Posted on 11/16/2012 2:51:21 PM PST by NYer
BALTIMORE, November 16, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The head of America’s Catholic bishops’ conference declared Tuesday that the Catholic Church will “not obey” the Obama administration’s HHS mandate, a policy he classified as “immoral.”
The mandate, which takes effect in eight months, forces employers to cover sterilizations, contraception, and abortifacient medications. Although churches themselves are exempt the mandate applies to religiously affiliated institutions such as hospitals, colleges, charities, and social service agencies.
Asked if the Church is prepared to close its hospitals and other agencies, or instead pay the exorbitant fines levied for non-compliance, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said, “The only thing we’re certainly prepared to do is not give in, not violate our consciences, and not obey what we consider to be something immoral.”
“How we do that and what doors would remain open to us to see if there’s some way consonant with our high moral principles to be able to do it, that’s something we’ve got to start to tackle…and we’re prepared to tackle,” added Dolan, who serves as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The prelate noted that the Church had taken “a bit of a breather” on the issue before election day because the result “could have changed the playing field.” But in the end, he said, “it didn’t.”
Obama’s Republican challenger Mitt Romney had pledged to overturn the mandate within days of taking office.
“We better get back to work and decide just what we’re going to do,” said Dolan. “No door is closed except the door to capitulation.”
Cardinal Dolan was speaking a day after Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore had pledged that the bishops were prepared for a “long-term” fight for religious freedom in his address as head of the U.S. Bishops’ religious liberty campaign.
Commenting in the wake of Obama’s re-election, Lori said, “In the short- to mid-term … the political landscape is the same, but so also is the resolve to eliminate the HHS mandate and most especially the four-part definition that it contains of what constitutes religious activity such that a church or a church institution could qualify for an exemption.”
That four-part definition “draws lines in our mission where we do not draw them,” he said.
Asked in a follow-up press conference whether the bishops would be willing to shift their position on the mandate, he said, “As it stands certainly we would not be able to live with it.”
“I think as this evolves, as the rule making process gets a little more clear and as we study this and monitor it, as we see how the court cases are proceeding, then our range of options will probably become a little more clear,” he added.
Catholic ping!
Way good for him, makes me want to convert to the Catholic faith
Yes they will. The Catholic church will crumble and do whatever Obama’s HHS says. The sorry truth is there are a lot of powerful Catholics in these organizations that support Obama - especially at the universities.
Oh good! If my bishop won’t comply, neither will I! Makes me feel less alone in my civil disobedience.
Well, let’s see if they pack the good bishop off to the Gulag, first.
>>Way good for him, makes me want to convert to the Catholic faith
It may come to that, if the mainline Protestant denominations surrender, one by one, to the liberal secular world. (Disclaimer: I’m a Methodist..for now.)
Too bad Cardinal Dolan is in the extreme minority in his church.
About two weeks too late with the announcement. Maybe if we’re luck Obama’s early drug abuse will come back to bite him in the rear. I do not wish ill on anyone (karma is a bitch), but sometimes ...
Integrity. Rare.
In my diocese a guide for Catholic voters was distributed. The advice was to vote for candidates who support minimum wage laws and “social justice.” The California proposition to overturn the death penalty was supported. Not one word was mentioned about voting against 0bama and overturning 0bamacare. The priests and bishops are too busy slamming capitalism to really fight 0bama.
Team Obama is probably already calculating the asset value of all the property the Church owns. At the rate we’re going, they’ll be including property seizures and sales as part of their deficit reduction baseline. I exaggerate only slightly. I AM quite confident that many on the left would be delighted if the end game were divestiture of all the Catholic schools, universities, and hospitals.
I don't feel the least bit of sympathy to the USSCB; its position is hypocritical and the Catholic Episcopate has done as much as any other left-wing organization over the last century to damage the United States of America.
Catholic Bishops were solidly behind the Socialist takeover of our healthcare system. The have been consistently blind to the stupidity of their own hierarchy on virtually all economic matters, and even at this very late date still refuse to support the repeal of the PPACA.
The Bishops -- and all other Christian clergymen -- need to learn this lesson, need to learn it hard, and they had better learn it soon, because time is running out:
CAPITALISM is "the preferential option for the poor" that this confused episcopate continues to blather cluelessly on about. There is NO "preferential option for the poor" except capitalism, and all other "options" mean squalor, disease, torture, oppression, and death. Those "options" will be "preferentially" visited on the poor before anyone else, because that's the way it is, if this bunch does not get their heads out of their ... miters ...
They may succeed in carving out a special exemption for themselves that allows them to pretend they've taken a moral course. But the truth of the matter is that the long-term consequences of the PPACA are a violation of fundamental human rights and human dignity across the board, and NOTHING short of its repeal is a "moral path."
You got that 100% right.
Good luck with that, your Eminence...
He WON, dontchaknow know.
Where's the integrity? Seriously. The Bishop wants a special exemption for himself on religious grounds. I have a "Church" of my own (see my homepage) do I get to say that I don't have to pay for contraception and abortions for my employees? You bet I don't.
Please note that Bishop Integrity here does not call for repeal of 0bamacare. Please note that the USCCB does not call for the repeal of 0bamacare. Please note that most Bishops were silent about 0bamacare in the run-up to the election, and Bishop Integrity himself says they took some time off during the election, praying furiously no doubt that they'd get to keep the Socialized Medicine system they lobbied so hard for, but a new HHS Secretary would let them have their special treatment while the rest of us are screwed.
Integrity.
No.
Hypocrisy.
But allot of Catholics will religiously vote Dem.
Makes you wonder what “morality” means to those that do, doesn’t it?
I don't recall hearing much talk from the hierarchy on this issue the last two or three months before the election.
It's curious--I can't seem to find the part where the servant who was entrusted with ten talents and turned them into twenty was told that he should give some of his talents to the servant who had been entrusted with one and did nothing with it. In my copy, the opposite seems to happen.
Indeed, while rich people are advised to use their riches to help others, nowhere do I recall Christ advocating for such people to have their wealth forcibly taken from them for such purposes. I do recall a number of warnings against covetousness, but unfortunately many people who call themselves Christians somehow think that it's noble to encourage those who don't build their wealth, to covet the riches of those who do.
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