President Obama recently mandated that all employers provide coverage of contraceptives, including abortifacients and sterilization. This requirement provides no exception for religious institutions which oppose their use.
A mandate is a requirement; a command. It eliminates choice. When we abandon respect for the dissenting views of others, especially those with explicit constitutional protection, and require that those dissenting institutions fund a violation of their own religious principles we enter into entirely new territory.
Setting aside the autocratic nature of such mandates, requiring the Catholic Church to pay for these services is as blatant an assault in religious liberty as has happened in my lifetime. Archbishop of New York; Cardinal Dolan has spoken out against such federally commanded violations of their religious principles.
I have included Cardinal Dolan’s letter to his brother bishops. I’m confident our MSM has been more diligent in making sure we are all aware that Rush Limbaugh called an advocate for President Obama’s policy a slut than reporting the Cardinal’s letter.
Office of the President
3211 FOURTH STREET NE
WASHINGTON DC 20017-1194
202-541-3100
FAX 202-541-3166
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan
Archbishop of New York
President
March 2, 2012
My brother bishops,
Twice in recent weeks, I have written you to express my gratitude for our unity in faith
and action as we move forward to protect our religious freedom from unprecedented intrusion
from a government bureau, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). I remain
deeply grateful to you for your determined resolve, to the Chairmen of our committees directly
engaged in these efforts – Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Bishop Stephen
Blaire and Bishop William Lori -who have again shown themselves to be such excellent leaders
during these past weeks, and to all our staff at the USCCB who work so diligently under the
direction of the Conference leadership.
How fortunate that we as a body have had opportunities during our past plenary
assemblies to manifest our strong unity in defense of religious freedom. We rely on that unity
now more than ever as HHS seeks to define what constitutes church ministry and how it can be
exercised. We will once again dedicate ample time at our Administrative Committee meeting
next week, and at the June Plenary Assembly, to this critical subject. We will continue to listen,
discuss, deliberate and act.
Thank you, brothers, for the opportunity to provide this update to you and the dioceses
you serve. Many of you have expressed your thanks for what we have achieved together in so
few weeks, especially the data provided and the leadership given by brother bishops, our
conference staff and Catholic faithful. And you now ask the obvious question, “What’s next?”
Please allow me to share with you now some thoughts about events and efforts to date and where
we might go next.
Since January 20, when the final, restrictive HHS Rule was first announced, we have
become certain of two things: religious freedom is under attack, and we will not cease our
struggle to protect it. We recall the words of our Holy Father Benedict XVI to our brother
bishops on their recent ad limina visit: “Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to
limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion.” Bishop Stephen Blaire
and Bishop William Lori, with so many others, have admirably kept us focused on this one
priority of protecting religious freedom. We have made it clear in no uncertain terms to the
government that we are not at peace with its invasive attempt to curtail the religious freedom we
cherish as Catholics and Americans. We did not ask for this fight, but we will not run from it.
As pastors and shepherds, each of us would prefer to spend our energy engaged in and
promoting the works of mercy to which the Church is dedicated: healing the sick, teaching our
youth, and helping the poor. Yet, precisely because we are pastors and shepherds, we recognize
that each of the ministries entrusted to us by Jesus is now in jeopardy due to this bureaucratic
intrusion into the internal life of the church. You and I both know well that we were doing those
extensive and noble works rather well without these radical new constrictive and forbidding
mandates. Our Church has a long tradition of effective partnership with government and the
wider community in the service of the sick, our children, our elders, and the poor at home and
abroad, and we sure hope to continue it.
Of course, we maintained from the start that this is not a “Catholic” fight alone. I like to
quote as often as possible a nurse who emailed me, “I’m not so much mad about all this as a
Catholic, but as an American.” And as we recall, a Baptist minister, Governor Mike Huckabee,
observed, “In this matter, we’re all Catholics.” No doubt you have heard numerous statements
just like these. We are grateful to know so many of our fellow Americans, especially our friends
in the ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, stand together in this important moment in our
country. They know that this is not just about sterilization, abortifacients, and chemical
contraception. It’s about religious freedom, the sacred right of any Church to define its own
teaching and ministry.
When the President announced on January 20th that the choking mandates from HHS
would remain, not only we bishops and our Catholic faithful, but people of every faith, or none at
all, rallied in protest. The worry that we had expressed — that such government control was
contrary to our deepest political values — was eloquently articulated by constitutional scholars
and leaders of every creed.
On February 10th, the President announced that the insurance providers would have to
pay the bill, instead of the Church’s schools, hospitals, clinics, or vast network of charitable
outreach having to do so. He considered this “concession” adequate. Did this help? We
wondered if it would, and you will recall that the Conference announced at first that, while
withholding final judgment, we would certainly give the President’s proposal close scrutiny.
Well, we did — and as you know, we are as worried as ever.
For one, there was not even a nod to the deeper concerns about trespassing upon religious
freedom, or of modifying the HHS’ attempt to define the how and who of our ministry. Two,
since a big part of our ministries are “self-insured,” we still ask how this protects us. We’ll still
have to pay and, in addition to that, we’ll still have to maintain in our policies practices which
our Church has consistently taught are grave wrongs in which we cannot participate. And what
about forcing individual believers to pay for what violates their religious freedom and
conscience? We can’t abandon the hard working person of faith who has a right to religious
freedom. And three, there was still no resolution about the handcuffs placed upon renowned
Catholic charitable agencies, both national and international, and their exclusion from contracts
just because they will not refer victims of human trafficking, immigrants and refugees, and the
hungry of the world, for abortions, sterilization, or contraception. In many ways, the
announcement of February 10 solved little and complicated a lot. We now have more questions
than answers, more confusion than clarity.
