Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George fires off a warning:
What will happen if the HHS regulations are not rescinded? A Catholic institution, so far as I can see right now, will have one of four choices: 1) secularize itself, breaking its connection to the Church, her moral and social teachings and the oversight of its ministry by the local bishop. This is a form of theft. It means the Church will not be permitted to have an institutional voice in public life. 2) Pay exorbitant annual fines to avoid paying for insurance policies that cover abortifacient drugs, artificial contraception and sterilization. This is not economically sustainable. 3) Sell the institution to a non-Catholic group or to a local government. 4) Close down …
Freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union. You could go to church, if you could find one. The church, however, could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship-no schools, religious publications, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice and the works of mercy that flow naturally from a living faith. All of these were co-opted by the government. We fought a long cold war to defeat that vision of society.
Indeed. We fought and won that cold war only to elect that vision by stealth a few years later.
As I’ve noted in past posts, Catholics aren’t the only targets here. The Southern Baptists, for one, self-insure and oppose the mandate just as strongly as the Catholics do. If Nancy Pelosi gets her wish, every single church in America will be targeted. The current mandate is only the beginning.
Waiting until 2014 guarantees defeat. The impacted groups should begin to act now, in an election year, to visibly demonstrate just how far Barack Obama has gone.
“Catholic Hospitals Will be Gone in 2014 If the Abortifacient Mandate Stands”
To Obama and co. that’s probably a feature, not a bug.
Exactly. This will be an excuse for the government to take over those services/facilities. A plannend and intended goal of the mandate to increase government control of health care.
Unless the Bishops clutch into that and deliberately sell or convert the properties to perform some other functions.
You beat me to it. The Boy King’s goal is to nationalize the Catholic hospitals as part of obamacare. That’s what’s hiding behind the contraception mandate. If he can get them to close down, so much the better, as far as he’s concerned.
To a modern leftist, there can be no faith except faith in government.
The polls show Santorum clobbering Romney among the church-going crowd, and this is why. No one has any doubt that he, as President, would stop this nonsense.
Yeah, I know his flaws. Yes, I support him as the least bad choice, but I would really prefer someone else. I am just stating that this is where his strength lies. He is unimpeachable on this sort of thing, and folks know it.
I heard a priest on EWTN Catholic Radio say as much. His statement was that the church needs to find other ways to witness because we will probably be out of the hospital and education business.
Health care is going to stench like an occupy encampment. The best thing to do is stay healthy. Maintain your fitness. Stay plugged into friends and family. Stay happy and stay healthy. That way you will diminish the chances of needing medical care.
No, it’s not just about Catholics or Baptists — it’s about the Constitution. O is gleefully tearing it up, yet the usual “civil liberties” chorus is strangely silent.
It’s not just Catholics and Baptists, either. What about the huge Mosque in Northern Virginia? Doesn’t it have employees? Is the “ummah” cool with having to pay for abortion drugs? The silence, once again, is deafening.
That is because the civil liberty crowd is not actually liberal. They are leftists. I thought Muslims were one of the groups exempt from Obamacare because they do not believe in insurance. I guess that is the ticket for all other groups then.
The mosque won’t have to, because neither would a church.
The problem is, there are Christian-operated hospitals that employ non-Christians. The Christians who built and run these hospitals will be forced to pay for what they consider a horrific act, simply to provide the illusion to the non-Christian employees that they’re getting something for free.
There are (AFAIK) no Muslim-operated hospitals in the US, so Muslims do not face this particular dilemma.
The simple point of fact is that adherence to the Faith really does conflict with our culture. In fact, many US RC’s believed that there was protection under the Constitution. That may have been only an illusion. It may be that US RC’s are now in the same position the RC’s held during the French Revolution.
Roman Catholicism is not compatible with modernist, humanist pagan US of A. I don’t think many folks are seeing this the way it may really go.
The destruction of the “humanist, pagan” dominance of our culture?
Despite being an agnostic, it couldn’t happen any sooner for me. I see people who respect my beliefs being stomped on by people who are screaming “TOLERANCE”, I see people being spat upon — literally and figuratively — by those sporting “HATE IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE” bumper stickers.
I want the REAL haters to be stopped, and they ain’t the Christians.