Dolan describes Obama’s about-face on contraception mandate

Catholic World Report ^ | March 31, 2012 | Catherine Harmon

[NYer]

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto has a fascinating interview with New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, in which the president of the US bishops’ conference discusses the interactions he’s had with President Barack Obama over the last several months regarding the birth-control mandate handed down by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Dolan describes the 45-minute meeting he had with Obama last November, at which he understood the president to say that the Catholic Church’s religious freedoms would be protected as the health-care law was implemented:

“I said, ‘I’ve heard you say, first of all, that you have immense regard for the work of the Catholic Church in the United States in health care, education and charity. . . . I have heard you say that you are not going to let the administration do anything to impede that work and . . . that you take the protection of the rights of conscience with the utmost seriousness. . . . Does that accurately sum up our conversation?’ [Mr. Obama] said, ‘You bet it does.’”

The archbishop asked for permission to relay the message to the other bishops. “You don’t have my permission, you’ve got my request,” the president replied.

Dolan describes himself as “chagrined” at Obama’s apparent change of heart when, at the end of January, he received a call from the Oval Office telling him that not only would the birth control mandate be enforced, but that the bishops had until August “to find out how you're going to be able to comply.” Dolan says he told the president: “Well, sir, we don't need the [extra time]. I can tell you now we’re unable to comply.”

Dolan tells Taranto that for the USCCB, the primary issue remains religious freedom, not contraception.

What rankles him the most is the government’s narrow definition of a religious institution. Your local Catholic parish, for instance, is exempt from the birth-control mandate. Not exempt are institutions such as hospitals, grade schools, universities and soup kitchens that employ or serve significant numbers of people from other faiths and whose main purpose is something other than proselytization.

“We find it completely unswallowable, both as Catholics and mostly as Americans, that a bureau of the American government would take it upon itself to define ‘ministry,’” Archbishop Dolan says. ...

It also amounts to penalizing the church for not discriminating in its good works: “We don’t ask people for their baptismal certificate, nor do we ask people for their U.S. passport, before we can serve them, OK? . . . We don’t serve people because they’re Catholic, we serve them because we are, and it’s a moral imperative for us to do so.”

Dolan does say that a lack of clarity on Catholic teachings regarding sex is partly to blame for the recent furor over contraception; even many Catholics don’t understand the Church’s prohibition of birth control, and use it without scruple.

For this he faults the church leadership. “We have gotten gun-shy . . . in speaking with any amount of cogency on chastity and sexual morality.” He dates this diffidence to “the mid- and late ‘60s, when the whole world seemed to be caving in, and where Catholics in general got the impression that what the Second Vatican Council taught, first and foremost, is that we should be chums with the world, and that the best thing the church can do is become more and more like everybody else.”

Dolan also takes aim at the attitude of many American Catholics toward public service and religion, epitomized by John F. Kennedy’s assertion that, as Dolan puts it, “my Catholic faith will not inspire my decisions in the White House.”

“That’s worrisome,” Archbishop Dolan says. “That’s a severe cleavage between one’s moral convictions and the judgments one is called upon to make. . . . It’s bothersome to us as Catholics, because that’s the kind of apologia that we expect of no other religion.” Read all of Taranto’s interview with Dolan here.

[Alberta's Child]

If a "Catholic" organization serves Catholics and non-Catholics alike, and its mandate does not include the proselytization of the non-Catholics it serves, is it really a religious organization?

Go back through all four Gospels and find me one instance where Christ told His followers that part of their mandate as Christians would be to open schools to educate young people in secular subjects when Caesar doesn't do a good job of it. That's never what the role of a Christian was supposed to be, and it was never supposed to be the role of the parochial school in this country. When bishops like "Dagger John" Hughes of New York and James Gibbons of Baltimore were establishing and building parochial school systems in the 19th century, they never thought of "Caesar" as someone to negotiate with. They established these schools out of an utter distrust of the entire governing structure of this country.

It would be nice if Timothy Dolan can learn some lessons from his predecessors. I have no idea why any Catholic school would hire non-Catholic teachers in the first place, and the role of the Church in teaching non-Catholic students is to convert them, not accommodate them.

I would love to ask Archbishop Dolan right to his face if he sees the conversion of non-Catholics as the primary role of the so-called "Catholic institutions" that aren't considered religious organizations under ObamaCare. For that matter, I wonder if he even sees it as part of his mandate as a Catholic prelate.

[Alberta's Child]

Go back and read Post #10.

The whole argument about what exactly constitutes legitimate grounds for a "religious exemption" from ObamaCare is pointless, even on Catholic grounds (especially on Catholic grounds).

What ought to make ObamaCare -- along with many other government mandates already in place -- so unacceptable to Archbishop Dolan is not that the mandate is allegedly being forced upon religious organizations. It's that it's being forced upon Catholics in every walk of life. Dolan gives every impression in these interviews and public statements that he would be content with ObamaCare as long as these so-called "religious institutions" are exempt from its most controversial elements (in his mind). But what does he say to the Catholic business owner who has the exact same moral objections to ObamaCare? Does the Catholic business owner not have a place at the table here? Does his plight even enter the mind of Archbishop Dolan when Dolan has a phone conversation with a Marxist @sshole in Washington?

[RobbyS]

That’s not true. Read the regulation, the definition of “religious.” It fits the Amish, and other separatist, groups. Not any Catholic institution. What is true is that the Cardinal trusted the President and his party not to cross the line. It makes me wonder how good they are at discerning souls, if they couldn’t read Katy Sebelius.

