Court Sides with Catholic Schools, Hospitals Against HHS Mandate

From Catholic World News

Invoking the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, a federal district court judge has barred enforcement of the HHS mandate against two New York-area Catholic high schools and two Catholic health care systems. The Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Rockville Centre, which are currently exempt from the mandate, also joined the lawsuit. 

The “plaintiffs have demonstrated that the Mandate … compels them to perform acts that are contrary to their religion,” ruled Judge Brian Cogan, whom President George W. Bush appointed to the bench.

“And there can be no doubt that the coercive pressure here is substantial,” he added. “If plaintiffs do not comply with the Mandate, they are subject to fines of $100 per day per affected beneficiary. If they seek to cease providing health insurance altogether, they face an annual fine of $2,000 per full-time employee. The only other option available to plaintiffs is to violate their religious beliefs.” 

The New York ruling is important because it is the first case in which a federal court has granted a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the HHS mandate. (Other non-profit groups have won preliminary injunctions, barring enforcement until the case is settled.) The Obama administration has the option to appeal the ruling. 

Additional sources for this story Some links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Religious groups get win vs. O’care birth-control mandate (New York Post)  
• Another Victory Against HHS Mandate “Accommodation” (National Review Online)
• Full text of decision

Obama Regime Targeting the South for Refugee Resettlement

Refugee Resettlement Fact Sheet 

Prepared by Refugee Resettlement Watch

1.   Since 1975, the U.S. has resettled over 3 million refugees, with annual admissions figures ranging from a high of 207,000 in 1980 to a low of 27,110 in 2002 (in the aftermath of 911) .

The average number of refugees admitted annually since 1980 is about 98,000. Additionally, in recent years, another 40,000 or more per year come in as asylum seekers and Cuban/Haitian entrants – all with the same rights and entitlements as refugees.

All these flows detonate their own chain migration flows in addition to the refugee influx.  These follow-on flows have easily multiplied the original admission numbers by a factor of 4 or more.

The quota for 2013 is 70,000 and it looks like it will be met this year.  There is strong political pressure to get refugee numbers back to over 100,000.

From the Pastor: The Obama Administration's Assault on Military Chaplains and the Moral Law

"The military chaplaincy is under threat by our own government as part of its social agenda."

 A weekly column by Father George Rutler.

The Geneva Convention’s classification of military chaplains as noncombatants has traditionally been interpreted in the United States to mean that chaplains normally do not carry weapons. This often puts them in precarious positions when they are in war zones. Over four hundred chaplains have been killed in the line of duty. Catholic chaplains are especially exposed to dangerous situations by their obligation to administer Absolution and Anointing. They have received every kind of decoration for valor, and seven have been awarded the Medal of Honor.

All four chaplains awarded the Medal since the Civil War have been Catholic. Among them, Lieutenant Vincent Capodanno, a Maryknoll priest and Navy chaplain, who served with the Marine Corps and was killed while aiding the second Platoon of M Company at the battle of Dong Son in Vietnam, has been proposed for heaven’s highest honor, canonization as a saint.

The military chaplaincy is under threat by our own government as part of its social agenda. One year ago, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains tried to forbid Catholic chaplains from reading a statement from the Military Ordinary, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees all priests in the Catholic Ordinariate for the Armed Forces, in which he objected to federally mandated health insurance covering sterilization, abortifacients and contraception in violation of the right to religious freedom. Now the government would compel chaplains to acquiesce in “same-sex” simulations of marriage. The Army’s deputy chief of staff in charge of personnel has said that military members who dissent from this agenda are “bigoted” and “need to get out.”

As behavior contrary to Christian morality becomes a civil right, Catholics in particular could soon become, quite literally, outlaws. Our current President recently announced that he will disobey a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by his own hand, which states that chaplains cannot be forced “to perform any rite, ritual or ceremony that is contrary to the conscience, moral principles or religious beliefs of the chaplain.”

