43 Catholic entities file a federal suit
to stop Obama administration from enforcing
anti-religious freedom health mandate
Plaintifss include Archdioceses of New York
and Washington, DC, and Notre Dame University
WASHINGTON, May 21 (CNS) -- Forty-three Catholic dioceses, schools, hospitals, social service agencies and other institutions filed suit in federal court May 21 to stop three government agencies from implementing a mandate that would require them to cover contraceptives and sterilization in their health plans.
"Through this lawsuit, plaintiffs do not seek to impose their religious beliefs on others," said one of the suits, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana by the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, diocesan Catholic Charities, St. Anne Home and Retirement Community, Franciscan Alliance, University of St. Francis and Our Sunday Visitor.
"They simply ask that the government not impose its values and policies on plaintiffs, in direct violation of their religious beliefs," it added. Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, whose archdiocese is among the plaintiffs (as is the ARchdiocese of Washington DC), said the lawsuits were "a compelling display of the unity of the Church in defense of religious liberty" and "a great show of the diversity of the Church's ministries that serve the common good and that are jeopardized by the mandate".
"We have tried negotiations with the administration and legislation with the Congress -- and we'll keep at it -- but there's still no fix," the cardinal said. "Time is running out and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now."
Cardinal Dolan also is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is not a party to the lawsuits.
Catholic organizations have objected to the contraceptive mandate since it was announced last Aug. 1 by Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Unless they are subject to a narrow religious exemption or have a grandfathered health plan, employers will be required to pay for sterilizations and contraceptives, including some abortion-inducing drugs, as part of their health coverage beginning as soon as Aug. 1, 2012.
Strange bedfellows... Notre Dame U sides with Catholic orthodoxy on this issue! Now it says NO-BAMA!, as did those who protested in 2009 when Notre Dame honored an openly pro-abortion President Obama by asking him to be commencement speaker.
Notre Dame files lawsuit
to block to HHS mandate
May 21, 2012
The University of Notre Dame filed a lawsuit Monday, May 21, challenging the constitutionality of a federal regulation that requires religious organizations to provide, pay for, and/or facilitate insurance coverage for services that violate the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, the lawsuit names as defendants Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and their respective departments.
The federal 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. It also authorizes the government to determine which organizations are sufficiently “religious” to warrant an exemption from the requirement.
Notre Dame’s lawsuit charges that these components of the regulation are a violation of the religious liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and other federal laws.
“This filing is about the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission, and its significance goes well beyond any debate about contraceptives,” Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president, wrote in a message to members of the campus community.
“If we concede that the government can decide which religious organizations are sufficiently religious to be awarded the freedom to follow the principles that define their mission, then we have begun to walk down a path that ultimately leads to the undermining of those institutions."
Notre Dame’s lawsuit was one of 12 filed Monday against the federal government by 43 plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of the regulation.
P.S. Last week, Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, became the first Catholic institution to drop its health plan for students by reason of conscientious objection to a most controversial law whose constitutionality will be decided by the US Supreme Court in June, and 2) because the new health mandate would raise the cost of insuring each student to $3000 per student the first year, and possibly double the next year.
A day later, Ave Maria University in Florida also announced it was considering to do what Franciscan U did.
(The consequences of Obamacare whose details not even the lawmakers who voted for it ever bothered to read ("You have to pass it to know what's in it," Nancy Pelosi infamously said on the eve of the vote] are becoming increasingly horrendous daily, with the net effect that 1) it will cause most employers to drop their health insurance plans; 2) it is already depriving Medicare and Medicaid of funding in order to pay for its other programs; 3) doctors are near-unanimous in saying this will mean less doctors accepting insurance payment, less doctors to serve a potentially greater pool of insured, and overall poorer health care; and 4) worse of all, it has already driven the cost of health insurance considerably. It's the law of intended consequences - while proclaiming the best of intentions (paving the road to hell) - gone totally haywire.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/05/2012 15:36]