mo bill Sb 749 First Amendment

Transcription

JUNE 22, 2012
stlouisreview.com
volume 71, number 25
SPECIAL EDITION
INSIDE
First Amendment
Religious liberty protections
under assault. PAGE 8
MO Bill SB 749
Urging Gov. Nixon to sign
religious liberty bill
PAGE 4
INDEX
Interfaith concerns
Archbishop’s column
Stewards of liberty
Pull-out poster
Editorial
Cathoilc Perspectives
Classifieds
2
5
10
12
15
16
21
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PAGE 2
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY SPECIAL EDITION
ST. LOUIS REVIEW | stlouisreview.com
JUNE 22, 2012
TIMELINE
TIDBIT
Q:Why is the Church sticking its nose into politics?
A: Who’s sticking its nose into whose business? Listen, we didn’t ask for this
fight! We woke up one morning in January, and found ourselves drafted to
pay for contraception, sterilization and potentially abortion-inducing drugs
— all in violation of Catholic teaching. It’s not like the bishops were looking
to pick a fight, and said “Let’s see — what policy can we stick our noses into?”
No — the government picked this fight with us. So we’re fighting on the
grounds that they chose — and that means politics.
SPEAK OUT
Feb. 22, 2010
President Barack
Obama releases his
proposal for health
reform
Interfaith concern about religious
liberty is widespread
Opposition cites ‘a full-tilt effort to drive religious people out of the public square’
By Joseph Kenny
[email protected]
The mass media has given
little attention to the widespread
interfaith concern about the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring religiously affiliated institutions to provide funds for health
services that violate their conscience.
Late last month the InterFaith
Conference of Metropolitan
Washington issued a statement
noting that, even with a revision,
the mandate will force religiously
affiliated organizations to violate
their religious beliefs.
The interfaith group in the nation’s capital noted that they are
devoted to interfaith dialogue
and cooperative efforts for social
and economic justice, including
protecting religious freedom.
Members taking the position included Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim,
Jain, Jewish, Protestant, Roman
Catholic, Sikh and Zoroastrian
faith communities.
The InterFaith Conference
called on “all interested parties
to reach for higher ground in
achieving both social goods: that
of preserving religious freedom
and that of ensuring equal provision of affordable health care.”
Earlier this year a diverse pan- souri Baptist Convention, Asel of men and women testified semblies of God USA, the Luagainst the mandate, calling the theran Church-Missouri Synod
rule an attack on religious free- and the Catholic Archdiocese of
St. Louis.
dom.
Asma Uddin, an attorney at the
The “ObamaCare ‘ruling’ and
Becket Fund for Religious Liber- the subsequent ‘fix’” announced
ty, said that “as a Muslim-Amer- by the Health and Human Serican woman and an academic, I vices secretary, “throws people
have spent my career fighting for who actually practice their faith
women’s and minority’s rights.” under the secular religionist’s
In the hearing before the U.S. steamroller,” said John L. Yeats,
House Judiciary Committee, she executive director of the Missaid an “accommodation” for souri Baptist Convention.
religious freedom announced
“The Obama administration
by
President
has declared
Barack Obama
war on religion
was “merely a “It is so disturbing to see and freedom of
smokescreen,” our own government at- c o n s c i e n c e , ”
with insurance
he said. “This
companies sim- tacking the church.”
callous requireply spreading
ment by the
the costs to emObama adminployers through Rev. Matthew C. Harrison
istration is an
increased pre- President of the Lutheran
overt violation
miums.
Church-Missouri Synod
of our nation’s
Uddin noted
commitment to
that religious
liberty of confreedom “is a
science and a flagrant violation
right enjoyed by everyone, and it of our constitutional protection.”
is just as much in women’s interHe compared the move to
ests to protect that right as it is in
what
the Founding Fathers had
men’s.”
attempted
to leave behind during
In Missouri, a Rally for Rerule
by
the
British monarch.
ligious Liberty was held March
“The
apparent
desire of the
27 at the Missouri State Capitol.
secularist
government
is that
Speakers represented the Mis-
your faith is best expressed in- she said. “Nobody is threatening
side the church building for an women’s health. Nobody is outhour on Sunday morning or at lawing anything for the general
a funeral service. The secular- population. Rather, this debate is
ist government sanctions your simply about us being forced to
pay for prodchurch practices
ucts and serfor that sacred
vices contrary
hour, but they “It’s an issue that conto our relibelieve you must
live like the rest cerns all of us American gious beliefs.
We
cannot
of them for the
be expected
remainder of the citizens and our constito check our
week,” he said.
tutional rights.”
faith at the
Maggie Karndoor.”
er, director of life
Karner said
and health minis- Maggie Karner,
tries for the Lu- Director of life and health min- the Lutheran
theran Church- istries for the Lutheran Church- Church-Missouri Synod
Missouri Synod, Missouri Synod
wants to consaid the news
tinue to remedia has missed
the main points of the story. “I’m spond to Christ’s call “to care for
here because this is not just a Ro- our neighbor, wherever that may
man Catholic issue … nor is it an be — in the pew or in the streets.
issue about birth control, nor is it But to do this, the federal government has to remove itself from,
an issue about women.”
As a woman, she said, “I want and stay out of, our consciences.”
The president of the Lutheran
to make sure that everyone understands that this birth-control Church-Missouri Synod, Rev.
mandate, and the public debate Matthew C. Harrison, called on
that surrounds it, isn’t about members of the second-largest
women’s issues at all. It’s an is- Lutheran church body in North
sue that concerns all of us Ameri- America to support efforts to
can citizens and our constitution- preserve religious freedom. The
synod has 2.32 million baptized
al rights.”
No one is advocating for denial of access to contraception, See Interfaith, Page 3
JUNE 22, 2012
PAGE 3
St. Louis interfaith community Interfaith
faces freedom of religion issues
From Page 2
Archdiocese, others joined Jewish community in supporting Muslims
By Joseph Kenny
[email protected]
Interfaith leaders in St. Louis
have a history of supporting
freedom of religion, especially
regarding opposition to the location of houses of worship in
neighborhoods.
