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
Posts Tagged ‘US Bishops’
Nuns on the frontier
Friday, May 18th, 2012
In the view of the Vatican, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the US has espoused “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.” Disagreements between American nuns and the hierarchy of the Church are part of US Church history, according to Anne M. Butler. In an article in the New York Times, Ms Read more
Attack on Girl Scouts shows current law isn’t working
Friday, May 18th, 2012
Various institutions within the American church have been of concern to the US bishops over the past few years — and now it is the turn of the Girl Scouts. In a recent article, Joan Chittister writes that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Catholic Charities in the US, Caritas, and now the Girl Scouts, Read more
US bishops’ toxic tussle with Obamacare
Tuesday, May 15th, 2012
In the US, it’s an election year, and the atmosphere is toxic. The incumbent president Barak Obama is up for re-election in November. The Republican primaries have taken a lot of airtime. One of the contested policy issues is Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA). Many of the US Catholic Bishops have been critical of Read more
Abusive ecclesial authority puts US bishops on the spot
Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
Some of our bishops are acting like bullies, abusing the authority of their offices in the name of enforcing orthodoxy. Dealing with U.S. women religious, these bishops’ actions appear governed more by a desire to enforce obedience than to develop fidelity in our sisters. Catholics see through this guise. They are upset, fed up with Read more
Poll: bishops and laypeople disagree on several key issues
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012On 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.
Read the article...Obama issues second contraception compromise
Tuesday, March 20th, 2012
The Obama administration announced what it saw as a new accommodations on the controversial contraception mandate that obliged Catholic organisations to provide contraceptive health care coverage. Under attack from the US Catholic Bishops, Catholic hospitals and other institutions, the proposal seeks to shift the cost of providing birth control coverage onto insurance companies and prohibiting Read more
- Anti-religon group urges Catholics to leave the Church
- Catholic woman would rather risk life than follow HHS mandate
- The political reality behind the HHS mandate
- Frank O'Brien Jr sues federal government over birth control
- Catholics and contraception: Boston, 1965 (Blog)
- Religious liberty cry fails to rally Catholic, survey says (blog)
- HHS announces comment period on mandate accommodation
Possible u-turn for US Catholic bishops on contraception
Friday, March 16th, 2012
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
Use sanctions, cooperation, diplomacy before war with Iran
Friday, March 9th, 2012
Engaging in a preventive war without clear proof that an attack is imminent cannot fail to raise serious moral and juridical questions Bishop Richard Pates wrote in a March 2 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Pates, chairman of the US Catholic Bishops Committee on International Justice and Peace of the United States Conference of Read more
Listen to liberal Catholics Obama tells US Bishops
Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
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