Obama administration renews assault on religious freedom

Last Friday, to no one’s surprise, the Obama administration announced that it is going forward with the mandate it first promulgated last summer, requiring Church-based institutions to cover free “birth control” for their employees — even if, as with the Catholic Church, artificial contraception violates a particular faith community’s moral teachings.

That this executive dictate was a foregone conclusion, given the unyielding ideological bent of this administration, makes it no less of an outrage — a frontal, unconscionable assault on religious freedom.

The regulation  — one of the specifics that has now emerged from the President’s sweeping national health care reform legislation — purports to draw a distinction between  those Church institutions that the federal government deems directly related  to promoting religion — houses of worship, for instance — and those, such as health care institutions and social service agencies, that serve people in need.
 
This is Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s idea of an “appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.”  

In fact, there is absolutely NO balance here. The very idea that the GOVERNMENT will dictate to religious institutions which aspects of their work constitute their legitimate mission of evangelizing their faith is the very antithesis of religious freedom.

As Brother James McVeigh reminded us in a recent TLIC article on St. Francis of Assisi, we as Catholics are exhorted to preach always, sometimes even using words. In other words, in everything we do — in our families, in our workplaces, in our communities, in our role as citizens — we are called to give direct witness to our faith. Nowhere is such witness more evident — and more vital — than in our efforts to care for the sick and dying, to assist the disabled, to give sustenance to people in need. Who is the federal government to presume to alter this two thousand-year faith tradition, founded in the Gospel teachings of Jesus Christ?

Long Island Catholics also need to be aware that the statement in the Associated Press story printed in Newsday, that “the new regulation does not require coverage of abortions,” is misleadingly false. The regulation does not require coverage of surgical abortions. However, included in the so-called “contraceptive” drugs it would require Church-based agencies to cover are some that also act as abortifacients — destroying newly conceived, living human embryos. So it does require that Catholic agencies provide coverage for the direct destruction of innocent human lives.

As Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said last Friday, by forcing American citizens — and the Catholic Church — “to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare,” this regulation “is as much an attack on health care as on religious freedom.” It must not stand. But it is clear now that it will, as long as this administration remains in power and remains unyielding in its secularist ideology.

Something to keep in mind during this critical election year, when we are empowered not only to choose our government officials, but also to try to influence those who seek our votes.  We should let the Obama administration, its potential opponents, and our candidates for Congress, know that among the many critical issues that will influence our votes are protection of religious freedom and support for access to ethically moral, life-affirming health care.