Father Jenkins and obama...
Posted on 10/01/2011 3:21:47 PM PDT by marshmallow
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- President Barack Obama's health care overhaul should be changed so that religious schools such as the University of Notre Dame aren't required to go against their beliefs and provide birth control to students and employees, the school president says.
The Rev. John Jenkins wrote a letter Wednesday to Kathleen Sebelius asking the Obama administration to broaden the definition of religious employer currently under consideration to ensure the school can continue its provide health care without going against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. He said the change in definition of religious employer is far narrower than current law and would require Notre Dame and other Catholic universities to offer prescription contraceptives and sterilization services to students and employees through health care plans.
"This would compel Notre Dame to either pay for contraception and sterilization in violation of the church's moral teaching, or to discontinue our employee and student health care plans in violation of the church's social teaching. It is an impossible position," he wrote.
A panel of health experts advising the administration last month recommended that the government require health insurance companies to cover birth control for women as preventive care, without copayments. The Health and Human Services Department asked for public comment on its proposed conscience clause. Jenkins was writing in response to that request.
Jenkins, who was criticized by dozens of bishops for inviting President Barack Obama to speak at commencement, noted that during Obama's commencement speech at Notre Dame in May 2009 he said he favored "a sensible conscience clause." Obama said the clause would give anti-abortion health care providers the right to refuse to perform the procedure.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Hey I've got an idea..........why don't we do something really special for Obama to soften him up and get him to change his mind. How about ...........um.......an honorary doctorate!!!
C'mon.........it can't fail..........can it??
No, the criticism was for giving the most pro-abortion president in the nation's history an honorary degree from an ostensibly Catholic university.
Didn’t they throw Alan Keyes and a few others off and in jail for speaking out against ND’s stand on abortion?
Actually obama didn't lie to you if you listened to him, he told you and all of us exactly what he was going to do and he has done it.
The blame lies with jenkins, obama is like a shark and you can't get mad at a shark for being a shark.
They tried. ND ended up dropping the charges.
Since when is Jenkins so protective of Catholic Conscience. Isn’t he still persecuting that priest who wanted to lead the Rosary outside the convocation where Jenkins was presenting Pres’ent Obama (the big abortion advocate) with an honoray degree?
Are you sre? I think the 80 year old priest that they frog marched off to jail for praying the Rosary is still being charged last I heard (about 6 mos ago).
These antics and a few others are why I am glad to see Notre Dame and their jackass coach Kelly wallowing in football mediocrity and losing to the likes of South Florida.
Sleep with the dogs
Father Jenkins and obama...
Jenkins is not qualified to speak for Catholics after he gave the abortionist Obama an Honorary Degree.
I refuse to call him “Father”
Hey Mr. Catholic School President - howabout we change it so that no one is subject to a nationalized healthcare system?
That would be just great, but that wasn’t what the HHS was taking comments on.
Well, thanks for the link. However, it took almost 2 years for Jenkins and ND to step up to the plate and do the right thing. I don’t know where I was in May 2011 that I missed this wonderful news.
I wonder if this action has anything to do with the news I read a couple of months ago that a pro-abort ND board member had left the ND board? I hope all these events are the result of pressure put upon ND by the Bishop and the public.
Don't give them too much credit. They settled because they were going to lose in court and be embarrassed by the revelation that they allowed pro-homosexual demonstrations on campus, but not anti-Obama, pro-Catholic demonstrations. Their whole case rested on the idea that their suppression of the ND88 was "content-neutral"; i.e., they were arrested because ND didn't allow demonstrations, not because the content of their protest was objectionable.
That was a flat-out lie, and would have been proven to be such in court.
bttt
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