In his February 16 testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut, outlined the bishops’ opposition to the Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate through an extended parable of a country where a new law requires all businesses to serve pork, including kosher delicatessens.

When the Orthodox Jewish community expresses its outrage, Bishop Lori said, it’s met with arguments of “But pork is good for you,” “So many Jews eat pork, and those who don’t should just get with the times,” and “Those Orthodox are just trying to impose their beliefs on everyone else.”

Bishop Lori’s parable had a happy ending, that people recognized “it is absurd for someone to come into a kosher deli and demand a ham sandwich,” “it is beyond absurd for that private demand to be backed with the coercive power of the state,” and “it is downright surreal to apply this coercive power when the customer can get the same sandwich cheaply, or even free, just a few doors down.”

“The question before the United States government—right now—is whether the story of our own Church institutions that serve the public, and that are threatened by the HHS mandate, will end happily too. Will our nation continue to be one committed to religious liberty and diversity? We urge, in the strongest possible terms, that the answer must be yes.”

The full text of Bishop Lori’s testimony may be found online: www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/upload/lori-testimony-for-oversight-on-religious-freedom-2012-02-16.pdf

The Catholic bishops have long supported access to life-affirming healthcare for all, and the conscience rights of everyone involved in the complex process of providing that healthcare. That is why we raised two serious objections to the “preventive services” regulation issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in August 2011.

First, we objected to the rule forcing private health plans –nationwide, by the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen –to cover sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion. All the other mandated “preventive services” prevent disease, and pregnancy is not a disease. Moreover, forcing plans to cover abortifacients violates existing federal conscience laws. Therefore, we called for the rescission of the mandate altogether.

Second, we explained that the mandate would impose a burden of unprecedented reach and severity on the consciences of those who consider such “services” immoral: insurers forced to write policies including this coverage; employers and schools forced to sponsor and subsidize the coverage; and individual employees and students forced to pay premiums for the coverage. We therefore urged HHS, if it insisted on keeping the mandate, to provide a conscience exemption for all of these stakeholders –not just the extremely small subset of “religious employers” that HHS proposed to exempt initially.

Today, the President has done two things.

First, he has decided to retain HHS’s nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients. This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern. We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty.

Second, the President has announced some changes in how that mandate will be administered, which is still unclear in its details. As far as we can tell at this point, the change appears to have the following basic contours:

• It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write. At this point, it would appear that self-insuring religious employers, and religious insurance companies, are not exempt from this mandate.

• It would allow non-profit, religious employers to declare that they do not offer such coverage. But the employee and insurer may separately agree to add that coverage. The employee would not have to pay any additional amount to obtain this coverage, and the coverage would be provided as a part of the employer’s policy, not as a separate rider.

• Finally, we are told that the one-year extension on the effective date (from August 1, 2012 to August 1, 2013) is available to any non-profit religious employer who desires it, without any government application or approval process.

These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change. But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders –for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals –is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.

We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance. Some information we have is in writing and some is oral. We will, of course, continue to press for the greatest conscience protection we can secure from the Executive Branch. But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today’s proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.

We will therefore continue –with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency –our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government. For example, we renew our call on Congress to pass, and the Administration to sign, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. And we renew our call to the Catholic faithful, and to all our fellow Americans, to join together in this effort to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.

We, the Bishops of the Holy Land Coordination, have met in the Holy Land since 1998, to be in solidarity with the local Christian community and share in the pastoral life of the local Church. While the faith we see in the Christians of the Holy Land is an inspiration to all, we have heard repeatedly and have seen ourselves that occupation and insecurity, fear and frustration dominate the life of people across this land. Blaming the other is an abdication of responsibility and a failure of leadership, a leadership that the people so desperately need. We have heard and we make this conviction our own: to be pro-Israeli has to mean being pro-Palestinian. This means being pro-justice for all, whose certain fruit is lasting peace.

We recognize the importance of the resumption of dialogue between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. We echo the words of Pope Benedict to the diplomatic corps on 9 January when he expressed his hope that this dialogue “will be maintained, and that it will lead to lasting peace which guarantees the right of the two peoples to dwell in security in sovereign states and within secure and internationally recognized borders.”
A negotiated agreement is urgently required.

That dialogue is threatened and undermined by extremism and intolerance of the other, the signs of which are only too apparent in the attitudes, judgments and actions of far too many in the world today. This is a concern for both sides and we appeal for tolerance and courageous leadership, able to show forgiveness and humility, to promote peaceful co-existence.

