If only our Bishops had thought to consult with David Gibson - by Janet Smith

In CatolicVote.org

How foolish our bishops were to not call upon David Gibson for a lesson in casuistry or hair-splitting! He instructs the bishops it is no moral problem for Catholic institutions to pay for contraception, especially if done indirectly, because their payments would be only remote cooperation with evil. Gibson tells us that if the bishops had only mastered the material in Moral Theology 101, they would know that it is morally permissible to cooperate with evil remotely.

Gibson seems to have missed the class session in Moral Theology 101 where the application of the principles of the kinds of cooperation were fully explained. He seems to be unaware that demonstrating that the degree of cooperation with evil is immediate or remote in no way settles an issue. Certainly, it is always wrong to cooperate with evil formally and immediately. But just because the cooperation with evil is remote does not mean that it is morally permissible or wise to cooperate in an evil action.

One’s unwillingness to cooperate remotely with evil may be influenced by several factors. Those who are dedicated to fighting a certain evil may choose to refuse to cooperate in any way with that evil in order to give the strongest possible witness to the nature of the evil. For instance, some people won’t buy a certain product because of the conditions in third world factories where the product is produced. The cooperation is fairly remote and the refusal to buy the product won’t have much effect on changing the poor working conditions. Still, some people want nothing to do with such exploitation and will even inconvenience themselves quite a bit to avoid it.

Some actions are so evil that if one can refuse to cooperate at all, one should. People who think contraception to be a good thing, think that Church should have no problem funding contraception. The Church, however, understands contraception to have very bad consequences and wants to dissuade people from doing bad things rather than facilitate them. (Below I will mention some reasons for this belief.)

Keep in mind that the standard of concern for cooperating with evil is much different for an institution than for an individual. The Catholic Church exists to teach and give witness to important truths of the faith, among them moral truths. Any systematic cooperation with what is wrong – especially when what is wrong is “intrinsically wrong” such as contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs — conflicts with the very purpose of the institution and should be avoided when possible. This teaching is one of its key moral teachings. In Evangelium Vitae John Paul II shows the connection between contraception, abortion, and assisted suicide. Making the Catholic Church fund contraception and abortion-inducing drugs is like making the Anti-smoking League fund cigarettes (and do remember that at one time, people thought cigarettes posed no danger to health). It is wrong to make an institution act in violation of the very principles for which exists.

The possibility of causing scandal has always been a major consideration in assessing the morality of cooperating with evil. One Catholic food bank refused to accept food from Planned Parenthood (it referred them to other places that would accept the food). They would not have been wrong to accept the food; it would have been remote cooperation with evil but they didn’t want the possibility of people seeing their truck in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood and thinking they endorsed Planned Parenthood. People do draw such conclusions.

If the Catholic Church cooperated with providing contraception great scandal would ensue. Causing scandal is a kind of hypocrisy; one says one thing and does another. Gibson wants the Church to be a hypocrite; indeed, we must acknowledge that many would mock the Church if it used the reasoning Gibson promotes in respect to almost any other issue.

If the bishops accept the ruse that Obama has offered and indirectly pay for contraception, the enemies of the Church will be oh so ready to claim that since the Church cooperates with payment for contraception it must approve of contraception. And we must admit, there would be a modicum of logic in their thinking.

Some of the bishops’ reasons for opposing payment for contraception, it seems, have never been pondered by Gibson. Gibson thinks there are some “greater goods” to be gained by cooperating with the funding of contraception, among them, the reduction of abortions. Suppose the Church thinks – for good reason – that more contraception leads to more abortions. It is not at all difficult to establish a correlation with the rise of abortions and the acceptance of the pill in the sixties. Nor is causation so hard to establish; contraception clearly enables women (and men) to engage in sex with no expectation of a pregnancy but when a pregnancy happens, they often have recourse to abortion. The average real life failure rate of the pill is nearly 9%, of the condom 15%. Who would get in a car that in a “real-life” situation was susceptible to major failure 9% or 15% of the time?

