BY SR. MARYANN WALSH, USCCBPosted on 03/11/2012 5:25:19 AM PDT by NYer
BY SR. MARYANN WALSH, USCCB
The 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 Amish do not believe in insurance, and the government understands. Christian Care Ministry believes people should form a religious community and pay medical bills for one another, and the government says okay. Yet when the Catholic Church opposes being forced to pay for services that violate its beliefs, the Administration says “tough.”
What is so special about this mandate that it cannot be touched? It was added after Congress passed the health care law and offers no exemption for religious charitable or educational institutions. It will not accept Catholic charities and schools as “religious enough” unless they hire only Catholics, serve only Catholics, have the narrow tax exempt status granted to houses of worship, and teach religion as their purpose.
Amazingly, this mandate has more force than the overall health care law. In fact recent regulations allow states to decide which “essential health benefits” to require in health plans, such as hospitalization, prescription drugs and pediatric services. At the same time, all insurance plans must include the objectionable services mentioned above. Here federal law trumps state law and threatens to fine into submission institutions that dare oppose it. The going rate is at least $100 per day per employee.
What has the government got against the Catholic Church? Has it forgotten the contributions the church has made to the poor and needy for centuries?
Catholic elementary and secondary schools provide the only real alternative to public schools in many parts of the nation. Catholic colleges offer outstanding education, be it at the university or the community college. The contribution has a long history, back to 1789 when Georgetown University was founded by the Jesuits. Yet under the health care law, if these schools and colleges wish to remain faithful to their religious principles the government will fine them into submission. There’s a thank-you note.
Many Catholic hospitals were founded by religious orders of women, and today one out of six persons seeking hospital care in the United States goes to a Catholic hospital. Until now, religious background of the patient has not been an issue. “Where does it hurt?” is the first question, not “Where is your baptismal certificate?” This approach threatens to deny hospitals any real protection as “religious employers” under the new rule. Yet their Catholicity means many of these hospitals have an added benefit. At Providence Hospital in Washington, DC, for example, patients not only get medical care, they can get clothing too if they need it. It comes through the Ladies of Charity, an auxiliary of the Daughters of Charity who founded the hospital in 1861.
Catholic social service agencies, including adoption and foster care agencies, parish food banks, and soup kitchens, meet human concerns. Services depend on need, not creed. Church sponsorship means the services have a little extra, be they volunteers from parishes, financial donations through diocesan appeals, or the dedication that comes from working for God as well as paycheck.
A Catholic might take personally the Administration’s dissing their beliefs. Lucky the Amish, who have their basic constitutional rights respected. If only we objected to health insurance generally, we might be able to enjoy the same protection. Seems odd that the Administration is more inflexible on contraception than on services that actually treat disease.
Speak softly and ride a big horse ~
I see the point you’re making, but it doesn’t change the fact that the whole concept of insurance mandates from the government, and from the Federal government in specific, is fundamentally WRONG.
We have entire too many Goobers over in the Democrat party to NOT show them why their leiders are Fascist Pigs and are not to be trusted.
Did you like the way I start with one priest out visiting the sick and dying. Some he gives last rites. Others he gives an aspirin. Over time his burden becomes great and he needs to hire a servant to carry the aspirins ~ which he discovers to be a wonderful medicine provided by God Himself.
No matter where the priest travels or what building he enters he is performing his religious obligations by prayer, administering the sacraments, or handing out aspirins ~ and by providing sound advice "here, take this".
You apply that view to the entire Roman Catholic Church, or the Holiness church down on the corner where everyone is a priest, and there you have it.
Obama and his crowd do not see it that way at all ~ that's because "they" hate religion and religious people and religious functions.
They'd rather kill you than to see you do good.
“How many divisions does the Pope have?” mocked Obama, whoops I meant Stalin.
Exactly - if he were a dictator, them pesky Amish folks, and all his a$$-kissing supporters would not get a break.
It is precisely those Catholic hospitals, clinics, charities and Universities that threaten what the leftists see as the legitimate function of government - equally poor cradle-to-grave education and medical care combined with worship of government and our “leaders” rather than God. Obama, Democrats & Co. are bent on wiping out the competition, the Constitution be damned.
every sect has an origin...even the Amish.
