BALTIMORE (CNS) -- After a lengthy
report from the chairman of a new Ad
Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty,
the president of the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops said he came away
from a recent meeting with President Barack Obama encouraged about
some aspects of religious rights
concerns. Speaking Nov. 14 at the bishops' fall
general assembly, Bishop William E.
Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., committee
chairman, outlined a range of actions
by government agencies seen as
threats to religious rights. He explained the constitutional and
natural law concerns the ad hoc
committee aims to address. At a news conference following the
session, New York Archbishop
Timothy M. Dolan, president of the
USCCB, said he came away from a Nov.
8 meeting with Obama "a bit more at
peace than when I entered" the Oval Office when it comes to religious
liberty. He said he found the president to be
"very open to the sensitivities" of the
U.S. Catholic Church on issues related
to religious freedom that the two
discussed. He said the meeting
touched on a wide range of topics and that by mutual agreement with the
White House, details of the meeting
would not be made public,
Archbishop Dolan said. He said the current issues related to
religious liberty might be an area
where there is room for compromise
"as long as we're not compromising
our principles." Archbishop Dolan said it's part of the
current culture to try to limit the role of
religion in the public square as a
philosophical shift, "to push religion
back into the sacristy" in a way, or in
other words, to keep churches from participating in "the public square." But the church has faced such efforts
since the early days of Christianity, he
added. Among the situations Bishop Lori
described in his presentation to the
bishops are several related to policies
of the Department of Health and
Human Services. They include an HHS
mandate requiring no-cost coverage of contraception and sterilization in
most health plans. The mandate is what the federal
government terms an "interim final
rule" that has "the full force and effect
of law." Religious groups have
objected to it, saying that providing
the coverage violates their conscience rights and claim that a proposed
religious exemption is too narrowly
drawn. HHS also recently denied a one-year
grant to the U.S. Catholic bishops'
Migration and Refugee Services to aid
foreign-born human trafficking
victims. The attention has focused on
requirements in the guidelines for the
new grants that called for agencies to
offer the "full range of reproductive
service," including abortion and
contraception, to trafficking victims. In 2009, the American Civil Liberties
Union of Massachusetts filed a lawsuit
against the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services for not making
the U.S. Catholic bishops' agency
include referrals for abortion, sterilization and artificial contraception
in its anti-trafficking program. That
case is still pending. "Contrary to conscience protections
that are already a matter of law,"
Bishop Lori said. "(Catholic Relief
Services) and MRS were told that new
condition for the renewal of
cooperative agreements was the provision of so-called reproductive
services." He added that the condition
"we hope -- and pray -- may soon be
dropped." Bishop Lori also cited the Department
of Justice's shift from defending the
Defense of Marriage Act to opposing it
in court "as an act of 'bias and
prejudice' akin to racism, thereby
implying that churches which teach that marriage is between a man and a
woman are guilty of bigotry." He said the bishops see a pattern in
culture and law to treat religion "as
merely a private matter between an
individual and one's own God. Instead
of promoting toleration of differing
religious views, some laws, some decisions and some administrative
regulations treat religion not as a
contributor to our nation's common
morality but rather as a divisive and
disruptive force better kept out of
public life." Bishop Lori was named to head the ad
hoc committee Sept. 30. The bishops
discussed religious rights issues at
their June meeting and the decision to
create the committee was finalized by
their Administrative Committee in September. Ten bishops and 10 consultants were
named to the committee in early
November. New members are Bishop
John O. Barres of Allentown, Pa.;
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of
Philadelphia; Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas; Archbishop Wilton
D. Gregory of Atlanta; Archbishop
John C. Nienstedt of St. Paul and
Minneapolis; Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted
of Phoenix; Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki
of Springfield, Ill.; Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi of Mobile, Ala.; Archbishop J.
Peter Sartain of Seattle; and Cardinal
Donald W. Wuerl of Washington. Consultants include Carl Anderson,
supreme knight of the Knights of
Columbus; attorneys Kevin Baine,
Philip Lacovara and L. Martin
Nussbaum; Father Raymond J. de
Souza, a columnist and priest of the Archdiocese of Kingston, Ontario;
Richard Garnett, associate dean and
professor of law and political science
at the University of Notre Dame; John
Garvey, president of The Catholic
University of America; Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law School
professor; Judge Michael McConnell,
Stanford University Law School
professor; and Mary Ellen Russell,
executive director of the Maryland
Catholic Conference.
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