Gibson also unreflectively accepts the simplistic claim that contraception will reduce medical costs. Really? The Church considers contraception to be always wrong for many reasons, among them that it is an assault on a woman’s healthy fertility system. The hidden costs of contraceptive practice are huge (increase incidence of breast cancer, strokes, migraines, depression, etc.). And contraceptive lifestyles are tightly connected with increased welfare costs. Contraceptives fail. Often. (The pill 9%; the condom 15%; please remember these figures). The vast majority of single women faced with unwed pregnancies who don’t get abortions become single parents. Single parenthood is certainly a major cause of poverty in this country. Moreover, there is strong evidence that the contraceptive lifestyle that leads many people to have sex before marriage, to cohabit and also to commit adultery, is a major cause of divorce. And divorce too is a major cause of poverty.

Contraception is not just some arcane matter; it truly is a social justice issue and contributes to more evil than many people can imagine. People need to wake up and realize the profound damage done by contraception. (There are many good sources that document this; I recommend Lionel Tiger’s The Decline of Males, more true now than when it was written over a decade ago or Mary Eberstadt’s “The Vindication of Humanae Vitae”)

Why should Catholics or anyone else have to pay for nonmedical care that has terrible physical, relational, and social consequences? (Of course, some women may take the hormones in the “pill” for some physical conditions such as endometriosis but they are not thereby contracepting and Catholics would, of course, pay for such treatment.)

Obama’s mandate does not just promote something that Catholics think is intrinsically wrong. As the bishops and others note, it also violates the freedom of Catholics (and others) to act upon their religious beliefs and, indeed, forces them to act against their beliefs. The fact that so many religious groups and institutions who do not object to the use of contraception have joined the bishops in their opposition to the mandate demonstrates that the key issue is religious liberty. If the bishops and others went along with Obama’s mandate they would be cooperating with the evil of violating religious liberty. The Catholic Church understands the right to religion to be the foremost right. Again, it would be working against its own purposes to permit this violation of religious liberty.

This country was founded by people who left their homelands so they could practice their religion freely. The bishops and others are willing to undertake a difficult battle and incur great expense to fight a violation of religious liberty – a fundamental right. Obama is determined to put aside the constitutional right to religious liberty – a defining characteristic of this country — for the purpose of providing …… contraception. That really is a petty and pathetic decision.

A small committee in the White House is imposing its views of the value of contraception on the whole nation. We all are expected to pay for what some social engineers dream up. This is not democracy at work.

Why isn’t Gibson noting how ridiculous it is that the only free service to be supplied by health insurance is contraception! Moral Theology 101 should cover the fundamentals of social justice. Free provision of contraception — something most women can afford and something that does nothing to address health issues — is a very poor way to allocate scarce resources. No preferential option for the poor here – every woman will get free contraceptives even those in the top 1%! How silly is that? Why not provide services for free that the poor truly need? The poor might want free checkups, free insulin, free antibiotics, free chemotherapy, and free infertility treatments — all of which directly serve life.

Not only does Obama’s mandate fail to provide services people really need, it also will lead to invaluable services being denied to the poor and needy. The Church may decide it needs to suspend some of its services rather than cooperate with paying for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacient drugs (and who knows what is next, assisted suicide?). Already governments have forbidden Catholics to act in accord with fundamental beliefs. Because of the decisions of a small committee in the Obama administration, Catholic agencies, for instance, no longer receive government funding to help rescue women from sexual trafficking. Now Obama’s policies will threaten the great good that Catholics do in providing a great deal of the free health care that goes to the indigent. These are direct evils associated with Obama’s obsession with contraception. Obama is the one who will be responsible for Catholic institutions either closing or confining their services to Catholics only.

I invite Mr Gibson to school Obama on the wrongness of undercutting the effectiveness of institutions that provide tremendously needed social services, just because his beliefs do not accord with theirs.

Professor Janet E. Smith is the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. Over 2 million copies of Smith’s CD Contraception: Why Not have been distributed and is available at janetesmith.org.

US bishops release new statement calling for HHS mandate removal

Washington D.C., Feb 10, 2012 / 10:15 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. bishops released a new statement rejecting President Barack Obama's attempted compromise over the Health and Human services contraception mandate, calling for its complete removal.

The bishops issued an initial statement of caution the afternoon of Feb. 10 after President Obama announced a new policy stating that religious employers will not have to directly purchase contraceptives, but will be required to pay for health care plans from insurance companies that offer them without cost.

Later in the day, however, the bishops released a comprehensive statement calling the mandate and its recent update unacceptable and urging Catholics across the nation “to join together in this effort to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.”

