Religious liberty is “off the table” at the White House, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan is urging his fellow bishops to “prepare for tough times”. In a letter to all US Bishops, Dolan said at a recent meeting the White House officials told bishops conference staff that revisiting the mandate or broadening the contraception exemption in order to Read more
Take your lead from liberal Catholics is the Obama administration’s message to the US Catholic bishops on the contraceptive coverage debate, according to Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Dolan says White House aides urged the bishops to listen Catholics who have accepted the administration’s plan, such as the editors of America magazine. Writing on his blog, Dolan Read more
I feel like an idiot. When the U.S. bishops came out so strongly against the new government rules regarding contraceptives and health insurance, they said the issue was one of religious freedom. And I believed them. When the bishops argued that it was not the administration’s place to decide whether Catholic hospitals or colleges fit Read more
For a brief moment, Catholics on all sides were united in defense of the freedom of the Catholic Church to define for itself what it means to be Catholic in America. They came together to defend the church’s institutions from morally objectionable potentially crippling burdens imposed by the Obama administration under the Affordable Care Act. Read more
The federal government is grappling with the explosive question of whether to let anyone of any age buy the controversial morning-after pill Plan B directly off drugstore and supermarket shelves without a prescription.
The Food and Drug Administration has until Wednesday to respond to a request from the drug’s manufacturer to make the pill as easy to get as toilet paper and toothpaste, a move pushed by some doctors, health advocates, family-planning activists, members of Congress and others to help women prevent unwanted pregnancies.
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The Catholic Church says new federal regulations requiring employers to provide no-cost prescription birth control as part of their health insurance plans infringe on their religious liberty.
“If we comply, as the law requires, we will be helping our students do things that we teach them, in our classes and in our sacraments, are sinful — sometimes gravely so,” Catholic University President John Garvey wrote in The Washington Post. “It seems to us that a proper respect for religious liberty would warrant an exemption for our university and other institutions like it.”
But while some insist that the rules, which spring from last year’s health law, break new ground, many states as well as federal civil rights law already require most religious employers to cover prescription contraceptives if they provide coverage of other prescription drugs.
While some religious employers take advantage of loopholes or religious exemptions, the fact remains that dozens of Catholic hospitals and universities currently offer contraceptive coverage as part of their health insurance packages.
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Religious leaders have long been powerful in US elections, but this year something new is happening. Leading members of the American Catholic clergy have escalated their conflict with the Obama administration, most notably in the new “religious liberty’’ campaign launched by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The slogan picks up on a long-standing evangelical Read more
The backlash over Benetton’s ad campaign featuring the Pope and other world leaders continues to grow. On Friday, the Vatican announced it will be taking legal action against Benetton after the company displayed a fake photo of the pope kissing a top Egyptian imam on the lips, and Benetton ceded. Protesting the use of US President, Read more
The US Catholic bishops say religious freedom is being whittled away by same-sex marriage, abortion and healthcare legislation, and they are vowing to up their efforts to protect it. “For some time now we have viewed with growing alarm the ongoing erosion of religious liberty in our country,” Bishop William Lori, bishop of Connecticut told the Read more
President Obama met recently with New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the US Catholic bishops’ conference, to discuss issues that have created tension between the administration and the Catholic hierarchy, reports The National Catholic Reporter. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops feels at odds with the Obama administration and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia told students last Read more