Cardinal Dolan: Gov't contraception policy a "radical intrusion"

(CBS News) Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan said the president's new contraception policy is "intruding into the life of faith."

On CBS News' "Face the Nation," Dolan, who is the Archbishop of New York, told host Bob Schieffer that the president brought on the confrontation with his policy and that the Catholic Church "didn't ask for this fight."

"We didn't ask for the fight, but we're not going to back away from it," Dolan said, referring to the Obama administration's new rule that employees of religious institutions receive contraceptive health coverage.

Dolan maintained that the president's modification - to place the requirement on the insurance company and not the employer - made after the Church's outrage continues to put the Church in "a very tough spot." The Catholic Church's opposition to contraception led to a public campaign lambasting the new rule.

"You've got a dramatic, radical intrusion of a government bureaucracy into the internal life of the Church," Doland told Schieffer. "Our problem is the government is intruding into the life of faith in the church that they shouldn't be doing."

Also on "Face the Nation," Schieffer asked Dolan if the intersection of religion and politics is too close. Dolan said religion does play a role in politics but that it shouldn't be "too involved."

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But, Dolan added, "I also don't think the government and politics should be overly involved in the church."

In an Easter Sunday interview, Schieffer also asked Dolan to comment on Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum's comments that he "almost threw up" after reading a speech presidential candidate John F. Kennedy gave in 1960 about separation of church and state to address concerns about his Catholic religion.

Dolan said he agrees with Santorum and Kennedy, both Catholics.

"I would've cheered what John Kennedy said, he was right," Dolan said. "That having been said, I would also say that Senator Santorum had a good point because unfortunately what John Kennedy said... has been misinterpreted to mean that a separation of Church and State also means a cleavage, a wall, between one's faith and one's political decisions."

[JohnHinAZ]

No, your Eminence, the Church did not seek this fight.

But, as I understand it, the contraceptive requirement does not force the Church itself to provide contraceptives or to provide insurance that does. (You may decline to provide insurance.)

The issue is about church-owned institutions - businesses, hospitals and others that serve the public. The Obama Administration's position is that these organizations, like all others in the country, should not be immune to normal laws. They cannot refuse to hire non-Catholics. The hospitals cannot refuse abortions when a mother's life is in danger. Catholic pharmacists cannot prevent birth control prescriptions from being filled.

I am a devout Christian, and I criticize the Church with great reluctance. But, the Church's policies on contraception, abortion and sexuality in general continue to repress women. And, I believe deeply that the rise of women to equality is deeply rooted in God's Plan for humanity.

[sjj1222]

Mr. Dolan claims that "Nor can we argue purely from revelation: why should other citizens respect our opinions if we do not present them as applicable to all people regardless of religion?" That's precisely the problem: hiding under your tax-exempt mantle of "revealed" holiness, you want to tell the rest of us what to do, and how to live. The bottom line is that absolutely NO ONE is coming into our Churches or places of worship and telling believers what to believe.....or forcing them to use contraception. BUT If the Bishops (and other denominations) want to continue running businesses outside of their places of worship...businesses that employ millions of people of varying faiths -or no "faith" at all- THEN they must play by the same rules and rights that other workers live by and enjoy (especially if their businesses use our tax dollars, and skip paying taxes, in the process).?If the Jehovah's Witnesses church hires me, can they alter my health insurance to exclude blood transfusions? Even worse- what if they operated a hospital by their "rules"??This is not a "war on religion". Never was. However, it IS a war BY some religions... on women and men who simply want to plan their families, to control their futures, to keep their jobs, and to have health insurance that allows them to do that. Likewise It is a war -not on religion- but on gays and others who the church deems to be second class citizens, and targets of its venom. The churches (or the IRS) need to decide whether these churches are ?going to be political organizations proclaiming and practicing partisan politics from the pulpit...or....tax-exempt places of WORSHIP.?Not both. Not in America.

[SeymourJ2]

The Church has for centuries persecuted people for a wide variety of what they deemed were sins. That persecution continues today with their demand the United States enforce their particular rules of life for parishioners as well as non-parishioners. When the people, represented by the government, decide enough is enough then the Cardinal jumps up to claim Catholics are being persecuted. Please advise the Cardinal to stick to his own house. Where was he the pedophiles were being hidden and spread out throughout the nation? Or were they being "persecuted?"

[Maine_Coast]

Cardinal Dolan became Cardinal with a vow to join the conservative extremists in the US, to support their political ambitions and to increase restrictions for the women's health options. Dolan was preparing this stage long before the health care reform act.

If women want their daughters and granddaughters to be free equal citizens of the world, they had best recognize that the Catholic Church is getting more militant in its support of the conservative effort to turn the clock back. Between Catholic leadership and Republicans, we are looking at a men's only club. Kind of looks like the Taliban.

[Daddybill2]

As Cardinal Dolan has noted, "the Church hardly needs to be lectured about health care for women. Thanks mostly to our Sisters, the Church is the largest private provider of health care for women and their babies in the country.... [I]n New York State, Fidelis, the Medicare/Medicaid insurance provider, owned by the Church, consistently receives top ratings for its quality of service to women and children."

When right are granted to you by your governing nation, you expect them to provide it. Your children have a right to an education, and thus the right to attend public school at no additional cost. You do not march up to the main office at a private school and demand that they let your child in, free of charge, because they have a right to an education. Similarly, if you cannot afford to put food on your table, you have a right to ask the government to provide for you through welfare, but you don't have the right to walk into a restaurant and demand that they feed you. The government can and should provide access to health care for all citizens, but that requires actually providing it, not shifting the responsibility to private employers. The Obama Administration has decided that women employees have the right to health care coverage that provides contraception. The problem with the government forcing business-owners to provide that "right" to society is that the scope of governmental authority is limited by the rights and freedoms that protect individual business owners. If the administration really wants to provide comprehensive, universal health care, it needs to do so itself without involving private entities.