I am always edified by the sacrificing spirit of good soldiers, and as a chaplain to West Point alumni here in New York, I am pleased when cadets serve at Mass. Governments that have tried to manipulate soldiers and doctors and teachers in perverse ways have always had a short shelf life. The nineteenth-century French political philosopher Frédéric Bastiat warned: “When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe.”

Military chaplains do not bear arms, but they have recourse to another arsenal: “Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect” (Ephesians 6:11).

Obama Regime Purges Religious Freedom Section from Its Human Rights Reports

Clearly the Obama regime does not want to admit that their celebrated "Arab Spring" has resulted in the murder, persecution and displacement of Christians in Africa and the Middle East.  Or perhaps they also recognize the plank in their own eye.

AP Photo

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. State Department removed the sections covering religious freedom from the Country Reports on Human Rights that it released on May 24, three months past the statutory deadline Congress set for the release of these reports.

The new human rights reports--purged of the sections that discuss the status of religious freedom in each of the countries covered--are also the human rights reports that include the period that covered the Arab Spring and its aftermath.

Air Force Removes ‘God’ From Logo

From WorldNetDaily

A Virginia lawmaker is calling on the Air Force to reverse a decision to remove a Latin reference to “God” from a logo after an atheist group complained.

Rep. Randy Forbes, (R-VA), said the Air Force removed the logo several weeks ago from the Rapid Capabilities Office. The patch included a line written in Latin that read, “Doing God’s Work with Other People’s Money.”

But after the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers complained, Forbes said the line was rewritten in Latin to read, “Doing Miracles with Other People’s Money.”

Obama Court Case Could Force Christian Schools, Churches to Employ HIV-Positive, Transgender Teachers and Church Employees

From The White House Watch

By Ben Johnson

Coming soon to a Christian classroom?

I wrote recently of the Obama administration’s Supreme Court challenge to the “ministerial exception.” If successful, the government will allow Christian schoolteachers and church employees considered “ministers” to sue their churches for violating anti-discrimination laws. There is a deeper, more disturbing aspect to the EEOC’s advocacy in this case. As this administration enforces those laws, it could require a Christian school to employ a transgender, HIV-positive homosexual as an elementary teacher. The government may impose Affirmative Action upon churches, as well.

Christian Defense Coalition Concerned about the Role of the FBI Under the Obama Administration

The Christian Defense Coalition wonders why their Director, Rev. Patrick Mahoney, was visited and questioned by FBI agents for leading a peaceful prayer vigil in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Yet Major Hasan, who contacted Islamic terrorists multiple times, made threatening comments to the American military and considered himself a "Soldier of Allah" was never visited or questioned by the FBI.

Is it possible that Rev. Mahoney was targeted because he has been an outspoken critic of President Obama's record on human rights and social justice?

Federal agents came to the home of Rev. Mahoney to question him about laying roses and praying in front of the Chinese Embassy on June 4th of this year.

The purpose of the prayer vigil was to honor and remember the heroic students who were brutalized in Tiananmen Square 20 years ago and to call upon the Chinese government to protect human rights and honor religious freedom. (View Pictures here.)

Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney comments,

"I was deeply troubled to have agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation come to my home and question me about my peaceful activities at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.

"Those activities included conducting a prayer vigil and laying roses at the Embassy to honor the students who were killed in the Tiananmen Square massacre 20 years ago. We also wanted to pray that the Chinese government would honor and protect human rights and civil liberties in their country.

"It is even more troubling to realize that I was visited at my home by the FBI for peacefully exercising my First Amendment rights, yet Major Hasan received no such visit by the FBI for contacting Islamic terrorists multiple times and making threatening comments to the American military.

"How is it possible that a Christian minister is investigated and questioned by federal agents for holding a peaceful prayer vigil and a person who killed 13 people and had numerous contacts with terrorists was never visited or questioned?

"Is this the new policy of the FBI under President Obama? If you are a Christian minister and pray and speak out against the human rights abuses of the Chinese government and challenge the President on his human rights policies, you will be investigated by the FBI. However, if you are a Muslim who is in regular contact with terrorists and makes hateful comments against the American military you will be granted a free pass."