‘Great sho Bishop tells faithful ‘we cannot accept this mandate’ Alfredo E. Cardenas South Texas Catholic
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n the Church’s struggle for the protection of religious freedom, Bishop Wm. Michael Mulvey asked the people in the Diocese of Corpus Christi to pray. The bishop told a full Cathedral on July 21 that the Church is calling into question “secular tendencies that seek to limit the divine”
The bishop said government was impeding people of faith to minister to those in need. “For many years now the Church has been working to protect the rights of the unborn in so many different activities, to counteract abortion and to protect the human dignity of every person. Now we also must defend and promote what should be protected for us in the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America; that is our religious freedom,” Bishop Mulvey said as the Diocese of Corpus Christi joined Catholics around the nation in promoting a “Fortnight for Freedom.” At the recommendation of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the Diocese of Corpus Christi invited the faithful to participate in the two-week observance
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with prayer and fasting. Many Catholics, Bishop Mulvey said, do not see this as a pressing need. “However, anyone who studies the facts and sees the incursion of government into our lives as Catholics cannot but be alarmed,” he said. The USCCB and many others, both Catholic and nonCatholic, are working to assure that this egregious overstepping of boundaries does not go through, the bishop said. The sometimes-contentious debate has been brewing since Jan. 21 when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the final rules governing group health plans and health issuers relating to coverage of “preventive services” under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act adopted by Congress in March 2010. HHS initially did not ask for comments on the proposed rules but nonetheless received an outpouring of comments. Some of the comments received suggested “group health plans sponsored by religiously-affiliated employers be allowed to exclude contraceptive services from coverage under their plans if the employers deem such services contrary to their religious tenets…” HHS ostensibly amended their initial proposed rules to provide an exemption to religious employers that have “the inculcation of religious values as its purpose;” primarily employed persons who share their religious beliefs; and primarily serve persons who share these tenets. The agency received more than 200,000 comments to these changes. This final rule did not meet the approval of the USCCB, www.SouthTexasCatholic.com