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Participants at the March 23 Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally in Philadelphia
Yesterday, 43 Catholic institutions filed suit against the Obama Administration over the HHS Mandate.
News of these lawsuits shouldn’t come as a surprise. Since early March, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been all but guaranteeing that lawsuits would be filed.
A few weeks later, Dolan, appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation, said, “We didn’t ask for this fight, but we won’t back away from it.”
Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon points out in the Wall Street Journal how it’s come to this in an op-ed appropriately titled, “Why the Bishops Are Suing the U.S. Government” that is accompanied by a picture of some of the 2,300 participants at the Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally in Philadelphia on March 23 (see above, right).
Professor Glendon writes:
The main goal of the mandate is not, as HHS claimed, to protect women’s health. It is rather a move to conscript religious organizations into a political agenda, forcing them to facilitate and fund services that violate their beliefs, within their own institutions. [Continue reading ...]
Lawsuits were filed by 43 Catholic institutions in federal court today against the Obama Administration over the HHS Mandate.
Among the plaintiffs, the University of Notre Dame is the most significant.
In announcing its lawsuit, Notre Dame’s president, Father John Jenkins, CSC, sent an email to university employees in which he wrote:
Today the University of Notre Dame filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana regarding a recent mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). That mandate requires Notre Dame and similar religious organizations to provide in their insurance plans abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization procedures, which are contrary to Catholic teaching. The decision to file this lawsuit came after much deliberation, discussion and efforts to find a solution acceptable to the various parties.
Let me say very clearly what this lawsuit is not about: it is not about preventing women from having access to contraception, nor even about preventing the Government from providing such services. [Continue reading ...]
Despite a strong rebuke delivered to Georgetown University by the Archdiocese of Washington, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius addressed the graduates of the school’s Public Policy Institute this morning.
In her remarks, Sebelius couldn’t resist wading into the area of church/state relations. Toward the end of her speech, she said the following:
Ultimately, public policy is about making difficult choices. Today, there are serious debates underway about the direction of our country – debates about the size and role of government, about America’s role as a global economic and military leader, about the moral and economic imperative of providing health care to all our citizens. People have deeply-held beliefs on all sides of these discussions, and you, as public policy leaders, will be called on to help move these debates forward.
These are not questions with quick and easy answers. When I was in junior high, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was running for president. I wasn’t old enough to vote, but it was the first national campaign I really remember. Some of then-Senator Kennedy’s opponents attacked him for his religion, suggesting that electing the first Catholic president would undermine the separation of church and state, a fundamental principle of our democracy. The furor grew so loud that Kennedy chose to deliver a speech about his beliefs just seven weeks before the election. [Continue reading ...]
It’s hard to not sound over-the-top in describing how much of an outrage it is that the speaker at Georgetown University’s School of Public Policy diploma ceremony on May 18 will be none other than Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
The fact that the nominally Catholic architect of the HHS Mandate — which has been publicly denounced by every single bishop who leads a diocese in the U.S. — is being granted this honor by America’s oldest Catholic university is hard to believe.
Yet at the same time, given the history of the choice of commencement speakers at some other reputable Catholic universities in recent years, it isn’t hard to believe at all.
Clearly, as the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) observes, Georgetown’s invitation to Sebelius “can only be interpreted as a direct challenge to America’s Catholic bishops.” [Continue reading ...]
The next Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally is still more than a month away, and today our list of cities taking part just reached 101!
The number of cities already on board for June 8 shows that the massive turnout seen at the first Nationwide Rally on March 23 was hardly a one-time phenomenon.
Opposition among the American people to the HHS Mandate’s assault on religious freedom is intense—and getting stronger!
From Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon and all the way out to Honolulu, Hawaii the American people are sending a message that we will not stand idly by while the federal government forces all employer health plans to provide free contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs, regardless of any moral or religious objections.
Check out the Locations Page to see all the cities taking part and find a Rally near you.
