The Mandate War
The battle for religious freedom between the Catholic Church in the United States and the Obama administration just entered the second quarter. The first quarter was bureaucratic and rhetorical. The
Rose DeLauro, CNS, and the Disoriented Catholic Left
One does wonder, sometimes, just what goes on at Catholic News Service [CNS], an agency that wouldn’t exist were it not for the U.S. bishops and the bishops’ conference. This
Ryan vs. Georgetown
There is snobbery, and then there is academic snobbery. Snobbery is often instinctual and inadvertent, and if it's cruel, it's the cruelty of the unthinking. Academic snobbery is deliberately cutting,
Framing the Religious-Liberty Issue
“Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” the Easter Week statement by the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is the most developed statement on
Religious Freedom: It’s Not Just Pakistan and China
Thirty-some years ago, I spent a fair amount of time on religious freedom issues: which meant, in those simpler days, trying to pry Lithuanian priests and nuns out of Perm
After ‘United for Religious Freedom’
On the night of February 17, I took a phone call from a senior Catholic official who was concerned about the pro-gay-marriage votes in the Washington and Maryland legislatures and
Religious Freedom IS Social Justice
In his March 12 column, Washington Post writer E. J. Dionne Jr. attempts some fraternal intimidation of the Catholic bishops of the United States prior to the meeting of the
Obama’s Contraception Spin Machine
The Obama White House just doesn’t get the Catholic Church in the United States these days. That blunt fact of public life was demonstrated once again by an anonymous “administration
The Battle Continues, Beyond Rush
Despite the White House’s rather successful efforts to reframe the media and congressional debate over the HHS “contraceptive mandate” as a right-wing jihad against “women’s health” — a cynical ploy
The Catholic Diaspora and the Tragedy of Liberal Catholicism
In a February 14 note to his people, Cardinal Francis George, O.M.I., the archbishop of Chicago, commented on the question of “who speaks for the Catholic Church,” which had become
HHS and Soft Totalitarianism
The Obama administration’s recently-announced HHS regulations, which would require Catholic institutions to subsidize health insurance coverage that provides sterilization, abortifacient drugs, and contraceptives, should be located within the context of
The Catholic Betrayal of Religious Freedom
It was not surprising that ill-educated Catholics in Congress rushed to embrace President Obama’s “accommodation” on the HHS mandate on sterilization and contraception (including possible abortifacients), or that the faux
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