Bishops' Health Insurance Letter Created Special Issues For Military Chaplains

As previously reported, On Jan. 29 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. It appears that the letter posed particular issues for Catholic chaplains in the U.S. military who received a letter to read from Archbishop Timothy Broglio, head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA. God and Country blog reports that  Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains e-mailed senior chaplains advising them that Broglio had not coordinated the letter with the Chief of Chaplains Office. The e-mail advised chaplains not to read the letter from the pulpit, but instead to merely mention it in Mass announcements and distribute it in printed form in the back of the chapel. Archbishop Broglio, who apparently believed that this interference violated his religious liberty, contacted Army Secretary John McHugh. Their discussions led to the Army withdrawing its objections to the letter being read from the pulpit, but Broglio removing from the letter one sentence that could have been seen as encouraging civil disobedience. The sentence read: "“We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law"