Cardinal Arinze on Abortion and Politics

I love Cardinal Arinze. He does not beat around the bush, but rather gets right to the heart of the matter:



(I found this video on Fr. Z's Blog and on LifeSiteNews.com.)

Catholic Election Commentary

I was very disappointed and surprised at the results of this past Tuesday's election in the U.S. -- disappointed mainly because of what a second Obama term is likely to mean for religious liberty, abortion, and court appointments, and because a Romney victory was probably our last chance to repeal Obamacare.

I am briefly stepping out of my normal role of posting Catholic videos, in order to post some links to analysis of the election from a Catholic perspective, for any readers who might not have seen these articles and blog posts yet:

Fr. Z's reflection on the election

NCRegister: HHS Threat Undiminished

Monsignor Charles Pope: Difficult Days Ahead for the Church? (A quote: "Civil disobedience may be in our future." And Monsignor Pope is not normally given to overreaction or hyperbole.)

Monsignor Charles Pope: A Post Mortem on the Maryland Same Sex "Marriage" Referendum

Steven Greydanus: Decision 2012: Hitting Bottom? A Moment of Clarity

Matthew Archbold: Hitting Bottom

Matthew Archbold: We Are in Enemy Territory

Matthew Warner's lesson from the election

The Curt Jester's election thoughts

Election analysis from Donald R. McClarey of The American Catholic (A bit negative, but I can't say that I entirely disagree with it.)

George Weigel: Sifting Through the Wreckage

The Curt Jester: Pop Culture Presidency (This one is a little more hopeful for the future -- at least for 2016 and beyond.)

Archbishop Chaput on the politics of secularism

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput talks about religious freedom and the roles of religion and secularism in politics, in this video from Catholic News Service:



(Found on the New Advent blog.)

Religious Liberty

This video covers the religious liberty problems with the HHS contraception mandate, but puts the blame squarely on the larger issue, which is Obamacare:



(Found on The American Catholic.)

HHS Contraception Mandate: Contact Your Senators Today!

The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote on the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act tomorrow, March 1, 2012. This act would protect the religious freedom of Catholic organizations, by proctecting them from the contraception mandate that was recently imposed by the Department of Health and Human Services.

As you probably already know, this mandate is a big deal. It is a clear violation of the rights of religious liberty as found in the first amendment to the U.S. Constition. If it allowed to stand, it will impose large fines on Catholic hospitals, Catholic universities, Catholic media organizations, and other Catholic organizations who are unwilling to go against the Catholic faith by paying for contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilizations. Francis Cardinal George of Chicago has even said that Catholic hospitals and other Catholic organizations will be forced either to renounce their Catholic identity or to go out of business, if the mandate is not changed. Here is part of Cardinal George's recent column:

If you haven’t already purchased the Archdiocesan Directory for 2012, I would suggest you get one as a souvenir. On page L-3, there is a complete list of Catholic hospitals and health care institutions in Cook and Lake counties. Each entry represents much sacrifice on the part of medical personnel, administrators and religious sponsors. Each name signifies the love of Christ to people of all classes and races and religions. Two Lents from now, unless something changes, that page will be blank.

(Read the entire column here.)

I contacted both of my senators yesterday about my opposition to the HHS contraception mandate, and my support for the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. If you are in the United States, have you contacted your senators yet? If not, please call their offices today. Just go to www.senate.gov and select your state to find your two senators. Or find out more from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops here or here (the second link is a PDF file).

And yes this is still a video blog, so finally, here are two videos on this topic:







(Videos found on LifeSiteNews.com.)

Bishop Lori testifies before Congress: The parable of the kosher deli

Bishop William Lori is the bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and he is also the chairman of the U.S. bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty. Bishop Lori testified yesterday before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in regard to the HHS contraception mandate. In his testimony, Bishop Lori used a modern-day parable to illustrate how the contraception mandate violates religious liberty:



The full text of Bishop Lori's testimony can be read here.

UPDATE: The embedded video was working fine earlier today, but it has since stopped working. If it is still not working, you can try this link to view the video at Vimeo.com, or you can view the YouTube version of the video, which I am embedding below:

HHS Contraception Mandate

NOTE: I have added some updates at the end of this post.

I have intended for a few weeks now to post some videos about the recent contraception mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In the unlikely event that you haven't heard about this mandate, essentially the issue is as follows:

As part of the "Obamacare" health care law, the Department of Health and Human Services has defined contraception, sterilization, and even abortifacient "emergency contraception" as preventive care which must be covered in all employer-sponsored health plans. Most religious organizations are not exempt from this requirement, meaning that organizations such as Catholic universities, Catholic charities, and Catholic hospitals must choose either to pay for medicines and procedures which they believe are morally wrong, or stop providing health insurance coverage for their employees and pay a steep fine to the government.

Obviously, the first option (providing contraception) is not an option that a Catholic individual or a Catholic organization can follow without violating the teachings of the church. And the second option is clearly unjust, because it prevents Catholics and Catholic organizations from providing health care coverage to their employees, and penalizes them monetarily for not being willing to violate their consciences. This HHS mandate is a clear violation of the religious liberty of Catholics, or of anyone whose religion teaches that these medicines and procedures are morally wrong.

To read more about this mandate, I would recommend starting with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' web page on the HHS mandate, as well as the National Catholic Register for ongoing news coverage.

And of course, since this blog is focused on Catholic videos, I do have some videos on this issue. First, here is Archbishop and Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan of New York on CBS News:



Ave Maria University states that they will not comply with the contraception mandate:



And here is Fr. Barron's commentary on the contraception mandate, in which he replies to some commentators who favor the mandate:




Finally, there are several petitions that people can sign, including the following:

Online petition at StopHHS.com, courtesy of Ave Maria Radio
Online petition at whitehouse.gov
"Stop the Birth Control Mandate" petition
Becket Fund for Religious Liberty Petition


UPDATE 1: Here is one more video, from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, which I found on the Aggie Catholics blog:




UPDATE 2 (Feb. 11, 2012): Yesterday, President Obama offered an "accommodation," essentially saying that religious employers who provide health insurance to their employees must still purchase plans that provide free contraception, but the contraception will be paid for by the insurance company rather than by the employer. Of course this is merely a change in semantics, not a change in the actual situation. The insurance companies do not magically create money with which to pay for these "free" contraceptives; rather the contraceptives must be paid for with the premiums paid by their customers -- including religious employers. Thankfully, it does not appear that the Catholic bishops or many Catholic religious organizations are buying this. Here is the most recent statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and here is a video statement from Bishop Edward Slattery of Tulsa, Oklahoma:

Thomas Peters (the American Papist) interviews Archbishop Charles Chaput

The following videos show an interview that Thomas Peters (the American Papist) conducted in 2008 with Archbishop Charles Chaput, then the Archbishop of Denver, and now the Archbishop-designate of Philadelphia. The discussion centers around topics covered in Archbishop Chaput's book Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life.

Archbishop Chaput speaks on church and state, and other topics

With the recent news that Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver has been appointed as the new archbishop of Philadelphia, I would like to post a couple of videos featuring the good archbishop.

In this video, Archbishop Chaput gives a speech at Houston Baptist University, and then participates in a conversation and answers questions. Several topics are covered, with the main topic of his speech being Christianity in public life -- i.e., the proper relationship of church and state, or faith and politics.