Obama to Catholics: “To Hell With You”

A few months back, the Department of Health and Human Services released guidelines mandating that by the summer of 2012, all individual and group insurance plans must cover contraception, sterilization procedures, and abortion inducing drugs. Prior to the passage of Obama-care, one of the many criticisms of the plan was that it would ultimately violate the religious liberties of employers and individuals. The Administration assured us that the religious conscience of the people would be safe. We see now that was another lie.

In an editorial, Catholic Bishop, David Zubik, had some hard hitting words about the Catholic response to the new guidelines. Here are some highlights from his column:

It is really hard to believe that it happened. It comes like a slap in the face. The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, “To hell with you!” There is no other way to put it.

A million things are wrong with this: equating pregnancy with disease; mandating that every employer pay for contraception procedures, including alleged contraceptives that are actually abortion-inducing drugs; forcing American citizens to choose between violating their consciences or providing health care services; mandating such coverage on every individual woman without allowing her to even choose not to have it; and forcing every person to pay for that coverage no matter the dictates of their conscience.

So-called exemption

Let’s be blunt. This whole process of mandating these guidelines undermines the democratic process itself. In this instance, the mandate declares pregnancy a disease, forces a culture of contraception and abortion on society, all while completely bypassing the legislative process. 

This is government by fiat that attacks the rights of everyone — not only Catholics; not only people of all religions. 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. It forces every employer to subsidize an ideology or pay a penalty while searching for alternatives to health care coverage. It undermines the whole concept and hope for health care reform by inextricably linking it to the zealotry of pro-abortion bureaucrats.

For our church this mandate would apply in virtually every instance where the Catholic Church serves as an employer. The mandate would require the Catholic Church as an employer to violate its fundamental beliefs concerning human life and human dignity by forcing Catholic entities to provide contraceptive, sterilization coverage and even pharmaceuticals that result in abortion.There was a so-called “religious exemption” to the mandate, but it was so narrowly drawn that, as critics charged, Jesus Christ and his apostles would not fit the exemption. The so-called exemption would only apply to the vast array of Catholic institutions where the following applied:

• Only Catholics are employed;• The primary purpose of the institution or service provided is the direct instruction in Catholic belief;• The only people served by the institution are those who share Catholic religious tenets. (Try to fit this in with our local Catholic Charities, which serves 80,000 every year without discrimination according to faith. It would be impossible!)

Practically speaking, under the proposed mandate there would be no “religious exemption” for Catholic hospitals, universities, colleges, nursing homes and numerous Catholic social service agencies such as Catholic Charities. It could easily be determined that the “religious exemption” would not apply as well to Catholic high schools, elementary schools and parishes since many employ non-Catholics and serve both Catholic students and, through social outreach, many who do not share our religious beliefs. Such a narrow “religious exemption” is simply unprecedented in federal law.

Kathleen Sebelius, and through her the Obama administration, 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.

We’ll give you a year, they are saying, and then you have to knuckle under.

I could not have said it any better. I've said before that I'm not a Catholic. However, it's no stretch of the imagination to see how these guidelines are a threat to the religious liberty of all believers. It even erodes the rights of non-believers since it establishes a precedent that the government's agenda for a better society trumps individual liberties.

This is another call to arms. We need to let our legislators know that we will not stand still while our God given rights are trampled by the very government we established to protect them. We need to challenge this in the courts and we need to defeat its advocates at the ballot box.

Hopefully, November of 2012 will be the end of the Obama administration and the beginning of the repeal of Obama-care.