USCCB: HHS mandate 'unprecedented,' must be rescinded

National Catholic Reporter ^ | Sep. 01, 2011 | Nancy Frazier O'Brien

[Publius804]

WASHINGTON -- The federal government's mandate that all health insurance plans cover contraceptives and sterilization free of charge "represents an unprecedented attack on religious liberty" and creates "serious moral problems" that require its rescission, attorneys for the U.S. bishops said in comments submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services.

In a 35-page comment submitted Aug. 31, Anthony Picarello and Michael Moses, general counsel and associate general counsel, respectively, for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the HHS mandate "unprecedented in federal law and more radical than any state contraceptive mandate enacted to date."

"Only rescission will eliminate all of the serious moral problems the mandate creates," they said. "Only rescission will correct HHS' legally flawed interpretation of the term 'preventive services.'"

[hinckley buzzard]

It's a little late in the game for the ordinarily pusillanimous USCCB to engage in moral posturing.

[muawiyah]

If we work this right we can get the Obama Regime, led by the wholly execrable Sebelius gal, to start arresting and jailing Roman Catholic Bishops and priests during next Fall's election.

[yldstrk]

True, for God’s children. But for pagans, it only makes sense that they should be offered contraceptives. why should the insurance industry be forced to pay for the more expensive birth of a child at a hospital and prevented from having the less expensive birth control? these costs will be passed on from ins to consumer.

On the other hand, maybe a great priest will come out of a pagan mother, who knows? I don’t know the answers anymore.

[Pat4ever]

Maybe you should have read the bill more carefully before endorsing it? The Church could save some money by disbanding this group. Have them do their jobs and stop meddling in political affairs. We the People can make decisions without their help.

[browniexyz]

Oh, so now the USCCB has a beef with Obamacare? Too late!!

[Rapscallion]

All Christians, even Catholics, must be more forceful in confronting the evils of society. Evil comes at us now in all media aimed at every age group and every social level. Fewer and fewer speak for real justice, real morality, real charity and dare I say it, even a real God.

If your freedom is God-given you better stand up and fight back because if they take away your God you have no freedom. It is a founding principle of America.

[DrC]

“Only rescission will eliminate all of the serious moral problems the mandate creates,”

Hard to disagree, though I personally would have substituted “repeal” for “rescission.”

[Mrs. Don-o]

I'm really angry at the USCCB about this.

For years they thought they could keep keep pushing their federal health insurance skateboard down the street, push-push-push, and then brake and skid off to the side at the bottom of the hill in order to avoid contraception - sterilization - abortion - artifical insemination of lesbians - IVF - lethal sedation for the old - all of the perversions which are inseparable from the Leviathan State's definition of "health"?

We told them and they would not listen.

So now they're surprised? Upset? --that there are going to be mandated medical immoralities that we cannot opt out of paying for? And they think they're going to be able to crawl out of the jaws of Leviathan at this late date?

A fine mess you've gotten us into, fathers and brothers.

[Ransomed]

They didn’t endorse it really. They just said we needed healthcare reform, which means socialized medicine, said they were against abortion like they always do, waited until the last possible second and sort of came out against it stronger but still in a nambly-pambly way, wink, wink. They then put enormous pressure on Catholic pols who voted for it, and these unfortunates are still feeling the effects today of this draconian persecution,wink wink.

Here’s a quote from Archbishop Fulton Sheen, it really applies to the USCCB:

“Dead bodies float downstream, it takes a living body to go against the currents.”

–Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Freegards

[rwoodward]

Seriously, the Catholic church has really let us down over the past several years. Have you looked at their newsletters lately? Go to any Catholic Church and pick up some of their pamphlets in their lobby and you will see some sort of Social Justice, pro Union or multiculturalism propaganda on their agenda. Despicable! Remember when they allowed the (pro-infanticide) Obama to give a speech at Notre Dame University. They even took down their crosses to not offend him. How did the Catholic church go from the Crusade-ers to the Enable-ers?

[Mrs. Don-o]

First of all, contraception makes no sense "as public policy" because nowhere, ever in history, has expanding contraception reduced the abortion rate or the out-of-wedlock birthrate. On the contrary, expanding contraception has increased abortion, increased out-of-wedlock births, skyrocketed STD's and collapsed the marriage rate in every society.

And why? Because contraceptives dissolve the unity of fertility, sex, and marriage. Contraceptives decompose human sexuality into garbled fragments: sex here and now, fertility somewhere down the line, marriage maybe never. Or sex now, marriage somewhere down the line, fertility maybe never.

Or "Just having sex implies no commitment to my un-spouse or my potential, preemptively-unfriended offsping."

How can I say it any plainer? Contraception is the splitting-axe at the roots of natural marriage.

And since the strong attachments of natural marriage --- the durable lifelong attachments of husbands and wives, parents and children --- are the foundation of natural society, contraceptives are a slow but inevitable solvent of natural society.

It's taken a couple generations, but anyone who's paying attention has already lived long enough to see that.

[Mom MD]

They can’t take away my God. He is greater than any human government by orders of magnitude. That is my only consolation when I see how fast this once great nation is going down the sewer

[netmilsmom]

>>natural society<<

It’s gone.

[Scotswife]

amen.

I’m reminded of the never ending criticism of the Church regarding the Galileo affair.

This type of discussion usually winds up with someone saying ....the Church addresses faith and morals, and does not claim final authority on matters of science...

I’m thinking that matters of politics and economics ought to be added to science.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Publius804.

[The Zerocare] mandate that all health insurance plans cover contraceptives and sterilization free of charge "represents an unprecedented attack on religious liberty" and creates "serious moral problems" that require its rescission

[Mrs. Don-o]

You are quie right. But it's paradoxical. The clergy (meaning those who hold magisterial authority IN the Church) have to teach about those aspects of science, technology, politics, economics, etc. which impinge on right vs wrong --- God's law vs sin --- and at the same time stay out of the strictly "prudential judgments" on how to make policy choices between greater and lesser goods.

That's not because it's "none of the Church's business", but becaue it IS the business of the rest of the Church, namely the laity: us. It's our arena of action, our sphere of competence.

It's only fairly recently that "Social Justice" was pistol-whipped, abducted, drugged, stripped, and incorporated into the Socialist Borg. My own Catholic ancestors came to the USA from Bavaria in the 1870's to escape from Bismarckian "Social Insurance" which was rightly recognized as an attack on the liberty of the citizens and the liberty of the Catholic Church.

If we'd had real Catholic teaching on Liberty as part of the Common Good we wouldn't be facing total assimilation into the Borg today.

[yldstrk]

OK, I’m buying.

[yldstrk]

I love Bishop Sheen. Our priest today talked about moral relativism and what a sick hoax it is.

“What’s true for you may not be true for me.”

What garbage

[steve86]

Go to any Catholic Church

Ridiculous and absurd generalizations from 1%-5% of actual Catholic parishes to the whole Church. None of the parishes in my area have anything like that. I RECOMMEND THAT READERS IGNORE THIS NON-CREDIBLE POSTER.