Posted on 02/02/2012 5:49:01 PM PST by raptor22
1st Amendment: Catholic bishops on Sunday issued a response to ObamaCare's mandates on providing contraception in violation of conscience and religious freedom. The message was simple: We will not comply.
It was hardly a profile in courage when the Obama administration, hoping to kick the issue down the road past the November election, announced last Friday that Catholic hospitals and other religious institutions will have an extra year to comply with a new requirement that most health plans provide contraceptive benefits at no cost to their members.
On Sunday, America's Catholic bishops in an open letter to their parishioners and their government said they would not comply.
Champions of the separation of church and state have let the crickets chirp on this matter.
Not silent are those such as Bishop Richard Lennon of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese. They let it be known they'll fight this assault on the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion.
"Unless this rule is overturned, Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences or to drop health care coverage for our employees ... ," Lennon wrote in his letter read by priests throughout the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland during weekend Masses.
The Obama administration is "denying to Catholics our nation's first and most fundamental freedom that of religious liberty. We cannot we will not comply with this unjust law."
The Obama administration has in effect torn up the "conscience clause," a 30-year-old law that let health care professionals opt out of providing abortion-related services for moral reasons, sort of like a conscientious objector in time of war.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Obama is a statist and totalitarian, but he is also a spineless political operator. He will only do what he thinks he can get away with.
We had better pray that Obama will not be reelected, and work to make sure our prayers come true. I don't want to see what an anti-American communist with no concerns about a second election thinks he can get away with.
too right, this is the most blatant thing he has done against the constitution.
First amendment , freedom of religion.
There is no was on this earth obamacare is even constitutional.
The Govt is gets its power by us, it should not force states or religions to do something which they do not want to do.
That's an oddly framed statement. I consider myself a "champion of the separation of church and state" - which means I'm adamant that the gubmint should keep their filthy paws off of the church.
1stAmendment ping
I hope and pray the dems FINALLY lose the Catholic vote over this one.
Beautiful words.
That was my first thought as well. I see Godly people being suckered by snake oil salesmen of the left who use words of good will and charity as a guise for their lust for power. I pray for an awakening.
Ann Barnhardt has a damned interesting take on how this has jelled over the years.
“We will not comply” sounds good NOW, but, where has the Church BEEN all these years?
snip-”Some of the bishops in the U.S. are today issuing mostly impotent, flaccid statements regarding the Obama regimes declaration of war against the Catholic Church. The bishops are boldly calling for Catholics to call, fax or email your congressional representatives so that we may lobby for change and thus not be forced to violate our consciences. (it gets much, much better...)
Seems that the Pope has put his flock in order for the first time in years. They have allowed the US Bishops to become very liberal over the years, now he is reeling them in. About time. The Church needs to stand for something and “social Justice” just won’t cut it anymore. This IS the fight and Obama has picked it along with the rest of the Marxists in the White House. Just an opinion, but I’d say the line has been drawn in the sand.
It still shocks me to the core that so many Catholics and protestants voted for him in 2008. WHAT were they thinking?
Ann’s 100% correct. where have the Bishops been? Seduced by the social justice dogma of secular humanism, they allowed the Obamacare Trojan horss to attack the flock.
All Obama would have had to do was keep his minions’ earlier conscience promises to the “social gospel” bishops, and the church would have blithely slept on. But no, he stuck a dinning alarm clock right next to the ear of a sleeping giant. Surely somewhere, Democrats are going “OH SH*T!”
I hear you.
I don't have a clue...
Pray, for all depends on God;
but work as though all depends on you.
The Ctholic Church has been sleeping with the devil (socialists) for many years, now that they have given them the power they were seeking the church was expecting a seat at the table. But instead the church finds they are to be destroyed under the boots of the very same people they suported for so long.
It’s funny to see them reap the harvest they have sown. I think their crys are falling on deaf ears amoung those who still attend church. I say, sleep with dogs you get fleas.
The church surpported socialism and wanted everyone else to live in that hell. Well, I for one no longer care what they have to endure.
I was talking to one of my neighbors who I see in Church every Sunday and she was saying this wasn’t Obama’s fault. I was so stunned all I could say was , lets change the subject.
There are thousands of these idiots.
It still shocks me to the core that so many Catholics and protestants voted for him in 2008. WHAT were they thinking?
I hear you.
I don’t have a clue.
*****************
A great many Americans designate themselves as ‘Christian’, when what they actually is culturally western - nothing more. I was in that boat for many years, and simply did not know any better.
The Bishops want us Catholics to write and call the elected officials when it’s their turn to FINALLY act. We have a remedy - will they listen?
www.ourladyofamerica.org
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.