Basic religious freedoms at risk
In a recent posting on his diocesan website, Catholic Bishop David A. Zubik, of Pittsburgh, said the Obama administration is telling American Catholics “To hell with you.”
The bishop was responding to a regulation, finalized by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Jan. 20, which orders all health care plans in the United States to cover sterilization and all FDA-approved contraceptives — including those that induce abortions — without any fees or co-pay. Sebelius, and through her, the Obama administration, the bishop wrote, “have said ‘To hell with you’ to the Catholic faithful of the United States, to hell with your religious beliefs, to hell with your religious liberty, to hell with your freedom of conscience.”
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion are morally wrong and that Catholics cannot be involved in them. After the regulation was first announced in August, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic lay leaders urged the administration to rescind it while pointing out that it would require Catholics to act against their consciences and their faith and was thus a violation of the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.
Sebelius announced that the regulation would take effect for individuals and private business as of Aug. 1 of this year.
She said that religiously affiliated nonprofit organizations — such as Catholic hospitals, universities and charitable organizations — would be given until Aug. 1, 2013, to “adapt” to the regulation, but then they would be required to adhere to it also.
As Bishop Zubik said, “This whole process of mandating these guidelines undermines the democratic process itself … . This is government by fiat that attacks the rights of everyone — not only Catholics … . At no other time in memory or history has there been such a governmental intrusion on freedom, not only with regard to religion, but even across-the-board with all citizens.”
This corrupt, tyrannical administration is trying to seize a power the U.S. government has never had. The issues of state dictated moral choices go far beyond contraception; they go to the heart of our national identity and our historic understanding of our democratic form of government.
WILLIAM E. KELLER
Lynchburg
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