The wicked have laid a snare for me,
but I do not stray from your precepts.
-Psalm 119
Well, if Chris Matthews had me singing the Eagles the other day, the Bishops have me singing Tom Petty today:
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 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.
BOO-YAH! (read more.) Sorry, Mr. President, you can’t ‘adjust’ a mandate that you and the HHS never had the constitutional authority to make in the first place. Come on, y’all, sing it with me:
Obviously Catholics are hardest hit by this mandate, but it’s not just about Catholics or contraception. Whether you’re Catholic or atheist, pro-life or pro-choice, all freedom-loving people should be outraged by this unprecedented overreach of the federal government into the lives and the consciences of private American citizens.
When the defense of truth is at stake, how can one desire neither to displease God nor to clash with one’s surroundings? These two things are opposed: it is either one or the other! The sacrifice has to be a holocaust where everything is burned up, even the thought: “what will they say?”, even what we call our reputation.
~St. Josemaria, Furrow pt. 34
Must reads:
Obama’s Frightening ‘Adjustment’
‘Birth control pills don’t fall out of the sky like manna’