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From Miami, Florida to Seattle, Washington– Every single Roman Catholic bishop in the United States has condemned in public the Obamacare HHS mandate — all 180 bishops who lead dioceses in the U.S. have spoken. This is a simply incredible, unified, universal Catholic witness on this critical issue of religious freedom.(To those wondering about my methodology, it is now negative instead of positive — I am no longer able to find a single Roman Catholic bishop who has NOT spoken out against the mandate publicly. It is also my presumption that this conclusion applies to all Eastern Rite and Sui...

Cardinal Timothy Dolan issues strongest statement yet against the HHS mandate His Eminence Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, President, and His Excellency Most Reverend William E. Lori, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, have released a very strong statement regarding the current status of the HHS mandate, dated February 21, 2012, to the bishops of the United States. The statement warns of the severe danger posed to religious liberty by "an all-encompassing, extreme form of secularism" and notes that the narrow "exemption" in the mandate was "instituted only by executive whim" and so "can be taken away easily."...

With contraception, the Obama administration thought it had found a chink in the American Church's moral armor. It was wrong.While it is certainly right to lament the fact the Obama administration is attempting to force Catholic institutions, through the Health and Human Services mandate, to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization, there is a bright side to all this. It may very well be a wily act of divine providence, a case of God using hostile secular powers to effect much-desired goals of the Church itself. In saying this, I don’t mean to undermine the gravity of the...

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 16, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a move that is likely to reignite the ire of religious leaders, late Friday afternoon the Obama administration announced a proposal that would require universities, including religious universities, to provide contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs to their students, as well as their employees, without a co-pay. This appears to significantly widen the originally-announced HHS mandate, which had only applied to employees. The White House released the 32-page proposal late Friday afternoon. It outlines three different options to ensure that the health plans for employees and students of religious organizations cover birth control,...

March 19, 2012 (Breakpoint.org) - The most important talking point used by those who support the HHS contraception mandate is that the Catholic Bishops and their allies are “out-of-touch” and represent a minority view. You have no doubt heard things like “98 percent of Catholic women use contraception” and “most Americans, especially women, support the HHS mandate.” Well, it’s not true. The first assertion is based on a study by the Guttmacher Institute, which as an affiliate of Planned Parenthood, is hardly an objective observer. Even the Washington Post compared the media to Pinocchio for using these statistics. In fact,...

New York Archbishop at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican last month when he was installed as a cardinal. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)Editor's Note: The leadership of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week issued a statement reiterating the conviction of the Catholic Church in the United States that President Barack Obama's mandate that all insurance plans--including those that are purchased by and provided by Catholics and Catholic institutions--must provide free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients is an "unjust and illegal mandate."The Administrative Committee of the conference, led by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, declared the mandate...

My remarks will be brief, since this is not a political blog, and I am not a political prognosticator. The American people and process have spoken. But a few remarks based on the election results, things I think of as undeniable facts for the Church, though you are free to offer any rebuttals. 1. The strained relationship between the Catholic Church in the Democratic party will continue and the strain will likely grow. The reasons for this are that the Democratic Party is increasingly aligning itself with positions that are in direct conflict with Catholic teaching. More of this in...

...But on Jan. 2, 2014, Notre Dame told faculty and staff that a third-party administrator would notify them about access to “free” contraception and other mandated provisions of the federal law. The news marked the university’s failure to obtain emergency relief from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, after a U.S. district court refused to issue a temporary injunction before the Jan. 1 deadline. “Having been denied a stay, Notre Dame is advising employees that, pursuant to the Affordable Care Act, our third-party administrator is required to notify plan participants of coverage provided under its contraceptives payment program,”...

Pope Francis recently reaffirmed that religious freedom is "a fundamental human right" and warned against the impulse to "relegate [religions] to the enclosed precincts of churches, synagogues or mosques." The freedom of religion cannot be reduced to the freedom of worship. This resonates with the rich tradition of religious liberty in our country, which has long allowed Catholics and other people of faith to live out their beliefs beyond the sanctuary, whether by healing the sick, educating the young or feeding and clothing the poor. But a mandate of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) now jeopardizes...

BY SR. MARYANN WALSH, USCCBThe Amish are exempt from the entire health care reform law. So are members of Medi-Share, a program of Christian Care Ministry. Yet, when the Catholic Church asks for a religious exemption from just one regulation issued under the law – the mandate that all employers, including religious institutions, must pay for sterilization and contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs – the Administration balks.The government respects the First Amendment that guarantees the right to freely exercise one’s religious beliefs, but only to a point. In the health care law it picks and chooses which beliefs it respects. The...

This will make you angry. Via the Catholic News Agency: Baltimore, Md., Mar 8, 2012 / 12:34 am (CNA).- The Little Sisters of the Poor say the HHS contraception and sterilization mandate threatens their continued ministry to the impoverished elderly. They are “strongly objecting” to the federal rule and say it should be repealed as soon as possible. “Because the Little Sisters of the Poor cannot in conscience directly provide or collaborate in the provision of services that conflict with Church teaching, we find ourselves in the irreconcilable situation of being forced to either stop serving and employing people of...

