A top American bishop said Tuesday the Roman Catholic church will not comply with the Obama administration requirement that most employers provide health insurance covering birth control.Posted on 11/16/2012 1:44:11 PM PST by NYer
A top American bishop said Tuesday the Roman Catholic church will not comply with the Obama administration requirement that most employers provide health insurance covering birth control.
New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said church leaders are open to working toward a resolution with federal officials, but will meanwhile press ahead with challenges to the mandate in legislatures and in court.
“The only thing we’re certainly not prepared to do is give in. We’re not violating our consciences,” Dolan told reporters at a national bishops’ meeting. “I would say no door is closed except for the door to capitulation.”
The bishops have been fighting the regulation since it was announced by President Barack Obama early this year. Houses of worship are exempt, but religiously affiliated hospitals, charities and colleges are not.
Obama promised to change the requirement so that insurance companies, not faith-affiliated employers, would pay for the coverage. But details have not been worked out. And not only the bishops, but Catholic hospitals and some other religious leaders generally supportive of Obama’s health care overhaul have said the compromise proposed so far appears to be unworkable.
Dozens of Catholic dioceses and charities have sued over the mandate, along with colleges, including the University of Notre Dame. The bishops have made the issue the centerpiece of a national campaign on preserving religious freedom, which they consider under assault on several fronts from an increasingly secular broader culture. The Department of Health and Human Services adopted the rule as a preventive service meant to protect women’s health by allowing them to space their pregnancies.
It’s unclear what, if any, influence the bishops have with the administration. [more]
Ping!
Go RCC! THIS is the way to go after Obama. The one thing they are very ill equipped to deal with is a principled refusal to do what they say.
This kind of open disobedience is more powerful than they realize. Obama and his regime count heavily on the bluff charge. An adversary that stands their ground will frighten them. Their only answer is massive lawsuits and law enforcent action against the Catholic church. They do not want to go down that road.
They call it “bad optics” of some such.
New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said church leaders are open to working toward a resolution with federal officials, but will meanwhile press ahead with challenges to the mandate in legislatures and in court.
“The only thing we’re certainly not prepared to do is give in. We’re not violating our consciences,” Dolan told reporters at a national bishops’ meeting. “I would say no door is closed except for the door to capitulation.”
If the USCCB really wants to protest Obamacare, all they need to do is offer no-abortion, no-contraceptive health insurance to anyone on the open market. Make it like an HMO where everything is in-house: all-Catholic doctors, nurses, and hospitals, and no Federal funding or grants of any kind. Services are either offered as charity, or for a fee. Totally privatized, totally exempt for Federal control, available to anyone who agrees with the subscription terms (IMO no lawsuits would be near the top of my list).
I'd love to see that happen. I might even become a customer.
Generally supportive of Obamacare? Gee what could go wrong?
I admire their stand.
My only small recommendations - always use the word “immoral” when referring to the birth control mandate. Every time that particular part of the mandate is mentioned, it should have that adjective in front of it.
People still view this as a political issue. That perception must be changed to the broad public.
The other is to co-opt the ideas of 1960’s civil disobedience. It something leftists understand and yet will have no answer for, now that they are, ironically, in the reversed position of pushing an unpopular and immoral program from a position of Federal Gov’t power.
The marxists in control deliberately let it come to this. Forcing Catholics to choose between their beliefs and jail. The marxists HATE the church, and this was done intentionally, with full awareness.
Will the marxists put bishops in jail? Yes. Will bishops go to jail? Yes. Will 0bama back down? I don’t know, but the confrontation will be fun.
NEVER surrender.
I continue to pray that they have the collective guts to go through with it ! Go RCC !!!
God Bless Cardinal Dolan!
But communion is still ok for the catholic legislators who voted for it.
I agree that they should be publicly excommunicated and don't understand why they haven't been. When I give it some thought, though, excommunicating them is an act of great mercy toward them that protects lying scum like Biden and the others from themselves.
Apparently no one even thinks about the non-Catholic majority in Congress who claim to be Christian and go along with abortion and everything else the fascist left has on their agenda. Have any of the non-Catholic majority in Congress who go along with abortion been stricken from the membership rolls of the Chruch they attend? Jimmy Carter bragged about being a Sunday School teacher and now has the Carter Study Bible out. Anyone ever toss him out of any non-Catholic church or even he wanted to participate in?
I'm not being snarky, either, I don't see why all sorts of Christians, Catholics included, aren't tossing Congress critters out of their congregations left and right.
I am afraid what people will remember most about Cardinal Dolan this year is his laughing at the Al Smith Diner with Obama just before the Election.
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You understand exactly what I am talking about. Leftists euphemistically emphasize that abortion is "health care" - makes it sound almost pleasant. Time to take a legitimate page from that play-book.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
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