So the important question arises: What to do now? How can we bishops best respond,
especially united in our common pastoral ministry as an Episcopal Conference? For one, under
the ongoing leadership of Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Bishop Blaire and
Bishop Lori we will continue our strong efforts of advocacy and education. In the coming
weeks the Conference will continue to provide you, among other things, with catechetical
resources on the significance of religious freedom to the Church and the Church’s teaching on it
from a doctrinal and moral perspective. We are developing liturgical aids to encourage prayer in
our efforts and plans on how we can continue to voice our public and strong opposition to this
infringement on our freedom. And the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, that has served
the Conference so well in its short lifespan, will continue its extraordinary work in service to this
important cause.
Two, we will ardently continue to seek a rescinding of the suffocating mandates that
require us to violate our moral convictions, or at least insist upon a much wider latitude to the
exemptions so that churches can be free of the new, rigidly narrow definition of church, minister
and ministry that would prevent us from helping those in need, educating children and healing
the sick, no matter their religion.
In this regard, the President invited us to “work out the wrinkles.” We have accepted that
invitation. Unfortunately, this seems to be stalled: the White House Press Secretary, for instance,
informed the nation that the mandates are a fait accompli (and, embarrassingly for him,
commented that we bishops have always opposed Health Care anyway, a charge that is
scurrilous and insulting, not to mention flat out wrong. Bishop Blaire did a fine job of setting the
record straight.) The White House already notified Congress that the dreaded mandates are now
published in the Federal Registry “without change.” The Secretary of HHS is widely quoted as
saying, “Religious insurance companies don’t really design the plans they sell based on their
own religious tenets.” That doesn’t bode well for their getting a truly acceptable
“accommodation.”
At a recent meeting between staff of the bishops’ conference and the White House staff,
our staff members asked directly whether the broader concerns of religious freedom—that is,
revisiting the straight-jacketing mandates, or broadening the maligned exemption—are all off the
table. They were informed that they are. So much for “working out the wrinkles.” Instead, they
advised the bishops’ conference that we should listen to the “enlightened” voices of
accommodation, such as the recent, hardly surprising yet terribly unfortunate editorial in
America. The White House seems to think we bishops simply do not know or understand
Catholic teaching and so, taking a cue from its own definition of religious freedom, now has
nominated its own handpicked official Catholic teachers.
We will continue to accept invitations to meet with and to voice our concerns to anyone
of any party, for this is hardly partisan, who is willing to correct the infringements on religious
freedom that we are now under. But as we do so, we cannot rely on off the record promises of
fixes without deadlines and without assurances of proposals that will concretely address the
concerns in a manner that does not conflict with our principles and teaching.
Congress might provide more hope, since thoughtful elected officials have proposed
legislation to protect what should be so obvious: religious freedom. Meanwhile, in our recent
debate in the senate, our opponents sought to obscure what is really a religious freedom issue by
maintaining that abortion inducing drugs and the like are a “woman’s health issue.” We will not
let this deception stand. Our commitment to seeking legislative remedies remains strong. And it
is about remedies to the assault on religious freedom. Period. (By the way, the Church hardly
needs to be lectured about health care for women. Thanks mostly to our Sisters, the Church is
the largest private provider of health care for women and their babies in the country.) Bishop
William Lori, Chairman of our Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, stated it well in a recent
press release: “We will build on this base of support as we pursue legislation in the House of
Representatives, urge the Administration to change its course on this issue, and explore our legal
rights under the Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
Perhaps the courts offer the most light. In the recent Hosanna-Tabor ruling, the Supreme
Court unanimously defended the right of a Church to define its own ministry and services, a
dramatic rebuff to the administration, apparently unheeded by the White House. Thus, our
bishops’ conference, many individual religious entities, and other people of good will are
working with some top-notch law firms who feel so strongly about this that they will represent us
pro-bono. In the upcoming days, you will hear much more about this encouraging and welcome
development.
Given this climate, we have to prepare for tough times. Some, like America magazine,
want us to cave-in and stop fighting, saying this is simply a policy issue; some want us to close
everything down rather than comply (In an excellent article, Cardinal Francis George wrote that
the administration apparently wants us to “give up for Lent” our schools, hospitals, and
charitable ministries); some, like Bishop Robert Lynch wisely noted, wonder whether we might
have to engage in civil disobedience and risk steep fines; some worry that we’ll have to face a
decision between two ethically repugnant choices: subsidizing immoral services or no longer
offering insurance coverage, a road none of us wants to travel.
Brothers, we know so very well that religious freedom is our heritage, our legacy and our
firm belief, both as loyal Catholics and Americans. There have been many threats to religious
freedom over the decades and years, but these often came from without. This one sadly comes
from within. As our ancestors did with previous threats, we will tirelessly defend the timeless
and enduring truth of religious freedom.
I look forward to our upcoming Administrative Board Meeting and our June Plenary
Assembly when we will have the chance to discuss together these important issues and our way
forward in addressing them. And I renew my thanks to you for your tremendous, fraternal
support and your welcome observations in this critical effort to protect our religious freedom.
With prayerful best wishes, I am
Fraternally in Christ,
Timothy Cardinal Dolan
Archbishop of New York
President, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Keep these things in mind
