....HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius last week renewed her declared “war” against the Catholic church in America and against faithful Catholics (as well as against other religious organizations and believers who share the Catholic opposition to contraceptives and/or abortifacients). Specifically, she announced that HHS, in implementing Obamacare, would require most health-insurance plans to include in the preventive services they cover all FDA-approved forms of contraception (including contraceptives that sometimes operate as abortifacients).
The HHS rule would allow (but not require) the HHS bureaucracy to establish exemptions from this mandate only for an extremely narrow category of “religious employers”: an organization qualifies as a “religious employer” only if its purpose is the “inculcation of religious values,” it “primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the organization,” and it “serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the organization.” As the head of Catholic Charities USA observed, “the ministry of Jesus Christ himself” would not qualify for the exemption. Nor will Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services, Catholic hospitals, food banks, homeless shelters, most Catholic schools, and even many or most diocesan offices, much less Catholic business owners who strive to conduct their businesses in accordance with their religious beliefs.
The HHS rule has properly aroused criticism across the political spectrum for its trampling of religious liberty, as this vehement “J’Accuse” essay by Michael Sean Winters, “a liberal and a Democrat,” illustrates. (For other examples, see the Washington Post’s house editorial and NRO’s.) Unlike Winters, I’m not at all surprised that, when President Obama goes beyond talk to action, he sides with his “friends at Planned Parenthood and NARAL” and “treat[s] shamefully those Catholics who went out on a limb to support” him.
What I do find remarkable—even amazing (to reprise Justice Kagan’s term)—is that the HHS mandate appears to be so clearly unlawful.
Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan on HHS Conscience Regulation from Rocco Palmo on Vimeo.
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