Despite the serious problems we heard and we saw this year, our faith gives us hope and there are signs of hope: the gathering of the Churches for the Synod on the Middle East; the increasing numbers of pilgrims; the inter-religious co-operation and friendship we witnessed in Galilee that offers an example to all; the housing projects of the Latin Patriarchate and the Custody of the Holy Land; the humanitarian efforts of Catholic organisations along with a range of other practical, educational and cultural initiatives to assist the local community—all of which we encourage and support. Above all our hope is nourished by the continuing witness of the Christian communities we met and with whom we celebrated our faith in Gaza, Nablus, Jerusalem and Galilee.

We also recognize the progress being made on negotiations between Israel and the Holy See, with hopes for a resolution soon.
Political leaders of both sides and our own countries need to show courage, resolve and creativity so the simple hopes of the majority for peaceful co-existence are realised. The fidelity to their way of life of Jews, Christians and Muslims should always be such that there is deep-seated openness to all others. May God bless all of the people of the Holy Land.

Signatories to the Holy Land Coordination Communique 2012 are:

Archbishop Patrick Kelly –Archbishop of Liverpool (England and Wales)
Archbishop Riccardo Fontana–Bishop of Arezzo‐Cortona‐Sansepolcro (Italy)
Archbishop Richard Smith–Archbishop of Edmonton (Canada)
Archbishop Joan‐Enric Vives I Sicilia–Bishop of Urgell (Spain)
Bishop Gerald Kicanas–Bishop of Tucson (USA)
Bishop Heinrich Mussinghoff–Bishop of Aachen (Germany)
Bishop Michel Dubost–Bishop of Evry (France)
Bishop Pierre Burcher–Bishop of Reykjavik (Nordic Bishops’ Conference)
Bishop William Kenney–Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham (England and Wales)

The site, which was launched by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, also invites visitors to subscribe to the blog. Portions of the site will be translated into Spanish.

“The launch of the Marriage: Unique for a Reason website demonstrates the continued efforts of the bishops to educate the faithful on the unique meaning of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and on marriage’s foundational place for the flourishing of any society,” said Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, California, chairman of the Subcommittee. “The website will establish an online presence for the Subcommittee’s work, and will serve as a reliable place where inquiring Catholics and others can find authentic teaching about marriage. I encourage all those working to educate others about marriage’s meaning to take advantage of the site, especially priests, deacons, catechists and teachers.”

The Marriage: Unique for a Reason website is the latest phase in the USCCB’s ongoing catechetical and educational work on marriage. The initiative began in June 2010 with the release of “Made for Each Other,” and continued in June 2011 with the release of “Made for Life.” Future video resources include a Spanish-language video, and videos about marriage and the common good and marriage and religious liberty, due out next year.

Catholic websites are encouraged to include a web banner linking to the new site, which can be found at www.marriageuniqueforareason.org/media-toolkit. Marriage: Unique for a Reason joins the bishops’ initiatives For Your Marriage (foryourmarriage.org) and Por Tu Matrimonio (www.portumatrimonio.org) in providing web resources for the strengthening, promotion, and protection of marriage.

In a November 1 letter to subcommittee chairman Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-Pennsylvania), Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston urged support for the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179/S. 1467) and other measures to address flaws in health care reform.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) “excluded long standing protections for conscience rights on abortion, by failing to apply the annual Hyde/Weldon amendment to the billions of dollars newly appropriated by the Act,” Cardinal DiNardo wrote. “And it created new open-ended mandates for ‘essential health benefits’ and ‘preventive services’ to be included in almost all private health plans, without any provision for individuals or institutions that may have a moral or religious objection to particular items or procedures.”

Cardinal DiNardo added that the preventive service mandate has been exploited by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to force almost all private insurers to cover contraceptives—including some that can cause early abortions—and sterilizations. This mandate comes with a religious exemption that narrowly defines religious employers as those who employ and serve members of their own religion for the purpose of teaching religious doctrine.

“Jesus and the apostles would not be ‘religious enough’ under such a test, as they served and healed people of different religions,” wrote Cardinal DiNardo. “Catholic organizations committed to their moral and religious teaching will have no choice but to stop providing health care and other services to the needy who are not Catholic, or stop providing health coverage to their own employees. This is an intolerable dilemma, and either choice will mean reduced access to health care.”

