ANTI-CATHOLICS BASH THE BISHOPS
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a letter recently sent to Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, by Catholics for Choice and several other organizations:
Catholics for Choice (formerly Catholics for a Free Choice) has teamed up with other anti-Catholics—many of whom have been excommunicated from the Catholic Church—to assail the bishops. What is exercising them now is the determination of the bishops to denounce the anti-Catholic provisions of the Obamacare legislation: the Church leadership is protesting the proposed mandate that Catholic healthcare providers offer contraceptive and sterilization services (the opt-out stipulations are functionally non-existent).
"As progressive Catholic organizations," the first sentence of the letter reads, "our social justice tradition compels us to speak out and advocate for the least among us." But the least among us are the most defenseless among us, namely, the unborn. It is precisely this segment of the population that these people say are not deserving of the right to life.
The letter is published in the dissident weekly, the National Catholic Reporter. The headline is revealing: "What the Bishops Won't Tell You." In other words, the bishops are lying to Catholics. They go so far as to oppose the most elemental of all civil liberties—the right to conscientiously object, on the basis of religion, to state strictures mandating compliance with acts deemed immoral. The letter even refers to "burdensome conscience clauses." (My italic.)
By pitting themselves against opt-out provisions like conscience clauses, these activists are proving what practicing Catholics have been saying all along: those who want Obamacare want to shove their secular agenda down the throats of the faithful. Nothing bothers them more than diversity—they want a "one size fits all" bill that codifies their politics.
Contact National Catholic Reporter editor Tom Fox: tfox@ncronline.org
Contact our director of communications about Donohue’s remarks:
Jeff Field
Phone: 212-371-3191
E-mail: cl@catholicleague.org
