Posted on 10/12/2012 9:55:49 AM PDT by NYer
From the USCCB:
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued the following statement, October 12. Full text follows:
Last night, the following statement was made during the Vice Presidential debate regarding the decision of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to force virtually all employers to include sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion, in the health insurance coverage they provide their employees:
“With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear. No religious institution—Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital—none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact.”
This is not a fact. The HHS mandate contains a narrow, four-part exemption for certain “religious employers.” That exemption was made final in February and does not extend to “Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital,” or any other religious charity that offers its services to all, regardless of the faith of those served.
HHS has proposed an additional “accommodation” for religious organizations like these, which HHS itself describes as “non-exempt.” That proposal does not even potentially relieve these organizations from the obligation “to pay for contraception” and “to be a vehicle to get contraception.” They will have to serve as a vehicle, because they will still be forced to provide their employees with health coverage, and that coverage will still have to include sterilization, contraception, and abortifacients. They will have to pay for these things, because the premiums that the organizations (and their employees) are required to pay will still be applied, along with other funds, to cover the cost of these drugs and surgeries.
USCCB continues to urge HHS, in the strongest possible terms, actually to eliminate the various infringements on religious freedom imposed by the mandate.
For more details, please see USCCB’s regulatory comments filed on May 15 regarding the proposed “accommodation”: www.usccb.org/about/general-counsel/rulemaking/upload/comments-on-advance-notice-of-proposed-rulemaking-on-preventive-services-12-05-15.pdf
PING
This statement by the Bishops should go in the bulletins of every Catholic church in the country this coming Sunday.
A private business that is owned by someone with religious beliefs should not have to compromise those beliefs by accommodating their employees with this coverage, either.
So Joe, you’re saying you support The Blunt Amendment?
No business should have to pay for coverage for drugs or treatments that do not treat an illness, whether the employer has religious objections or not.
I've got to smile. You are just relentlessly reasonable.
Ok, bishops...
Take the next step and respectfully request Mr. Biden not partake of the Sacrament of Communion while he is in direct public conflict with the teachings of the Church...do it.
Thanks fo the ping. I’m sending this out to everybody in my personal e-mail address book.
Smirking Joe made an immensely stupid mistake when he declared that he kept his private religious conviction separate from his political views.
Hey idiot, at your last trial, the Judge will evaluate you based on what you did in both your private life and that as VP of the US.
As much as you would like to, you cannot separate the two.
(Pelosi and Kerry, pick up the red phone.)
Believe me, I was screaming at the TV when Joe (my friend) made that statement. “Get yourself to Confession you first-class LIAR!”
"Respectfully request"? No. In accordance with canon law, Plugs should be publicly and firmly refused communion next time he presents himself at the altar. It is a scandal in the Church that figures like Pelosi and Biden can receive communion while they are publicly defying Church teaching. Procuring abortion is a grave sin that merits excommunication. No respectfulness is appropriate.
By inserting the fiction that the insurance company will pay and not pass it along to the Church, they are splitting the hair to a Clitonesque degree.
Me too. Just when Ryan is making the point that Biden is forcing his views on Catholics, the moderator cuts him off.
Another thing that got me was Biden's claim that Catholic teaching has formed his "social doctrine," which I took to mean his political positions. I thought he was implying that abortion in cases of sexual assault is in line with Catholic teaching.
The Church allows itself to appear the ultimate in hypocrisy when it will not stand up to these political arbiters of Catholic doctrine.
Biden, Pelosi, the Kennedys, the Cuomos.... One would think they're their own Bishops as they obviously set policy for themselves in their respective parishes.
http://newine.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/joe-biden-effectively-excommunicated/
By Chaput (when he was in Denver) and Martino (when he was in Scranton). Wuerl needs to follow up for the whole lot of them who ever set foot in DC.
I agree that the Bishops have put themselves in the position of non-seriousness and maximum contempt by themselves being in defiance of Canon 915. Canon 915 is not a "may" exclude from Communion, it's a "must" (according to the top canonical judge, Raymond Burke.)
So the Bishops ignore the law, and are themselves ignored. It's maddening, heartbreaking.
Pray for them. Also call and write.
Thank you Mrs. Don-o.
Very inspiring video.
Does Biden worship in DC or in Delaware? I don’t know anything about Bishop Malooly in DE. Wuerhl is, um, a bit limp in standing up for canon law when it’s not politically expedient to do so, as we witnessed to our sorrow earlier this year.
Oooh, thanks! I’m changing my tagline.
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