Cardinal DiNardo said it was troubling that this reduction in care would occur merely as a result of mandated contraception. “Is the drive to maximize contraceptive coverage, even among those who do not want it, such an urgent national priority that it transcends concerns about religious liberty, our nation’s ‘First Freedom,’ as well as concerns about women’s health and about access to basic health care for men and women alike?” he asked.

He included with his letter an advertisement appearing in Politico, The Hill, Roll Call and CQ Today signed by 22 leaders of Catholic organizations objecting to the “preventive services” mandate.

The full text of Cardinal DiNardo’s letter is available here.

The advertisement featuring the open letter is available here.

To mark the feast of the animal-loving saint, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) posted photos of pets submitted by USCCB Facebook fans as well as a blessing of the animals prayer from the USCCB’s Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers. Background music on the site is songwriter Marty Haugen’s “Canticle of the Sun,” also known as “Praise of the Creatures.” The original hymn is ascribed to St. Francis, the 13th century friar and preacher and one of the most popular saints in Christianity.

Animal lovers can bless their pets using the prayer which asks God: “Reach out with your right hand and grant that these animals may serve our needs and that your bounty in the resources of this life may move us to seek more confidently the goal of eternal life.”

Catholic and Anglican parishes around the country often highlight the feast by holding a blessing of the animals at churches on or around the feast day, which this year falls on a Tuesday.

Pictures on the website indicate the comfort and joy pets bring their owners. They include a picture of a dog lying atop his owner’s hospital bed, a snapshot of Green Bay, Wisconsin Bishop David Ricken’s dog wearing a Packers jersey, and Los Angeles auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala with his pet birds.

St. Francis founded the men’s Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the lay Third Order of Saint Francis. He is known as the patron saint of animals and the environment and with Saint Catherine of Siena is one of the two patron saints of Italy.

The site has two goals:

To help individuals hear and respond to the call by God to the priesthood or consecrated life, and

To educate all Catholics on the importance of encouraging others through prayer and activities to promote vocations.

The Vocations Website can be found at www.ForYourVocation.org. A Spanish-language site will be available this fall at www.PorTuVocacion.org.

Site elements include discernment resources for men and women, respectively, aids for promoting a vocation culture within the home, and a range of tools for educators, youth leaders and vocation directors including prayers, videos, best practices, lesson plans and vocation awareness programs.

In response to Pope Benedict XVI’s 2010 Theme for the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, Witness Awakens Vocations, the site also hosts videos of priests and religious men and women giving witness to their vocations, as well as testimonies from family members.

ForYourVocation.org exemplifies the Vatican’s embrace of new communications media. In his message for the 44th World Day of Communications, Pope Benedict XVI challenges clergy to employ the “latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites)” to put the media “ever more effectively at the service of the Word.”

The launch of the site will be promoted through social media forums. Facebook users can become “eVangelizers” for the cause. By becoming an eVangelizer, one can connect others to the Website’s blog posts.

Dioceses and organizations may link to ForYourVocation.org by following the instructions at the website.

We know from our experience how Pope Benedict is deeply concerned for those who have been harmed by sexual abuse and how he has strengthened the Church’s response to victims and supported our efforts to deal with perpetrators. We continue to intensify our efforts to provide safe environments for children in our parishes and schools. Further, we work with others in our communities to address the prevalence of sexual abuse in the larger society.

One of the most touching moments of the Holy Father’s visit to the United States in 2008 was his private conversation with victims/survivors at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington. Pope Benedict heard firsthand how sexual abuse has devastated lives. The Holy Father spoke with each person and provided every one time to speak freely to him. They shared their painful experiences and he listened, often clasping their hands and responding tenderly and reassuringly.

With the support of both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, we bishops have made a vigorous commitment to do everything in our power to prevent abuse from happening to children. We live out this commitment through the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which calls us to respond with compassion to victims/survivors, to work diligently to screen those working with children and young people in the Church, to provide child abuse awareness and prevention education, to report suspected abuse to civil law enforcement, and to account for our efforts to protect children and youth through an external annual national audit.

As we accompany Christ in His passion and death during this Holy Week, we stand with our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI in prayer for the victims of sexual abuse, for the entire Church and for the world.