[TimeToEvolve]

No Cardinal Dolan. YOU are a radical intrusion!

[theginn]

I cannot believe what I saw on Face the Nation yesterday. Host Bob Schieffer, who I had always thought of as a serious journalist, in his interview with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, repeated the blatant falsehoods about the health care mandate to cover birth control that the cardinal and the Republican party have been making that Catholic institutions have to buy birth control pills for their employees in churches, schools and hospitals.

While that absurd claim has been repeatedly made by Republicans and bishops, it's 100 percent false. The president's mandate specifically exempts churches even before he tweaked it to accommodate concerns about religious liberty. In addition, for church affiliated institutions, like schools and hospitals, the president gave them a special loophole allowing them to opt out of the mandate and shift the burden of coverage directly onto the insurance companies.

I don't know what to believe; that Schieffer is too lazy, misinformed and out of touch to know the facts of an issue before conducting a controversial interview, or that he deliberately misled the audience on top of not challenging the bishop once during his five-minute lie-filled rant about how women's health care violates religious freedom, the sort of thing one might expect a serious journalist and the host of CBSs premiere news program to actually correct. I'm sure Mike Wallace would have been equally disgusted if he were alive to see it.

[Daddybill2]

s Cardinal Dolan has noted, "the Church hardly needs to be lectured about health care for women. Thanks mostly to our Sisters, the Church is the largest private provider of health care for women and their babies in the country.... [I]n New York State, Fidelis, the Medicare/Medicaid insurance provider, owned by the Church, consistently receives top ratings for its quality of service to women and children."

When right are granted to you by your governing nation, you expect them to provide it. Your children have a right to an education, and thus the right to attend public school at no additional cost. You do not march up to the main office at a private school and demand that they let your child in, free of charge, because they have a right to an education. Similarly, if you cannot afford to put food on your table, you have a right to ask the government to provide for you through welfare, but you don't have the right to walk into a restaurant and demand that they feed you. The government can and should provide access to health care for all citizens, but that requires actually providing it, not shifting the responsibility to private employers. The Obama Administration has decided that women employees have the right to health care coverage that provides contraception. The problem with the government forcing business-owners to provide that "right" to society is that the scope of governmental authority is limited by the rights and freedoms that protect individual business owners. If the administration really wants to provide comprehensive, universal health care, it needs to do so itself without involving private entities.

[Bob_Hoskins2000]

by retiredprosecutor April 8, 2012 7:46 PM EDT
The Church is hardly seeking to impose doctrinal concepts on anyone . . . things were working fine until the Administration came along with their new policies. The First Amendment doesn't just protect government from religion, it protects religion from government in its Free Exercise Clause. Under what constitutional theory can you force religious institutions and their organizations to provide free contraception? Under what constitutional theory can government be allowed to define what religious activities are "core activities" ande which activities can be regulated and controlled by government?
_________________________

Things weren't going fine, the price of Medicinal Contraception is quite high for some people and Planned Parenthood has been charging more. And again Obama isn't forcing Catholic Institutions he is forcing Insurance Companies.

[Maine_Coast]

The Catholic Church is clearly trying to limit access to birth control, abortions and marriage to non-Catholics by pursuing laws and supporting politicians who will enforce their conservative edicts.

This fascism and against our US Constitution to demand as Catholics and evangelical Christians do, that all Americans subscribe to their religion.

Imagine what the Catholics would do, if we required all Americans to follow Jewish or Muslim religious requirements. Catholics should not confuse their expectation to enjoy their religious freedom with their belief that giving others religious freedom is somehow an imposition on them.

[MTATL67]

Pull the churches tax exempt status

[theginn]

Totally agree. They have stepped way over the line and if you don't think so, check out what the Nartional Organization for Marriage (NOM) has been up to and who's money is behind that.

[92F150]

If the Cardinal has his way, where is the limitation of a church? The Catholic church considers both war and capital punishment as morally objectionable too. Would church employees be exempt from state or federal capital punishment laws if convicted? Or a draft?

[Daddybill2]

The Church is not seeking to abolish this "separation of church and state." In fact, in an essay written in First Things in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI, he recognized the importance of this dual autonomy. He notes that the United States, "formed on the basis of free churches, adopts a separation between church and state" and hails this as being what the early church had in mind. The Church is not seeking to eliminate the rights granted by the 1st Amendment or somehow attempting to override the Constitution and establish Catholicism as some sort of national religion. Far from it. The Church simply opposes the government's attempt to cross that line by forcing the Church to chose between obeying the law and violating her conscious. The 1st Amendment prevents the government from forcing citizens to make this choice. Plain and simple.

[sandy 1027]

Before President Obama modified the health care bill , which would have forced religious institutions to cover the cost of contraceptives in their health care benefits, ( which the Catholic Church opposes); I thought that the church had a good argument , because this violates their teachings and consciences. However, when the president extended the waiver, that he had already given to churches, to any religious institution- hospitals, schools, etc.-the church's argument was taken off of the table, and the issue should have been closed.Now, this just looks like it's about them not wanting people to use contraception, period-regardless of who pays for it; because they're against it.

[Bob_Hoskins2000]

They didn't have a good argument in the first place, Nobody is forcing them to take it, they are already paying into a system that provides birth control regardless of what they do, and the fact that the church doesn't have any right to tell what it's employee can or can't do with it's own health insurance.