Excerpt:
Beginning in August 2012, all private insurers must provide women with coverage for FDA-approved contraception--including sterilization and contraceptives that have an abortifacient effect--under a mandate announced on August 1 by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)....Under the mandate Catholic social services, schools, etc. would be forced to provide contraception including abortifacient drugs approved by the FDA. The bishops' pro-life office asks, "Could the federal government possibly intend to pressure Catholic institutions to cease providing health care, education and charitable services to the general public?” Certainly seems so doesn't it?
“Group health plans sponsored by certain religious employers, and group health insurance coverage in connection with such plans, are exempt from the requirement to cover contraceptive services,” according to an amendment to the mandate. However, that exception is narrowly defined: “A religious employer is one that: (1) has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and (4) is a non-profit organization.”
The government is using homosexual activism to force the Church out of adoption. Is this new regulation intended to widen the purge? And when Catholics are all forced back behind the doors of our churches what then? Burn them down? Anyone who can't see the expanding persecution is blind.
The Church Militant was never more needed.
I have never understood the "morality" in denying someone who is not Catholic contraception. Why should I have to pay out of pocket for my family planning just because I work for a "Catholic" hospital (which is Catholic only in that the name begins with Saint)? I believe family size is a matter for a husband and wife to decide and that preventing pregnancy is often a wise and informed and blessed choice. While I applaud your right to believe otherwise, forcing your beliefs onto me is just as abhorrent as you seem to think "forcing" these employers to provide what most people consider basic health care is to you. If Catholic employers don't want to fully benefit their employees, they should only hire those people who have the same beliefs... though even my Catholic counterparts seem to agree with me on this.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous --
ReplyDeleteA Catholic hospital should strictly adhere to the moral teachings of the Church. Sadly, a number of them do not. Also, if a non-Catholic working at a Catholic hospital rejects Catholic moral teaching, he or she should find a non-Catholic hospital at which to work. Abortion, contraception, sterilization and euthanasia have no place at a Catholic hospital.
You are exactly right, Matt C. Abbott, it is a free country, or at least used to be, and they can find a job elsewhere. These same people would never think of working at an orthodox jewish hospital and expect them to have crucifixes or crosses or serve pork to their employees if their menu were kosher.
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