Below is the U.S. bishops' statement in full:

The Catholic bishops have long supported access to life-affirming healthcare for all, and the conscience rights of everyone involved in the complex process of providing that healthcare. That is why we raised two serious objections to the “preventive services” regulation issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in August 2011.

First, we objected to the rule forcing private health plans—nationwide, by the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen—to cover sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion. All the other mandated “preventive services” prevent disease, and pregnancy is not a disease. Moreover, forcing plans to cover abortifacients violates existing federal conscience laws. Therefore, we called for the rescission of the mandate altogether.

Second, we explained that the mandate would impose a burden of unprecedented reach and severity on the consciences of those who consider such “services” immoral: insurers forced to write policies including this coverage; employers and schools forced to sponsor and subsidize the coverage; and individual employees and students forced to pay premiums for the coverage. We therefore urged HHS, if it insisted on keeping the mandate, to provide a conscience exemption for all of these stakeholders—not just the extremely small subset of “religious employers” that HHS proposed to exempt initially.

Today, the President has done two things.

First, he has decided to retain HHS’s nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients. This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern. We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty.

Second, the President has announced some changes in how that mandate will be administered, which is still unclear in its details. As far as we can tell at this point, the change appears to have the following basic contours:

· It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write. At this point, it would appear that self-insuring religious employers, and religious insurance companies, are not exempt from this mandate.

· It would allow non-profit, religious employers to declare that they do not offer such coverage. But the employee and insurer may separately agree to add that coverage. The employee would not have to pay any additional amount to obtain this coverage, and the coverage would be provided as a part of the employer’s policy, not as a separate rider.

· Finally, we are told that the one-year extension on the effective date (from August 1, 2012 to August 1, 2013) is available to any non-profit religious employer who desires it, without any government application or approval process.

These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change. But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.

We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance. Some information we have is in writing and some is oral. We will, of course, continue to press for the greatest conscience protection we can secure from the Executive Branch. But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today’s proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.

We will therefore continue—with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency—our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government. For example, we renew our call on Congress to pass, and the Administration to sign, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. And we renew our call to the Catholic faithful, and to all our fellow Americans, to join together in this effort to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.

Bishops Urge Senate Judiciary Committee to Oppose Bill That Would Repeal Defense Of Marriage Act

In USCCB

November 2, 2011

WASHINGTON—The Senate Judiciary Committee should uphold the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage at the federal level as the union of one man and one woman, because of its importance to human rights and the common good, said the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Promotion and Defense of Marriage efforts. In a November 2 letter, Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, California, asked the Committee to oppose any bill that would repeal DOMA, particularly the Respect for Marriage Act (S. 598).

“All persons have a rightful claim to our utmost respect,” wrote Bishop Cordileone. “There is no corresponding duty, however, for society to disregard the meaning of sexual difference and its practical consequences for the common good; to override fundamental rights, such as religious liberty; and to re-define our most basic social institution. DOMA advances the common good in a manner consistent with the human dignity of all persons.”

Bishop Cordileone noted that DOMA’s definition of marriage reflects a longstanding consensus based in reason that is “accessible to people of all faiths or none at all.”

He added, “Millions of citizens have gone to the ballot in 30 states to ratify similar DOMA proposals by substantial majorities. Forty-one states in all have enacted their own DOMAs. Popularity alone does not determine what is right. But in the face of such broad support in the present day, not to mention a legacy of lived experience and reasoned reflection measured in millennia in every society and civilization throughout all of human history, repealing a measure that merely recognizes the truth of marriage is all the more improvident.”

Bishop Cordileone also wrote that changing the definition of marriage would violate human rights, namely the rights of children to be cared for by both a mother and a father and the right of religious freedom.

“In places where marriage’s core meaning has been altered through legal action, officials are beginning to target for punishment those believers and churches that refuse to adapt,” Bishop Cordileone wrote. “Any non-conforming conduct and even expressions of disagreement, based simply on support for marriage as understood since time immemorial, are wrongly being treated as if they harmed society, and somehow constituted a form of evil equal to racism. DOMA represents an essential protection against such threats to faith and conscience.”

