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Catholic News Service
This is one in a series of stories examining the positions of the major presidential candidates.
At the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., the differences on abortion between President Barack Obama and his Republican presidential opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, were clear.
Catholic News Service
The teachings of the Second Vatican Council are neither optional nor second-class, but must be seen in the proper context, the former prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said Sept. 26 as he opened a conference at The Catholic University of America in Washington.
The talk by Cardinal William J. Levada focused on three events that share an Oct. 11 date, the opening of Vatican II 50 years ago, the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church 20 years ago and the upcoming opening of the Year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI.
Catholic News Service
This is one in a series of stories examining the positions of the major presidential candidates.
WASHINGTON — There are few issues in the 2012 presidential campaign on which the major candidates have more clearly differentiated opinions than health care.
Much of President Barack Obama’s stand on health care is built on provisions of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, has said should be repealed.
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON — Saying that the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 28 decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “leaves intact a grave assault to religious freedoms,” Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., announced July 10 that he would introduce the Religious Freedom Tax Repeal Act.
The bill, which has 57 co-sponsors, would allow employers who have religious or moral objections to covering certain preventive services mandated by the health reform law to decline to provide them through their health insurance plans without facing taxes, penalties or enforcement actions for their noncompliance.
The Supreme Court ruled June 28 that it was constitutional for Congress to require individuals to purchase health insurance under its authority to tax.
Sensenbrenner said the health reform law “gives the federal government the tools to tax religiously affiliated schools, hospitals, universities and soup kitchens right out of existence” by imposing penalties of up to $100 per employee per day on employers who fail to provide services mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services, which include sterilizations and contraceptives, including some abortion-causing drugs.
A religious institution with 50 employees, for example, could face penalties of up to $36,500 per employee per year, or more than $1.8 million per year, he said.
“Obviously, if these taxes are levied and they are enforced, there will be no religious-affiliated institutions left in this country,” said Sensenbrenner, former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
“Religious-affiliated institutions, I think, have been one of the ways that there has been diversity provided in education, in health care and in various types of social services and relief services,” he added. “I don’t think they should be taxed out of business, and neither do my co-sponsors.”
To be exempt from the mandate, a religious organization must have “the inculcation of religious values as its purpose”; primarily employ “persons who share its religious tenets”; primarily serve “persons who share its religious tenets”; and be a nonprofit organization under specific sections of the Internal Revenue Code.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has not taken a stand on the Religious Freedom Tax Repeal Act, according to Mercy Sister Mary Ann Walsh, USCCB director of media relations.
But the leaders of a lay-led organization called the Catholic Association said in a news release that they would “fully engage the Catholic grass-roots to support this legislation to preserve religious freedom and restore the long-standing bipartisan consensus on conscience protections.”
“The president is attempting to reshape religion in this country by forcing religious organizations like Catholic Charities USA, which alone serves more than 9 million people each year, to pay millions to the government for simply practicing their faith,” said Maureen Ferguson and Ashley McGuire, senior policy adviser and senior fellow, respectively, of the new organization.
The Catholic Association describes itself as a group “dedicated to being a faithful Catholic voice in the public square and the public arena.”
A new interfaith organization called Conscience Cause also pledged to support the legislation.
Catholic News Service
LANDOVER, Md. — Duery Felton Jr. calls them “icons.”
The religious articles gathered up each day at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington are just a small part of the estimated 400,000 items left in honor of a veteran and collected twice daily by National Park Service employees since the memorial opened 30 years ago.
But for Felton, curator of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection held at the Museum Resource Center in Landover, many of the items represent a mystery that will never be solved.
He holds up a small cross on a pedestal. A piece of paper affixed to the bottom says the cross was made from square nails used to build the original St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Kasson, Minn., in 1873.
But that doesn’t answer Felton’s many questions: Who left the item and for whom? What did the church mean to the veteran or the person who left the cross? Read more »
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 28 decision upholding the health reform law makes it even more urgent for Congress to act to fix the law’s “fundamental flaws” on abortion funding, conscience protection and immigrants’ access to health care, the U.S. bishops said.
The court found that although the individual mandate in the 2010 health reform law does not pass constitutional muster under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, it can be upheld as an acceptable exercise of Congress’ taxing powers. Read more »
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court, in a mixed opinion with several dissents, affirmed the section of an Arizona immigration law that requires state law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of detainees who they suspect are in the country illegally.
But the court threw out other parts of the law, called S.B. 1070, as an infringement on the powers of the federal government.
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON — The Catholic Health Association, a major supporter of President Barack Obama’s health reform law, is urging the government to expand its definition of religious employers who are exempt from the requirement to provide contraceptives and sterilization free of charge to their employees.
In comments filed June 15 with the Department of Health and Human Services, the top three CHA officials also said the Obama administration should provide and pay for the contraceptives itself if it insists that they must be provided at no cost to women.
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON — The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith warned June 4 that Mercy Sister Margaret Farley’s 2006 book, “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics,” contains “erroneous propositions” on homosexual acts, same-sex marriage, masturbation and remarriage after divorce that could cause confusion and “grave harm to the faithful.”
In a notification signed by U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada and approved March 16 by Pope Benedict XVI, the congregation said the book “is not in conformity with the teaching of the church” and “cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching, either in counseling and formation, or in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.”
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON — Forty-three Catholic dioceses, schools, hospitals, social service agencies and other institutions filed suit in federal court May 21 to stop three government agencies from implementing a mandate that would require them to provide contraceptives and sterilization to their employees. (See list of plaintiffs at end of story.)
“Through this lawsuit, plaintiffs do not seek to impose their religious beliefs on others,” said one of the suits, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana by the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Catholic Charities of the diocese, St. Anne Home and Retirement Community, Franciscan Alliance, University of St. Francis and Our Sunday Visitor.