Don’t see one in your area? Organize one!
You can find out what it takes to be a local Rally Captain here.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made some rather candid admissions at an April 26 Congressional hearing.
Before she promulgated the HHS Mandate, did she consult Supreme Court decisions regarding religious liberty?
No.
Did she have a legal memo prepared?
Again, no.
Check out the exchange between Sebelius and Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) at yesterday’s hearing:
The Pro-Life Action League reported last week about the stunningly powerful homily recently given by Bishop Daniel Jenky, CSC in which he excoriated President Obama’s “radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda.”
In response to Bishop Jenky’s homily, some faculty members of the University of Notre Dame are calling on him to step down from the University’s Board of Fellows.
Why?
Because in his homily, Bishop Jenky said the following:
Remember that in past history other governments have tried to force Christians to huddle and hide only within the confines of their churches like the first disciples locked up in the Upper Room.
In the late 19th century, Bismarck waged his “Kulturkampf,” a Culture War, against the Roman Catholic Church, closing down every Catholic school and hospital, convent and monastery in Imperial Germany.
Clemenceau, nicknamed “the priest eater,” tried the same thing in France in the first decade of the 20th Century. [Continue reading ...]
Bishop Daniel Jenky of the Diocese of Peoria gave a stunningly powerful homily this weekend in which he excoriated President Obama’s “radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda.”
Celebrating Mass at a men’s conference entitled “A Call to Catholic Men of Faith,” Bishop Jenky spoke in his homily about the ever-present difficulties of being a Christian, and noted:
[It]’s not supposed to be easy! The world, the flesh, and the devil will always love their own, and will always hate us. As Jesus once predicted, they hated me, they will certainly hate you. …
For 2,000 years the enemies of Christ have certainly tried their best. But think about it. The Church survived and even flourished during centuries of terrible persecution, during the days of the Roman Empire.
The Church survived barbarian invasions. The Church survived wave after wave of Jihads. The Church survived the age of revolution. The Church survived Nazism and Communism.
And in the power of the resurrection, the Church will survive the hatred of Hollywood, the malice of the media, and the mendacious wickedness of the abortion industry.
The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the President of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate. [Continue reading ...]
It’s with great excitement that Monica Miller and I announce that the next Stand Up for Religious Freedom will take place Friday, June 8 at noon local time, coast to coast.
The huge controversy over Barack Obama’s HHS Mandate is growing, and it’s time to take the next step to stop this attack on religious freedom.
Last month, over 63,000 Americans gathered at sites in 145 cities for a massive rally in protest of the Mandate.
They said NO to the HHS Mandate, which forces employers—including religious charities—to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs in their health plans, for free.
Now it’s time to build on that great momentum with the next Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally, and June 8 is the perfect date.
Right now the entire Obamacare law, with its oppressive mandates and abortion loopholes, is under review by the United States Supreme Court. A ruling is coming at the end of June.
If the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare, the June 8 Rally sets the agenda for future health care reform, demanding respect for religious liberty and freedom of conscience. [Continue reading ...]
Sidewalk counselor Dick Retta, 80, stands outside a Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Washington, DC. Retta has been sued by the Justice Department under the FACE Act.
Since taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama has lost the support of a lot of people, but one constituency he has never upset is the radical pro-choice movement.
That’s why no one should be surprised when, for example, Obama makes a promotional video for Planned Parenthood Action Fund from inside the White House.
And neither should we be surprised that Obama, through his Department of Justice, continues to wage a low-grade war on the First Amendment rights of pro-life activists across the U.S.
Consider, for example, the case of Mary Susan Pine.
Pine, who herself had an abortion years ago, has been a sidewalk counselor in West Palm Beach, Florida for over a decade.
In 2010, Attorney General Eric Holder filed a lawsuit against Pine, claiming she had violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
What did Pine do to warrant the lawsuit? Physically restrain women on their way into an abortion clinic? Chain herself to the door? [Continue reading ...]