The Little Sisters of the Poor are expected back in court Thursday to ask for protection against a lawsuit seeking to end the religious order’s exemption from the HHS contraception mandate.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra have each filed lawsuits saying that the sisters should not receive a religious exemption from the 2011 mandate. Twelve other states have also joined the lawsuit, reports the legal nonprofit Becket, which is representing the sisters.
“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear arguments in California v. Little Sisters of the Poor and decide if California and 13 other states can force Catholic nuns to provide services such as the week-after pill in their health care plan in violation of their faith,” Becket said in June 4.
The sisters have been embroiled in a lawsuit since 2011 challenging the federal contraception mandate, issued under the Affordable Care Act, which required that cost-free coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations, and some drugs that can cause abortions be included in employer health plans. The Little Sisters were one of several hundred plaintiffs to file suit against the mandate.
Catholic teaching holds contraception and abortion to be gravely immoral.
“California admits that it has many of its own programs to provide contraceptives to women who want them…And California has not identified a single actual person who had contraceptive coverage but will lose it because of this new rule,” Becket reported.
“Despite all this, California asked a judge to find that the Little Sisters should be forced to comply with the federal mandate (not a state mandate) or pay tens of millions of dollars of government fines.”
Full story at Catholic News Agency.
Let us add this so called ‘Catholic’ to the growing list of those politicians who should be EXCOMMUNICATED
and done so in public!!!!!!
YES!! SHAME ON BECERRA!! The Catholic Church of this era fails to realize their responsibility for excommunication of unrepentant Catholics who do just terrible evils, publicly! Such people will continue to do their evils– and there will be untold suffering!– while the Pope and all his top clerics just watch and grin!!
And they would still take wonderful care of this awful politician and faux Catholic if he ever needed it. Who has a heart for people? Just checking.
AG Becerra is the attorney general for all of the people of California- he does not solely represent the interests of the Catholic Church! Sometimes provisions of federal laws require states to take certain actions. AG Becerra has a duty to follow the law and not make exceptions for certain people or groups!
William Robert, it’s about conscience protection, safeguarding us so that the government cannot force us to violate our religious beliefs. Following the law means looking to the Constitution, where religious liberty is enshrined. It guarantees that all of us are equally protected. Too bad if that’s inconvenient for you or Becerra.
Back off from the Little Sisters of the Poor. This is infringing on freedom of religion which is given to the heinous Satanists. Leave us alone.
I do wish certain people would be excommunicated.
Obamacare is one of the worst laws ever to be enacted.
I’m getting dizzy from all the spin on this story. My understanding is that the law requires health plans to include birth control coverage at no additional cost. The Sisters object since, they, as the employer, are paying for the coverage. The problem, as I see it, is, if the Government gives the Sisters a ‘PASS”, someone else will find another requirement to which they object.
Why is it that the Little Sisters of the Poor constantly have government attacking them for their morally-justified position, yet the “Gambling Sisters of the Congregation of St. Joseph of Carontolet” (Srs. Mary Margaret Keuper and Lana Chang), who were caught stealing have disappeared, without prosecution?
Sounds like the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet are “juiced-in” as far as their influence.
Here are the real “sisters” who need to be prosecuted.
https://www.gq.com/story/gambling-nuns-of-torrance-california
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. It seems to have faded into oblivion. Too nad the Little Sisters of the Poor don’t carry the “politically correct” viewpoint to curry political and judicial favor as the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.
The Los Angeles Province of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet is headquartered in the stately Bel Air hills.