Friday, June 29, 2012

Depressed...

I must admit.
I have been a bit depressed for the last few days. The impending doom of the Supreme Court decision about ObamaCare and then the ACTUAL decision that knocked the wind out of me in surprise and disgust were too much to handle. Plus, here in Michigan it has been WAY too hot to function. We are talking high 90's  and up 100 degrees here. Michigainians are NOT built for this sort of yuckiness!!! *sigh

However, I was re-energized today by the following post:
The Secret Is Out!

Sooo, now all is well and I am gearing back up to finish out the Fortnight for Freedom and beyond in fierce fashion.

I will be posting more of my personal designs and my internet finds soon.
Chins up and praying hands together my friends!

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Day 6 and all that Jazz

Rumors are buzzing that the Supreme court will be making a statement or even a decision on the Obamacare case as soon as Thursday.
God help us!









Hodge Podge Tardy Day 5

Yeah. Missed posting yesterday. Sorry. Here is a mix of things I found online lately. Good stuff.





Friday, June 22, 2012

Beware! We are Catholic.

Feel like the government is overreacting to our religious convictions?
I am beginning to feel like I should come with a warning label!
So I created one. :P

Feel free to stick this label on pictures of yourself or friends doing blatantly Catholic things.
Enjoy!






Stand UP!


Thursday, June 21, 2012

Fortnight for Freedom: DAY 1

Today I am posting a picture of the back of a t-shirt I designed for a local pro-life group.
The quote seemed appropriate for the situation.

I will be posting at least one image a day. Think of this blog as a virtual city square and these images are the protest signs.

Feel free to create or submit images to join in the Fortnight of Freedom. I will review submissions and post them here. SOLIDARITY folks. Share this blog and check back often.

Shirt and photo by Anna Truckey

Minus ONE! FULL STORY!

From www.prolifesociety.com

Planned Parenthood Settles Lawsuit
Puts Its Building Up for Sale

No Abortion Clinic in Auburn Hills, Michigan
Pro-lifers Cautiously Jubilant
Planned Parenthood leases the building on Opdyke Road in Auburn Hills, MI that it hoped to use as an abortion clinic ---  abandoning this site due to the efforts of Citizens for a Pro-life
Above photograph by Nicholas Langlois of A Nick-in-Time-Photography  Anna Truckey

A battle that pitted Citizens for a Pro-Life Society (CPLS) and Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan (PPMSM) against each other over PPMSM’s plan to open an abortion facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan has come to an important resolution, favorable to the efforts of pro-lifers, who fought to keep the abortion center from opening. In a completely unexpected move, PPMSM agreed to a new covenant deed restriction with Comfort Inn Suites—an agreement that prevents the abortion provider from doing any abortion procedures in the building it purchased in November 2010 at 1625 N. Opdyke Road in Auburn Hills, Michigan. (See the new deed restriction below) In addition, PPMSM has placed the still gutted building it hoped to turn into an abortion clinic up for sale!
This agreement and the sale of the Opdyke Road property represents an important climax to an18 months-long battle launched by CPLS to prevent PPMSM from opening the abortion business in a building that sits in front of the Comfort Inn Suites hotel whose owners control a 12 year-old deed restriction on the use of the Opdyke Road property and who enforced the restriction against Planned Parenthood. The original deed restriction stipulated that the gutted Opdyke Road property purchased by PPMSM was restricted to retail store, restaurant or office use only. The new restriction signed by PPMSM CEO Lori Lamerand states that the building can be used for medical offices—even out-patient clinics but “clinics providing abortion services will not be permitted.” Pro-lifers believe this includes a ban on the chemical abortion procedure, RU-486.

