Birth control benefit rule riles Minnesota's Catholic bishops
By: ROSE FRENCH, StarTrib, Updated: Feb. 1, 2012 - 10:19 PM
Minnesota bishops ask parishioners to demand changes in new federal health care mandate.
Minnesota's Catholic bishops are joining a nationwide protest against a new federal rule requiring faith-based groups to provide birth control and other reproductive services in health care coverage for employees.
In a letter addressed to Catholic parishioners and read by priests at masses this past weekend, Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt writes that the Obama administration "has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution ... denying to Catholics our nation's first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty.
"And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so)."
Well, some treasure hierarchical mandates, others treasure liberty to live and let live. This is not an intrusion into faith. Anyone compelled by feelings of faith to not practice birth control can act accordingly. There is nobody's mandate to do anything but choose, and to have employers across the board under a common set of civil law rules. What is required is that employers across the board provide certain healthcare coverage or follow an alternative, as the Archbishop himself clearly acknowledges.
Live and let live, man. Life's too short to fight the wrong fights. Concentrate more on protecting children from sexual predation. Or don't. It's not for me to set the Archbishop's agenda, although I am free to suggest, nor is it for him to intrude heavily into employee freedoms and liberty, in the name of "religion."
Employees wanting to go along that way, as the Archbishop imposes demands as not his but of "religion," bless them. Employees wanting to benefit from the federal requirements, bless them. I truly doubt Jesus would be noninclusive or prejudiced, per any such feelings growing from within a hierarchy, advanced in his name.
Again, the entire Strib report, here.
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