CEO of Alliance of Catholic Health Care Rails Against HHS Mandate

William J. Cox, president and CEO of the California-based Alliance of Catholic Health Care, told Congress this week that the new HHS mandate that requires contraceptive and sterilization insurance, intentionally defined its religious exemptions so narrowly as to intentionally counter Catholic institutions’ conscience protections, according to EWTN News.

Cox said the HHS had help in the American Civil Liberties Union.

The definition was “painstakingly crafted by the American Civil Liberties Union to specifically exclude religious institutional missions like health care providers, universities and social service agencies,” Cox stated.

During the debate, the then-head of Planned Parenthood in California said the wording was designed to close the “Catholic gap” in contraceptive coverage.

Cox said that with this new rule the HHS “turned its back” on the contributions of Catholic health care and “undid centuries of religious tolerance.”

The mandate would force Catholic colleges, hospitals and other institutions to cover sterilization procedures as well as contraceptives (including abortifacients).

The Alliance for Catholic Healthcare represents 54 hospitals and more than 40 nursing homes, hospices, assisted living and other facilities and services throughout California.

EWTN has more.

Civil Rights Laws Being Used to Attack Religion

In a public letter last month to President Barack Obama, Archbishop Dolan said the administration’s actions “imperil” religious freedom and may “precipitate a national conflict between Church and State of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions.”

Referencing the human rights complaint lodged by a George Washington Professsor on behalf of Muslim students at Catholic University, noted author Patrick Buchanan calls it a symptom of a “Church-state war” because religious institutions are under attack in this country.

Buchanan is saying that one of the main weapons being used against Catholic institutions are civil rights laws which are being twisted to be used to strip religion from the public sphere.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed segregation by restaurants and corporations. The 1965 Voting Rights Act struck down state impediments to black access to the ballot. The 1968 act forbade discrimination in the purchase and sale of housing.While these laws restricted the freedom of state officials, restaurateurs, bar owners, hotel operators and homeowners, that was the price we as a people agreed to pay to end segregation. But civil rights and human rights laws are today being used to compel Christian institutions to conform to anti-Christian agendas that violate their basic principles.

In the district, a new law ordering all city contractors to recognize gay marriages impelled the archdiocese to terminate its 80-year foster-care program, rather than let children be adopted by homosexuals. And the people of Washington were denied a vote on homosexual marriage by a District of Columbia judge who ruled that permitting a referendum on gay marriage would violate the district’s Human Rights Act.

Nationally, the church is resisting an Obamacare mandate that forces Catholic hospitals to provide patients with abortifacients such as the FDA-approved Ella and Plan B, the morning-after pill.

Dr. Ron Crews, executive director of the 2,000-member Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, has denounced a Pentagon decision to permit military chapels to be used for homosexual marriages, a violation, says Crews, of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

“By dishonestly sanctioning the use of federal facilities for ‘counterfeit marriages,’ that federal law and the vast majority of Americans have rejected, the Pentagon has launched a direct assault on the fundamental unit of society — husband and wife.”

Culture wars, rooted in irreconcilable conflicts about God and man, right and wrong, are disintegrating the moral community we once were — and will likely never be again.

One irony of civil rights laws being used against Catholic institutions is that so many leading Catholics fought so hard for the enactment of civil rights laws exactly because of their religious views and now the same laws are being used to strip the religious identity of Catholic institutions.

To read Buchanan’s entire piece click here.

Three Newman Guide Colleges Rank in Kiplinger’s Best Values

Three Newman Guide colleges have been ranked in the top 100 liberal-arts colleges or top 100 private universities, according to Kiplinger’s Best Value in Private Colleges.

The business and personal-finance publisher ranked Thomas Aquinas College (Calif.) and Christendom College (Va.) among the top 100 “liberal arts colleges.”  The Franciscan University of Steubenville (Ohio) ranked among the top 100 “private universities.”

The study looked at total cost, financial aid, debt upon graduation, admissions rate, graduation rate and student/professor ratio.

“Thanks to our many generous benefactors, a Thomas Aquinas College education is affordable to all or are willing and able to undertake it,”  said Thomas Aquinas College Director of Admissions Jon Daly. “For a Catholic liberal education that is as excellent as it is unique, we think this is a value that cannot be matched.”

Christendom’s Director of Admissions Tom McFadden said, “Christendom’s cost, including room and board, comes in well below the average at $27,540. And many students are able to deduct up to $20,000 off that price through our robust financial aid program. Assistance will vary in size—based on need, merit, and other factors—but you’re not going to find our caliber of education and personal formation anywhere in the country—especially at a price like that.”

Among the top 100 “private universities,” nearly a quarter (24) are Catholic universities.

Joel Recznik, VP of Enrollment of Franciscan University at Steubenville, pointed out that Franciscan is the only private university on Kiplinger’s list that’s also listed in the “Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College.”

Recznik said that it shows that schools can excel in both education and faith. “Faith and reason go together,” he said. “Like hand in glove.”