We could come up with our own hybrid sect...faithful to Rome, AND opposed to modern day society.
Yes, I did.
(Huber, muawiyah's post #23 has a well-done illustration that might contribute ideas to the piece you're writing.)
“The Catholic Bishops have the opportunity to use their high media profile to explain why no employer, insurer, or insured should have to surrender his or her medical care decisions to Darth Sebelius or her successors, ever ... but as far as I can tell, they’re not making the point or are completely unaware of it.”.............
False. Cardinal Timothy Dolan as head of the USCCB has written two lengthy letters to the bishops regarding the mandate. The letters have been released to the public as well.
They can be accessed readily on the internet. Look at The Catholic League’s site and/or also the CNS News Service under the heading “Blogs” . EWTN also has the letters online.
Just because you have not seen it, does not mean they are not working against this administration’s bullying tactics.
Dolan has emphatically stated that the RC church will not comply with the mandate. End of story. This topic is going to get bigger and BIGGER as we progress into the spring and summer.
Personally I am working on educating all the nuns at a local retirement home. They are so very naive, but are outwardly aware of the mandate, yet not very informed about the spicifics. I figure it is my duty to keep them informed! Today I begin by bringing them literature - all from Catholic sources (so they will believe what they read). I am hoping that by November, none of them will still believe a word that Obama says.
“What if the Catholic Church refused to comply? What happens then?”
This administration would impose a HUGE fine...and the Church would be forced to close, schools, hospitals, and a variety of service organizations for the poor and hurting of our society.
However, I believe that this mandate will NOT stand. Obama has NO idea of how strongly we will fight this....with both prayer and action!
My thoughts exactly.How long before the buggy is banned?
IIRC Muslims are exempt, as well.
If I have misunderstood the Bishops' approach to the question, I would appreciate some specific quotes that show their applying, as Mrs. Don-o said, the principle of subsidiarity to the whole question of medical care and medical insurance, as well as to the specific point of contraception (sterilization, prenatal infanticide). Otherwise, as the original comment from "the invisib1e hand" stated, their position would be that it is acceptable for the government to compel others to participate in something the Bishops consider immoral.
It seems to me - to branch off into generalization - that many Catholics speaking publically about this issue are loath to say, outright, "Contraception is wrong. Sterilization is wrong. Chemical prenatal infanticide is wrong. All these things are wrong even when the people committing the acts don't realize it." One need not say "Contraception should be illegal" in order to say that it is always wrong, just as one need not say "Adultery should be illegal," to say it is always wrong. As we are seeing, one gets the same result from saying, "We don't think employers with religious objections should have to pay," as from saying, "It's wrong and should be against the law," so why not take at least a *little* stronger stance, since they're going to take the heat anyway for what they *don't* say.
Sorry ... if it's my washing machine or my soul, my washing machine wins!
When the end came near and the Allies approached the camp where he'd been killing and torturing people he took the Gypsy boy over to the ovens and tossed him!
So it will be with the Amish with a real dictator. He will shower them with exemptions and appear to leave them alone. Then, someday, when it's tight he'll make sure they die just like everybody else he hated.
The "Gypsy Boy" story is supposed to be true, and all who have read it in any number of books about Gypsies have an obligation to pass it on.
BTW, the only books about Gypsies that are in libraries are those with that story in them. Otherwise they've been checked out permanently because, as they say "it's none of your business". This, though, is your business, my business, and their business.
true that! HA!
I’m just trying to work my way around this mandate business ;)
If the price of energy gets too much higher, 19th-century technology might look better.
It’s KILLING ME!!! We live near many Amish and Mennonites.
I am often envious.
When I’m not watching The Mentalist, that is ;)
I tried to get my husband to move to the farm in Missouri, back when we still had the farm to move to, so all these boys could grow their own food ... but he was stuck in the 20th century for some reason.
Oh, well ... we like “Bones” and “Numb3rs” right now ;-).
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