HHS Mandate Decision
Represents Return to Common Sense
October 6, 2017
WASHINGTON–Today’s decision to
expand the HHS mandate exemption is a “return to common sense, long-standing
federal practice, and peaceful coexistence between church and state,” according
to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Cardinal Daniel N.
DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston and President of the USCCB, and
Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the USCCB’s Ad Hoc
Committee for Religious Liberty, are hailing the Trump Administration’s
announcement to provide a broad religious and moral exemption from the mandate
requiring health insurance coverage of sterilization, contraception, and drugs
and devices that may cause abortions.
Cardinal DiNardo and Archbishop
Lori offered the following joint statement in response:
“The Administration’s decision to
provide a broad religious and moral exemption to the HHS mandate recognizes
that the full range of faith-based and mission-driven organizations, as well as
the people who run them, have deeply held religious and moral beliefs that the
law must respect. Such an exemption is no innovation, but instead a
return to common sense, long-standing federal practice, and peaceful
coexistence between church and state. It corrects an anomalous failure by
federal regulators that should never have occurred and should never be
repeated.
“These regulations are good news
for the Little Sisters of the Poor and others who are challenging the HHS
mandate in court. We urge the government to take the next logical step
and promptly resolve the litigation that the Supreme Court has urged the
parties to settle.
“The regulations are also good news
for all Americans. A government mandate that coerces people to make an
impossible choice between obeying their consciences and obeying the call to
serve the poor is harmful not only to Catholics but to the common good.
Religious freedom is a fundamental right for all, so when it is threatened for
some, it is threatened for all. We welcome the news that this particular threat
to religious freedom has been lifted, and with the encouragement of Pope
Francis, we will remain ‘vigilant, precisely as good citizens, to preserve and
defend that freedom from everything that would threaten or compromise it.’”
Keywords: Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Archbishop William Lori, U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, HHS mandate, Little Sisters of the Poor, contraceptives, religious
liberty, religious freedom
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