Cardinal Francis George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago
President

Bishop Gerald Kicanas
Bishop of Tucson
Vice-President

Bishop George Murry, SJ
Bishop of Youngstown
Secretary

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz
Archbishop of Louisville
Treasurer

Bishop Arthur Serratelli
Bishop of Paterson
Elected Member

On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), we are writing to express our
disappointment that progress has not been made on the three priority criteria for health care reform that we have conveyed previously to Congress. In fact, the Senate Finance Committee rejected a conscience rights amendment accepted earlier by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. If final legislation does not meet our principles, we will have no choice but to oppose the bill. We remain committed to working with the Administration, Congressional leadership, and our allies to produce final health reform legislation that will reflect our principles.

We continue to urge you to

1. Exclude mandated coverage for abortion, and incorporate longstanding policies against abortion funding and in favor of conscience rights. No one should be required to pay for or participate in abortion. It is essential that the legislation clearly apply to this new program longstanding and widely supported federal restrictions on abortion funding and mandates, and protections for rights of conscience. No current bill meets this test.

2. Adopt measures that protect and improve people’s health care. Reform should make quality health care affordable and accessible to everyone, particularly those who are vulnerable and those who live at or near the poverty level.

3. Include effective measures to safeguard the health of immigrants, their children and all of society. Ensure that legal immigrants and their family members have comprehensive, affordable, and timely access to health care coverage. Maintain an adequate safety net for those who remain uncovered.

We sincerely hope that the legislation will not fall short of our criteria. However, we remain apprehensive when amendments protecting freedom of conscience and ensuring no taxpayer money for abortion are defeated in committee votes. If acceptable language in these areas cannot be found, we will have to oppose the health care bill vigorously. Catholic moral tradition teaches that health care is a basic human right, essential to protecting human life and dignity. Much-needed reform of our health care system must be pursued in ways that serve the life and dignity of all, never in ways that undermine or violate these fundamental values. We will work tirelessly to remedy these central problems and help pass real reform that clearly protects the life, dignity and health of all.

Sincerely,
Bishop William F. Murphy Diocese of Rockville Centre
Chairman Committee on Domestic Justice & Human Development
Cardinal Justin Rigali Archdiocese of Philadelphia
Chairman Committee on Pro-Life Activities
Bishop John Wester Diocese of Salt Lake City
Chairman Committee on Migration

Conducted by International Communications Research (ICR) from September 16-20, 2009, the phone survey of 1,043 U.S. adults found that 60 percent favor – and only thirty percent oppose – “efforts to pass health care reform to provide affordable health insurance for all.” Focusing on that sixty percent, the survey found that:

• Sixty percent of those favoring reform oppose – and only 25 percent support – “measures that would require people to pay for abortion coverage with their federal taxes.”
• By a 49-39 percent plurality, those who favor reform oppose “measures that would require people to pay for abortion coverage with their health insurance premiums”; and
• Among those favoring reform, those who favor maintaining “current federal laws that protect doctors and nurses from being forced to perform or refer for abortions against their will” outnumber those who oppose keeping such laws in place by a margin of two to one (60-30).

Opposition to abortion coverage was somewhat stronger in the total sample of U.S. adults – for example, 67 percent of the total sample opposed requiring people to pay for abortion coverage through their taxes and 56 percent opposed making them do so through their insurance premiums.

The survey also asked: “If the choice were up to you, would you want your own insurance policy to include abortion?” Sixty-eight percent of U.S. adults said ‘No’ and only 24 percent said ‘Yes.’

“The USCCB survey confirms other recent polls conducted by Public Opinion Strategies (August 30-September 1) and Rasmussen Reports (September 14-15) on health care policy and abortion,” said Deirdre McQuade, Assistant Director for Policy & Communications at the USCCB’s Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities. “With each passing week it gets clearer: The American public generally does not want to pay for abortion coverage and does not want health care reform used to promote abortion,” she said.

“Abortion is not health care. The bishops of the United States are working hard to ensure that health care reform serves the most vulnerable among us – especially the poor, immigrants, and the unborn,” McQuade said.

For more information on the U.S. bishops’ position on health care reform, visit www.usccb.org/healthcare.

Survey Methodology
ICR / International Communications Research, based in the Philadelphia suburb of Media, PA, is a top-ranked and nationally recognized market research organization. ICR fielded this study in their national, weekly EXCEL Omnibus telephone survey on behalf of the USCCB from September 16-20, 2009, interviewing a nationwide sample of 1,043 adults aged 18 and older. EXCEL is weighted to provide nationally representative and projectable estimates of the population ages 18+. At a 95 percent level of confidence, the margin of error for this sample of 1,043 is +/-3.0 percent. A full methodology and profile of the pollster are available upon request.