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Suppose Obama wins in November. And suppose a Catholic hospital somewhere - let's say St. Blaise in Anytown, California - refuses to provide free insurance coverage for contraceptives and sterilizations to its employees.
The hospital is warned, but does not comply.
HHS then levies a stiff fine on the hospital and demands compliance.
St. Blaise refuses to pay the fine and continues its non-compliance, essentially ignoring the immoral directives.
HHS compounds the fines and issues a final warning.
St. Blaise calls a press conference and issues a formal statement on the issue. The board of directors tells the world that the Obama administration's demands are a violation of the hospital's Catholic allegiance, identity, and mission. The statement then proceeds to explain why contraception and sterilization are sinful from a Catholic perspective, and that the hospital cannot in good conscience fund or deliberately facilitate immoral acts.
What does the Obama administration do at this point? Send in U.S. deputy marshalls to jail the directors and put them on trial? Send federal troops in to close the hospital? What if it's not just one hospital, but fifty or a hundred. There are nearly six hundred Catholic hospitals in the United States today. Is Obama bluffing or does he mean business?
Trick question. Once Obama wins reelection, he's turning over the keys to the country to the U.N. immediately, at which he will presumably retire to some sort of secular atheist black liberation madrassa. I know this is going to happen, because I've read that it will from several credible sources in this forum.
I don't know who heads the hospital at St. Blaise in Anytown, CA, but I'm thinking of a Catholic hospital in Chicago that is headed by a nun. I can't imagine that Obama is going put a nun on trial. The funny thing is is that the nun is probably fine with birth control being offered. And really what is "natural family planning" that the Church teaches but birth control? It's the same kind of splitting hairs that occurs with marriage annulments.
But whatever happened to the question of free will? In offering contraception as an option, the Church is not automatically sanctioning its use. It's merely a reflection of a modern day reality. It is up to individual Catholics to decide for themselves whether or not they use contraception. And why deny contraception to people who happen to work at a Catholic hospital but aren't Catholic?
"Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude . . . Freedom is exercised in relationships between human beings. Every human person, created in the image of God, has the natural right to be recognized as a free and responsible being. All owe to each other this duty of respect. The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in moral and religious matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of the human person. This right must be recognized and protected by civil authority within the limits of the common good and public order."
In offering contraception as an option, the Church is not automatically sanctioning its use.
Yes, it is. That's sort of like saying that having free KKK literature in the lobby isn't necessarily sanctioning the material. After all, the patients and their families have free will and don't have to read it.
"Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude . . . Freedom is exercised in relationships between human beings. Every human person, created in the image of God, has the natural right to be recognized as a free and responsible being. All owe to each other this duty of respect. The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in moral and religious matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of the human person. This right must be recognized and protected by civil authority within the limits of the common good and public order."
Suppose Obama wins in November. And suppose a Catholic hospital somewhere - let's say St. Blaise in Anytown, California - refuses to provide free insurance coverage for contraceptives and sterilizations to its employees.
The hospital is warned, but does not comply.
HHS then levies a stiff fine on the hospital and demands compliance.
St. Blaise refuses to pay the fine and continues its non-compliance, essentially ignoring the immoral directives.
HHS compounds the fines and issues a final warning.
St. Blaise calls a press conference and issues a formal statement on the issue. The board of directors tells the world that the Obama administration's demands are a violation of the hospital's Catholic allegiance, identity, and mission. The statement then proceeds to explain why contraception and sterilization are sinful from a Catholic perspective, and that the hospital cannot in good conscience fund or deliberately facilitate immoral acts.
What does the Obama administration do at this point? Send in U.S. deputy marshalls to jail the directors and put them on trial? Send federal troops in to close the hospital? What if it's not just one hospital, but fifty or a hundred. There are nearly six hundred Catholic hospitals in the United States today. Is Obama bluffing or does he mean business?
You will have to quote us the law - I doubt there is any federal law that says a hospital has to provide free contraceptives.
However, there is possibly a requirement in the health care legislation that requires a hospital to provide free contraceptives if it wants that good, good medicare/medicaid/SSI/etc moolah.
You will have to quote us the law - I doubt there is any federal law that says a hospital has to provide free contraceptives.
However, there is possibly a requirement in the health care legislation that requires a hospital to provide free contraceptives if it wants that good, good medicare/medicaid/SSI/etc moolah.
I guess that is the answer you are looking for Western. My guess is they will want to keep the other government checks coming in, so I doubt one would go against what they are required to do as a hospital because a hospital is not the same thing as a church, even if a church runs a hospital.
Super. Then the Catholics who run the hospital have the right to exercise their freedom not to pay for sin.
That's like saying that because the Catholic Church has paid monetary settlements to those who were victims of sexual abuse that I myself as a Catholic am guilty of the sin of the sexual abuse of children. Is that where you really want to go with this?
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