In 2007, the Archdiocese of
St. Louis joined the Jewish community and other local religious
leaders in supporting an effort
by St. Louis Muslims to build a
new mosque. The advocacy was
necessary because the St. Louis
County Council had voted 4-3
against a zoning change requested by the Islamic Community
Center (also known as Madina
Masjid). The ICC had a mosque
and community center in south
St. Louis. They wanted to open a
second facility in Lemay to serve
Bosnian Muslims moving from
the city to the county.
The County Council decision
to not allow a change in zoning
from commercial to residential
use for the Lemay location, near
Mehlville High School off Le-
may Ferry Road, went against the
recommendation of the County’s
planning commission, which
supported the proposed 25,000
square-foot mosque and community center.
Some members of the council
said they were following the input
of neighbors who were concerned
with the traffic and hours of operation of the proposed center.
Eventually the County Council reversed its previous decision
and voted unanimously in favor
of a zoning change.
The mosque’s spiritual leader
had sought help from the broader
community, according to news
reports in the Jewish Light newspaper, St. Louis Review and other
outlets.
According to the Jewish
Light, the zoning dispute with the
County Council was similar to a
court battle the late Rabbi Ferdinand Isserman fought with Creve
Coeur when the congregation
wanted to move out to the county.
The ensuing case, Congregation
Temple Israel vs. City of Creve
Coeur, which was decided by the
Missouri Supreme Court in 1959,
became a landmark victory for
religious institutions. The decision states that municipalities do
not have regulatory power over
the religious institutions, except
for “matters pertaining to public
health, safety and welfare.”
In the 1950s, religious leaders,
including those from the St. Louis
Archdiocese and the Episcopal
Church, helped in the Temple Israel case.
In the 2007 case in Lemay,
Temple Israel congregants wrote
letters, emails and made telephone calls to the members of the
County Council. They and others
in the community garnered media
interest in the story. More than a
dozen religious and political leaders held a press conference at the
Islamic Community Center, publicly stating support of its zoning
battle. The Rev. Martin Rafanan,
a Lutheran minister and also a
cabinet member of the Interfaith
Partnership, was among those
who spoke before the County
Council seeking approval of the
zoning.
members and is headquartered in
Kirkwood.
In a statement issued in February, Rev. Harrison said the synod
remains “deeply concerned” by the
mandate, adding that the Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod strongly
objects “to the use of drugs and
procedures that are used to take the
lives of unborn children, who are
persons in the sight of God from
the time of conception.”
Later, on Relevant Radio, Rev.
Harrison said the church was
formed 150 years ago largely because conscience was trampled
on by governments in Europe.
The provisions of the mandate
are “simply outrageous,” he said.
“It is so disturbing to see our
own government attacking the
church.”
The administration is defining religious freedom narrowly
— as the right of a congregation
to assemble, he said. “Make no
mistake, this is a full-tilt effort to
drive religious people out of the
public square.”
The Assembly of Canonical
Orthodox Bishops of North and
Central America also issued a
statement earlier this year, saying that it is joining with the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops
in speaking out against the mandate. The assembly includes the
65 canonical Orthodox bishops
in the United States, Canada and
Mexico.
Last December, more than
60 religious leaders, including
Protestant and Orthodox Jewish
leaders, penned a letter to President Barack Obama, stressing
that “religious organizations and
leaders of other faiths are also
deeply troubled by and opposed
to the mandate and the narrow
(religious) exemption.”
“It is emphatically not only
Catholics who deeply object
to the requirement that health
plans they purchase must provide coverage of contraceptives
that include some that are abortifacients,” the letter said. “It is
not only Catholics who object
to the narrow exemption that
protects only seminaries and a
few churches, but not churches
with a social outreach and other
faith-based organizations that
serve the poor and needy broadly
providing help that goes beyond
worship and prayer.”
Some information for this
story was provided by Catholic
News Service.
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PAGE 4
JUNE 22, 2012
Tell Gov. Nixon to sign SB 749 into law
Bill would protect religious liberty of insurance consumers
lie is told long enough people begin to believe it.”
Nixon has received more that
3,000 emails on the issue, the
majority from opponents of the
bill, according to Deacon Sam
Lee of All Souls Parish in Overland, a longtime Missouri prolife lobbyist.
Lee said that, if figures cited in
a recent AP story are correct, “opponents of SB 749 are outnumbering pro-life supporters of SB
749 by about 2,000 (1,000 from
Sierra Club members alone!) asking for a veto and 1,000 asking
the governor to sign. This is bad.
This is very bad. Pro-life supporters of SB 749 should be outnumbering opponents by many,
many margins and by thousands
and thousands of people. Instead,
pro-lifers are being outnumbered
2-1 in one of the most pro-life
states in the country!”
While such expected opponents as Planned Parenthood
and NARAL Pro-Choice America (formerly National Abortion
Rights Action League) are calling
for the veto, so are the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, the Sierra Club,
the National Council of Jewish
Women and the Missouri chapter
By Barbara Watkins
[email protected]
Religious liberty advocates
are urging Missourians to contact Gov. Jay Nixon and call on
him to sign SB 749 into law, after
many influential groups — from
Planned Parenthood to the Missouri chapter of the AFL-CIO —
are pressuring Nixon to veto the
bill.
Nixon has until July 14 to act
on the bill, which would protect
Missouri individual and group
insurance consumers from paying for coverage, such as contraceptives and abortions, that
violates their moral or religious
beliefs. Many people assume that
Nixon will either sign the bill
into law or — as he did with two
previous pro-life bills — let the
bill become law without his signature.
But, according to Mike Hoey,
MCC executive director, “opponents of SB 749 are ramping up
their veto campaign.”
Hoey said, “Gov. Nixon is under tremendous pressure to veto
SB 749. He is being told that the
bill is about contraceptives, not
religious liberty and rights of
conscience. This is a lie, but if a
of the AFL-CIO. The opposition
of the large labor organization is
particularly sad, since the Catholic Church has long been a strong
supporter of unions and the rights
of workers, said Hoey.
