Attack On Religious Liberty: Obama Administration Gives Non-Profit Groups One Year To Violate Consciences

Obama Administration's attack on the Catholic Church is an attack on everyone's religious liberty.

Under Obamacare all hospitals including non-profit and religious hospitals will be required to provide no-cost contraceptives including the birth control pill, morning after pill, and sterilization services. The Obama administration has decided to give a one year exemption to some non-profit groups on religious grounds but after the year ends they will be required to provide the above mentioned contraceptive benefits. This is yet another example of Obama and progressives working to undermine the Constitution and of them violating our Constitutional liberties.

Archbishop of New York and Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan met personally with President Obama to talk about this matter. Dolan said this was the president’s way of saying, "we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences."

There is an exception but Archbishop Dolan says it’s too narrow. Donohue agreed calling it a catch-22 because only if you’re a Catholic university, hospital, any non-profit organization that services and hires only Catholics, then that institution can be exempt. “One of the great things about the Catholic Church is the catholic with the small ‘c’, it means universal. We service people who are not Catholic. We always have since the immigrants in this country going back hundreds of years ago.”

This is another example of Obama saying one thing and then doing the opposite, essentially saying to the person or group screw you.  He doesn't give a crap that you have different beliefs than he does.  So much for tolerance.  Obama and progressives are the most intolerant of all, shoving their secularist immorality down our throats. It has become evident that he was lying when he promised Catholics that he would respect their "conscience rights" when he delivered his commencement address at Notre Dame in 2009. Of course citizens have become so accustomed to Obama lying he has been dubbed the Liar-in-Chief.

Obamacare's Sterilization and Contraceptive Insurance Mandate May Force Catholic Charities Free Clinic To Close Doors

A few years back Catholic Charities in Pittsburgh opened a free medical clinic which serves the uninsured in the area. Unfortunately due to Obamacare the clinic may be forced to close. The HHS has issued a mandate which requires all new insurance plans to cover contraceptives and sterilization, which runs counter to Church teachings. The Church will not compromise it's beliefs just to meet some federal mandate which violates both the separation of Church and State and the Church's beliefs. This is so sad because if this mandate goes into effect and forces Catholic Charities medical clinic to close this will not only affect Catholics but will hurt the whole Pittsburgh community. Unfortunately I doubt that this will be the only clinic to close because of this mandate.




Sr. Mary Ann Walsh has responded to this insurance mandate with this:


Health and Human Services must think Catholics and other religious groups are fools.


That’s all you can think when you read HHS’s recent announcement that it may exempt the church from having to pay for contraceptive services, counseling to use them and sterilizations under the new health reform in certain circumstances. As planned now, HHS would limit the right of the church not to pay for such services in limited instances, such as when the employees involved are teaching religion and in cases where the people served are primarily Catholic.


HHS’s reg conveniently ignores the underlying principle of Catholic charitable actions: we help people because we are Catholic, not because our clients are. There’s no need to show your baptismal certificate in the hospital emergency room, the parish food pantry, or the diocesan drug rehab program. Or any place else the church offers help, either.


With its new regulation, HHS seeks to force church institutions to buy contraceptives, including drugs that can disrupt an existing pregnancy, through insurance they offer their own employees. This is part of HHS’s anticipated list of preventive services for women that private insurance programs must provide under the new health reform law.


The exemption is limited, to say the least. The pastor in the Catholic parish doesn’t have to buy the Pill for his employees, but the religious order that runs a Catholic hospital has to foot the bill for surgical sterilizations. And diocesan Catholic Charities agencies have to use money that would be better spent on feeding the poor to underwrite services that violate church teachings.
Whatever you think of artificial birth control, HHS’s command that everyone, including churches, must pay for it exalts ideology over conscience and common sense.


Perhaps HHS is unduly influenced by lobbyists. No surprise there. Certainly a major lobbyist is Planned Parenthood, the nation’s chief proponent of contraceptive services. Contraceptive services make a lot of money for Planned Parenthood clinics, which (again no surprise) provide the “services” HHS has mandated.


HHS and Planned Parenthood are narrow in focus. Respect for religious rights isn’t likely a key concern for them. However, it ought to be a key concern for President Obama, who last year promised to respect religious rights as he garnered support from the church community to pass the health care reform act. To assuage concerns, President Obama went so far as to issue an executive order promising that the health care reform act would not fund abortion or force people and institutions to violate their consciences. HHS is on its way to violating that promise. For the sake of basic integrity – the President’s keeping his word and for the protection of the right to religious freedom – President Obama needs to speak up now.


This insurance mandate violates our religious rights which are guaranteed in the Constitution.