Today, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Archbishop of New York, His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, joined Cardinal Newman Society president Patrick Reilly and more than 500 leading scholars, university presidents and other academic administrators, activists, and religious leaders from a multitude of faiths in a statement rejecting the federal government’s contraceptive mandate.
The statement’s original drafters are Professor Mary Ann Glendon of the Harvard Law School; Professor Robert P. George of Princeton; Yuval Levin, Hertog Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center; Professor O. Carter Snead of Notre Dame; and, John Garvey, the President of Catholic University.
The letter labels the Obama administration’s mandate as “unacceptable” and rejects President Obama’s so called “accommodation” of religious liberty as a mere “accounting trick” that changes nothing of moral substance.
The simple fact is that the Obama administration is compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization. This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand. It is an insult to the intelligence of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith and conscience to imagine that they will accept an assault on their religious liberty if only it is covered up by a cheap accounting trick.
The statement is available here in its entirety.
Adam Wilson
CNS Staff
Matthew Archbold
Charlotte Hays
3 Comments
I am glad to see that so many have signed the “Unacceptable” petition. Truth be told, it won’t mean much to Mr. Obama, who’s been a pro-abortion advocate from his days as a senator in Illinois. Those who voted him into office are the ones who should be ashamed, since they knew he was a smooth operator all the time he was campaigning. He should have been impeached for the stunts he’s pulled; but this one takes the cake!
I could not be happier! Let the fun begin!
Now that each and every US bishop has weighed in against the HHS ruling, major impending follow up from the pulpit is implied. Going to the mat over this invasion of conscience rights means absolutely nothing if the laity isn’t brought “up to speed” on exactly why the bishops are ushering in a completely different landscape for US catholics in the next 5 years and how our lives and, more importantly, how the lives of our kids are about to drastically change if we/they will choose to remain Catholic.