...[S]ome Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate said they'd favor the concept of a federal law requiring even Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. Now, the state's Catholic bishops are objecting. ...[They] issued a statement expressing their dismay after all five Democratic candidates said during Sunday's "Face the State" debate that they would support legislation forcing Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. "If it is their [the candidates'] position that our hospitals should be forced by law or regulations to provide abortions in spite of our teaching, it is unfortunate to note their readiness to violate religious liberty"... Here are some excerpts of...

Thursday, April 12, 2012 Bishops warned: Obama will seize assets, only proper response is "Courageous Defiance"By Brian Kopp Cardinal O'Connor's response to Clinton admin abortion mandate:  "Jail me!" In a recent Sunday column in Catholic New World, Cardinal Francis George wrote that only three options will exist for Catholic institutions to avoid shutting down under the Obama administration’s HHS mandate: 1) secularize itself, breaking its connection to the church, her moral and social teachings and the oversight of its ministry by the local bishop, 2) pay exorbitant annual fees to avoid paying for birth control-inclusive insurance policies or 3) “sell...

In this case, it was religious moderation — not extremism or volatile rhetoric — that grabbed headlines. It was February, and Barack Obama was delivering his speech on the mandate requiring the health care plans of Catholic organizations to cover contraceptives, traditionally opposed by Catholic doctrine. Blase Cupich, bishop for the Catholic Diocese of Spokane, was taking notes. He’d been tasked by America magazine, the 103-yearold national publication of the Jesuits, to write an essay about the Catholic reaction to the president’s decision. Like other Catholic bishops, Cupich was opposed to the mandate and worried it would restrict religious freedom....

You are a homeless person. You are sick and you know it is bad. You stagger into the ER of St. Ipsidipsy Catholic Hospital in Tall Tree Circle. You have no insurance, health coverage, or money. You are seen by a doctor and treated.The Obama Administration then punishes the hospital for treating you, a person without government-approved obligatory Obamacare.From the Daily Caller: Obamacare installs new scrutiny, fines for charitable hospitals that treat uninsured peopleCharitable hospitals that treat uninsured Americans will be subjected to new levels of scrutiny of their nonprofit status and could face sizable new fines under Obamacare. A...

Obama: ’Not fair’ to deny contraception coverage at Catholic institutions President Barack Obama is talking taxes and talking tough about tax cuts, and today he was also talking to our Karen Swensen, as he proposes tax cuts for the middle class. view full article WASHINGTON, DC, July 10, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a short interview Monday with Karen Swensen of New Orleans’ CBS affiliate WWLTV, President Barack Obama reiterated his support for the HHS birth control mandate, this time adding it’s “not fair” that a woman working for a Catholic institution should “bear the burden and the cost” of paying...

A good sermon on 5 February 2012 by Fr. Sammie Maletta at St. John the Evangelist Parish in St. John, Indiana.You will not regret the 11 minutes you spend. LISTEN HEREGood job, Father.WDTPRS kudos. From Courageous Priest ... Father Sammie Maletta Quotes from his Sermon For those of you who voted for I cannot believe you voted for this (referring to the mandate).Let us be clear, President Obama let us be CatholicThe government wants to get in our business and tell us how to run our business, how to run our Churches.I cannot make a decision about the Church without...

The Department of Health and Human Services has mandated that most large employers include in their health plans, at no cost, pharmaceutical contraceptives, sterilization procedures, and certain forms of so-called “emergency contraception.” Catholic philosophers and theologians have been debating whether complying with the mandate would be morally acceptable. They usually begin by asking whether complying would be “formal” or “material” cooperation with evil. If formal, then complying with the mandate is ruled out. But if complying with the HHS mandate is only material cooperation, then complying might be acceptable, depending on a number of considerations: whether the cooperation is mediate,...

Warning that the Church is being “despoiled of her institutions” as “freedom of conscience and of religion become a memory from a happier past,” Cardinal Francis George of Chicago observes that “the Catholic Church in the United States is being told she must ‘give up’ her health care institutions, her universities and many of her social service organizations.” “So far in American history, our government has respected the freedom of individual conscience and of institutional integrity for all the many religious groups that shape our society,” he continues. “The government has not compelled them to perform or pay for what...

Cardinal Burke: Catholic Employers Cannot Provide Contraceptive Coverage! FaithApril 10th, 2012 Jenn Giroux The upcoming episode of Catholic Action Insight hosted by Thomas McKenna to air on EWTN on Wednesday, April 11 at 2:30pm and April 13 at 9:00pm EST will surely ignite discussion among Catholics on the impending mandate which is an attack on religious liberty.  In this interview, Cardinal Raymond Burke speaks out for the first time in a public interview on matters of faith, religious liberty, and culpability in relation to this threatened mandate for employers.Cardinal Raymond Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura (photo credit: abbey-roads.blogspot.com) “We...