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Bishop on latest HHS proposal
archived from: 2013-03-01

My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:

On Feb. 1, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking related to the mandate that violates the religious freedom and religious expression of faith-based institutions. The announced notice fell far short of addressing concerns raised by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Those concerns are:

First, the administration continues its narrow understanding of religious ministry. The adjusted mandate does nothing to protect the religious freedom of our Catholic health care, Catholic education and Catholic charitable institutions. These ministries are integral to our church and worthy of the same exemption as our Catholic churches.

Second, this latest announcement continues to require church ministries to fund and facilitate services such as contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization that violate Catholic teaching.

Government should not force faith-based institutions to violate their religious and moral beliefs when they provide health care or sponsor or purchase health coverage for their employees. I ask you to please join me once again in requesting our representatives in Congress to support legislation to protect our constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom rights in exercising our ministries.

For almost a century, the Catholic bishops of the United States have worked hard to support the right of every person to affordable, accessible, comprehensive, life-affirming health care. We promote the protection of the dignity of all human life and the innate rights that flow from it, including the right to life from conception to natural death, care for the poorest among us and the undocumented. At the same time, under the Constitution of the United States, the church has the right to define itself, its ministries and its ministers, and to exercise that right with freedom of belief, freedom of conscience and freedom of religious expression.

May God grant our lawmakers the wisdom and courage to uphold conscience rights and religious freedom. Grateful for our belief that “Nothing is Impossible with God,” I am

Your brother in Christ,

Most Reverend David A. Zubik

Bishop of Pittsburgh

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