Cardinal DiNardo has said that the religious
employer exemption set forth by President Obama’s Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) in the proposal is so narrow ‘that the Good Samaritan would not
qualify’.

The proposals mean that a Catholic or other
religious-organisation which offers insurance to their employees would have to
cover contraception including abortion-inducing drugs unless they serve members
of their own faith alone.

This exemption would not cover the vast majority
of faith-based organisations including hospitals, because Catholic and other
Christian hospitals routinely treat patients who are not of the faith of the
hospital itself.

In other words, a Catholic hospital that offers
insurance cover to its employees could find itself having to pay for
contraceptive use by its employees, or even for their use of abortion-inducing
drugs.

Cardinal DiNardo said the Good Samaritan would not
be excluded from the new insurance requirement because he helped someone who was
not of his own faith.

The cardinal accused the HHS of having “a
distorted view of sexuality and a disdain for the role of religion,” during the
USCCB’s 40th annual “Respect Life Month” observed during October.

He said: “The decision [by HHS] is wrong on many
levels. Preventive services are aimed at preventing diseases (e.g., by
vaccinations) or detecting them early to aid prompt treatment (e.g., screening
for diabetes or cancer).

“But pregnancy is not a disease…. Mandating such
coverage shows neither respect for women’s health or freedom, nor respect for
the consciences of those who do not want to take part in such problematic
initiatives.”

The cardinal blasted the Obama administration for
their “misguided efforts to foster false values among our youth, to silence the
voice of moral truth in the public domain, and to deprive believers of their
constitutionally-protected right to live according to their religious
convictions.”

Meanwhile, 18 Catholic colleges have asked the
Obama administration to exempt all religious individuals and institutions from
being forced to participate in the federal mandate that health insurance plans
cover contraceptives and sterilisation.

The 13-page appeal was sent to the White House
last Thursday, and called the Department of Health and Human Services’
exemptions for religious employers as “potentially so narrow as to be not only
nearly inconsequential but insulting to religious entities, in particular to
Catholic colleges and universities.”

Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry,
chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Catholic Education, also signed the
letter.

The Catholic institutions join the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Health Association in support of stronger
religious exemptions under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. .

Msgr. Stuart Swetland, vice president of mission
at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland., told Catholic News
Service the proposed mandates under the health care law threaten the operation
of Catholic colleges and universities.

“It’s unprecedented in federal law. Religious
exemptions were always written to accommodate sincere religious beliefs. This is
written so narrowly,” said Msgr. Swetland, who also is executive director of the
Center for the Advancement of Catholic Higher Education, a division of the
Cardinal Newman Society, which helped organise the colleges’ appeal.

The letter said the mandates violated several
federal laws, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First and
14th amendments to the Constitution.

It pointed to the possibility that the mandate
could be used to require future insurance coverage of abortifacients as long as
the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as contraceptive in nature.

“No federal rule has defined being ‘religious’ as
narrowly and discriminatorily as the mandate appears to do, and no regulation
has ever so directly proposed to violate plain statutory and constitutional
religious freedoms,” the appeal said.