The AFL-CIO, which has
dubbed SB 749 as the Birth Control Refusal Bill, “is misreading
SB 749, or maybe not reading
the bill at all,” according to the
MCC. The legislation retains
provisions of current law that
ensure that women who want to
purchase coverage for contraceptives can do so, even when their
employer opts not to pay for contraceptives.
“Apparently, the AFL-CIO
believes that workers should be
forced to pay for elective abortions even if this violates their
most cherished moral and religious convictions. This is essentially an attack on workers by an
organization that claims to protect workers,” Hoey said.
Not all union members agree
with the AFL-CIO’s stance. Kevin Madden is a retired reporter
for the St. Louis Labor Tribune
newspaper and a member of the
United Media Guild, part of the
Communications Workers of
America, which is part of the
AFL-CIO. Madden, who is also
a member of St. Francis de Sales
Oratory, said, “As a proponent
of religious liberty in this country, I would have to say I support
this bill (SB 749). We are talking about religious organizations
being forced to offer contraceptives, which goes against our religious beliefs.”
If SB 749 becomes state law,
it would give the attorney general authority to file suit in state
and/or federal court to protect the
religious liberties of individual
and group insurance consumers,
including religious institutions,
who do not want to be compelled
to have abortion, contraception
or sterilization coverage in their
health plans.
However, Deacon Lee said, “I
have not yet seen a story where
a reporter has asked AG (Chris)
Koster whether he plans on filing
suit to defend religious liberty if
SB 749 becomes law.”
Responding to that question
from the St. Louis Review, Nanci
Gonder, Koster’s press secretary
in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, wrote, “Current
Missouri law, enforced by the
SPEAK OUT
The Missouri Catholic
Conference has a provided a precomposed
message on its website,
mocatholic.org, that can
be sent directly to Gov. Jay
Nixon, urging him to sign
SB 749. The bill protects
individual and group
insurance consumers in
Missouri from paying
for coverage that violates
their religious beliefs. He
has until July 14 to act
and has received more
than 3,000 comments on
the bill, many from large,
organized opposition.
Nixon also can be contacted by phone at (573)
751-3222.
Department of Insurance, allows
companies and consumers to exclude coverage for abortion and
contraception, based on religious
beliefs. If SB 749 becomes law,
we will review all reported violations and consider appropriate
actions based on our findings.”
WHY CATHOLIC CEMETERIES?
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I would appreciate:
Information on lots/crypts in the Catholic Cemeteries
Information on pre-payment of opening fees
The Rules Booklet, a Family Record Book & a grave
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JUNE 22, 2012
Q: Why is the Church trying to restrict people’s access to health care?
A: We’re not! If the mandate is struck down, then people will have
exactly the same access to contraceptives, sterilization and abortioninducing drugs tomorrow that they have today. … Suppose my son
asks me to give him an extra $5 a week so he can buy cigarettes. I say
to him: “No. I don’t think they’re good for you.” And he says: “Why
are you restricting my access to cigarettes?” I’m not restricting his
access to cigarettes. He’s free to spend his money to buy them. I just
don’t think I should have to give him more money to buy them.
Archbishop Carlson delivered this moving speech at
the Rally for Religious Liberty March 27 at the Missouri
State Capitol.
“He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said
to them: Whoever wishes to come after me must deny
himself, take up his cross, and follow me. (Mark 8:34;
Matthew 16:24; Like 9: 23)
In late January 2012, the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services announced that almost all employers
would be forced to offer their employees health coverage
that includes contraception, sterilization and potentially
abortion-inducing drugs. Recognizing this as a grave
threat to religious liberty, many people spoke out against
the mandate.
In response to this reaction, the Obama administration
announced a “compromise” in early February. Now, instead of religious organizations being required to pay for
“services” that violate their principles, the insurance companies will be required to provide them free of charge.
In fact, these drugs are not free. Somebody has to pay
for them. If the insurance company has to provide them,
the cost will be passed on to us one way or another.
In addition, many Catholic organizations, including the
Archdiocese of St. Louis, are self-insured. United Health
Care processes and investigates our claims and negotiates
rates on our behalf, but the money to pay for them comes
entirely from us.
As a result, the
Obama administration’s “compromise”
changed nothing. According to the government we are
free to believe, but not free to practice our beliefs. In other
words, we have freedom of worship, but not religion. To
this fundamental abuse of the principle of religious freedom we say “No!”
Many of our ecumenical brothers and sisters stand with
us. This is not about contraception; this is about religious
liberty! They know that if the government can tell the Roman Catholic Church today which of its ministries qualify
as “religious,” and which beliefs can be put into practice,
their heads will be on the chopping block tomorrow. We
stand together so that we can say clearly to all: We will
render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but we will
NOT render unto Caesar what belongs to God!
What are our options? We can submit to the mandate
and violate our teachings. That’s hypocrisy and that way
is totally unacceptable!
We can shut down our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic schools and our Catholic charities. We can violate the
mission that Jesus gave us: to teach, to care for the sick, to
feed the hungry, to cloth the naked. But that would break
faith with our mission and jeopardize our salvation. We
will never do that!
We can seek exemptions as religious employers if we
agree to hire primarily Catholics and to serve primarily
Catholics. But Jesus didn’t come to serve only His own
people and neither do we. We serve people because Jesus Christ commanded us to share His Good News with
everyone!
SPEAK OUT
Stand with
Jesus,
not Caesar
PAGE 5
The government has left us no good options. We cannot in good faith comply with the mandate as it is written.
Every avenue compromises our mission and forces us to
render unto Caesar what belongs to God.
So what should we do? Our situation is like that of
the early Christians living in the Roman Empire. Roman
culture and law provided a climate that was often openly
hostile to Christianity. How did the early Church survive?
How did it come to pass that the Church is still a living
reality, while the Roman Empire is not?
It was the witness of believers like you and me. They
understood the Good News of Jesus Christ and they bore
witness to His truth. They represented the Lord in the
public square as His followers!
We, too, stand with Jesus Christ, not Caesar!