The full text of Bishop Cordileone’s letter can be found at: www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/marriage/promotion-and-defense-of-marriage/upload/Cordileone-to-Senate-Judiciary-Committee-DOMA-Nov-2-2011.pdf

Catholic Bishops Weigh Into Budget Debate - by Colin Mason

In PRI

As Congress struggles to balance our out-of-control federal budget, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has officially put its oar into the debate. In an open letter to congress, the USCCB (along with Catholic Relief Services), told federal budget-crunchers exactly what programs they thought should be sliced from the budget. And, (surprise surprise) they are the same programs that we at PRI recommend cutting.

The letter was specifically addressed to the ponderously-titled Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, which is essentially the group of lawmakers who decide how to spend our foreign aid dollars. In the letter, the USCCB gave a ringing endorsement to the Mexico City Policy, the Helms Amendment, and the Kemp-Kasten amendment, saying:

As you consider appropriations language, we strongly support restoring the Mexico City Policy against funding groups that perform or promote abortion, and denying funding to the U.N. Population Fund which supports a program of coerced abortion and involuntary sterilization in China.

It is also important to preserve the Helms Amendment, prohibiting U.S. funding for abortion, and the Kemp-Kasten provision, prohibiting support of organizations involved in programs of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Why does the Catholic leadership recommend these policy adjustments so forthrightly? Aren't policy matters supposed to be prudential concerns, decided by the state and left alone by the Church?

Yes and no. Obviously, the Catholic Bishops Conference has no legislative authority. But when it comes to issues like abortion, the Church has always taken an unequivocal stance against the practice and has strongly opposed spending public money on it. And as such, it is well within the Church's rights to make public recommendations based on these views.

Which is exactly what they did, by unequivocally supporting legislation that restricts or prohibits the use of federal money to fund abortion. By doing this, the Church made it abundantly clear that, while it supports many of the activities that federal foreign aid dollars go toward, it will never, ever bend on the issue of abortion.

That being said, the letter makes positive recommendations as well. According to the USCCB, when not being lavished on abortion and other destructive measures, American foreign aid funds are actually a very good thing. As such, the budget shouldn't simply be haphazardly sliced, but should be trimmed in such a way that its positive programs can continue to do their important work.

“We welcome appropriate efforts to reduce our nation's deficit and debt,” the letter says, “but we urge the Subcommittee to work with other members of Congress to be fiscally responsible in morally appropriate ways.”

And what, according to the Bishops, count as a “morally appropriate” way to control the budget? By prioritizing the dollars the way the Church has always requested they be prioritized: placing the poorest, the most vulnerable, and the weakest at the head of the line. The letter charges the Committee to “give priority to those who are poor and vulnerable at home and abroad” and to “cut with great care, eliminating only those expenses unrelated to basic human needs and development.”

This is a stinging blow in the face of all of those who claim that the Catholic Church is willing to cut an indiscriminate swathe through American aid services, so long as abortion is kept out of the picture. The very opposite is the case. The Church recognizes that its commitment to taking a stand against abortion comes with a very positive responsibility: a responsibility to provide real aid and succor to the poor and needy. This is why the Church supports many legitimate American aid projects.

And this is why the Church supports policies like the Mexico City Policy and others that protect life from conception. We couldn't agree more. Stand with us, and the Catholic Bishops. Sign our petition to bring back the Mexico City policy.

US bishops’ lawyers accuse Obama Administration of ‘an unprecedented attack on religious liberty’

by LifeSiteNews.com

WASHINGTON, August 31, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) — The general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to rescind its mandate forcing private insurance plans to cover contraception—including abortifacients—and sterilization, calling the mandate “unprecedented in federal law and more radical than any state contraceptive mandate.”

The USCCB also criticized the narrow “religious employer” exception to the mandate, explaining that it provides “no protection at all for individuals or insurers with a moral or religious objection to contraceptives or sterilization,” instead covering only “a very small subset of religious employers.”

In their August 31 comment to the HHS, Anthony Picarello, USCCB general counsel, and Michael Moses, associate general counsel, noted that the mandate to cover “all FDA-approved contraceptives” and “emergency contraceptives,” including at least one drug called Ella that can cause abortions, entails “nationwide government coercion of religious people and groups to sell, broker or purchases ‘services’ to which they have a moral or religious objection.” This represents “an unprecedented attack on religious liberty,” they wrote.

