It's not that Obamacare is a legitimate application of government authority, mind you. It's just that the Catholic bishops are completely full of sh!t when then complain about what they perceive as an abrogation of religious freedom under Obamacare. So many of these Catholic institutions were 100% on-board with a usurpation of personal freedom when it came to supporting a government-run health care system. That has been a part of the lobbying efforts by "Catholic" groups for years.
Obamacare does include a religious exemption. The only real problem these bishops have now with Obamacare is that their own Catholic organizations don't meet the requirements of the religious exemption. And nor should they, either . . . BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS.
Despite its name, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is not a religious organization. It's a lobbying group whose specific mandate is to serve as an advocacy group to petition the U.S. government on any number of issues. That's why the organization is located in Washington D.C., where it serves as primarily a leftist lobbying group on matters that include health care (they're fully on-board with government-run health care), gun control (they're big fans of gun control), the death penalty (they're strongly opposed to it), the minimum wage (they always want it to be higher), supporting any "affordable housing" program out there, etc.
The same can be said for almost every "Catholic institution" in the U.S. today. Notre Dame isn't a Catholic school; it's a big business that generates tons of revenue from government grants and loan guarantees. Catholic Charities isn't a Catholic organization at all; it's a big business that gets a lot of its revenue from government programs. And nearly every Catholic hospital in this country would be forced to close its doors if it didn't serve patients with coverage through Medicare, Medicaid, etc.
What's really galling these bishops is that this Obamacare mandate is going to do something these bishops never wanted to do, and don't ever want to do: It's going to force them to make their institutions Catholic again. After spending the last 60 years trying to straddle the fence and serve God whily currying favor with Caesar (often through its quiet, implicit support for radical "Catholic" leftists in government like Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi), the Catholic Church is finally learning what it should have known all along: You can't serve both God and mammon, folks.
I’ve said this several times before, but the American Catholic Bishops make me sick at my stomach. They apparently feel as though they operate as franchisees in North America much like KFC, but with broader license.
As a result all of the parishes are doing something different in respect to worship and liturgy.
What they truly know about religious freedom would fill a very thing book.