[RobbyS]

He mentions the Knight of Columbus, which is “private.” EWTN has brought suit because it is directly impacted by this regulation. But the problem is the authority given to Sebellius and her coterie at HHS.

[Salvation]

Lay Catholic business owners are also suing the Obama Administration. Check the links!

Ping for this thread (and for the links, of course!!!!

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[Salvation]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2866637/posts?page=27#27

[Gumdrop]

Your reply to my posting regarding the USCCB’s 50 year seemingly endorsement of the Democratis leftism certainly is true. No one has been as angry as myself and continues to be so with many of the Catholic bishops’ derelictions of duty when the Roe v. Wade decision saw the Democrats embracing it and the GOP drifting into the Pro-Life camp, yet the bishops did nothing to alert and to vigorously protest this development. I am the first to argue that if the bishops had been vigilant and had steadfastly spoken against the “pro-choice” argument of many Catholic Democrats, the subsequent 50 million abortions may have been lessened to miniscule proportions. That they did not do so amounts to the mostr serious of sins against many of them, IMHO.

[RedMDer]

Stand up for Religious Freedom Rally. Hopkins Plaza, Baltimore, MD on March 23, 2012 at noon.

[Gumdrop]

Please tone down your anger a bit. Why on earth are you not rejoicing in what finally seems to be the return of the errant bishops to a genuine, consistant pro-life stance? The fact that many of them have finally had their eyes opened by Obama’s deceitful arrogance is disappointing because it took so long, yet gives me hope.

By-the-way, Arch-Bishop Dolan, now a Cardinal, has been a real leader in this HHS Mandate battle. He is adament, and we are seeing the the emergence of a strong spokesman for all religious people and the defense of the First Amendment. He had to clean up the mess in the Milwaukee Fiocese and did a supurb job of it. When he was announced as the next Archbp of NYC, all traditional Catholics cheered this news. So, please respect him, as he has a very difficult job.

I am also a conservative Catholic. My dear, mother was a strong Catholic and a fervent Republican. She died in 1996. I only can hope she is seeing Cardinal Dolan and urging him on in the defense of Christian values.

[stephenjohnbanker]

” “I said, ‘I’ve heard you say, first of all, that you have immense regard for the work of the Catholic Church in the United States in health care, education and charity. . . . I have heard you say that you are not going to let the administration do anything to impede that work and . . . that you take the protection of the rights of conscience with the utmost seriousness. . . . Does that accurately sum up our conversation?’ [Mr. Obama] said, ‘You bet it does.’”

The archbishop asked for permission to relay the message to the other bishops. “You don’t have my permission, you’ve got my request,” the president replied. “

Why would anyone believe Obama?

[mardi59]

The archbishop asked for permission to relay the message to the other bishops. “You don’t have my permission, you’ve got my request,” the president replied.

obama is pure evil, and someone needs to tell him that the church DOES NOT need his permission to do what is right.

satan was smiling the day obama was born.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Exactly.

[Zionist Conspirator]

What rankles him the most is the government's narrow definition of a religious institution. Your local Catholic parish, for instance, is exempt from the birth-control mandate. Not exempt are institutions such as hospitals, grade schools, universities and soup kitchens that employ or serve significant numbers of people from other faiths and whose main purpose is something other than proselytization.

This is what "rankles him [Dolan] most" ... because ObamaCare is forcing the Catholic bishops to do something they never wanted to do: Take their institutions -- such as hospitals, grade schools, universities and soup kitchens -- and return them to what should have been their main purpose all along: PROSELYTIZATION

Careful now. Everyone knows that Catholics don't proselytize. That's for congenitally unintelligent sub-human Bible-thumping trailer trash, not persecuted intellectuals.

Catholicism continues via the sexual reproduction of Irish/Hispanic/Italian/French/Portuguese/Vietnamese/Polish/Filipinos, not by anything so declasse as proselytization. That's only for bigoted religious fanatics. [/sarcasm]

Be careful. Your co-religionists might label you a "Protestant" or "anti-Catholic" and hound you off the forum. And unfortunately, that ain't sarcasm!

[Alberta's Child]

What you're saying is that the Catholic bishops are perfectly comfortable with government-run health care (in fact, it's basically a part of the USCCB's public platform), but only if these "religious organizations" are somehow exempt from its most pernicious elements.

Can we all agree that the USCCB ought to be shut down?

[Mrs. Don-o]

bttt

[Alberta's Child]

"Return of the errant bishops?" LOL.

You think anything has really changed in the last few months?

[Salvation]

I’m puzzled. Did you not notice that 100 percent — that’s all of them, BTW, spoke out AGAINST Obamacare?

Hooray for the Bishops.

Get on board and stand up for religious freedom!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2866637/posts?page=45#45

[SumProVita]

What an awesome list, Salvation! This is a treasure of linked resources.

I was reading the transcript of an interview of Cardinal Dolan earlier this afternoon...and with each interview we can glean a bit more about how Obmama totally went back on his word to this good man. To my mind, either Obama lied outright...or was convinced/ordered/pressured to make this attack on freedom of religion.

We can speculate....but only God knows.

However, I am CONVINCED that this attack on freedom WILL be a disaster for his administration in its bid for reelection.

[Salvation]

My pleasure. I knew when it all started that we would need a history of it. So I started compiling. I know I don’t have everything, but it’s what it is.

[SumProVita]

I’m puzzled. Did you not notice that 100 percent — that’s all of them, BTW, spoke out AGAINST Obamacare?

Hooray for the Bishops.

Get on board and stand up for religious freedom!

_______________________________________

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!