As to the exemption, Picarello and Moses detail how it “is narrower than any conscience clause ever enacted in federal law, and narrower than the vast majority of religious exemptions from state contraceptive mandates.”

“By failing to protect insurers, individuals, most employers, or any other stakeholders with a religious objection to such items and procedures, the HHS exemption, like the mandate itself, violates” the U.S. Constitution and various federal statutes, they argue.

According to Picarello and Moses, the mandate violates the Weldon amendment and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, commonly known as the health care reform law), as well as the Administration’s own stated policy to exclude from the mandate any drug that can cause an abortion. Both the mandate and the narrow exception violate various protections of religious freedom under the First Amendment.

“Until now, no federal law has prevented private insurers from accommodating purchasers and plan sponsors with moral or religious objections to certain services,” they wrote. “Plans were free under federal law to accommodate those objections by allowing purchasers to choose not to buy coverage for gender change surgery, contraceptives, in vitro fertilization, or other procedures that the purchaser or sponsor found religiously or morally problematic. Likewise, federal law did not forbid any insurer, such as a religiously-affiliated insurer, to exclude from its plans any services to which the insurer itself had a moral or religious objection. Indeed, the freedom to exclude morally objectionable services has sometimes been stated affirmatively in federal law.”

Under the mandate, they wrote, this will end. “Individuals with a moral or religious objection to these items and procedures will now be affirmatively barred by the HHS mandate from purchasing a plan that excludes [contraception and sterilization]. Religiously-affiliated insurers with a moral or religious objection likewise will be affirmatively barred from offering a plan that excludes them to the public, even to members of their own religion. Secular organizations (insurers, employers, and other plan sponsors) with a moral or religious objection to coverage of contraceptives or sterilization will be ineligible for the exemption.”

Religious employers that do not meet HHS’s narrow definition will also be subject to the mandate. “HHS has concluded, for example, that a church is not a religious employer if it (a) serves those who are not already members of the church, (b) fails to hire based on religion, or (c) does not restrict its charitable and missionary purposes to the inculcation of religious values. Under such inexplicably narrow criteria—criteria bearing no reasonable relation to any legitimate (let alone compelling) government purpose—even the ministry of Jesus and the early Christian Church would not qualify as ‘religious,’ because they did not confine their ministry to their co-religionists or engage only in a preaching ministry. In effect, the exemption is directly at odds with the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which Jesus teaches concern and assistance for those in need, regardless of faith differences.”

Though the problems with this exemption are serious and need to be addressed, the comments emphasize that the fundamental problem lies in the mandate itself, which must be rescinded: “Only rescission will eliminate all of the serious moral problems the mandate creates; only rescission will correct HHS’s legally flawed interpretation of the term ‘preventive services.’”

The full comments can be found online here.

US Bishops Conference: HHS must think Catholics are fools

by Kathleen Gilbert

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 2, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sharply criticized a new HHS “preventive services” mandate requiring private health plans to cover sterilization and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including drugs which can abort a child before and after implantation in the womb, with no co-pay.

“Although this new rule gives the agency the discretion to authorize a ‘religious’ exemption, it is so narrow as to exclude most Catholic social service agencies and healthcare providers,” said Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston and chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

USCCB Communications Director Sr. Mary Ann Walsh was more blunt.

“Health and Human Services must think Catholics and other religious groups are fools,” wrote Walsh on USCCB communications blog Monday.

DiNardo and Walsh explained that the supposed exemption, allowed only for religious organizations primarily employing and serving members of its own faith, was so narrow that it excluded most Catholic agencies and healthcare providers.

“HHS’s reg conveniently ignores the underlying principle of Catholic charitable actions: we help people because we are Catholic, not because our clients are,” wrote Walsh.

“There’s no need to show your baptismal certificate in the hospital emergency room, the parish food pantry, or the diocesan drug rehab program.”

DiNardo pointed out that the FDA’s approval of drugs such as Ella as a “contraceptive” means the mandate will force countless Americans to fund early medical abortions with their premium dollars. Ella is a progesterone reception modulator, the same class of drug as RU-486, which is used for medical abortions.

“The pro-life majority of Americans – Catholics and others – would be outraged to learn that their premiums must be used for this purpose,” said the cardinal.