A Short Summary of this Conflict

Over two years ago, in the April 27, 2010 Detroit News PPMSM publicly announced that it intended to open a “full-service” clinic in Oakland County--a clinic that would offer “abortion services.” In November 2011 CPLS discovered that PPMSM purchased the Auburn Hills building and immediately initiated a campaign in partnership with Central Oakland County Right to Life, to keep PP from providing abortions on the property. On December 6, 2011 nearly 200 Oakland County residents jammed the Auburn Hills City Council meeting to protest the opening of the clinic and demanded city officials do what they could to block abortion procedures from being performed at the Opdyke Road property. Soon real estate agent Dave Theisen of Real Estate for Life was commissioned by CPLS to function as an investigator for the pro-life group and he interviewed all hotel managers in close proximity to the PP building. These interviews resulted in a discovery of the deed restriction held by the owners of the Comfort Inn Suites under the name Shri Sai-Krishna Group, L.L.C.
The law firm Dykema Gossett, representing PP, knew about the deed restriction and in October 2010 sent a letter to the owners of the Comfort Inn Suites stating that they represented a “potential purchaser” of the Opdyke Road property and that their clients intended to use the building for “medical office purposes.” The letter never disclosed that it was indeed Planned Parenthood who intended to purchase the building or that their so-called medical office would in actuality be an abortion clinic. When CPLS informed the couple who owned the hotel that the purchaser was Planned Parenthood and that they had stated their intention to do abortions, the hotel owners enforced the deed restriction against PPMSM. This prompted PP to sue the hotel over the interpretation of the deed restriction language—in particular whether the term “office” included “medical office” and whether “medical office” also encompassed an “outpatient surgical treatment center” under city codes and Michigan statutes regulating medical facilities.
The Comfort Inn Suites was represented by Cooley Law School professor James Carey. Two hearings took place before Oakland County Judge James Alexander—the first on September 7, 2011, the second on January 10, 2012 at which time Alexander ruled in favor of PPMSM motion that the term “office” in the deed restriction was broad enough to include “medical office.” His ruling left open the question whether “medical office” was also broad enough to include “outpatient surgical treatment center.” Since the beginning of opposition to the clinic, PPMSM would not formally declare exactly what services they intended to perform in the building. The Comfort Inn Suites immediately filed an appeal, guaranteed to stretch-out the court battle for months to come.
During these many months CPLS, joined by Central Oakland County Right to Life and other pro-life groups organized numerous pickets and other public demonstrations at the Opdyke Road property including a prayer vigil in August 2011 attended by 400 Oakland County residents. In February and March 2011 CPLS and COCRTL organized a county-wide petition drive in protest of the clinic. 11,000 signatures were gathered in 4 weeks time and the petition was presented to the Auburn Hills mayor and city council members during a standing-room-only city council meeting.

Pro-Lifers Cautiously Jubilant and What Does This Mean

Perhaps to avoid a lengthy appeals court process, PPMSM, agreed to a newly-drawn covenant deed restriction with Comfort Inn Suites that will forbid any type of abortion procedure from being performed at the Opdyke Road property. Entering into such an agreement now frees the pro-abortion group to sell the disputed property—which appears to be exactly what has happened. CPLS considers this a huge victory. From the very start, the specific goal of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society was to prevent Planned Parenthood from opening an abortion clinic in the the Opdyke Road building.
Monica Migliorino Miller, director of CPLS states: This was the specific task we had before us, and we prevailed! That Planned Parenthood, one of the largest abortion providers in Michigan, would agree not to perform abortions in this 17,000 square-foot building is a huge victory for the right-to-life cause. The fact that they have been forced to retreat from their plans to turn that building into an abortion center is a huge victory. We prevailed in the specific battle that was before us. We stopped Planned Parenthood from performing abortions at the Opdyke Road property. This is a huge pro-life victory and it may be unprecedented.
“Not only are surgical abortions prohibited on the property but we believe that this prohibits all chemical abortions as well--such as RU-486. Our whole concern right from the start was to keep Planned Parenthood from killing babies at 1625 N. Opdyke Road—and we won. Now the building is up for sale. Planned Parenthood has at least been forced to retreat from their original plan and forced to set up shop somewhere else if that’s what they plan to do. We are not happy that PP may still open some type of facility somewhere else—since this is a pro-death organization that promotes a disordered sexual ethic that leads to abortion—yet that they were prevented from killing babies on Opdyke Road is cause for celebration.
While we prevailed in the special battle that was before us—it is quite possible that this conflict is not over. PPMSM was forced to abandon Opdyke Road, but we will be watching them very carefully—as it is possible they will try and erect this abortion center someplace else. And that will be a sad day.
We will be vigilant and watch Planned Parenthood’s future developments.
“Last October we prayed at a vigil in Pontiac: ‘God Spare Us’ and perhaps He has does so.”
“We celebrate this victory for now—but if need be, we remain ready to continue this fight.”
In July of 2012 CPLS will hold a prayer vigil of thanksgiving at the Planned Parenthood building, 1625 Opdyke Road, Auburn Hills, Michigan.
For more information or to schedule an interview, please call:
Monica Migliorino Miller Director of CPLS 248 444-9096
mmmillerlife@gmail.com
Dave Theisen Real Estate for Life 224 431-1440
Barb Yagley Central Oakland County Right to Life 248 703-3577
Attorney James Carey Counsel for Comfort Inn 248 605-1103
Attorney Rebecca Kiessling 248 495-2925
Brenda Savage CPLS Petition Drive Chairman 248 410-7386
Diane Fagelman President of LifeSpan of Michigan 248 739-0784
New Deed Restriction:      (click to read as .PDF --- much larger)
New Deed Restriction

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Minus One!

