Posted on 01/25/2014 3:16:31 AM PST by NYer
For Immediate Release: January 24, 2014
Media Contact: Emily Hardman, ehardman@becketfund.org, 202.349.7224
Washington, D.C. – Today the Little Sisters of the Poor received an injunction from the Supreme Court protecting them from the controversial HHS mandate while their case is before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. The injunction means that the Little Sisters will not be forced to sign and deliver the controversial government forms authorizing and instructing their benefits administrator to provide contraceptives, sterilization, and drugs and devices that may cause early abortions (see video). The Court’s order also provides protection to more than 400 other Catholic organizations that receive health benefits through the same Catholic benefits provider, Christian Brothers.
“We are delighted that the Supreme Court has issued this order protecting the Little Sisters,” said Mark Rienzi, Senior Counsel for the Becket Fund. “The government has lots of ways to deliver contraceptives to people–it doesn’t need to force nuns to participate.”
To receive protection, the Supreme Court said that the Little Sisters and other organizations that receive benefits through Christian Brothers must simply inform HHS of their religious identity and objections. The Court said that the Little Sisters did not have to sign or deliver the controversial government forms that authorize and direct their benefits administrator to provide the objectionable drugs and devices.
The order was issued by the entire Supreme Court. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is the Justice assigned for emergency applications from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, had previously issued a temporary injunction to allow the court time to consider the Little Sisters’ emergency appeal, filed on New Years’ Eve.
Prior to the order, injunctions had been awarded in 18 of the 19 similar cases in which relief had been requested.
“Virtually every other party who asked for protection from the mandate has been given it,” said Rienzi. “It made no sense for the Little Sisters to be singled out for fines and punishment before they could even finish their suit.”
The Little Sisters are joined in the lawsuit by religious health benefit providers, Christian Brothers Services, Christian Brothers Employee Benefits Trust. The lawsuit is a class action on behalf of all the non-exempt organizations that receive benefits through Christian Brothers. The Plaintiffs are also represented by Locke Lord, a national law firm, and by Kevin Walsh, a law professor at the University of Richmond.
To date, there are currently 91 lawsuits challenging the unconstitutional HHS mandate. The Becket Fund represents: Hobby Lobby, Little Sisters of the Poor, GuideStone, Wheaton College, East Texas Baptist University, Houston Baptist University, Colorado Christian University, the Eternal Word Television Network, Ave Maria University, and Belmont Abbey College.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is a non-profit, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions—from Anglicans to Zoroastrians. For 19 years its attorneys have been recognized as experts in the field of church-state law. The Becket Fund recently won a 9-0 Supreme Court victory in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, which The Wall Street Journal called one of “the most important religious liberty cases in a half century.”
On July 25, 1968, Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae re-affirmed the Catholic teaching on life, love and human sexuality. In that document, he listed the consequences of life lived outside Catholic teaching.
He predicted that:
1. Contraception would lead to conjugal infidelity.
2. Contraceptive practice would lead to a “general lowering of morality.”
3. Contraception would lead men to cease respecting woman in their totality and would cause them to treat women as “mere instruments of selfish enjoyment” rather than as cherished partners.
4. And finally, widespread acceptance of contraception by couples would lead to a massive imposition of contraception by unscrupulous governments.
In other words, Pope Paul VI predicted that contraception would evolve from “a lifestyle choice” into a weapon of mass destruction. How dreadfully his prophecy has been vindicated by population control and coercive sterilization programs, fertility reduction quotas and the promotion of abortion literally everywhere in the world.
Contraception’s destruction of the integrity of the marital act—as unitive and procreative—has dire consequences for society and for our souls. Contraception, in other words, is a rejection of God’s view of reality. It is a wedge driven into the most intimate sphere of communion known to man outside of the Holy Sacrament of the Mass. It is a degrading poison that withers life and love both in marriage and in society.
By breaking the natural and divinely ordained connection between sex and procreation, women and men—but especially men—would focus on the hedonistic possibilities of sex. People would cease seeing sex as something that was intrinsically linked to new life and to the sacrament of marriage.
Does anyone doubt that this is where we find ourselves today?
Hitler would have killed a lot more, that’s what makes him rather equivalent to Stalin, but it’s a real mistake for people in this country to think we are immune to performing or allowing that kind of behavior
There have been 56,000,000 babies killed through abortion in this country in 41 years. That doesn’t include abortions due to birth control pill
http://www.prolife.com/birthcnt.html
That makes this country worse than communist Russia, in terms of numbers of murders of innocents
Makes hitler look like a Boy Scout, one could say
The catechism cites scripture, theologians and tradition
What it says about abortion takes a mere two and a half pages, not because its not an portant subject. But because it is simple
Once a person is conceived, it is a person, and has the right to live that is equal to every other person, including, of course, the mother
There ya go!
Notice he doesn’t say ‘abortion’ causes the problems, he says ‘contraception’ causes the trouble. Contraception causes abotion, and the cause ofg the culture of death is the striving for efficiency
CC
Thank you for assembling all the details!
I missed the sarcasm. I confess to being dreadfully literal.
Under abortion the United States has killed NINE TIMES more than Hitler since 1973.
Understandable.
I also think Mr Rienzi could have made the statement more artful——instead of using the sarcasm in a run-on sentence.
Still, regardless of Mr. Rienzi’s intent, it’s true that we have “the government” - public schools for example, and county health departments, and government-funded Planned Parenthood - delivering contraceptives (and abortions) to the public.
That document was stunningly predictive. Keep in mind when he wrote that China was still ‘pro family’. All that one child stuff came after. Pope was right on the money.
That little change made huge impacts and changed something from the creation of life to an indoor sport.
Almost as if the Holy Spirit was involved!
Yup :)
The Amish because they will not resist government authority.
The Muslims because the Islamic-system is a totalitarian one and therefore useful to the statist.
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