Cardinal DiNardo urged support for the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179) to amend the Obama administration’s “failure to create a meaningful conscience exemption,” an omission that could have serious consequences for the Catholic Church in America.

“Could the federal government possibly intend to pressure Catholic institutions to cease providing health care, education and charitable services to the general public?” he asked.

On her blog, Walsh noted that the health department’s tack may be “unduly influenced” by Planned Parenthood’s lobbying, something that would be “no surprise.”

“Contraceptive services make a lot of money for Planned Parenthood clinics, which (again no surprise) provide the ‘services’ HHS has mandated,” wrote Walsh.

The nun also challenged President Obama, who promised last year to respect religious rights under the new health care reform law, to “speak up now” for more protections.

“Whatever you think of artificial birth control, HHS’s command that everyone, including churches, must pay for it exalts ideology over conscience and common sense,” she said.

U.S. bishops approve statement condemning physician-assisted suicide in 191-1 vote

by John-Henry Westen

WASHINGTON, June 16, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approved a policy statement on physician-assisted suicide at its Spring General Assembly in Seattle on June 16. The statement, “To Live Each Day with Dignity,” passed with a vote of 191-1. It marks the first time the full body of bishops has issued a statement devoted to this issue.

Yesterday while the statement was still being discussed by bishops, LifeSiteNews asked Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities about sanctions against politicians who support assisted suicide. The cardinal responded that the question of sanctions has not “been completely addressed internally.” He did, however, stress that once approved, the new policy statement on assisted suicide – which is to be voted on by the bishops Thursday – would be made known in the public square, “and the political square as well.”

The statement speaks of the hardships and fears of patients facing terminal illness and the importance of life-affirming palliative care. It cites the Church’s concern for those who are tempted to commit suicide, its opposition to physician-assisted suicide, and the consistency of this stance with the principle of equal and inherent human rights and the ethical principles of the medical profession.

Countering two claims of the assisted suicide movement, that its agenda affirms patients’ “choices” and expresses “compassion” for their suffering, the statement says physician-assisted suicide does not promote compassion because its focus is not on eliminating suffering, but on eliminating the patient. True compassion, it states, dedicates itself to meeting patients’ needs and presupposes a commitment to their equal worth. The statement says that “compassion” that is not rooted in such respect inevitably finds more and more people whose suffering is considered serious enough for assisted death, such as those with chronic illness and disabilities.

According to the statement, the practice also undermines patients’ freedom by putting pressure on them to choose death, once society has officially declared the suicides of certain people to be good and acceptable while working to prevent the suicides of others. Undermining the value of some people’s lives will undermine respect for their freedom as well, the statement says, citing countries such as the Netherlands where voluntary assisted suicide has led to involuntary euthanasia.

The statement argues that assisted suicide is not an addition to palliative care, but a poor substitute that can ultimately become an excuse for denying better medical care to seriously ill people, including those who never considered suicide an option. It concludes by advancing what Pope John Paul II called “the way of love and true mercy,” and calls on Catholics to work with others to uphold the right of each person to live with dignity.

The full text of the statement is avaible here, along with fact sheets and articles on the issue, relevant Church documents, and prayers for use with those who are ill.

US Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Urges Not to Include Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Among Protected Categories

WASHINGTON (March 25, 2011)——The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has urged the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) not to adopt a proposed regulation that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected categories for which discrimination in HUD programs is prohibited.

In comments filed today with HUD, Anthony Picarello, USCCB general counsel, and Michael Moses, USCCB associate general counsel, noted that, when it comes to orientation and gender identity, “a protected classification for purposes of federal housing programs has no support in any Act of Congress and appears at odds with at least one other, namely, the Defense of Marriage Act.” They added that “the regulations may force faith-based and other organizations, as a condition of participating in HUD programs and in contravention of their religious beliefs, to facilitate shared housing arrangements between persons who are not joined in the legal union of one man and one woman.”

“By this, we do not mean that any person should be denied housing. Making decisions about shared housing, however, is another matter,” wrote Picarello and Moses. “Particularly here, faith-based and other organizations should retain the freedom they have always had to make housing placements in a manner consistent with their religious beliefs, including when it concerns a cohabiting couple, be it an unmarried heterosexual couple or a homosexual couple. Given the very large role that faith-based organizations play in HUD programs, the regulation, by infringing upon that freedom, may have the ultimate effect of driving away organizations with a long and successful track record in meeting housing needs, leaving beneficiaries without the housing that they sought or that the government intended them to receive.”

