For the first time in American history, the federal government has waged war on the First Amendment rights of Roman Catholics. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were harsh attacks on the rights of Catholics, but they always emanated from the states and municipalities. In other words, never before has the executive branch in [...]
Nicki Minaj [pronounced Min-aah-juh] fresh off looking like a fool with Madonna at the Super Bowl, showed up at the Grammys on February 12 walking on the red carpet with a guy dressed like the pope. This was just a prelude of what was to come. Minaj’s performance began on stage with a mock confessional skit. [...]
FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK William Donohue This has certainly been a whirlwind. The pace has been lightening fast, and that’s because we are getting pounded on all fronts. If it’s not the Obama administration trying to strip us of our First Amendment rights, it’s some jerk recording artist mocking our religion in front of millions. We [...]
During our fight against the Obama edict mandating that Catholic organizations provide coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization, we made international headlines and were featured on the Drudge Report. The Obama administration made three strategic errors: 1) this issue is first and foremost not about contraception—it is about religious liberty 2) by mandating that Catholic [...]
In covering the Obama edict, those in the media greatly missed the point: they casted the problem as if it dealt solely with birth control which was not the case. In a name association game, when most people hear the words “birth control,” they think of the pill. Most Americans, including Catholics, treat the pill as [...]
In an article titled “Our Rule Respects Religion,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius recently wrote in the USA Today that “we specifically carved out from the [healthcare] policy religious organizations that primarily employ people of their own faith.” Sebelius knows very well that Catholic agencies have a long and distinguished record of hiring [...]
On January 26, Archbishop Timothy Broglio joined with his fellow bishops in issuing a pastoral letter criticizing the Obama administration for violating the conscience rights of Catholics. The only difference was that Broglio’s letter, which was to be read from the pulpit by military chaplains, was initially censored. The Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains [...]
As Catholics expressed their outrage over the Health and Human Services contraception mandate, a couple of President Obama’s spokesmen defended the healthcare plan. Obama advisor David Axelrod said that “We certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedom, so we’re going to look for a way to move forward that both provides women with the preventative [...]
Last October, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on a case involving the “ministerial exception,” a provision that bars the government from making employment decisions regarding church ministers. Leondra R. Kruger represented the Obama administration and made the striking claim that the government should not be barred from policing the hiring policies of churches. In January, [...]
Recently, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the U.S. bishops at their “Ad Limina” visit. During his address, the pope took a veiled shot at the Obama administration. Without explicitly naming Obama, Pope Benedict XVI made it clear that he sees the administration as a threat to religious liberty. He spoke eloquently of the role of religious freedom [...]
