Head of USCCB Grovels Before Obama

The text of his letter:

Dear Mr. President:

On behalf of the Catholic bishops of the United States, I wish you and your family every blessing in this New Year. The bishops pray regularly that you and our other public officials will have renewed strength to fulfill the duties of your office with integrity, justice and compassion.

In this regard, your Administration recently relaxed the rules governing individual health plans under the Affordable Care Act, so Americans whose current plans have been canceled may claim a “hardship exemption” from some requirements. This is the latest in a series of actions to advance the ACA’s goal of maximizing health coverage, while minimizing hardships to Americans as the Act is implemented. For example, the ACA exempts small employers from the mandate to offer health coverage, and you have suspended this mandate for all employers through 2014.

One category of Americans, however, has been left out in the cold: Those who, due to moral and religious conviction, cannot in good conscience comply with the HHS regulation requiring coverage of sterilization and contraceptives. This mandate includes drugs and devices that can interfere with the survival of a human being in the earliest stage of development, burdening religious convictions on abortion as well as contraception. To date, at least 90 lawsuits representing almost 300 plaintiffs have been filed to challenge this mandate, and the Supreme Court has agreed to hear two of these cases in its current Term. Most lower courts addressing the issue have found merit in the plaintiffs’ claims and granted at least temporary relief, while some courts have denied relief or have yet to act.

Many Catholic and other nonprofit institutions caring for those in need through education, health care and other services are not exempt from the contraceptive mandate. For reasons articulated by the courts, the Administration’s final rule of July 2013 does not alleviate the burden on their religious freedom.

Please consider, then, the result of your Administration’s current policies. In the coming year, no employer, large or small, will be required to offer a health plan at all. Employers face no penalty in the coming year (and only $2000 per employee afterwards) for canceling coverage against their employees’ wishes, compelling them to seek individual coverage on the open market. But an employer who chooses, out of charity and good will, to provide and fully subsidize an excellent health plan for employees – but excludes sterilization or any contraceptive drug or device – faces crippling fines of up to $100 a day or $36,500 a year per employee. In effect, the government seems to be telling employees that they are better off with no employer health plan at all than with a plan that does not cover contraceptives. This is hard to reconcile with an Act whose purpose is to bring us closer to universal coverage.

The result is a regulation that harshly and disproportionately penalizes those seeking to offer life-affirming health coverage in accord with the teachings of their faith. The Administration’s flexibility in implementing the ACA has not yet reached those who want only to exercise what has rightly been called our “First Freedom” under the Constitution.

I understand that legal issues in these cases will ultimately be settled by the Supreme Court. In the meantime, however, many religious employers have not obtained the temporary relief they need in time to avoid being subjected to the HHS mandate beginning January 1. I urge you, therefore, to consider offering temporary relief from this mandate, as you have for so many other individuals and groups facing other requirements under the ACA.

Thank you for considering this urgent plea. Again, be assured of my continued prayers in the coming year as you seek to serve the American people.

Sincerely yours,

Most Reverend Joseph E. Kurtz, D.D.
Archbishop of Louisville
President, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

In case anybody wishes to claim that Kurtz is "conservative". A conservative would not grovel before the Antichrist.

What’s wrong with this picture?: The bishop is here trying to tell the president how to do his job while the president is telling the bishops how to do theirs.
The bishops need only to do their job which is to guide and protect the sheep. The bishops need to speak to the sheep (us) and admonish us not to be afraid of this lawless man and tell us to refuse to fund a mostrosity that places unprecented power into the hands of the godless. The bishops then merely need look that wolf in the face and say “begone” while lunging at it with his staff.
Oh, well, I guess I’ll go back to doing my job of being a sheep by uniting with the rest of the sheep and confronting the wolf together.
(Maybe then the shepherd will notice the commotion and recall how valuable the fold is, that we value our lives so much to fight back. Maybe the wolf will then strike at a few of us and when the bishop sees blood he’ll wake up to protect us instead of groveling before the wolf for a few of the robed sheep. If not then we’re still on our own.)

Cardinal Innitzer thought it a good idea to accept peaceful change in the Anschluss with Nazi Germany.

That’s a lot to expect from a leftwing organization that got stuck unwillingly with being pro-life.

Mark, I know Obama is second fiddle to what’s-his-name, but seriously, when you write to someone in government, or elsewhere, you do have to be polite and diplomatic no matter what you truly think of them.

I, for instance, would prefer to write what I really think, but that would bring some unfortunate events to my front door.

