I know I'll miss some, so if you know of another letter or statement from a (arch)bishop send it to me in the comment box.
USCCB statement - click here to read
Bishop Olmsted, Phoenix - click here to read
Archbishop Gomez, Los Angeles - click here to read
Bishop McFadden, Harrisburg - click here to read his letter
Bishop Lennon, Cleveland - click here to read his letter
Bishop Zubik, Pittsburgh - click here to read his letter titled "To Hell With You!"
Bishop Blair, Toledo - click here to read
Archbishop Wenski, Miami - click here to read
Archbishop Schnurr, Cincinnati - click here to read
Bishops Vann and Farrell, Dallas Fort Worth - click here to read
Bishop Jugis and Burbridge, North Carolina - click here to read
Bishop Malooly, Wilmington - click here to read
Archbishop Wilton Gregory, Atlanta - click here to read
Bishop Sample, Marquette - click here to read
Bishop Ricken, Green Bay - click here to read
Bishop Taylor, Little Rock - click here to read
Bishop Vlazny, Portland - click here to read
Bishop Jackels, Wichita - click here to read
click here to read Bishop Jackel's homily
Minnesota Catholic Conference click here for their response
Bishop Bradley, Kalamazoo - click here to read
Bishop Lori, Bridgeport - click here to read his statement
click here
Archbishop Carlson, St. Louis - click here to read
Bishop Jenky, Peoria - click here to read his letter
Bishop Conley, Denver - click here to read
Bishop Nickless, Sioux City - click here to read
Bishop Loverde, Arlington - click here to read
Thomas Peters takes up the compilation and has many other names on his site, which you can access by clicking here
Good list, very helpful.
ReplyDeleteA few additions:
Bishop Daniel Jenky, Peoria, who has ordered that the St Michael prayer be offered after each Mass in the diocese in an effort to end this atrocity: http://bishopdanielrjenky.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-post.html
Bishop James Conley, Denver: http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/7518
Bishop Walker Nickless, Sioux City:
http://www.scdioceseschools.org/about.cfm?subpage=1418097
Bishop Paul Loverde, Arlington:
http://www.arlingtondiocese.org/news.php?id=333
Thank you for posting this Father. The scary thing is, how many Catholics will cave on this?
ReplyDeleteWhere is our bishop? Indianapolis needs a voice!
ReplyDeleteI believe that the Indiana bishops are preparing a response as we speak.
DeleteIsn't it more important that people who otherwise could not afford it are being provided with health care?
ReplyDeleteNo Catholic is being asked to use any medicine or procedure that would violate his or her conscience. The diocese is merely being required to do what every employer is required to do: provide coverage for its employees. Can't the Church trust its employees to police their own morality?
It's not just a matter of providing coverage like every other employer. It's me as a taxpayer being forced to pay for a coverage I don't want(and certainly dont believe in) and Catholic institutions being forced to go against their core values and provide intrinsically evil procedures and drugs to their patients or students.
DeleteAs for those who can't afford healthcare, as an RN in an inner city hospital I have yet to see any patient ever turned away, and in fact I see a number of the same patients come thru the ER on a weekly to monthly basis.
And what next for a pro-life RN like myself? What could I be asked to be a part of next, administering lethal doses of meds to persons deemed unworthy or too much of a burden on their family or society. Unplug ventilators or maybe place a pillow over a patients face. (none of this I'd be willing to do, of course) But don't be naive anonymous and Kevin,we are on a very slippery slop. You won't be young and healthy forever. What are you going to do when they come for you?
Oh, sorry Kevin didn't actually mean to make you apart of my rant, misread one anonymous comments as yours. Apologies!!
DeleteYou must not be paying attention Anonymous. This will require employees of the Catholic Church (hospitals, schools, Catholic charities, etc.) to perform sterilizations and provide contraceptives such as the morning after pill (actually an abortifacient). Imagine a nun who spends her who vocation fighting for the Pro-Life cause being forced by her government to provide and support through taxation the very things she has been working against.