 Nearby, in Auburn Hills, Michigan we have been in the middle of a huge effort to prevent a building  in our area from becoming a very large abortion clinic. At the very least we wanted to stall construction of the interior, but had hopes of preventing the "Mega Mill", as it has been called, from opening at all.
 Through contacts I received word that there is a sale sign now in front of the disputed building.
I went to investigate and as you can see from my photos, it is true. God is good.
 It looks like there will NOT be a Mega Abortion Mill in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
 This building is situated not too far from Oakland University and Avondale High School.
An abortion clinic in this place could have been catastrophic.
 Also in the vicinity is the city of Pontiac which is notorious for it's less fortunate citizens the likes of which Planned Parenthood preys on with it's "services".
 This site would have been a prime location for an abortion business. However, the locals said, "NO!"
 NIMBY!  Not In My Backyard!
 Thank you to everyone who attended picketing, prayer walking, prayer vigils, and protests at this location. Our voices were heard. Praise God.

Friday, June 15, 2012

FAQ

What do we mean by religious liberty?

 Religious liberty is the first liberty granted to us by God and protected in the First Amendment to our Constitution. It includes more than our ability to go to Mass on Sunday or pray the Rosary at home. It also encompasses our ability to contribute freely to the common good of all Americans.

What is the First Amendment?

The First Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights states the following: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

What does “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” mean?

This phrase, known as the “Establishment Clause,” started out as a prohibition on Congress’ either establishing a national religion or interfering with the established religions of the states. It has since been interpreted to forbid state establishments of religion, to forbid governmental preference (at any level) of one religion over another, and to forbid direct government funding of religion.

What does “prohibiting the free exercise thereof” mean?

This phrase, known as the “Free Exercise Clause,” generally protects citizens and institutions from government interference with the exercise of their religious beliefs. It sometimes mandates the accommodation of religious practices when such practices conflict with federal, state, or local laws.

What did our early American leaders say about religious freedom?

  • George Washington: "If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed in the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it; and if I could now conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that noone would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution." (Letter to the United Baptist Churches in Virginia, 1789.)
  • George Washington: “[T]he conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be [] extensively accommodated to them…” (Letter to the Annual Meeting of Quakers, 1789.)
  • Thomas Jefferson: “No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority.” (Letter to New London Methodist, 1809.)
  • James Madison: “[T]he equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his Religion according to the dictates of conscience is held by the same tenure with all our other rights. If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature; if we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us; if we consult the Declaration of Rights which pertain to the good people of Virginia, as the basis and foundation of Government, it is enumerated with equal solemnity, or rather studied emphasis.” (Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessment, 1785.) (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
  • James Madison: “[W]e hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth that religion, or the duty which we owe our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence. The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.” (Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessment, 1785.) (Internal citation and quotations omitted.)

Who have been heroes of religious liberty in the church?

  • Saint Thomas More: Thomas More was an English Catholic lawyer who served as Lord Chancellor and a close advisor to King Henry VIII. More opposed the king’s separation from the Catholic Church and his naming himself as Supreme Head of the Church of England. More was imprisoned for his refusal to take the oath required by a law that disparaged papal power and required acknowledging the children of Henry and Anne Boleyn (the king’s second wife after his divorce from Catherine of Aragon) as legitimate heirs to the throne. In 1535, More was tried for treason, convicted on perjured testimony, and beheaded. He is the patron saint of religious freedom.
  • Saint John Fisher: John Fisher was an English Catholic cardinal, academic, and martyr. Fisher was executed by order of King Henry VIII during the English Reformation for refusing to accept the king as Supreme Head of the Church of England and for upholding the Catholic Church’s doctrine of papal primacy.
  • Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton: Elizabeth Ann Seton was the first native-born U.S. citizen to be canonized by the Catholic Church. In 1809, Seton founded the first American congregation of Religious Sisters, the Sisters of Charity. She also established the first parochial school for girls in the U.S. in Emmitsburg, Maryland in 1810. Seton’s efforts initiated the parochial school system in America and opened the first free Catholic schools for the poor.
  • Saint Katharine Drexel: Katharine Drexel was a religious sister, heiress, philanthropist, and educator. She dedicated herself and her inheritance to the needs of oppressed Native Americans and African-Americans in the western and southwestern United States. She was a vocal advocate of racial tolerance and established a religious congregation, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, whose mission was to teach African-Americans and later American Indians. She also financed more than sixty missions and schools around the United States, in addition to founding Xavier University of Louisiana—the only historically African-American Catholic university in the United States to date.
  • John Courtney Murray, SJ: Father Murray was an American Jesuit priest and theologian, who was known for his efforts to reconcile Catholicism and religious pluralism, particularly focusing on the relationship between religious freedom and the institutions of a democratically structured modern state. During the Second Vatican Council, he played a key role in the Council’s ground-breaking Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae.  