They really do have all the temporal power. The spiritual is stronger, but works in ways one can’t foresee. I think we are seeing it unfold.

In case anybody wishes to claim that Kurtz is "conservative". A conservative would not grovel before the Antichrist.

Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper taught a view summarized by the phrase "spheres of sovereignty". Basically stated, God instituted three equally legitimate governments (civil, ecclesial, and family). All three spheres of government are themselves ruled over by God, and their laws (family, church, and state) should commonly have at their foundation His revealed Word and Law. No sphere of government can be legitimately encroached upon, except by joint declaration/action of the other two (with an appeal to that joint foundation) that the first has (previously) encroached into their sphere(s) and must be pushed back. Archbishop Joseph Kurtz's letter, both in tone and content, demonstrates an a priori assumption that the civil government has sovereignty and pre-eminence over the church. If Obamacare-exempt status is something that a church must apply for/be approved for, then IMO the very state of exemption stands as evidence that the State has taken a position of pre-eminence.

” when you write to someone in government, or elsewhere, you do have to be polite and diplomatic no matter what you truly think of them.”

Nowhere did I suggest that he should be rude or disrespectful. But one doesn’t need to be rude in order to not grovel.

For example, he could easily state that it will be impossible for these groups to continue their charitable work for all as it will be impossible for them to operate under those rules. Polite, but taking a stand.

Rather, he just looked up and asked, “may I have another bowl of gruel, please, kind sir? “

The writer of this article has it exactly, exactly right.

Abp Kurtz needs to hear from us:

Abp Joseph Kurtz
212 East College Street
Louisville, Ky. 40203
or
P.O. Box 1073
Louisville, Ky. 40201-1073
Phone: (502) 585-3291
Fax: (502) 585-2466 (fax)
E-mail: chancery@archlou.org

Online contact form: http://www.archlou.org/contact/

” Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper taught a view summarized by the phrase “spheres of sovereignty””

Sounds rather like Unam Sanctum, written in 1304.

“We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: ‘Behold, here are two swords’ [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: ‘Put up thy sword into thy scabbard’ [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to be administered for the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.”

I recognize that you would dispute the authority of the Church on this, but, conceptually he talks about a spiritual sphere and material sphere.

Markomalley: My letter to Abp Kurtz via the online communication link:

Dear Abp. Kurtz:

I have read that you are "requesting" that Obama "temporarily" exempt "religious" institutions from the contraception/abortifacient mandate.

I understand and support your intentions --- strongly --- but this is not the approach that will obtain what we need. Constitutionally, the President must enforce laws as enacted by Congress. He does not have dictatorial discretion about which laws get enforced and which ones don't. In placing this petition before Obama, you are tacitly affirming HIS arrogant view of his own presidential authority as constitutionally limitless.

But the problems run deeper. Obamacare would not have been law of the land had not the USCCB come out in support of it, minus the obvious abortion provisions. The USCCB failed to acknowledge two facts: 1) that any socialized medical system is inherently antithetical to Catholic institutions and Catholic regard for the sanctity of life, and 2) that Obama would lie through his teeth to garner our support and then stab us in the back.

Moreover, your present stance shows a complete lack of regard for those Catholics who do not work in Church-affiliated enterprises. Tens of millions of individuals and families are being forced to purchase insurance plans that cover contraception, sterilization, and abortion --- as well as artificial reproduction technologies for gays and lesbians, sex-change surgery for those suffering from gender identity disorders, terminal sedation of those who are elderly, sick and helpless, and other horrors.

Do you understand this? Tens of millions of families are being coerced into a situation that the Church itself finds intolerable for its affiliated organizations. But we, the millions of families, ARE the Church. We find it intolerable, too. What do we do? Incorporate ourselves and declare our families Diocesan subsidiaries?

Many of us were predicting this horrifying situation 5 or 6 years ago, but nobody at the USCCB would listen. Ask my friend Richard Doerflinger. Mention my name.

You and your brother bishops should acknowledge your role in bringing this disaster of Obamacare upon us, and repent of your present readiness to sell out our livelihoods, our families and our consciences to obtain a few measly crumbs of institutional concessions.

You are asking Obama for an exercise of authority outside the bounds of the United States Constitution and shown yourselves supine in the face of a de facto tyrant. It's time for the bishops to face up to reality.

I still remember what a Bishop's crozier signifies: it means you are to comfort the lambs and dismay the wolves, and not the other way around.

I say this with great respect for your Apostolic office, and for you as a man.

Nice. I remember your conversations with “it’s for the common good” Doerflinger. Too bad you could never get through to him.