The full comment is available at: www.usccb.org/ogc/HUD-Regulations-on-Sexual-Orientation-and-Gender-Identity(March_2011).pdf

Obispos de EEUU rechazan fallo a favor de "matrimonio" homosexual en California

WASHINGTON D.C., 05 Ago. 10 / 10:23 am (ACI)

El Presidente de la Conferencia de Obispos Católicos de Estados Unidos (USCCB), Cardenal Francis George, rechazó el fallo de un juez homosexual de San Francisco que dictaminó que la Proposición 8 en el estado de California –que consagra el matrimonio como la unión entre un hombre y una mujer– es inconstitucional porque vulnera el "derecho" a casarse de las parejas del mismo sexo.

El Purpurado señaló que "el matrimonio entre un hombre y una mujer son la base de cualquier sociedad. El mal uso de la ley para cambiar la naturaleza del matrimonio atenta contra el bien común".

Por ello, explicó, "es trágico que un juez federal revierta la clara voluntad del pueblo en apoyo de la institución del matrimonio. Ninguna corte civil tiene la autoridad de llegar a áreas de la experiencia humana que la naturaleza ha definido por sí misma".

De otro lado, el Jefe del Comité Ad Hoc para la Defensa del Matrimonio de la USCCB, Arzobispo Joseph Kurtz, señaló que "los ciudadanos de esta nación han votado uniformemente para mantener el entendimiento del matrimonio como la unión entre un hombre y una mujer en toda jurisdicción en donde se ha recurrido a las urnas. Este entendimiento no es irracional ni ilegal".

El Prelado dijo también que "el matrimonio es lo más fundamental y esencial para el bienestar de la sociedad, tal vez más que cualquier otra institución. Es simplemente inimaginable que la corte ahora considere que hay un conflicto entre el matrimonio y la Constitución".

Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) the Road: Homosexual Nondiscrimination Bill Must be Stopped Say Catholic Bishops

By Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 26, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S. Catholic bishops have come out in full force against the federal Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA). They say they can no longer stay neutral on a bill that they charge will lead to the Roe v. Wade of traditional marriage in the United States, and trample on the rights of employers and those speaking the truth about homosexuality.

In a letter sent to Congress on May 19, and obtained by the Jesuit-run publication America, representatives of the Catholic bishops said that their concerns over the current forms of ENDA making their way through the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 3017) and the U.S. Senate (S. 1584) are so serious that “we cannot maintain the position of neutrality we held in 2007.”

The letter, sent by Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage, Bishop William Murphy, Chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., Chairman of the Committee on Doctrine, stated that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was opposing ENDA. They said the law would pose serious danger to marriage, religious liberty, privacy, the right to speak the truth about homosexuality in the public square, the rights of employers to act “consistent with that truth,” and the right of individuals to associate freely as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The bishops indicated that they have wised up to the fact that state ENDA laws have been integral – even a necessary last step – for state courts to have a legal basis for imposing a constitutional right to same-sex “marriage.” A federal ENDA would serve to lay the necessary groundwork for building a federal constitutional right to same-sex “marriage,” imposed nationwide, they warned.

“These rulings also reflect a legal strategy that gay rights advocates have repeatedly and publicly explained in scholarly articles and other media — first, secure the passage of sexual orientation antidiscrimination laws, such as ENDA, and then invoke the principle embedded within those laws as a basis for same-sex ‘marriage,’” the letter states.

“If this strategy were to succeed, it would represent a legal and moral disaster comparable in many ways to Roe v. Wade. As leaders of the Catholic Church, we have a moral obligation to oppose any law that would clearly contribute to this outcome,” they declared.

“In contrast to sexual conduct within marriage between one man and one woman — which does serve both the good of each married person and the good of society — heterosexual and homosexual conduct outside of marriage has no claim to special protection by the state.”

They also said that giving the Church a religious exemption would not allay their opposition to the bill. They noted that applying Title VII prohibitions on religious discrimination does not extend to all religious employers, and that they have been taught by “recent experience” that even covered institutions like the Church “may face government retaliation.”