Please stand with us and say, “Jesus, I will take up my
cross and follow You wherever the path takes us”! Help
us tell government officials that we are ready to suffer for
our convictions. They can fine us, and we won’t pay. They
can put us in jail, and we won’t care. We remain committed to the end to what our Lord has commanded us to do
as His witnesses and disciples. Remember Rome. We’ve
been here before.
St. Paul said it 2,000 years ago: Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of
your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2)
PASTORAL
LETTER
Pink Sisters Novena
Archbishop Robert J. Carlson distributed
the Eucharist to the Holy Spirit Sisters of
Perpetual Adoration on June 15, the final
night of their novena to the Sacred Heart
of Jesus. The sisters, known fondly as the
Pink Sisters, hold this annual novena at
their Mount Grace chapel in north St. Louis.
LISA JOHNSTON | [email protected]
“As Catholics, and as Americans, it is our deeply held
belief that the First Amendment, and the fundamental
principles of our American way of life, guarantee that
we have an inalienable right to follow our consciences
and to express our religious and moral beliefs without
government interference.”
- Archbishop Robert J. Carlson
This statement is from Archbishop Carlson’s pastoral
message on the health care mandate. To read the
complete letter, go online to stlouisreview.com/rqU.
PAGE 6
TIDBIT
March 23, 2010
The Patient and
Affordable Care Act is
signed into law.
Q: Isn’t the use of contraception a matter of conscience?
A: The Church isn’t telling anyone else what to do. If the changes are
made, individuals still will be free to buy and use contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. Corporations still will be free to include these in their insurance plans. All we’re asking is that the Church’s
conscience be respected too.
TIMELINE
TIDBIT
Aug. 1, 2011
HHS Secretary Sebelius
announces the
government has accepted
a recommendation that
all contraceptives
and sterilizations
be included free of
charge in all health
plans.
SPEAK OUT
TIMELINE
JUNE 22, 2012
Fenton businessman
discovers health plan covers
contraception, opts out
Lifelong Catholic urges other business owners to look into their plans
Like many other Americans, Bob Beckerle has been paying close attention to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate
requiring all health care plans to provide contraception coverage.
But what he wasn’t paying attention to — until recently — was exactly what his own company’s health care plan was covering.
Beckerle is the founder and general manager of Beckerle Consultants, a Fenton-based engineering
firm that provides services to the construction, telecommunications, life safety and medical equipment
industries. The company has about 60 employees. Its work is currently spread out across 12 states.
Seventy-three-year-old Beckerle, a lifelong Catholic, said that after engrossing himself in the religious liberty debate that has resulted from the
health care mandate, he realized he wasn’t sure if his own corporate health
care plan was covering contraception. He spoke to his representative at
Mengel, Surdyke Murphy and Finke, a St. Louis-based firm that facilitates
employee benefits plans, and learned that his company’s policy did cover
contraception.
“I learned by accident,” he said in an interview earlier this month. The
mandate “forced me to look into mine. Here we find out that I’m covering
contraception and I had no idea.
“I didn’t even know they put that into insurance policies,” Beckerle admitted. “If that’s somebody’s individual choice, they can pay for it themselves. I’m not going to do it for them.”
Beckerle then had to figure out how — and if — he could remove the
coverage from the plan. He consulted with his corporate attorney, who informed him of a Missouri law that’s been on the books since 2001 that
exempts employers from including contraception if doing so is “contrary
to the moral, ethical or religious beliefs or tenets of such person or entity.”
In April, Beckerle sent a letter to his employees, notifying them of his
decision to eliminate contraception coverage from the health care plan. It
became effective that same month. Beckerle said he hasn’t received any
feedback from his employees to date. He also noted that the premium on the
company’s plan is “no different” with or without contraception coverage.
Deacon Sam Lee, a longtime pro-life lobbyist, said that examples like
Beckerle’s are considered “a grand, teachable moment for the Catholic
faithful.”
Missouri law currently doesn’t provide a clear answer to employers who
Sid Hastings
discover they are covering contraception and want out. That’s left up to the
Robert Beckerle, founder/general manager of Beckerle Consultants, recently removed
individual insurance company and its policies. “Some insurance companies
contraception coverage from his company’s health plan following the recent debate
are saying, ‘You know what? This is what you signed up for. This is what
surrounding the HHS mandate.
you agreed to, and until you get it renewed, this is what it’s going to be,’”
said Deacon Lee. “Other insurance companies might be more lenient in
working with clients to remove the provision from their plans.”
One of the provisions of SB 749, which received approval from the Missouri legislature in May
and is awaiting Gov. Jay Nixon’s signature, would require insurance companies to give employers
By Jennifer Brinker
[email protected]
See Business, Page 7
DATE, 2011
JUNE 22, 2012
PAGE #
PAGE 7
TOPPER GOES HERE
CHA urges expanded religious Business
exemption in HHS mandate
By Nancy Frazier O’Brien
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON — The
Catholic Health Association,
a major supporter of President
Barack Obama’s health reform
law, is urging the government to
expand its definition of religious
employers who are exempt from
the requirement to provide contraceptives and sterilization free
of charge to their employees.
In comments filed June 15
with the Department of Health
and Human Services, the top
three CHA officials also said the
Obama administration should
provide and pay for the contraceptives itself if it insists that
they must be provided at no cost
to women.
The five-page comments were
signed by Sister Carol Keehan, a
Daughter of Charity who is CHA
president and CEO; Robert V.
Stanek, who recently completed
a term chairing the CHA board;
and Joseph R. Swedish, the
chairman for 2012-2013.
The three said the administration’s proposed “accommodation” that would allow
nonexempt religious employers
to provide the contraceptives
through a third party “would be
unduly cumbersome and would
be unlikely to meet the religious
liberty concerns of all of our
members and other Church ministries.”
They said the current definition of a religious employer in
the HHS rules raises “serious
constitutional questions.”
To be exempt from the contraceptive mandate, a religious
organization “has the inculcation
of religious values as its purpose; primarily employs persons
who share its religious tenets;
primarily serves persons who
share its religious tenets; and is
a nonprofit organization” under
specific sections of the Internal
Revenue Code.
The CHA leaders proposed
instead that an organization be
defined as religious if it “shares
common religious bonds and
convictions with a church” — a
definition already applied in Section 414 of the Internal Revenue
Service code.
