The following comes from a recent Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty press release:
The Little Sisters of the Poor arrived in America in 1868. Currently, there are thirty homes in the United States where the elderly and dying are treated as if they were Jesus himself and cared for with love and dignity until God calls them home. The Little Sisters serve more than 13,000 elderly poor people in thirty-one countries around the world.
The Little Sisters adhere to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. In accordance with their faith, they uphold the unique, inviolable dignity of all human life, especially those deemed weak or, to some, “worthless” in society. The federal government’s contraception and abortion mandate, however, forces the Little Sisters to provide services that destroy human life, contradicting their very mission to respect it.
Although the government does allow exemptions for church and church-type entities from the HHS Mandate for religious reasons, this accommodation does nothing for the Little Sisters. Because the government refuses to classify them as a “religious employer,” the Little Sisters are required to hire a third party to provide these objectionable services to their employees, and thus are still forced to participate in the government’s scheme. Believing that every human person has God-given worth, the Little Sisters cannot provide contraceptive, abortion, and sterilization services that go against their religious beliefs.
The Becket Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Little Sisters of the Poor, seeking to uphold their right to carry out their vows of obedience in their service to the poor. The suit is a class action lawsuit, and the lead plaintiffs are the Little Sisters homes in Denver and Baltimore.
After the trial court and Tenth Circuit denied a preliminary injunction, on New Year’s Eve Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted the Little Sisters a temporary injunction protecting them from enforcement of the mandate, which was scheduled to take effect against them at midnight. On January 24, 2014, the entire Supreme Court granted the Little Sisters an injunction pending appeal, protecting them from enforcement while they litigate their appeal at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. That briefing has now been completed. Oral argument took place on December 8, 2014.
On July 14, 2015, in a departure from the U.S. Supreme Court’s protection of the Little Sisters of the Poor last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that the Little Sisters must comply with the government’s HHS mandate. On July 23, 2015, the Little Sisters of the Poor appealed to the Supreme Court.
Again, let’s be clear. The Little Sisters of the Poor do not have to “hire a third party to provide these objectionable services”. What the Little Sisters have to do is sign a paper saying that they object to providing the services. The Little Sisters refuse to sign such a paper, and that is why the circuit court ruled against them, saying that signing a paper signaling their objections to the procedure is not a substantial burden upon their religion. See the LA Times, for just one example of objective coverage. https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ff-little-sisters-of-the-poor-20150714-story.html
It is not nice to tell a lie.
YFC– The Little Sisters of the Poor, have done a beautiful job, for Christ! They are very holy! Now, their work for Our Lord may have to end, in America! Very tragic! Our Nation has greatly sinned– and God will have the final say, in this! I grieve for the loss of the fine work for Christ, of the beautiful Little Sisters of the Poor! America must do reparation for its sins against God!!
Obamacare: the ultimate bully…
I wonder if there is a special place in Hell for Catholic jurists who try to harass people such as the Little Sisters of the Poor or put a stop to their work of caring for the elderly, helpless and dying.
Just ‘Sign the Papers’ – you don’t actually have to do any of the real work yourself, but you Must Approve by Proxy, regardless of conscience.
The story of August Landmesser is very instructive of how the ‘anonymous homosex trolls’ are trying to play this one.
SEE
August Landmesser
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Landmesser
His Failure To Enthusiastically Endorse the ‘winners’ of that Kulture War saw him Die in Dachau – which probably has more Catholic Priests buried there than in an other single site
Regardless – Many ‘Good Germans’ Knew what was going on in the Camps, and would simply ignore anything to do with them. If ordered to (Mein Befehl) perhaps they would have done more than Just avert their eyes – or…
Maybe this is just a Joke Piece… lifted from an old ‘chichi & chong’ comedy album?
As I recall they want the Old Man to “Sign the Papers” and when he says he Cannot Sign Them they demand to know why not – to which he replies it is because they have already broken all his fingers.
Gaystapo Strong Arm tactics do tend to get a bit rough at times, although whey Spray Painting Swastikas on Holy Redeemer Church wasn’t prosecuted as a ‘Hate Crime’ – when similar actions defacing another area of the Mission district recently are big news and being treated in quite a different manner by the ‘authorities’ in Frisco.
If they lose again, what can they do other than close the homes except for maybe one or two which they can totally staff themselves with perhaps some volunteer help? Paying the fines for the long haul is impossible. Catholic social services of all varieties and for different conscience reasons are going to have to downsize. One might argue that the laity just have to keep giving more and more and more, but in truth, the laity have been taxed more and more and more ever since the state got into the social welfare business in the early 20th century with the Progressive movement which grew out of the Protestant Social Gospel movement. The Catholic Church got aboard a little later with promoting government’s doing the works of charity,…