They highlighted the the rights of non-religious employers as well, adding that the “bill also lacks an exemption for a ‘bona fide occupational qualification’ (BFOQ), for those cases where it is neither unjust nor inappropriate to consider an applicant’s sexual inclination.”

They also stressed strongly that ENDA would jeopardize the right to teach the truth about homosexuality – and for employers to act in accord with that truth – with the “threat of government sanction.”

“We recognize that no one should be an object of scorn, hatred, or violence for any reason, including sexual inclination,” said the church leaders. This right comes from the revelation that all persons are “created in the image and likeness of God” and therefore “possess an innate human dignity that must be acknowledged and respected, by other persons and by law,” they said.

The letter concluded by saying that the USCCB could never support ENDA, but was open to “further discussion” on developing legislation protecting those with homosexual inclinations “from unjust discrimination, without protecting homosexual conduct.”

See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:

New Documentary on Homosexual Threat to Religious Freedom
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/may/10051313.html

Obama Appoints Lesbian Activist to EEOC Board
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10032914.html

Obama Assures Homosexualist Leaders He's a "Champion" of Their Cause at Private White House Reception
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jun/09063007.html

Bishops' Expert on Prevention of Clergy Abuse of Minors Offers Ten Points for Protecting Children

Sexual molestation is about the victim

Child sexual abuse can be prevented

Warning signs of abuse can be spotted

WASHINGTON—The Catholic bishops’ expert on preventing clergy abuse of minors, Teresa Kettelkamp, offered ten tips for child safely to mark Child Abuse Prevention Month.

During April, child protection staff in dioceses nationwide reexamine and publicize efforts for child protection. This has been a key effort of the church since 2002, when the U.S. bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, in response to clergy sexual abuse of children.

Kettelkamp, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Secretariat for Children and Young People, developed the list after reviewing what the Catholic Church has learned in facing the clergy sexual abuse problem. The ten points follow.

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U.S. bishops profoundly grateful for Pope's work in combating sexual abuse

Washington D.C., Mar 30, 2010 / 10:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- This morning the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed “profound gratitude” for the assistance that Pope Benedict XVI has given the bishops in their “efforts to respond to victims, deal with perpetrators and to create safe environments for children.” The statement comes in the midst of numerous media reports attempting to link the Pope to mishandling of sex abuse cases.

The bishops opened their March 30 statement by saying that “the recent emergence of more reports of sexual abuse by clergy saddens and angers the Church and causes us shame.” If “there is anywhere that children should be safe, it should be in their homes and in the Church,” the bishops said.

The latest reports of sexual abuse to surface have come from Europe and have been accompanied by attempts, both in Europe and the U.S., to connect the mishandling of the abusive priests to Pope Benedict.

In today's statement, the American bishops came to the Pope's defense, stating, “(w)e know from our experience how Pope Benedict is deeply concerned for those who have been harmed by sexual abuse and how he has strengthened the Church's response to victims and supported our efforts to deal with perpetrators.”

“We continue to intensify our efforts to provide safe environments for children in our parishes and schools,” the statement added. “Further, we work with others in our communities to address the prevalence of sexual abuse in the larger society.”

Citing an example of the Pope's commitment to the healing of sex abuse victims within the Church, the bishops recalled how one “of the most touching moments of the Holy Father’s visit to the United States in 2008 was his private conversation with victims/survivors at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington.”

“Pope Benedict heard firsthand how sexual abuse has devastated lives. The Holy Father spoke with each person and provided every one time to speak freely to him. They shared their painful experiences and he listened, often clasping their hands and responding tenderly and reassuringly.”

The U.S. bishops also underscored how “the support of both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI” has allowed them make a “vigorous commitment to do everything in our power to prevent abuse from happening to children.”

After the sex abuse scandal wracked the Church in the U.S., the bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002 at a meeting in Dallas. The charter calls on the Church to “respond with compassion to victims/survivors, to work diligently to screen those working with children and young people in the Church, to provide child abuse awareness and prevention education, to report suspected abuse to civil law enforcement, and to account for our efforts to protect children and youth through an external annual national audit,” the bishops noted.

The bishops concluded their remarks in Tuesday's statement by saying that as “we accompany Christ in His passion and death during this Holy Week, we stand with our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI in prayer for the victims of sexual abuse, for the entire Church and for the world.”