, the decision includes a new requirement that all such religious organizations will be required to refer for that which they find objectionable in the first place.

The contraceptive mandate with the requirement that there will be no co-pay to the patient means millions of Americans will incur the additional cost for these drugs and devices. Forcing religious entities to do the same, despite objections of good conscience, is a severe blow to our religious liberty. Thomas Jefferson drafted the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in 1779, which passed in 1786, and set the stage for the First Amendment. In it, Jefferson states: “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical.” Consequently, we ask that you would reverse this decision and protect the conscience rights of those who have biblically-based opposition to funding or providing contraceptives and abortifacients.

Respectfully,

The unveiling of the letter comes as Obama faces two additional lawsuits over the controversial mandate. Meanwhile, more than a dozen state attorneys general have signed onto a joint letter Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning started coordinating against the controversial Obama mandate requiring religious employers to cover birth control and drugs that can cause abortions.

Also, the largest Catholic pro-life group and Catholic television station have filed suit against the new Obama mandate that forces religious employers like them to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs in employee health insurance.

Late last week, the Obama administration asked a federal court to dismiss yet another lawsuit filed against the Obama administration over its mandate.

The panel that put together the mandate has been condemned for only having pro-abortion members even though polling shows Americans are opposed to the mandate.

More than 50 members of Congress banded together at a press conference to demand legislation to stop the new mandate pro-abortion President Barack Obama put in place forcing religious employers to pay for insurance coverage including birth control and abortion-inducing drugs.

Congressman Jeff Fortenberry held a press conference with supporters of the bipartisan, bicameral Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. His legislation would protect the religious liberty and conscience rights of every American who objects to being forced by the strong-arm of government to pay for drugs and procedures recently mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The Fortenberry bill currently has the support of approximately 220 Members of Congress and Senators, the most strongly-supported legislative remedy to the controversial HHS mandate. This measure would repeal the controversial mandate, amending the 2010 health care law to preserve conscience rights for religious institutions, health care providers, and small businesses who pay for health care coverage.

H.R. 1179 enjoys the endorsements of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Right to Life Committee, Americans United for Life, and other organizations. Numerous other organizations, including the Christian Medical Association and Family Research Council, have urged support of the bill.

Sen. Roy Blunt, a pro-life Missouri Republican, is putting forward the Blunt Amendment, #1520, again, and it is termed the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. According to information provided to LifeNews from pro-life sources on Capitol Hill, the Blunt Amendment will be the first amendment voted on when the Senate returns to the transportation bill. The amendment would allow employers to decline coverage of services in conflict with religious beliefs.

Republicans are moving swiftly with legislation, amendments, and potential hearings on the mandatethe Obama administration has put in place that forces religious employers to pay for birth control and abortion-inducing drugs for their employees.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement saying Obama’s revised mandate involves “needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions” and it urged Congress to overturn the rule and promised a potential lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the Republican presidential candidates had been taking verbal swings at Obama for imposing the original mandate on religious employers, which is not popular in the latest public opinion poll and which even some Democrats oppose.

Congressman Steve Scalise has led a bipartisan letter with 154 co-signers calling on the Obama Administration to reverse its mandate forcing religious organizations to include drugs that can cause abortion and birth control in the health care plans of their employees.

The original mandate was so egregious that even the normally reliably liberal and pro-abortion USA Today condemned it in an editorial titled, “Contraception mandate violates religious freedom.”

The administration initially approved a recommendation from the Institute of Medicine suggesting that it force insurance companies to pay for birth control and drugs that can cause abortions under the Obamacare government-run health care program.

The IOM recommendation, opposed by pro-life groups, called for the Obama administration to require insurance programs to include birth control — such as the morning after pill or the ella drug that causes an abortion days after conception — in the section of drugs and services insurance plans must cover under “preventative care.” The companies will likely pass the added costs on to consumers, requiring them to pay for birth control and, in some instances, drug-induced abortions of unborn children in their earliest days.

The HHS accepted the IOM guidelines that “require new health insurance plans to cover women’s preventive services” and those services include “FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling” — which include birth control drugs like Plan B and ella that can cause abortions. The Health and Human Services Department commissioned the report from the Institute, which advises the federal government and shut out pro-life groups in meetings leading up to the recommendations.