"People of faith cannot be made second-class citizens...Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights." ~ Most Reverend Timothy P. Broglio (Archbishop for the Military Services)
Yesterday we began to hear more, a lot more, about the uproar brewing between the Catholic Church and the authoritarian Obama administration over a portion of the ObamaCare mandate...you know, that had to be passed "so that you can find out what is in it."
Here's the chronology of what's occurred from a CNSNews source:
On Jan. 20, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finalized a regulation, under the new health-care law, that requires all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions. The regulation has an exceedingly narrow exemption for “religious” employers that would effectively cover only an actual parish church—but not a Catholic hospital, university, or charitable organization. Catholic individuals, Catholic business owners and Catholic insurers would be compelled by the mandate to act against the teachings of their church.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told HHS in September that the regulation was an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty” and has urged the administration to rescind it in its entirety. Carney has said that President Barack Obama supports the regulation.
At Catholic Masses over the past two Sundays, Catholic priests across America have read letters from their local bishops decrying the mandate as a direct attack on the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion and call on Catholics to resist it.
The administration's response through spokes-idiot Jay Carney: "I understand that there have been objections and that some people disagree with us and we are going to work with institutions that have concerns here. But I think it’s important to note here that we believe these services are important and that American women deserve to have access to that kind of insurance coverage regardless of where they work."
So allow me to 'interpret': You good Catholics, and pretty much the traditionalist Christian body on whole (but extending to orthodox Jews and Muslims as well, so basically anyone with religious convictions), have to 'suck it up' and deal with our secularist reign. The State has spoken.
The resilient fight has extended to Catholic military personnel, also from CNSNews:
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who leads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services, wrote a letter to be read at all Sunday Masses for U.S. military personnel around the world that said that a regulation issued by the Obama Administration under the new federal health care law was “a blow” to a freedom that U.S. troops have not only fought to defend but for which some have recently died in battle.
"It is a blow to a freedom that you have fought to defend and for which you have seen your buddies fall in battle," the archbishop wrote. Another line in his letter said: "We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law."
The message from the archbishop touched off a controversy both in and outside the military when the Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains told the service's senior chaplains that Catholic priests serving as Army chaplains should be told not to read the archbishop's letter from the pulpit.
The Archdiocese for the Military Services has described that move as a violation of the archbishop's First Amendment rights as well as the First Amendment rights of the Catholic chaplains involved and their congregations.
So the State is attempting to supress First Amendment rights on two fronts: religion and speech.
Mark Levin addressed this constitutional crisis last night, referencing recent court precedence & the contradictions that would exist if the mandate is upheld...
Rush discussed this topic today, expressing that this decision highlights the totalitarian nature of the Obama regime. And Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told the EWTN Global Catholic Network that he's encouraging Catholic groups across the U.S. to practice "civil disobedience," disobeying the federal mandate requiring them to buy health insurance plans that violate Church teaching. Santorum said this mandate imposed on Catholic hospitals, schools, adoption agencies and other charities "will not stand," and referred to the same court precedence that Levin discussed.
By Monday, a petition calling for the HHS contraceptives and abortifacients mandate to be rescinded had attracted five times more signatures than a later separate petition urging the administration to retain the policy (just checked the tally and it appears that liberals have caught wind of this trend, increasing their signatures by a few thousand, still well below that of the initial petition).
And leave it to the Media Research Center to point out the MSM's typical, liberal slant...never ceasing to bewilder:
In their coverage of the Komen vs. Planned Parenthood dispute, the Big Three clearly showed that they were willing to rush to the defense of the abortion giant over a few hundred thousands dollars in grant money. But when the Obama administration handed down a policy that clearly violates the consciences and the religious beliefs of Catholic institutions across the country, the networks barely raised a peep.
This overreach of Big Government should absolutely frighten EVERYONE! This government mandate/subsidy, which is only a part of the overarching warning against ObamaCare by opponents from the beginning, is leading to the next step in the federally-sanctioned regulation of procreation (or more specifically, morality). We've ventured from LIFE'S RIGHTS being superseded by that of 'the liberalized woman', to now the doctrine of 'the state'? And yet, when you put the proverbial shoe on the other foot and address secular taboos and immoralities, the Left still wants the state to legislate that too, just with legislation that insures those 'acceptables' are not infringed upon. Besides these idiots not even realizing that the utopia they desire will inevitably be a dystopian one, they more importantly ignore the fact that this is not government's role! These are societal, moral & religious matters, not political ones for the State to dictate, regulate or subsidize one way or the other.
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." ~ John Adams
ADDENDUM: Heritage says this morning that Obamacare has awoken a sleeping giant...
It is a rare moment indeed when faith denominations of all stripes unite together in common cause, and it is rarer still when that cause is a political one, with a sole piece of legislation as its principal target. But when that law eviscerates the very foundation of religious liberty in America as protected under the First Amendment, it should not be surprising that Catholics and Jews, evangelical Christians, and mainline Lutherans alike find common cause in defense of their liberties.
Such is the case with the firestorm of opposition to Obamacare and the Obama Administration’s attack on religious liberty. Under a new Obamacare mandate issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the White House is mandating that virtually all religious employers, with the exception of churches, provide health care coverage for contraception — including abortion-inducing drugs — thereby trampling upon their constitutionally guaranteed free exercise of religion. And it is this mandate that has caused a vehement response in churches and synagogues across the country.