Even if the definition is expanded to include Catholic hospitals and health care organizations, as well as other ministries
of the Church, “the government
will need to develop a way to pay
for and provide such services directly to those employees who
desire such coverage without any
direct or indirect involvement of
religious employers” under the
expanded definition, the CHA
comments said.
CHA spokesman Fred Caesar
told Catholic News Service that
the comment letter is “part of our
continuing efforts to work with
the administration to resolve this
issue appropriately.”
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From Page 6
“up-front notice” that they don’t
have to cover contraception in
their plans.
“This was part of the law
originally (in 2001), but it wasn’t
being interpreted by insurance
companies in that way,” said
Deacon Lee. “The individual employees were getting some sort
of notice, sometimes, but the employers were not getting notice
that they had a right to opt out of
this. That’s going to change under the law.”
Beckerle said he knows he’s
not the only employer out there
that’s been taking notice of the
recent health care mandate. He
cited Frank O’Brien, another
Catholic businessman in St. Louis who discovered he covered
contraception in his company’s
plan and couldn’t get out of it
until the plan is up for renewal
in January 2013. If the new federal mandate goes as planned,
O’Brien won’t be able to do that.
So in March, he filed suit against
the government.
“People need to be more inquisitive about what their policies
cover,” Beckerle implored. “Our
country was founded on religious
liberty. When you start telling
people what to do on a Sunday morning, that’s wrong. We
shouldn’t be pressured like this.”
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I paid a lot of insurance,
taxes, home maintenance
and repairs… I never knew
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PAGE 8
JUNE 22, 2012
TIMELINE
SPEAK OUT
TIDBIT
Q. Can you put the issue in a nutshell?
A. The bishops are asking that the Church itself, as an institution, not
be forced to pay for things that it explicitly teaches are gravely immoral
(contraception, sterilization, potentially abortifacient drugs). They’re
Feb. 10, 2012
President Obama announces
a so-called “accommodation”
in which health insurance
companies, rather than
religious institutions, will
provide contraception
coverage.
not asking the government to tell other people what they can and can’t
do; they’re asking that the Church itself not be forced, against our conscience and explicit teachings, to pay for them.
Mandate contrasts
with U.S. law on
religious freedom
Freedom seen as at risk here while U.S. promotes it worldwide
By Joseph Kenny
[email protected]
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
As the saying goes, if it’s good for one person it’s good for everyone — you should be willing
to accept what you impose on others.
In 1998 Congress overwhelmingly passed and President Bill Clinton signed into law the International Religious Freedom Act. It created a system for promoting religious freedom worldwide,
including establishing the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Fast forward a year or so and various states began proposing and passing legislation that requires employers who provide prescription drug coverage to pay for contraception, sometimes
without an exemption for religious employers.
“If this legislation were to pass, it is difficult to imagine any limit upon the state’s ability to
require religious institutions to violate the principal tenets of their religious beliefs,” said Paul
Long of the Michigan Catholic Conference, discussing a proposed law there in 2008 mandating
such coverage.
That same year the International Religious Freedom Act, in ceremonies marking its 10th anniversary, was hailed for having improved the U.S. governments’s ability to respond to abuses
of religious rights.
Today, religious liberty advocates in the United States are appalled by the federal Health and
Human Services Administration mandate requiring that churches, with only a finely nuanced exclusion, must provide insurance coverage for sterilization, contraceptives and abortion-inducing
drugs to employees effective Aug. 1. That exemption would protect only church entities that
primarily employ and serve people of their faith.
A revision announced by President Barack Obama that left intact the restrictive definition of a
religious entity and would shift the costs of contraceptives from the policyholders to the insurers
still fails to ensure that Catholic individuals and institutions would not have to pay for services
that they consider immoral, according to Catholic Church leaders and others.
Gross insensitivity
The federal mandate should have a wide conscientious objection clause, First Amendment
advocates have told the Review.
See Freedom, Page 9
“The original mandate reflected a gross insensitivity to religious
What is the
International
Religious
Freedom Act?
The International Religious Freedom
Act, passed in 1998, was made to express U.S. foreign policy with respect
to, and to strengthen U.S. advocacy
on behalf of, individuals persecuted
in foreign countries on account of
religion; to authorize U.S. actions in
response to violations of religious
freedom in foreign countries; to establish an Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom within the
Department of State, a Commission
on International Religious Freedom
and a Special Adviser on International
Religious Freedom within the National
Security Council; and for other purposes.
(1) The right to freedom of religion undergirds the very origin and existence
of the United States. Many of our
nation’s founders fled religious persecution abroad, cherishing in their
hearts and minds the ideal of religious
freedom. They established in law, as
a fundamental right and as a pillar of
our nation, the right to freedom of
religion. From its birth to this day, the
United States has prized this legacy
of religious freedom and honored
this heritage by standing for religious
freedom and offering refuge to those
suffering religious persecution.
(2) Freedom of religious belief and
practice is a universal human right
and fundamental freedom articulated
in numerous international instruments.
JUNE 22, 2012
Freedom
From Page 8
freedom,” said Thomas C. Berg,
a professor of law and public
policy at the University of St.
Thomas in Minneapolis with an
expertise in religious liberty and
church-state interactions. “The
argument that only individuals
have a conscience and institutions can’t have a conscience
— that was what you heard from
the side supporting the mandate
without any meaningful exemption.”
Brian J. Buchanan, managing editor of online material for
the First Amendment Center in
Nashville, Tenn., wrote in a commentary that “accommodating religious belief and practice should
have been on the front end of the
White House interpretation of the
health law, not an after-the-fact
scramble in response to furious
objections and vows by Catholic
bishops to disobey the law.”
He added that a government
order that religious-affiliated
organizations provide coverage
of procedures that violate their
beliefs would seem on its face
to violate the First Amendment,
which protects the free exercise
of religion.
Berg said the mandate reflects
a disturbing trend. “It’s unfortunate. I agree with what I think is
the bishops’ take that the goals of
health care reform are laudable.
