In a strongly worded letter to parishioners, Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron called on lay Catholics to “stand up and protect (the Church’s) sacred rights and duties” by publicly opposing the “alarming and serious threat to religious liberty” posed by the HHS mandate, which would affect Catholic hospitals, charities and universities across the country.
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“Unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so),” Archbishop Vigneron’s letter said.
Archbishop Vigneron joined Catholic bishops across the country in increasing opposition to the Obama administration’s mandate.
“Bishops can’t tell politicians what to do, but Catholic voters can,” Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said during a recent visit to Nashville. Political leaders respond to pressure from citizens, he added, and Catholics ought to demand respect for religious values.
Archbishops Vigneron and Chaput joined fellow bishops in urging Catholics in the pew to be more politically active.
“The very principle of religious freedom, the first freedom in the Bill of Rights, is at stake here,” he said. “That’s a lot to be at stake. Once it’s lost, you don’t get it back.”
In Washington, D.C., a directive from the U.S. Army chief of chaplains that a letter opposing the contraceptive mandate not be read from the pulpit by Catholic military chaplains violated First Amendment rights of free speech and free exercise of religion, according to the head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services.
Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio spoke with Secretary of the Army John McHugh about the chief of chaplains’ response to the archbishop’s Jan. 26 letter and the two “agreed that it was a mistake to stop the reading of the archbishop’s letter,” according to a statement released by the military archdiocese Feb. 6.
The two also agreed to McHugh’s suggestion that one line, which read “We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law,” be removed from the letter because of “the concern that it could potentially be misunderstood as a call to civil disobedience,” the statement added.
The line also appeared in Archbishop Vigneron’s letter to Detroit’s Catholics.
Archbishop Broglio said he and the military archdiocese “stand firm in the belief, based on legal precedent, that such a directive from the Army constituted a violation of his constitutionally protected right of free speech and the free exercise of religion, as well as those same rights of all military chaplains and their congregants.”
The office of the Army chief of chaplains did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Catholic and other religious leaders have objected that the HHS exemption is written so narrowly that institutions such as hospitals, schools and social service agencies would not qualify.
“Surely, one could not claim that Mother Teresa was engaging in religion only when she was in the chapel and not when she reached out to others in whom she saw the face of Christ. Yet, this is the meaning of the Administration’s definition of religion,” Archbishop Vigneron’s letter said.
Archbishop Vigneron called for prayer and fasting and for Catholics to visit the U.S. bishops’ website at www.usccb.org to get involved.
Society’s hostility to faith and religion comes “from a secularized people who don’t see the importance of respecting the moral values of other people if those values stand in the way of their goals,” Archbishop Chaput said.
The regulations leave Catholic institutions with few options.
One option would be to stop offering health insurance as an employee benefit, Archbishop Chaput said. Catholic institutions presumably would increase employees’ pay so they could buy insurance on their own, he said, but that would mean their health insurance premiums would likely be more expensive.
“Or we can stop helping people who aren’t Catholic, but Catholics always take care of other people,” Archbishop Chaput said.
Catholic leaders might be forced to choose the option of civil disobedience, Archbishop Chaput said. Catholics are good citizens, he said, “but we’re God’s citizens first.”
The best outcome would be for public pressure to force the government to change the contraceptive mandate, Archbishop Chaput said.
Mike Stechschulte contributed to this report.
