This is one fight the Catholic Church is up for. They have found their voice and are determined to make the Contraception issue their main goal.
The issue – for those who have already moved on to more important things – is a policy that many Republican governors and the last Republican president have maintained over the last decade. It deals with providing contraception to women as part of their insurance coverage without a co-pay. This issue was not a problem for the Church when Republicans brought it up and in some cases demanded the Church pay for the coverage. But now that President Obama is continuing the policy, suddenly, the Bishops are up in arms.
Their argument it seems, states that requiring Religious organizations to provide contraception to their employees without a co-pay is immoral. So to satisfy the Bishops’ concern, the administration removed the requirement that religious organizations must pay for this benefit and placed that requirement on the insurance providers themselves.
But apparently, this move by the administration was not enough as Cardinal Timothy Dolan told CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday, “we didn’t ask for the fight, but we’re not going to back away from it.”
Meanwhile, Republican Paul Ryan and Congressional Republicans have all agreed on a budget that will strip needed services from the poor and put more money into the pockets of the rich. If Ryan’s budget passes, medicare as we know it along with other services that benefits the poor will end.
So far, these same Bishops and the Catholic Church are silent on the Ryan Budget.
The conclusion: Giving women the right to have contraception – something over 90% of Catholic women already enjoy – is a big no-no and the Church is willing to fight with everything they have to keep the dreaded contraception out of their hands. However, take away life saving benefits from the poor and the Catholic Church is apparently okay with that!
