Catholic Bishops: Obama's Solution "Is Unacceptable"

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement late on Friday declaring that the small alteration President Barack Obama had announced earlier in the day to a regulation that would force all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives--including those that cause abortion--is 'unacceptable" because, among other things, it does not protect the freedom-of-conscience rights of secular for-profit employers, or secular non-profit employers, or religious insurers, or self-insured religious employers, or individual Americans.

The alteration President Obama described Friday says merely that insurance companies providing coverage to employees of religious institutions that object to sterilization, contraception or abortifacients will have to provide free coverage for these things to the employees rather than explicitly include them among the benefits covered by the premiums charged to the religious employer.

The regulation will still require individual Americans and private-sector employers to buy, and insurers to provide, insurance coverage that pays for sterilizations, contraception and abortifacients--even if doing so violates their religious beliefs.

The bishops expressed their hope that the new regulatory mandates the president described today "appear subject to some measure of change." "But," they said, "we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected." [The bolded text is in the original.]

Here is the entirety of the bishops' statement explaining their continuing objections to the Obama administration's mandate that all heath-care plans must cover sterilizations, artificial contraception, and abortifacients--all of which the Catholic Church teaches are morally wrong:

The Catholic bishops have long supported access to life-affirming healthcare for all, and the conscience rights of everyone involved in the complex process of providing that healthcare. That is why we raised two serious objections to the "preventive services" regulation issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in August 2011.

First, we objected to the rule forcing private health plans — nationwide, by the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen—to cover sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion. All the other mandated "preventive services" prevent disease, and pregnancy is not a disease. Moreover, forcing plans to cover abortifacients violates existing federal conscience laws. Therefore, we called for the rescission of the mandate altogether.

Second, we explained that the mandate would impose a burden of unprecedented reach and severity on the consciences of those who consider such "services" immoral: insurers forced to write policies including this coverage; employers and schools forced to sponsor and subsidize the coverage; and individual employees and students forced to pay premiums for the coverage. We therefore urged HHS, if it insisted on keeping the mandate, to provide a conscience exemption for all of these stakeholders—not just the extremely small subset of "religious employers" that HHS proposed to exempt initially.

First, he has decided to retain HHS's nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients. This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern. We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty.

Second, the President has announced some changes in how that mandate will be administered, which is still unclear in its details. As far as we can tell at this point, the change appears to have the following basic contours:

·It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write. At this point, it would appear that self-insuring religious employers, and religious insurance companies, are not exempt from this mandate.

·It would allow non-profit, religious employers to declare that they do not offer such coverage. But the employee and insurer may separately agree to add that coverage. The employee would not have to pay any additional amount to obtain this coverage, and the coverage would be provided as a part of the employer's policy, not as a separate rider.

·Finally, we are told that the one-year extension on the effective date (from August 1, 2012 to August 1, 2013) is available to any non-profit religious employer who desires it, without any government application or approval process.

These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change. But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer's plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.

We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance. Some information we have is in writing and some is oral. We will, of course, continue to press for the greatest conscience protection we can secure from the Executive Branch. But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today's proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.

We will therefore continue—with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency—our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government. For example, we renew our call on Congress to pass, and the Administration to sign, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. And we renew our call to the Catholic faithful, and to all our fellow Americans, to join together in this effort to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.

Agreed.

This is a new tone for the liberal U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. I'm very pleased with their stance on this, but I'm still wary of them. I'm hoping they and the vast number of "social justice" types in the Catholic church have had their eyes opened, but I wouldn't be shocked if they reverted.

I hope so Eric, what the MSM.is missing, is that a lot of the Catholic entities are self insured and they will still be forced to provide it.

This is not a BC issue, it is stab at the Constitution. Do not let a Lib pull you into the BC argument, it is the constitutional issue

I hope so Eric, what the MSM.is missing, is that a lot of the Catholic entities are self insured and they will still be forced to provide it.

This is not a BC issue, it is stab at the Constitution. Do not let a Lib pull you into the BC argument, it is the constitutional issue

“...what the MSM.is missing, is that a lot of the Catholic entities are self insured and they will still be forced to provide it.

This is not a BC issue, it is stab at the Constitution.”

_________________________________________________________

AMEN!!!!

If the Pope gets involved at all it will be strictly within the context of communicating with the bishops. First, it’s more appropriate; and second, imagine the loud cry of the anti-Catholic bigots if Pope Benedict XVI makes a statement to the public on this issie.

The issue is not the RC church specifically, nor is it birth control/abortion. it is a constitutional problem. The President and his party (the Democratic tyrants) are stomping all over the US Constitution in many ways. This assault upon the First amendment is only one in many.

I still think the whole picture involves the Federal Government taking over all the health care industry. That includes Pharmacies as well. They have already threatened pharmacists who do not want to fill presciptions for the Morning After pill on the basis of conscience. It is only a matter of time.

I have no doubt that Obama is planning to eventually capture all the wealth in our retirement accounts as well. He has already signaled that he admires Hugo Chavez who is certainly a tyrant and anti-Catholic/Cnhristian to boot. These socialists/Marxista cannot abide the competition for mens’/womens’ money and souls. They are totalitarians!

To this day I have never had anyone adequately explain this phenomenon to me. I left the Church decades ago because of its amazingly leftist leanings.

Many Catholics came, and still come from, the lower classes. Simple as that. As they rise in education and income, they see that the left mean them harm. Of course, sometimes the left takes the mask off a bit too early (as in the Obama insurance mandates) and opens a few too many eyes. That's what is happening now.

That's also why the left wants our immigrant pool to be as poorly educated and as destitute as possible, to replace those who have been here for several generations and realized they don't need the government as a surrogate husband. An educated, wealthy immigrant is of no use to the left.

Pope Benedict XVI defers to the Bishops of America on this issue because it deals with the political class. If he told the Bishops that they should do this or that, the Bishops would get their backs up. They consider America their turf. I wish he would speak up about the faith and morals of American Catholics because he seems to be the only one in the Catholic hierarchy that is a conservative. I sometimes get tired and downright angry trying to deal with my diocese office that is so liberal it makes your head spin.

Nothing but Squid Ink (FINAL Abortifacient Reg Published Fri pm)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2845298/posts

Translation: The Obama administration Friday afternoon put into federal law the very regulation that drew objections from almost 200 Catholic bishops, some 50 religiously affiliated colleges and universities, 65 North American bishops of Orthodox churches, numerous other Jewish, Evangelical and Lutheran leaders, and even some liberals — and without changing so much as a comma.

"Many Catholics came, and still come from, the lower classes. Simple as that. As they rise in education and income, they see that the left mean them harm."

That may explain the rank and file Catholics. However, the American Catholic hierarchy is neither ill educated nor without financial means. They do their flock an enormous injustice by encouraging the leftist ideology.

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