Historically, what have been significant religious liberty issues affecting Catholics in our country?

  • Equal treatment of Catholic Schools: Catholicism was introduced to the English colonies with the founding of the Province of Maryland by Jesuit settlers from England in 1634. However, the 1646 defeat of the Royalists in the English Civil War led to stringent laws against Catholic education and the extradition of known Jesuits from Maryland, as well as the destruction of the school they founded. During the greater part of the Maryland colonial period, Jesuits continued to conduct Catholic schools clandestinely. The American Revolution brought historic changes,and in 1782, Catholics in Philadelphia opened St. Mary’s School, considered the first parochial school in the U.S. In 1791, the ratification of the Bill of Rights, with the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom, helped Catholics further cement the establishment of Catholic schools.

    Regardless, anti-Catholic sentiment in the late nineteenth century led to opposition to parochial schools. State governments opposed providing funds to aid students attending parochial schools, which Catholics founded largely in response to the requirement to pray and read from Protestant Bibles in public schools. Some Members of Congress attempted to block all government aid to religiously affiliated schools with the proposed “Blaine Amendment” in 1875. This constitutional amendment was never ratified at the federal level, but many state legislatures adopted similar legislation and amendments. Those “little Blaine” amendments are still in place in the constitutions of about thirty-seven states, and still operate to block Catholic school students from equal participation in government educational benefits.
  • Anti-Catholic bigotry in presidential campaigns: During the 1884 presidential campaign, candidate James G. Blaine (who proposed the “Blaine Amendment” in Congress) attended a meeting in a church in New York at which a minister chided those who had left the Republican Party by stating, “We don’t propose to leave our party and identify with the party whose antecedents are rum, Romanism, and rebellion.” Blaine sat quietly during the anti-Catholic remark. The scene was reported widely in the press, and it cost Blaine in the election, particularly in New York City.

    During the 1928 presidential campaign, Al Smith, a Catholic who had been elected governor of New York three times, was the Democratic candidate for president. It is widely believed that Smith’s Catholic beliefs played a key role in his loss of the 1928 presidential election, as anti-Catholic sentiment among the electorate was strong. Many feared that Smith would answer to the pope and not the constitution if elected president.

    During the 1960 presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism became a major issue in the election. Like Al Smith, Kennedy faced charges that he would “take orders from the Pope” and could not uphold the oath of office.
  • Establishment of diplomatic relations with the Vatican: In the first years of the United States, the new Republic had contacts with the Papal States. However, in 1867, Congress prohibited the financing of any diplomatic post to the Papal authority. This began a period of over seventy years when the U.S. did not have a diplomatic representative to the Pope, coinciding with a period of strong anti-Catholicism in the U.S. In 1940, President Roosevelt sent a “personal representative” to the Pope who served for ten years. However, when President Truman nominated an ambassador to the Vatican in 1951, opposition mounted, and President Truman abandoned the effort. Presidents Nixon and Carter sent personal representatives to the Vatican. In 1984, President Reagan announced that full diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Vatican had been established, and the U.S. has continued to send ambassadors to the Vatican since then.

How was religious liberty addressed at the Second Vatican Council (Dignitatis Humanae)?

  • Dignitatis Humanae provides that “the exercise of religion, of its very nature, consists before all else in those internal, voluntary and free acts whereby man sets the course of his life directly toward God.” (Dignitatis Humanae, No. 3.) Therefore, individuals are “not to be forced to act in manner contrary to [their] conscience” nor “restrained from acting in accordance with [their] conscience . . . .” (Id.)
  • The Second Vatican Council also “declare[d] that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.” (Dignitatis Humanae, No. 2.)

