This past Wednesday, a piece by Archbishop Dolan of the New York Archdiocese (who is also the USCCB president) appeared in the Wall Street Journal:
- "[The Obama administration] has refused to exempt religious institutions that serve the common good—including Catholic schools, charities and hospitals—from its sweeping new health-care mandate that requires employers to purchase contraception, including abortion-producing drugs, and sterilization coverage for their employees....
"On Friday, the administration reaffirmed the mandate, and offered only a one-year delay in enforcement in some cases—as if we might suddenly be more willing to violate our consciences 12 months from now. As a result, all but a few employers will be forced to purchase coverage for contraception, abortion drugs and sterilization services even when they seriously object to them. All who share the cost of health plans that include such services will be forced to pay for them as well. Surely it violates freedom of religion to force religious ministries and citizens to buy health coverage to which they object as a matter of conscience and religious principle....
"Coercing religious ministries and citizens to pay directly for actions that violate their teaching is an unprecedented incursion into freedom of conscience. Organizations fear that this unjust rule will force them to take one horn or the other of an unacceptable dilemma: Stop serving people of all faiths in their ministries—so that they will fall under the narrow exemption—or stop providing health-care coverage to their own employees....
"This latest erosion of our first freedom should make all Americans pause. When the government tampers with a freedom so fundamental to the life of our nation, one shudders to think what lies ahead"(ObamaCare and Religious Freedom , Wall Street Journal, 1/25/12)
During the comment period leading up to Archbishop Dolan's aforementioned mandate, efforts were made to contact every diocese and archdiocese in the United States for signatures on a petition. Among the resultant signers, this blogger recognizes several physicians and nurses, the head of Pharmacists for Life International, the chair of a university theology department (and an adjunct from another college), an emeritus member of a USCCB advisory board, three priests and a deacon from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, one priest from the Diocese of Trenton, and the bishop of Grand Island in Nebraska. Kudos and thank you's to all those signers!!! Yet, why did we fall short of a mere 100 signatures? Why only one bishop, four priests, and one deacon?
Archbishop Dolan is reportedly a big baseball fan. Hasn't the time long passed for our bishops to step up to the plate and take more courageous stands? Why doesn't Archbishop Dolan's article unequivocally announce that NO CATHOLIC INSTITUTION IN THE UNITED STATES WILL PROVIDE COVERAGE FOR MORALLY PROHIBITED SERVICES!
At the moment, we absolutely need to be advocating for the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act.
- Senator Bob Casey, Jr is NOT a co-sponsor of S. 1467 (as of 1/21/2012).
- Representative Mike Fitzpatrick IS a co-sponsor of HR 1179.
- Senator Pat Toomey IS a co-sponsor of S.1467.
Senator Casey's office can be contacted via his chief of staff, James Brown (james_brown@casey.senate.gov).
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