Archbishop Chaput slams phony ‘compromise’ on Obamacare HHS mandate

LSN ^ | Kirsten Andersen

[Morgana]

PHILADELPHIA, February 5, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput on Monday condemned the Obama administration’s proposed ‘compromise’ on the HHS birth control mandate in his weekly column for his diocesan newspaper.

“The White House has made no concessions to the religious conscience claims of private businesses, and the whole spirit of the ‘compromise’ is minimalist,” the Archbishop wrote in the column, called Making Sense of Another Ambiguous ‘Compromise.’

At issue is the HHS mandate requiring private employers to provide health care plans that include contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortifacient drugs to female employees without copays. Churches are currently exempt from the mandate, but not religiously affiliated schools, charities or hospitals, nor Catholic business owners or individual employees.

A proposed ‘compromise’ offered by HHS on Friday expands the religious exemption to cover certain religious affiliated groups – mostly those that are tightly affiliated with a single religious congregation, such as parish-run elementary schools or St. Vincent de Paul groups. However, it does not offer any relief to religious business owners or employees, and would still require religiously affiliated non-profit groups to provide insurance coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have helped at least 43 plaintiffs to file a dozen different lawsuits over the mandate, challenging its constitutionality.

The USCCB previously called the mandate an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty” and an “unjust and illegal” rule that cannot be obeyed.

In a letter (PDF) inserted in church bulletins last June, the bishops wrote, “Some unjust laws impose such injustices on individuals and organizations that disobeying the laws may be justified. When fundamental human goods, such as the right of conscience, are at stake, we may need to witness to the truth by resisting the law and incurring its penalties.”

Archbishop Chaput expanded on those sentiments Friday, writing, “One of the issues America’s bishops now face is how best to respond to an HHS mandate that [even after the ‘compromise’] remains unnecessary, coercive and gravely flawed. In the weeks ahead the bishops of our country, myself included, will need both prudence and courage – the kind of courage that gives prudence spine and results in right action, whatever the cost.”

Quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the archbishop wrote, “prudence should never be used as an alibi for ‘timidity or fear, duplicity or dissimulation.’ Real prudence has a spine called fortitude, the virtue we more commonly know as courage.”

The archbishop quoted scholar Yuval Levin, stating that the new HHS mandate proposal, “like the versions that have preceded it, betrays a complete lack of understanding of both religious liberty and religious conscience,” and that “the government has forced a needless and completely avoidable confrontation and has knowingly put many religious believers in an impossible situation.”

“Please pray that God guides our discussions,” said the archbishop.

[FatherofFive]

Quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the archbishop wrote, “prudence should never be used as an alibi for ‘timidity or fear, duplicity or dissimulation.’ Real prudence has a spine called fortitude, the virtue we more commonly know as courage.”

We need to get copies of the Catechism to Congress.

Republicans need to grow a spine real quick.

[Rich21IE]

Sad to say, but I strongly suspect that the Church will fold on this one. Quietly of course. They probably don’t see any choice because at the root of their thinking is size and money. Like any institution, survival depends on growth and funding and they’re not likely to choose massive shrink for the sake of their values.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I have to agree with you based on the Church’s track record in Europe. Virtually every country over there provides government paid contraception and abortions. And rarely do you hear the Church make a peep about it.

Obama’s move is intended soley to provide a legal fiction fig leaf so that John Roberts can find this constitutional.

[utahagen]

I believe most European governments directly pay for or reimburse for birth control or abortion, rather than linking it to churches (or even specific businesses). Here in the US, Obamacare is making religious organizations be at least the indirect providers of contraception.

I don't expect the Catholic Church in the US to fight if the US government itself starts directly providing free birth control, but I am optimistic that Church will not allow its churches and schools — forget most of the Catholic colleges, which the Church cannot control — to be the means by which women get birth control.

Chaput alone will never cave on this issue. As bad as things are — and I concede they are very bad — there will be Catholic bishops who will go down with the ship before they capitulate on this issue.

Pray hard.

[mosesdapoet]

Democrats and ROVE RINOS
GOD DENIERS AND CONGENITAL LIARS
ARE REDISTRIBUTE WEALTH INCITERS/
FOR FIRST YOUR MONEY THEN YOUR GUNS
AND BE DEFENSELESS WHEN CROOKS COME

It’s time to get government out of Your face
Your religion and and Your pocketbook

(The above is designed to be printed up and passed around your precinct and your friends and neighbors as a (index sized) palmcard. On the face or below the slogan you can put the name of the candidate you favor and the election dates

[Campion]

Virtually every country over there provides government paid contraception and abortions.

That's a critical difference. "Government paid" and "employer paid" aren't the same thing.

[Walkingfeather]

I would like to see punitive damages awarded.

[Buckeye McFrog]

so....if the government paid for abortions directly with tax money that would be okay?

Because churches are “tax exempt”?

[RobbyS]

You ignore some of the sings of the time. The present archbishop of La has just told his predecessor—a Cardinal — to pound sand. Chaput is even more forthright. He started out as a liberal Democrat but has seen the light. He knows very well what Democrats like Obama and Sebellius. Sebellius is an apostate Catholic, the worst sort of enemy.

[ardara]

What we need is the head of The Catholic Bishops,Cardinal Dolan to invite Obama to another dinner.
Sad to say but I think the Bishops might be the weakest part of the Catholic Church today in the US.This is the time for the Laity to lead just as they have done on the fight against abortion.

[Campion]

Not "okay," no, but not the same kind of evil. If the government takes my tax money and uses some of it to pay for abortion, (a) they're doing the paying, not me; (b) they're doing it over my objections; and (c) they are also doing good things with my taxes, which I do support.

If the government forces me to pay for my employees' birth control, (a) I'm doing the paying directly; (b) since I'm doing the paying, I'm explicitly coöperating with (and therefore implicitly condoning) the evil act; and (c) the money I'm spending on birth control doesn't serve any other good purpose.

A Catholic moral theologian would call the first case "remote material coöperation with evil" and the second "proximate material coöperation with evil".

Remote material coöperation, while not desirable, can be permitted for a good reason. Proximate coöperation never can be.