  • Further, Dignitatis Humanae provides that “[r]eligious communities [] have the right not to be hindered, either by legal measures or by administrative action on the part of government, in the selection, training, appointment, and transferral of their own Ministers . . . .” (Dignitatis Humanae, No. 4.)

Where are the roots of religious liberty?

Religious liberty is inherent in our very humanity, hard-wired into each and every one of us by our Creator. Religious liberty is also prior to the state itself. It is not merely a privilege that the government grants us and that can be taken away at will.

What has the Church said about religious liberty since Vatican II, for example, through Blessed Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI?

Blessed Pope John Paul II: “[T]he most fundamental human freedom [is] that of practicing one’s faith openly, which for human beings is their reason for living.” (Address to Diplomatic Corps, 13 Jan. 1996, No. 9.)
Pope Benedict XVI: “[Religious freedom] is indeed the first of human rights, not only because it was historically the first to be recognized but also because it touches the constitutive dimension of man, hisrelation with his Creator.” (Address to Diplomatic Corps, 10 Jan. 2011.)
and
"The distinction between Church and State, between God and Caesar, remains “fundamental to Christianity.” (Deus Caritas Est, No. 28.) The Church has “a proper independence and is structured on the basis of her faith as a community which the State must recognize.” (Id.)

Why does the mandate to cover contraceptives, including abortion-causing drugs and sterilization, violate religious liberty?

In short, it is the element of government coercion against conscience, and government intrusion into the ordering of Church institutions. As Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, testified to Congress: “This is not a matter of whether contraception may be prohibited by the government. This is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government. Instead, it is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization, even if that violates their religious beliefs.” (Oral Testimony Before the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Feb. 28, 2012.)

How have religious liberty questions affected other religious bodies?

  • Discrimination against small church congregations: In 1994, New York City’s Department of Education (DOE) denied the request of the Bronx Household of Faith and sixty other churches to rent space from public schools on weekends for worship services, even though non-religious groups could rent the same schools for scores of other uses. The City has been investigating what the churches do in the public schools and has made its own assessments of whether the meetings constituted a “worship service” or not. In late February 2012, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction, ruling that the City’s policy violated the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause. While the DOE’s discrimination would not frequently affect Catholic parishes, which generally own their own buildings, it would be devastating to many smaller congregations. It is a simple case of discrimination against religious believers.
  • Christian students on campus: In its over-100-year history, the University of California Hastings College of Law has denied student organization status to only one group, the Christian Legal Society, because it required its leaders to be Christian and to abstain from sexual activity outside of marriage.
  • Religious speech in the public square: In Minneapolis, the city’s Park and Recreation Board effectively exiled a group of Christians handing out Bibles during the Twin Cities Pride Festival to an isolated “no pride zone”—a remote and virtually untraveled corner of the city park where the festival was taking place. In Phoenix, a local resident was told that, in order to informally share his Christian faith at South Mountain Community College, he would have to pay a fee, take out special insurance, and give the school two weeks’ notice. In Cheyenne, members of the Wyoming State Building Commission have complied with a federal court order by admitting they unconstitutionally violated the free speech rights of WyWatch Family Action last year by first approving, then removing the group’s pro-life signs from a gallery at the state capitol. However, officials then began seeking other ways to silence pro-life speech, including prohibiting all outside groups from participating in the gallery.
  • Religious worship in one’s own home: A Santeria priest in Texas was unable to perform certain religious rituals in his own home because of discriminatory state action. In an important ruling under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found in favor of the Santeria priest. The court held that city ordinances forbidding the slaughter of certain animals prevented the Santeria priest from performing ceremonies essential to his faith, causing a substantial burden on his religious exercise.
  • The ministerial exception: The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) attempted to undermine religious liberty in Hosanna Tabor v. EEOC, by attacking the “ministerial exception.” The ministerial exception allows religious organizations the right to choose their own ministers without government interference. The DoJ could have taken the position that the ministerial exception, though generally providing strong protection for the right of religious groups to choose their ministers without government interference, didn’t apply in the case before the court. Instead, DoJ needlessly attacked the very existence of the exception, in opposition to a vast coalition of religious groups urging its preservation through their amicus curiae briefs. Fortunately, the Supreme Court in a 9-0 decision agreed with religious groups in reaffirming the ministerial exception and rejecting DoJ’s position as “extreme,” “remarkable,” and as having “no merit.”

