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A couple of months ago, I participated with others in an alumni-led effort to call out our alma mater for its lack of a strong stance in the midst of recent efforts by the government to compel Catholic institutions to participate in actions which contradict moral law. Given that my exhortation to Fr. Jenkins was public, I want to take this opportunity to equally publicly express my gratitude to Fr. Jenkins and the University of Notre Dame for uniting with other Catholic institutions in an effort to protect the vibrant exercise of Catholic religion and social action in the nation. I continue to pray that the University will strengthen her stance and adopt a position of principled and charitable leadership in the American Catholic community, especially in a time when the free practice of Catholic moral life, principled education, and charitable enterprise is under threat from the secularist ideology of the temporal powers that be.

First, Pope Benedict warned US Catholics and their bishops that our country was facing a “grave threat” to religious liberty:

Pope Benedict said that over the past few days many of the bishops have expressed concern over attempts in the U.S. to “deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices.”

Meanwhile, other bishops raised the “worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship” without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

At present, the Obama administration is considering imposing a contraception and sterilization mandate that would require all insurance companies to provide those services free of charge. The regulation has a religious-exemption clause, but it provides very few exceptions for Church organizations.

The next day, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius (a Catholic herself) proved him right. The HHS has announced today that, despite considering vociferous objections from religious groups, new rules which will require religious organizations to provide funding for contraceptive services, in violation of their consciences, will remain in place. The bishops respond:

The Catholic bishops of the United States called “literally unconscionable” a decision by the Obama Administration to continue to demand that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans. Today’s announcement means that this mandate and its very narrow exemption will not change at all; instead there will only be a delay in enforcement against some employers.

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The cardinal-designate continued, “To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable.It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty.”

The HHS rule requires that sterilization and contraception – including controversial abortifacients – be included among “preventive services” coverage in almost every healthcare plan available to Americans. “The government should not force Americans to act as if pregnancy is a disease to be prevented at all costs,” added Cardinal-designate Dolan.

At issue, the U.S. bishops and other religious leaders insist, is the survival of a cornerstone constitutionally protected freedom that ensures respect for the conscience of Catholics and all other Americans.

The USCCB report is here.

More news from Notre Dame … Fr. Jenkins, president of the university, has written an open letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius decrying the anti-Catholic regulations set to be enacted for insurance providers:

“Surely you know that we welcome the Administration’s decision to require health plans to cover women’s preventive services, such as critical screenings that will make preventive care more widely available and affordable. However, I’m sure you also understand that the inclusion in that mandate of contraceptive services that the Catholic Church finds morally objectionable makes it imperative that the Final Rule include broader conscience protections. In their current form, these regulations would require us to offer our students sterilization procedures and prescription contraceptives, including pills that act after fertilization to induce abortions, and to offer such services in our employee health plans. This would compel Notre Dame to either pay for contraception and sterilization in violation of the Church’s moral teaching, or to discontinue our employee and student health care plans in violation of the Church’s social teaching. It is an impossible position.”

The Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture has more.

To read what the USCCB has to say about these threats to Catholic conscience and to find ways to voice your own concerns, visit here.