The goal of having the government involved in trying to help
people get coverage and access
is good and just. But if you don’t
make accommodation in that for
religious liberty, then that increased government role can be
oppressive. Thinking pragmatically, that can hurt support for
the social goal in the first place.”
Berg said the requirement to
fund emergency contraception,
which people have argued can
cause the abortion of human embryos, means that the matter also
is one of conscience for people
other than Catholics, such as
evangelicals.
Weakened protections
The federal government may
indeed have the authority to carry out the mandate, said Charles
C. Haynes, senior scholar of the
First Amendment Center and director of the Religious Freedom
Education Project at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.
“Unfortunately, in my view,
the Supreme Court has seriously
weakened the protections of the
free exercise clause since its decision in Employment Division
vs. Smith (1990). Challenges
to a government regulation that
burdens free exercise of religion
are now less likely to prevail.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993), however, (which
says the government cannot pass
a law that substantially burdens
religious practice) still applies to
the federal government — and a
challenge to this regulation under
that law may have some likelihood of success.”
Because the HHS mandate’s
religious exception limits religious employers to, among other
restrictions, employing and serving primarily “persons who share
the same religious tenets of the
organization,” Catholic hospitals,
schools, charities and outreach
centers would, as non-religious
employers, be ineligible for the
exemption.
“This (exemption) is ridiculously narrow,” said Missouri
Catholic Conference general
counsel Tyler McClay.
Haynes, of the First Amendment Center, said, “What makes
this situation difficult, of course,
is that religiously affiliated institutions serve the public, hire outside their faith, and receive some
government funding. That means
the government has to balance
the right of employees to receive
health care with the religious-liberty rights of the institution. The
effort to find a way to accomplish
both interests should be made up
front — something that was not
done in this case.”
Court challenge
McClay and the Missouri
Catholic Conference are more
hopeful of the outcome of a court
challenge to the mandate.
“The drug Ella (a contraceptive drug included in the HHS
ruling) has been shown …. as an
abortificient and can be given up
to five days after intercourse, so
it can clearly (have) an abortion
effect … which brings abortion
into the mix of this whole discussion. Legally that may not have
much impact, but morally and socially you are now imposing on
religious people that they must
offer abortion-inducing drugs,”
McClay said.
“The Smith case said a neutral law of general applicability
can infringe on a religious right
if the law only incidentally in-
PAGE 9
fringes on religious liberty, like a
general law prohibiting the use of
peyote (which was at the heart of
the case). This is not incidental.
You are talking about a mandate
that requires people of faith to do
something they find morally objectionable, an infringement on
religious liberty that results from
the law itself. … I think the judges will look at this with a higher
level of scrutiny,” he said.
Strong arguments can be made
under the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act that this mandate violates the prohibition that
“government cannot pass a law
that substantially burdens religious practice.”
“Is it a slam dunk? No. But I
think it’s a much stronger case
than you would otherwise have,”
McClay said.
“This is a fundamental religious liberty issue. It’s not about
access to contraception. It’s about
the right of the Church to operate
in the public square, provide services to the poor and needy and
still maintain the integrity of its
faith tradition.And this is true not
just for Catholics but every faith
tradition.”
Some information for this story
was provided by Review staff writer Barbara Watkins.
PAGE 10
Stewards of religious
liberty counter
distorted claims
Q. Wasn’t the issue of religious freedom settled
years ago?
A. We Americans have received the legacy of religious
freedom from our ancestors who established this na-
mandate. He said, “We have
tried negotiation with the
administration and legislation
with Congress — and will
keep at it — and there’s still
no fix. Time is running out
and our precious ministries
and fundamental rights hang
in the balance, so we have to
resort to the courts now.”
The lawsuits seek to
prevent the government from
defining who qualifies as a religious organization. Cardinal Dolan called the move
“a compelling display of the unity of the
Church in defense of religious liberty.”
In two fierce editorials, the New York
Times calls the lawsuits “an attack on
access to contraception based on bogus
claims of religious freedom” and dismissed out of hand the Church’s right to
defend its religious freedom. The secular
media also commonly cite the number of
American women, including many Catholics, who use artificial contraceptives.
The issue of religious liberty is ignored,
and fundamental constitutional issues are
tion as a bastion of religious liberty. We have often
failed to live up to these ideals, but we have never
abandoned them as fundamental principles.
not even discussed. The strategy, successful
in the past, is to accuse the Church of being
anti-women and of imposing its morality on
others.
In fact, the reverse is true. The Obama
administration seeks to impose its secular
agenda on religious organizations. And the
so-called exemption supposedly granted to
religious institutions is so narrowly defined
that only the most introverted and self-serving organizations can qualify.
Too many wars have been fought, and
too much blood has been spent, in defense of Americans’ right to practice their
religious principles without government
interference. That makes us all stewards of
the gift of freedom. And we are called to
nurture, defend and share generously with
others what we have received from our fathers and mothers in faith. We are all called
to defend our freedom against those who
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would take away our right to live according
to our beliefs.
Holy Cross Father John Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame (one
of the groups involved in the lawsuits), said
it best. If we allow one government agency
to define who we are and what our legitimate religious practices can be, what’s to
stop other government agencies from using
the same tactics to impose on us equally
or even more reprehensible actions in the
name of political expediency or the common good?
We must speak out against the current
administration’s abuse of religious liberty.
Let’s not let this issue get lost in the political
rhetoric of an extremely partisan election
year. Too much is at stake.
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mission advancement for the Archdiocese of
St. Louis.
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M
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know what to make of the
quarrel between the leaders of our Church
and the Obama administration.
They’re confused, especially since
this is taking place during an election
year with ever-escalating accusations and
counter-accusations by representatives
of different political parties and interest
groups.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of
the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,
leads the Archdiocese of New York, one
of 43 Catholic organizations that filed
suit against the Obama administration’s
JUNE 22, 2012
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LISA JOHNSTON | [email protected]
Passionist Nuns are example of the importance
of unified prayer in fight for religious liberty
prayer
I
t was no coincidence to Mother
Mary
Salvador
that she was admitted to the hospital on Feb. 10, 2012 — the same day
President Barack Obama announced his so-called “compromise” for religious employers who objected to the HHS
health care mandate.