Current Concern: HHS mandate

Under the Administration’s ‘compromise,’ the Church does not have to pay for those services. Why does this not satisfy church concerns?

The Administration’s central claim is that contraceptive services are “free” because they save money on childbirths that enrollees in the plan would otherwise have – but that just means premiums paid by a religious organization for live births will pay for contraception and sterilization instead. A proposed “accommodation” for religious organizations covered by the mandate, while not in final form, offers to have insurers or other third parties impose the objectionable coverage – but this only deprives the employer of the ability to provide coverage to its employees that is consistent with its values, and it disregards the conscience rights of both insurers and employees. However the funding is worked out, the simple offer of health coverage by a religious employer will become the “trigger” for ensuring that all its employees receive morally objectionable services in their health plan.

Is this an effort to deny women access to fundamental reproductive services?

Access to contraceptives is already widespread. The great majority of employer-sponsored health plans already include contraception, and even without coverage, birth control pills can be obtained at low cost. The relevant question is whether religious organizations should be forced to facilitate the provision of services that are in direct violation of their teachings, in disregard of the First Amendment and federal laws respecting religious freedom.

Many young women say they can’t afford to pay for birth control and these other medical services. Is the Church position discriminating against poor women?

Not at all. This is not about health coverage for the unemployed, or for those who must rely on the government for coverage (for example, by Medicaid). It is about people who are employed by the Catholic Church and its various ministries, which are typically generous in the health benefits they provide to their employees. Those who choose to work for the Catholic Church—and no one is forced to do so— know that they are working for a community with its own guiding mission and values, and many work for the Church precisely for that reason. It is unreasonable to expect the Church to violate its own teachings by facilitating and funding sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception. As Archbishop Lori testified before Congress, this would be like coming to a kosher deli and demanding to be served a ham sandwich.

The vast majority of Catholics practice artificial birth control. Some argue that the church is out-of step with modern family realities?


Again, the issue isn’t whether individuals practice artificial birth control. Our teachings may not be popular, but that doesn’t mean that the State can force us to violate our own teachings in our own institutions.

Some argue that the issue is about fairness and equity between men and women. Many of these insurance programs cover Viagra for men, but not protection for women. Isn’t that hypocritical?

Viagra is not a contraceptive for men, so that’s not a valid comparison. In fact, the HHS doesn’t mandate men’s contraceptives or vasectomies either. The relevant issue is whether the State should force the Church to violate its profoundly held beliefs.

Aren’t you making too much of this “religious freedom” issue?

Religious liberty is a cornerstone of our democracy. The HHS mandate fundamentally alters the fragile balance between government and religious groups created by the framers of our Constitution. The same First Amendment that protects religious freedom protects freedom of the press. We wouldn’t stand for the State telling newspapers or news programs what to write or whom to interview.

The HHS mandate has become a major political issue in the current Presidential campaign. Does opposition to the mandate put the church in league with the Republicans?

This is a bipartisan issue that affects all Americans. Legislation to correct this problem has enjoyed bipartisan support in both houses of Congress. We are asking all citizens—Democrats, Republicans, Independents, people of any faith or none at all—to let their views be known to all their elected representatives and to stand up for religious freedom and the First Amendment.

Fortnight for Freedom

Fortnight for Freedom INFO

The fourteen days from June 21—the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More—to July 4, Independence Day, are dedicated to this “fortnight for freedom”—a great hymn of prayer for our country. Our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power—St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, St. John the Baptist, SS. Peter afortnight-for-freedom-montagend Paul, and the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome.  Culminating on Independence Day, this special period of prayer, study, catechesis, and public action will emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty. Dioceses and parishes around the country have scheduled special events that support a great national campaign of teaching and witness for religious liberty.

O God our Creator,

Through the power and working of your Holy Spirit,
you call us to live out our faith in the midst of the world,
bringing the light and the saving truth of the Gospel
to every corner of society.
We ask you to bless us
in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty.
Give us the strength of mind and heart
to readily defend our freedoms when they are threatened;
give us courage in making our voices heard
on behalf of the rights of your Church
and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.
Grant, we pray, O heavenly Father,
a clear and united voice to all your sons and daughters
gathered in your Church
in this decisive hour in the history of our nation,
so that, with every trial withstood
and every danger overcome—
for the sake of our children, our grandchildren,
and all who come after us—
this great land will always be "one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

http://www.usccb.org/