CNSNews.com is reporting that the media conducted a virtual black-out of Cardinal Dolan's most recent move to combat the mandate that will force religious employers to provide insurance coverage for services that violate their religious beliefs.
“We have made it clear in no uncertain terms to the government that we are not at peace with its invasive attempt to curtail the religious freedom we cherish as Catholics and Americans,” Cardinal Dolan wrote to the Bishops.
“We did not ask for this fight, but we will not run from it,” he said.
He went on to say that since January 20 when the HHS mandate was first announced, “we have become certain of two things: religious freedom is under attack, and we will not cease our struggle to protect it.”
"Although the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops posted the cardinal’s letter on its website on Friday and issued a press release about it, neither The Washington Post nor The New York Times nor any other American newspaper that appears in the massive Lexis-Nexis database of news sources published a story about it in any of their Saturday editions," CNS wrote. "Nor, as of the early hours on Sunday, had any secular newspaper that shows up in a Google News search published a story about the letter."
However, despite the silence from the establishment media, CNS is calling the cardinal’s defiant letter "a major event in what has become the most significant confrontation over religious freedom in the history of the United States" because it will keep the issue in front of the people in a place where the press cannot prevent people from hearing about it - in church.
“As pastors and shepherds, each of us would prefer to spend our energy engaged in and promoting the works of mercy to which the Church is dedicated: healing the sick, teaching our youth, and helping the poor,” Dolan wrote. “Yet, precisely because we are pastors and shepherds, we recognize that each of the ministries entrusted to us by Jesus is now in jeopardy due to this bureaucratic intrusion into the internal life of the church.”
The cardinal also revealed that President Obama's invitation to the bishops to work with the White House to “work out the wrinkles” on his proposed accommodation turned out to be what most people expected - little more than window-dressing in an attempt to score political points.
" . . . (T)he effort failed to make progress as the White House showed no flexibility on the core issue," Dola reported. "At a recent meeting between staff of the bishops’ conference and the White House staff, our staff members asked directly whether the broader concerns of religious freedom—that is, revisiting the straight-jacketing mandates, or broadening the maligned exemption—are all off the table. They were informed that they are. So much for ‘working out the wrinkles.’”
He went on to promise that the bishops would continue to seek a legislative remedy to the administration’s attack on religious liberty and would also pursue protection of religious liberty through the federal courts.
He closed the letter by noting to his brother bishops that religious freedom now faces a threat not from a foreign enemy but from within the United States.
“Brothers, we know so very well that religious freedom is our heritage, our legacy and our firm belief, both as loyal Catholics and Americans,” he wrote. “There have been many threats to religious freedom over the decades and years, but these often came from without. This one sadly comes from within. As our ancestors did with previous threats, we will tirelessly defend the timeless and enduring truth of religious freedom.”
Click here to read the Cardinal's letter.
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