The Passionist Nuns’ superior, who was treated for pneumonia and a collapsed lung, said there’s value to be found
in the kind of physical suffering she experienced. With all
of the evil present in the world, it’s especially important
now, more than ever, to take human suffering and turn it to
prayer.
Eight cloistered Passionist Nuns living at the Immaculate
Conception Convent in Ellisville recently have taken that message to heart as they pray for the safeguarding of religious
liberty in this country, joining with seven other contemplative
communities in the St. Louis region to pray for religious liberty. Earlier this month, the archdiocese sent copies of a prayer
card, with a letter asking each community to devote part of
their daily prayer lives to the issue of religious liberty.
By Jennifer Brinker
[email protected]
PAGE 11
Romano. Friends of the community who frequently visit the
convent will share information, too.
Sitting on a small table in the vestibule of the convent are
copies of a form letter, addressed to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, urging her to rescind the health care mandate and allow organizations and individuals to offer health
coverage “that does not violate their moral and religious
convictions.”
Besides incorporating religious liberty into their daily
prayer intentions, the nuns are planning to pray a special
litany during a novena timed with the bishops’ designated
Fortnight for Freedom, June 21-July 4. They will hang an
American flag outside the convent, and on July 4, when all
churches around the nation are asked to ring their bells at
noon, “we will gather up all the bells in the convent and ring
them together,” said Mother Mary. The sisters also will be
be making individual sacrifices, as a form of penance, during the Fortnight.
Mother Mary said it’s essential to remember the impact
of prayer, when a community is united and “we all speak
together. It’s important that we do this unanimously.”
Almighty God, Father of all nations,
For freedom you have set us free in
Christ Jesus (Galatians 5:1).
We praise and bless you for the gift
of religious liberty,
the foundation of human rights,
justice, and the common good.
Grant to our leaders the wisdom to
protect and promote our liberties;
by your grace may we have the
courage to defend them, for ourselves
and for all those who live
in this blessed land. We ask this
through the intercession of Mary
Immaculate, our patroness, and in
the name of your Son, our Lord
Jesus Christ,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, with
whom you live and reign,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
Speaking from behind the grille at the Passionists’ convent last week, Mother Mary, joined by Sister Mary Veronica and Sister Mary Elizabeth, explained that the community’s motto is: “May the passion of Christ be always in
our hearts.” She added that “we’re taking … the hopes and
fears and sufferings of the world, and seeing what God can
do with it” through prayer.
“As the mystical body of Christ, we can unite (the fight
for religious liberty) to Jesus on the Cross,” said Sister Veronica. “We say, ‘Lord, we need your help.’ We can offer
this suffering of others to Him. Through this experience we
have an opportunity to grow in humility and unite ourselves
to the sacrifice.”
Sister Elizabeth said, “This mandate has a lot to do with
those very things.”
Despite disconnecting themselves from most modern
media, including television, the web and secular print media, the Passionist Nuns have remained informed on the
HHS mandate and religious liberty primarily through the
Catholic press, including the National Catholic Register, the
St. Louis Review, Our Sunday Visitor and L’Osservatore
Passionist Nuns Sister Mary Veronica, Mother Mary Salvador and Sister Mary Elizabeth spoke to reporters last week from behind the grille at their Ellisville monastery.
From their cloister the nuns have been praying for religious liberty. Because they do not own a television or access the Internet, the nuns keep updated on the HHS
mandate issue through the St. Louis Review, National Catholic Register, Our Sunday Visitor and L’Observatore Romano, which the sisters take turns reading aloud
during meals.
JUNE 22, 2012
PRAY U FAST U ACT
JUNE 22, 2012
St. Louis
Review
EDITORIAL
THE Weekly NEWSPAPER of the
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Published at 20 Archbishop May
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PAGE 15
I
This is a religious liberty issue,
not a war on women or matter of birth control
f not now, when?
If not with a strong
voice, how? It’s
time to speak out.
For many months,
the Church knew this
was coming: An option
for health care in this
country that was touted
as providing for all. But
it doesn’t. The Department of Health and
Human Services, under
the auspices of the presidential administration,
didn’t suggest, but rather
demanded that employers, including many religious
institutions, provide contraception, sterilizations and abortioninducing drugs in their health
care plans. The mandate also
applies to non-religious employers who hold faith-based values
close to their hearts.
The Church and her faithful have stood their ground in
protest, even amid the confusion from all angles, including
individuals and institutions who
have dedicated themselves to
tearing down the Church and
self-described Catholics who
have hailed the mandate as a
salvation for women who claim
their access to birth control is
somehow threatened without it.
But let’s be crystal clear here
— the Church, led by the bish-
But it’s not enough.
Now is the time for all
Catholics in The United
States to make an examination of conscience.
With an election year
at our feet, it’s easy to become dissuaded, to make
this a political issue. But
make no mistake — it
is not. When religious
liberty is being abused,
when its very existence
is being threatened, it is
time to set aside whatever previous priorities
we might have as faithful
citizens and look hard at the issue at hand.
And this is not just an issue
for Catholics. This is something that affects all citizens of
this nation. It’s time to decide
whether we as a people will
continue to tolerate a government that wants to force us to
act upon things some consider
immoral. And this is only just
the beginning. Contraception
is the issue today — but what
about tomorrow? Where are we
headed as a nation?
Freedom of religion in this
country is exactly what has given
us the opportunity to consider
such things. When that is threatened, all of our other rights as
faithful citizens are placed at
risk. It’s time to speak out.
“These dedicated Catholics,
much like the early disciples, have entered into the
public square, standing firm
with a belief in Christ and
His Church, to speak the
truth of the matter.”
ops, is not attempting to block
access to contraception or ban
its use. Rather, the Church is
fighting a government that is attempting to force it to abandon
religious practices and requiring
participation in a grave sin.
Catholics who are not
informed on the issue need to
be. Catholics who are misinformed into thinking this is a
birth control issue or a war on
women need to understand that
it is not. Faithful Catholics who
are engaged in this issue know
that this has everything to do
with religious liberty. These
dedicated Catholics, much like
the early disciples, have entered
into the public square, standing
firm with a belief in Christ and
His Church, to speak the truth
of the matter.
