A decision by the United States Supreme Court to uphold the core of President Obama’s health care law has given new impetus to legal challenges by church groups. The court did not address the religious liberty issue regarding a Health and Human Services mandate that requires religious employers to pay for contraception, abortifacients and sterilisation Read more
This week 43 Catholic institutions, including the Archdioceses of New York and Washington DC as well as Notre Dame University, sued the Obama administration over its mandate requiring employers to provide contraception in their health insurance plans. The move not only escalated an unusual fight between church and state but also threatened to cause splits Read more
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria has clarified comments by Bishop Daniel Jenky by saying the bishop was giving current events a historical context and had been taken out of context. Bishop Jenky has come under fire for comparing President Barack Obama to being on “a similar path” as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. In Read more
Time magazine has published the list of 100 people to be voted on for The Person of the Year in 2012, and after an Internet vote open to the public, the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, received more than 42,000 votes and is well on the list. Dolan is placed ahead of others Read more
A practicing Catholic, Melinda Gates, recently delivered a talk at TED, putting birth control back on the global agenda. Gates said that the topic of contraception has become a hot topic in recent years, but asked whether it should be. She believes that many of the world’s social change issues depends on ensuring that women Read more
It is a phenomenon not often spoken about; but the Arabic peninsula, homeland of Islam, pullulates with Christians. For most of them the next few days will be a rare and limited moment of visibility, after which they return to living a very discreet life of faith. It is almost a subterranean community in Saudi Read more
After drawing 54,000 people to 143 nationwide protests, leaders of the Stand Up For Religious Freedom campaign are more determined than ever to end the federal contraception mandate.
“From coast to coast, the response of the crowds at these rallies was a tremendous optimism that we can change the HHS mandate,” said Pro-Life Action League Executive Director Eric Scheidler, who planned the March 23 “Rally for Religious Freedom” with Citizens for a Pro-Life Society.
“People came out for the very first time in their lives, to any sort of grassroots protest activity,” Scheidler said of Stand Up For Religious Freedom’s first effort.
“That happened in Chicago. It happened in San Francisco, in Washington, D.C., in New York, Philadelphia, and other large cities.”
Each of those cities drew between 900 and 2,500 people, united in their desire to restore religious freedom by ending the president’s contraception coverage rule.
Read the article...Jesuit magazine America has scolded the US bishops for their continued opposition to President Obama’s contraceptive mandate.
Rapping the US Conference of Catholic Bishops for showing “wonkish precision” in some detailed critiques of the Obama mandate, the America editors claim that the basic thrust of the bishops’ argument is misplaced. “Such exaggerated protests,” the editors say, “likewise show disrespect for the freedom Catholics have enjoyed in the United States, which is a model for the world—and for the church.”
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On the hotly debated topics of religious freedom, contraception and same-sex marriages, a new survey suggests that bishops and the majority of American Catholics are not singing from the same hymn sheet.
A vocal contingent of Republican presidential candidates and church leaders are railing against the Obama administration’s “war on religion,” but most Americans can’t seem to find the fight.
A majority (56 percent) of Americans say religious liberty is not threatened in the U.S., according to a new poll released Thursday (March 15) by the Public Religion Research Institute, which conducted the survey in partnership with Religion News Service.
The poll, which asked a wide range of questions, also found significant support for same-sex marriage.
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The US Catholic bishops maybe about to re-think their objection to Obama-mandate, that employers’ health insurance cover must cover contraception. The bishops are meeting in Washington this week, and while there is no public indication of their dropping their fight, Reuters reports there are small but clear signs from within the Conference that suggest they Read more