ReplyDeleteDo not be fooled, this is an assault against the religious liberties of all Catholics. What will be next if we cede to this issue?
Anonymous @ 5:58pm - First of all, there are number of groups who have who have gotten exmemptions from Obamacare; including other religious groups. Second, this is not a question of whether Catholic Dioceses and institutions provide their employees with health insurance; rather it is a question of what procedures and services are required to be covered and whether the Government can force an individual or group to act in violation of its religious beliefs. To force Catholic Dioceses and institutuions to pay for insurance which covers sterilzations and contraceptives, including abortifacients is wrong, unconstitutional and immoral. This action is similar to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 in which the Government forced those against slavery to act in violation of their conscience and become accomplices to that evil. This ruling by the Obama Administration is forcing the Catholic Church to become an accomplice to the evil of birth control, sterilzations and abortifacients. It is one thing if you want to kill your unborn child, but it is quite another when you force me to help you.
ReplyDeletePrior to the new Healthcare Bill, Catholic institutions had to pay their employees legal tender that the employees could use to purchase ABC. What's the difference?
ReplyDeleteWhy was there no outcry when Bush signed Medicare Part B (or was it D?) that gave your tax dollars to pharmacutical companies that produce ABC?
Anonymous@1:51PM - I'm not really sure what you mean by "ABC". Is that a specific drug or is that a placeholder like "x" and "y" would be in a math equation? I'm curious as to what your response would be if "ABC" were cigarettes. I mean some people are going to smoke, so why not force all employers to provide their employees who smoke with cigarettes for free? What's the difference, right? I could come up a couple of more deviant behaviors to use for "ABC" but I will refrain from doing so since this is blog belongs to a Priest.
ReplyDeleteAs for Medicare Part D - I'm not sure of the point you are trying to make.
If anything this is just another example of the government . . . No not the government, but another example of the Left and the Secularists wanting to impose its will and morals on the Catholic Church. Even during wartime, draftees were able to opt-out of combat service as a Contientious Objector. But under this Administration, everyone must to succumb to its definition of morality or pay the price. The only morals that matters are those of the Secularists - everyone else be damned.
ReplyDeleteABC is artificial birth control, aka The Pill.
ReplyDeleteMy point was that Catholic institutions have always compensated their employees through salary and benifiets (ie health insurance). Right now, any of those employees is able to take a portion of their salary and go buy birth control. The big uproar seems to be that in a year they will not be using their salary but their other form of compensation (health care) to do the exact same thing. Either way, they are using compensation from a Catholic institution to purchase birth control. Nothing has changed except which form of compensation is used to purchase it.
This is really the dumbest argument I have ever heard. So because an employee uses his/her paycheck for something that his employer finds morally repugnant, the employer should have not problem being forced to purchase the morally repugnant item for the employee. This makes NO sense. That is like saying a parent who gives an allowance to a teen who then uses the money to buy drugs, should have not objections to being forced to purchase the drugs outright and give them to the teen.
DeleteYou aren't going to be forced to buy birth control for your employees, you are giving your employees compensation with which they can make the choice, or not, to buy birth control. Same as before.
ReplyDeleteThat statement is patently false and you know it. There is a difference between compensation (wages, salary) and benefits (insurance). In reality, any service which is offered by the insurance company IS being purchased by the employer, regardless of whether the employee uses it or not. I think if you are going discuss this issue, then you should at least understand how insurance works (which you clearly don't) and know the differences between compensation and benefits (again, you don't understand). And if it were really the "same as before" as you put it, then there is absolutely no reason to require Catholic Institutions to provide it.
DeleteAnon, you are drinking the Obama Kool-Aid my friend. So what you are saying is that the 100+ bishops and all the commentators who are looking at things from the perspective of the Church are WRONG, and that in fact, nothing actually changes with this law and that in fact our religious liberty is not in any way being threatened by the new law?
ReplyDelete