Catholic Fire

Via Life News : Leading pro-life groups don’t have much good to say about the proposed changes the HHS department announced today to the Obamacare mandate that forces religious groups and religiously-run companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs. The Christian Medical Association (CMA), the nation’s largest faith-based association of physicians, today called the administration’s policy announcement regarding its contraceptives and sterilization mandate “unacceptable,” noting that the ruling still flouts the First Amendment . CMA CEO Dr. David Stevens said, “This latest version of the contraceptives and sterilization mandate remains unacceptable. Since when does the government get to pick and choose which groups will get to enjoy First Amendment protections? Our founders intended the First Amendment to protect every American’s freedom to act according to one’s conscience. They didn’t specify that only groups deemed religious will be afforded this protection...

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has ruled that a small Catholic college must include coverage for artificial contraceptives in its employee health insurance plan, raising new concerns about the need for conscience protections and religious exemptions in America’s health care policies. T he Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) today sent a letter to EEOC acting chairman Stuart Ishimaru, noting that “it is ironic that the federal agency responsible for protecting against discrimination has so blatantly engaged in an inexcusable violation of religious liberty in its Belmont Abbey ruling.” CNS also is sending a letter to all Catholic bishops in the United States, informing them of the EEOC action against Belmont Abbey College and highlighting the dangerous precedent this ruling sets to force Catholic employers to included contraceptive coverage in employee health plans. “No Catholic college or other institution should be required by government to violate the Catholic Chu...

More than 4,000 Catholics from around the state stood in the drizzle on the north lawn of the state Capitol this morning to protest a bill that would have changed the way the church governs itself. The bill, initially scheduled for a public hearing today before the legislature's judiciary committee, was pulled amid questions over its constitutionality. But an informal hearing on the bill was called by Republican legislative leaders."The co-chairs decided for whatever reason to cancel everything ... but there are an awful lot of folks who feel very passionately about this issue," Sen. John Kissel of Enfield, the ranking Republican on the judiciary committee, said. "We don't have the authority to call a formal hearing. But we felt it would be good for those folks who wanted to come down here to express their views."At that hearing, John Garvey, dean of Boston College's law school, said that the bill as drafted is, indeed, unconstitutional." It violate...