WASHINGTON (CNS) — Forty-three Catholic dioceses, schools, hospitals, social service agencies, and other institutions, including the Diocese of Fort Worth, filed suit in federal court May 21 to stop three government agencies from implementing a mandate that would require them to provide abortifacients, sterilization, and contraceptives to their employees, as part of their health insurance coverage.
The first paragraph of
the diocese’s lawsuit filed
in federal district court
sets the tone:
This lawsuit is about one of America’s most cherished freedoms: the freedom to practice one’s religion without government interference. It is not about whether people have a right to abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. Those services are freely available in the United States, and nothing prevents the U.S. Government itself from making them more widely available. Here, however, the U.S. Government seeks to require Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth — a Roman Catholic entity — to violate its sincerely held religious beliefs by providing, paying for, and/or facilitating access to those services.
Bishop Kevin Vann said the issue is an attack on religious freedom in the form of a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate that requires all employers to provide health plans to employees that cover abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraceptives. The mandate contains a very narrow exception for certain organizations that the government deems sufficiently “religious.”
“In effect,” Bishop Vann said, “the mandate’s definition of religion prohibits Catholics in the Diocese of Fort Worth from asking what we have asked since the first Catholic institution was created in the Fort Worth area in 1876: ‘Are you poor?’ ‘Are you hungry?’ ‘Do you need help?’ Now the definition of religion used in the mandate would require us to ask ‘Are you Catholic?’ To remain a religious institution under this definition, we could only help if you are Catholic. If you are not, now we cannot help you.”
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the archbishop of New York, whose archdiocese is among the plaintiffs, said of the lawsuits, “We have tried negotiations with the administration and legislation with the Congress — and we’ll keep at it — but there’s still no fix,” Cardinal Dolan said. “Time is running out and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now. Though the Conference is not a party to the lawsuits, we applaud this courageous action by so many individual dioceses, charities, hospitals, and schools across the nation, in coordination with the law firm of Jones Day. It is also a compelling display of the unity of the Church ministries that serve the common good and that are jeopardized by the mandate,” he concluded, “ministries to the poor, the sick, and the uneducated, to people of any faith or no faith at all.”
“Through this lawsuit, plaintiffs do not seek to impose their religious beliefs on others,” said one of the suits, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana by the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Catholic Charities of the diocese, St. Anne Home and Retirement Community, Franciscan Alliance, University of St. Francis, and Our Sunday Visitor.
“They simply ask that the government not impose its values and policies on plaintiffs, in direct violation of their religious beliefs,” it added.
Catholic organizations have objected to the contraceptive mandate since it was announced Jan. 20 by Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Unless they are subject to a narrow religious exemption or have a grandfathered health plan, employers will be required to pay for contraceptives, including some abortion-inducing drugs and sterilizations as part of their health coverage.
Story compiled from a Catholic News Service story by Nancy Frazier O’Brien, a USCCB news release, and a Diocese of Fort Worth news release.
Editor’s note: Visit the home page of the Diocese of Fort Worth for complete local information including:
* The lawsuit filed by the Diocese of Fort Worth
* The complete Diocese of Fort Worth Press Release (English and Spanish)
* Background on tne Religious Freedom lawsuit (Englishand Spanish)
* The Religious Freedom bulletin insert (English and Spanish)
* A list of legislators to contact
* Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s complete statement.
In Addition, there are English language video clips from:
Bishop Kevin Vann
Father Stephen Jasso, TOR, pastor of All Saints Parish in Fort Worth
Father Tom Kennedy, pastor of Holy Angels Parish in Clifton and Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Morgan
Laywoman Jeannine Gappa of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Keller
and Martha Tonn, director of formation at Immaculate Conception Parish in Denton