Obama’s War on the Catholic Church
The Evils of ObamaCare Begin to Emerge
This past week, President Obama decided to throw down the gauntlet and challenge the Catholic Church with a set of new regulations regarding what Catholic Institutions must provide to their employees. Included in these regulations, which are part of the new ObamaCare health care law, are birth control, sterilization, abortion inducing drugs and other rules that are vigorously opposed by the Church’s hierarchy. These new rules are a direct challenge to the fundamental beliefs of Catholics and are directly contrary to the Catholic faith. This is nothing short of Barack Obama declaring war on the Catholic Church and on Christianity in general.
There is an insidious provision buried within the ObamaCare law that states that all insurers will be required to provide "preventive health services", and the definition of this was left to the Secretary of Health and Human services. Of course, no one believes that Secretary Kathleen Sebelius came up with this confrontational policy on her own. This obviously comes from Barak Obama himself and his internally developed socialist and Marxist beliefs.
For those who are not familiar with the impact of this ruling, one needs to understand that there are hundreds of Catholic hospitals, parochial schools, universities and other Catholic sponsored institutions in the United States. These institutions employ thousands of employees, both Catholics and non-Catholics. These institutions provide benefits, including health insurance for their employees, but they have always been able to insure that these benefits did not include services that directly contravene Catholic Church beliefs. This is a fundamental right of a religious based organization. This right is now being taken away from these Catholic based institutions by an overreaching Federal Government and a dictatorial president.
In an even more dictatorial attempt at bullying and coercion, the office of the Chief of Chaplains of the U.S. Army forbade Catholic chaplains from reading, in Sunday masses, a letter about a controversial ObamaCare mandate from the Catholic Church’s military archbishop. This move sets the stage for a philosophical conflict between Catholic soldiers and their commander-in-chief, Barack Obama.
The Catholic Church and its leaders have rightly objected most strenuously to these new regulations. Catholic bishops and priests have taken to the pulpits and denounced in very forceful terms these new Obama rules. As an example, Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburg wrote that President Obama had told Catholics, "To Hell with your religious beliefs." This is strong and powerful language coming from the Catholic hierarchy and it will be interesting to see how this plays in the upcoming presidential election. Hopefully, the Catholic leaders in the United States and Catholic politicians like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum will make this a key issue in these elections.
Will Obama’s War on Religion Impact his Chances for Re-Election?
In recent weeks, Obama’s poll numbers have been rising and his re-election chances have improved considerably. This has resulted from a series of better economic numbers coupled with a bitter and disappointing negative campaign among the four remaining Republican presidential contenders. Although economic predictions are always difficult, I expect both the administration and the Federal Reserve to do everything possible to continue to promote policies that may improve the economy from now through the election. This further enhances Obama’s chances for re-election.
Obama’s new attacks on the Catholic Church and his apparent willingness to inject his political philosophy into the regulatory aspects of ObamaCare may alter his chances for re-election somewhat. According to a New York Times article published in 2008 entitled “Catholics and Choice”, Catholics voted 52 to 45 percent for Obama, which was 7% more than the vote for Catholic John Kerry in 2004. Also, Latinos voted 67 percent for Mr. Obama, 16 percentage points more than their vote for Mr. Kerry, and Latino Catholics, usually more Democratic than Protestant Latinos, almost certainly voted for the Democratic nominee at an even higher rate. This new Obama policy of interfering with the basic tenets of the Catholic religion should significantly erode those percentages, especially if the Catholic bishops and other leaders maintain the pressure and keep up the attacks on Obama.
If the Republican candidate for president can make this a big enough issue in the fall election, it may be enough to turn the tide against Obama. This would be particularly effective if the Republican candidate were Sen. Rick Santorum, as he is a Catholic and has been consistently pro-life throughout his political career. In addition, I believe that Evangelical Christians will be more likely to support Sen. Santorum in light of these attacks against the Catholic Church, as this type of interference will surely impact their own religious based institutions.
Hopefully, the recent regulatory actions by Obama and Sebelius will seriously impact Obama’s chances for re-election in the fall. All Republican conservatives should familiarize themselves with this issue and be ready to oppose the Obama administration at every opportunity. This can become a key issue on which Obama can be defeated in the general election!
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Catholics and Obama
Most Catholics, according to most of the polls that have been running pretty much non-stop since this was announced, practice some kind of contraception, upwards of 90% in several polls. And most of them who have private insurance already have coverage for contraception. So it's not really an attack on the moral values of individual Catholics, and most of them will likely not see it as such.
Also, the church itself is exempt from having to do this. And any institution which is owned directly by the church is also exempt. There's already a Supreme Court ruling confirming this. It is only affiliated institutions that will have to comply, and that can't be interpreted as an attack on Catholic faith. The problem is that most of those institutions have opened the door to this kind of government regulation because they receive federal funding for one thing or another, whether they are hospitals or universities, and thus, have given the government the means of enforcing this mandate. No money from Uncle Sam, no means of enforcing a federal provision.
As long as the GOP candidates keep talking about social security and medicare with the word "entitlement," and keep pushing Mitt Romney as their "eventual nominee," Hispanics and middle class Catholics will continue to drift over to the Democrats in increasingly large numbers. This issue, if it becomes much, will backfire on the GOP.
Media outlets should
All FDA approved contraceptive drugs, including some that are abortifacient, sterilizations and other preventive services are now mandated. Almost all employers and employees, including Catholic employers in social services, universities and hospitals will be forced to offer their employees this form of "health coverage," Almost all health insurers will be coerced to include those services in the health care plans they write. Further, almost all individuals will be forced to buy that coverage as part of their policies whether they want it or object to it on moral grounds. There is a very small level of exemption for churches themselves and immediate employees if the purpose is to "inculcate religious doctrine" and if they serve mainly people of their own faith. Such a limitation leaves out all Catholic hospitals, universities and social services like Catholic Charities.
The HHS policy mandate belittles the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by denying to Catholics our Nation's first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. Unless the mandate is overturned, Catholic employers must be prepared either to violate their consciences or to drop health coverage for their employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so).