Catholic Churches Around Nation Read Letters Attacking HHS Health Insurance Requirement

CBS News reports that last Sunday Catholic Churches around the country read similar letters from their local bishops condemning the Obama administration's new rules requiring contraception coverage by most health plans, with exemptions that are too narrow to include most Catholic schools and hospitals. (See prior posting.) A typical letter quoted in full by the CBS report read in part:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced last week that almost all employers, including Catholic employers, will be forced to offer their employees’ health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception..... In so ruling, the Obama Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty.... [W]e Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so)..... We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second class citizens.