Priests for Life Secure Religious Freedom Exemption from Obamacare

By Priests for Life
1/8/2013
Priests for Life (www.priestsforlife.org/)

The agreement will stay in effect at least until the government issues new regulations covering contraceptive services under the health care law.

Priests for Life has scored a victory in its challenge to the religious-freedom-busting HHS mandate. Lawyers for the Obama administration stipulated that the pro-life organization would not have to offer contraception, sterilization services and abortifacient drugs through its employee health insurance plan.

Fr Frank Pavone

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STATEN ISLAND, NY (Priests for Life) - Priests for Life has scored a victory in its challenge to the religious-freedom-busting HHS mandate. Lawyers for the Obama administration stipulated that the pro-life organization would not have to offer contraception, sterilization services and abortifacient drugs through its employee health insurance plan.

Charles S. LiMandri, president and chief counsel for the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, which filed Priests for Life's lawsuit against the government in February 2012 (the fourth such lawsuit), said the government changed its stance after a judge in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York said he would be inclined to side with the pro-life group. Priests for Life argued that it was a religious organization that should be exempt from the rule.

The American Freedom Law Center, which filed suit jointly with LiMandri, noted that the agreement came as a result of the court strongly urging the government to enter into the stipulation. If an agreement was not reached by December 21, the court scheduled a hearing for December 26, at which time it was evident the court would order the injunction.

The agreement will stay in effect at least until the government issues new regulations covering contraceptive services under the health care law.

"We are not expecting the government to come up with regulations that we can accept, but this is still an important first step," said Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life. "We were prepared to violate the mandate on Jan. 1, at great expense to our organization. We are very grateful to the court that we did not have to take that step, and we remain confident that this unjust mandate will be entirely and permanently struck down."

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Priests for Life is the nation's largest Catholic pro-life organization dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia. For more information, visit www.priestsforlife.org.

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1 - 2 of 2 Comments

Robert
5 months ago
This is very good news. Now what about the Catholic business owner? What will he/she do?

The bishops supported Obamacare because it appeared to offer the less fortunate a way to recieve better medical care. Unfortunately, this too was a sellout to five non-negotiables of our Catholic Faith.

Obama still gets their support because of the Social Justice contingency.

Social Justice at the expense of Unborn, True Marriage, Balanced Budgets, Liberty, Freedom of Religion, and Embryonic Stem Cell research.

Why don't we grant the wish of bishops and vote for amnesty for all illegal immigratnts. We can then register them as Democrats and secure funding for Planned Parenthood, gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research, welfare, contraceptives in schools, debt, destruction of the Constitution, and then shake our heads in disbelief when our churches are shut down for hate speech.

Please google Pope Benedict's Motu Propio.

Have a blessed day.
Bill Sr.
5 months ago
Religious Liberty in an Enlightened Society
American taxpayers, without current legal exception on moral or religious grounds (it would classify as a civil right if it was a liberal cause), are required to fund government run high schools that have classes teaching students how to use a condom and then dispense them free of charge to both boys and girls. The taxpayers who may object to this enlightened approach to educational instruction and choose to send their children to private or religious schools must do so at their own personal expense in addition to the continued funding of their local government school. Vouchers and school choice are vehemently opposed by secular progressives like Obama.
The same government school systems are also teaching the children as young as kindergarten that lifestyles contrary to nature's law such as homosexual marriage are both socially acceptable and to be encouraged by our enlightened society.
Today sexually active boys, girls, men and women have, as a result of this enlighten society, the ability to reduce what has always been the sacred gift of procreation within marriage to a form of personally satisfying recreational activity with the legal right to disclaim, discard or destroy any living persons created naturally by such activity due to failure to use proper equipment or judgment. Not only can the participants deny their basic obligation to nature but our enlightened secular government with the anti-Christian guidelines of the Obama administration now in power requires business enterprises and even religious institutions with more than fifty employees who have health insurance plans for their employees, under Federal Law, are now required to include in their plans coverage to pay for the tragic carnage of human life and dignity left by such behavior. Opposition to the dictates of this HHS law or any of Obama's agenda aimed at the destruction of Judeo-Christian morality is now considered hate speech.
The White House has recently permitted a petition to appear on its website for signatures to officially recognize the Catholic Church as a Hate Group. This was not by accident! The church with its stand on abortion, same sex marriage, euthanasia and religious liberty along with our Constitution are all that stand in the way of the total transformation of America the liberal's messiah has in mind for us.

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