From: Ouko joachim omolo
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
BY JOSEPH ADERO NGALA
NAIROBI-KENYA
THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2012
The Archdiocese of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the University of Notre Dame, and 40 other Catholic dioceses and organizations around the United States of America announced on Monday that they are suing the Obama administration for violating their freedom of religion, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The bishops may find it very difficult to win this case. Scheduled on March 26-28, the U.S. Supreme Court on its first day within 90 minutes is to argue whether the court can even decide it because the penalty may, in legal terms, be a tax that cannot be challenged until the law goes into effect in 2015.
Two hours of argument on the second day will address the purchase requirement, known as the individual mandate. On the final day, two and a half hours are scheduled for the Medicaid issue and the question of whether striking down the purchase requirement would doom the rest of the law’s provisions.
The Affordable Care Act of 2010 requires everyone to purchase health insurance, imposes a penalty for failing to do so and orders states to expand their Medicaid programs for low-income families.
The fact that in most cases the current justices spend more time talking at oral arguments than any in recent history, with Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer leading their colleagues in words spoken per case, is another reason that this is not going to be an easy case a such.
Again, given that many bishops, notably the church leadership in California, saw the litigation as premature, it means that not all bishops are for the idea that Obama’s administration be sued.
Church leadership in California are upset that the lawsuits were brought without a broader discussion among the entire membership of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and wanted to delay action until the conference’s June meeting.
Conservative bishops led by Archdiocese of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan have been outspoken in condemning the Obama administration and pushing a “Fortnight for Freedom” campaign aimed at highlighting “threats to religious freedom, both at home and abroad.”
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan was named the Archbishop of News York in February 2009, succeeding Cardinal Edward M. Egan. He was designated a cardinal in February 2012.
In November 2010, he was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in a vote seen as a victory for conservatives within the church. Since becoming head of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Dolan has struck an aggressive tone.
The bishops are struggling to reclaim the role they played in the 1980s and into the ’90s as a nationally recognized voice on the moral dimension of public policy issues like economic inequality, workers’ rights, immigration and nuclear weapons proliferation. Since then, however, they have reordered their priorities, with abortion, homosexuality and other social issues eclipsing poverty and economic injustice.
President Barack Obama enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010, providing for the phased introduction over four years of a comprehensive system of mandated health insurance with reforms designed to eliminate “some of the worst practices of the insurance companies” — pre-condition screening and premium loadings, policy rescinds on technicalities when illness seems imminent, annual and lifetime coverage caps.
It also sets a minimum ratio of direct health care spending to premium income, and creates price competition bolstered by the creation of three standard insurance coverage levels to enable like-for-like comparisons by consumers, and a web based health insurance exchange where consumers can compare prices and purchase plans. The system preserves private insurance and private health care providers and provides more subsidies to enable the poor to buy insurance.
The bishops are suing Obama administration because the United States Constitution, which is the document that grants the federal government powers, did not grant the federal government any right to force citizens to purchase certain products or services. Obama’s health care insurance mandate, therefore, was an overreaching effort on the part of the federal government to dictate the purchasing decisions of private citizens in order to achieve a political goal.
Now the Church hierarchy wants the federal government to make a special exception for Catholic institutions; to shield them from the same standards that apply to everyone else. There are a few other religions pursuing similar courses of action, but the Catholic Church is by far the most aggressive and influential.
Although the president has not yet budged in face of this criticism, which grows increasingly severe by the day, Notre Dame University, the most prominent Roman Catholic school in the country came under then unprecedented criticism from U.S. bishops and others in 2009 for inviting Obama as commencement speaker. This was because Obama supports abortion rights.
Again, given that a new Gallup Poll has found that contraception is “morally acceptable” to 89 percent of Americans, including a top heavy 82 percent majority of American Catholics, despite the Church hierarchy’s opposition to the pill, it means that the vast majority of Americans are not against the Obama’s healthcare scheme.
The poll which was released a day after Catholic dioceses and institutions sued the Obama administration to block a requirement that employers cover contraception in health care plans offered to women employees involved the broad separation of church and state, not necessarily the morality of using birth control, according to Gallup reported.
Yet still, current data show that the substantial majority of Catholics interviewed say birth control is morally acceptable, even though the national poll attitudes on social issues may not go down well with Catholic bishops or leaders of the Christian right.
Its findings include:
By a 59-38 percent majority, Americans find it acceptable for medical researchers to use stem cells obtained from human embryos;
A 59-38 percent majority approve of sex between an unmarried man and unmarried woman;
A 54-42 percent majority find relations between gays and lesbians to be morally acceptable;
A similar 54-43 percent majority find having a child outside of marriage to be morally acceptable. The death penalty is accepted by a 58-34 percent majority.
By a 7-89 percent majority, Americans feel it is morally unacceptable for a married man and woman, or married woman and man, or two married people to be having an affair.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was founded in the early 20th Century as a Catholic counterweight to the clout of the Protestant Temperance Movement, which pressed to end alcohol sales.
For decades, the Conference marched in step with Democrats, supporting policies that aided the poor immigrant families who made up much of the church’s membership, Reese said.
In recent years, as more conservative bishops have taken leadership roles, gay marriage and abortion fights have taken center stage. But they’re not the only causes the bishops take up. Last year, they joined a coalition to speak out against federal budget cuts to services for the poor. They also have advocated allowing illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens.
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