PAGE 16
JUNE 22, 2012
TIMELINE
TIDBIT
Q: I’m tired of hearing from the bishops. Where are the women?
A: Here’s how the media portrays the issue: On the one hand, you have
the bishops – Catholic men. On the other hand, you have Kathleen
Sebelius, Nancy Pelosi and Claire McCaskill – the public examples of
Catholic women. However, there’s a large group of women, Catholic
and non-Catholic, who say the government doesn’t speak for them. See
womenspeakforthemselves.com as an example. When it comes right down
to it, you have to decide who the magisterium is. Do you believe the bishops
speak for the Church, or do you believe Kathleen Sebelius, Nancy Pelosi and
Claire McCaskill speak for the Church? If you believe the bishops speak for
SPEAK OUT
May 15, 2012
The USCCB files comments
with HHS that the proposed
“accommodation” does not
change the administration’s
position on the mandate and
religious exemption
the Church, then you have to say so. And you have to say, “I think the media
are creating a false representation of the issue.”
I Thought you should know
Fortnight: Our chance to witness to His love for all
“The Lord called me from birth, from my mother’s
womb He gave me my name. He made of me a sharpedged sword and concealed me in the shadow of His
arm.”
Today we celebrate the birthday of John the Baptist, the
forerunner of our Lord.
Something new and remarkable happened with the birth
of John the Baptist. He was conceived in his mother’s old
age and six months before Our Savior. He leapt in his mother’s womb when Mary arrived at Elizabeth’s home. At his
birth, Zechariah’s mouth was opened and fear came upon all
their neighbors and they exclaimed, “What, then, will this
child be? For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.”
Today’s passage from Isaiah is applied to John the Baptist and gives us an insight into what God had in mind for
this forerunner of the Messiah. “The Lord called me from
birth, from my mother’s womb He gave me my name. He
made me a sharp edged-sword and concealed me in the
shadow of His arm. He made me a polished arrow, in
His quiver He hid me. You are my servant, He said to me,
Israel, through whom I show my glory.”
Who would ever imagine that the forerunner of the Messiah would be dressed in camel’s hair, and live on wild locusts and honey out in the desert? Yet, while his lifestyle may
have concealed his role as the forerunner of the Messiah, his
preaching openly revealed it. He was an arrow hidden in the
quiver. “I baptize with water, but there is one among you
whom you do not recognize, the One who is coming after
me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”
John the Baptist was indeed the “sharp edged-sword” first
concealed at birth but revealed in his public ministry. His
powerful words convicted many tax collectors and sinners.
He eventually was beheaded because he had the courage
to tell Herod that he was living in sin with his sister-inlaw.
It is most fitting that, during this “Fortnight for Freedom,”
that we celebrate this heroic and courageous forerunner, as
well as several other very significant martyrs, who boldly
witnessed to their faith by shedding their blood!
Solemnity of the Nativity
of John the Baptist
Isaiah 49:1-6
Acts 13:22-26
Luke 1:57-66,80
What is the problem? The Health and Human Services
Mandate forces insurance providers to cover the cost of sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs and devices, as well
as contraception. In effect, the federal government is demanding that the Church pay for actions that are intrinsically evil! It forces Catholics to violate their consciences
and deprives them of their religious freedom.
What is the answer? The bishops are calling us to observe a “Fortnight for Freedom,” a special time period of
prayer, study, catechesis and public action. See the rest of
this paper for details.
It is the aim of godless secularism to remove all religious influence from the public square and to let the state
determine all human values. It is the role of the Church to
remind man that there is a God who created us out of His
goodness and has revealed to us the promise of everlasting
life with Him in heaven. He sent His Son Jesus to die on the
cross for our salvation and to take away our sins. Jesus has
called us to be His witnesses. This is our chance! Christ
spilled His blood on Calvary for our salvation. Now it is
our turn to be willing to spill our blood, if necessary, to
witness to His love for all of mankind!
After all, every time we receive Most Holy Communion,
we receive His Body and His Blood into our bodies and
souls, fortifying us to do for Him what He did for us!
First we are asked to pray. This is a good time to get
the family back to daily prayer. Pick from the many options
available, such as the Rosary, Litany of the Most Sacred
Heart, Litany of the Most Precious Blood, Litany of Loreto,
the Divine Mercy Chaplet or the Prayer for Religious Freedom. Every family has time for daily family prayer. If a
family has time to eat, they have time to pray! This is not
a matter of time! It is a matter of faith!
With prayer we can also include fasting. Most of us would
do much better with less food and more prayer. We can fast
from food. We can fast from some television and use that
time to pray. We can fast from rash judgment, from anger
and from gossip. This type of fasting applies to everyone,
including myself! Offer up the discomfort for the conversion of our nation, and thus find peace instead of turmoil!
We are also called to study. Perhaps there are some
teachings of the Church with which we disagree. That is
very possible, because perhaps we don’t really understand
what the Church is asking of us. The Catechism of the
Catholic Church has a wealth of information in it. If you
disagree with some issues, pray to the Holy Spirit to enlighten you. You can pray your way into conformity with
the Catholic Church. Don’t condemn yourself because you
think you disagree.
Finally, we are called to action. Action can take many
forms. It might be writing to our representatives in Congress. Your parish bulletins will provide the necessary information. It also means that when you go into the voting
booth, loyalty to God is far more important than loyalty
to a particular party! Would you, at the general judgment,
want to hear from Jesus these words, “I was in my mother’s womb and you voted for pro-choice or for pro-abortion
candidates?”
Finally, I want to say that I am proud of the courageous leadership of our American bishops. In particular, I
am proud of Archbishop Robert J. Carlson’s courageous
leadership and his statement at the Rally for Religious Liberty in Jefferson City on March 27. Among other powerful
statements, he said: “We are here today to say clearly and
to tell the government that we will render unto Caesar what
belongs to Caesar, but we will NOT render unto Caesar
what belongs to Almighty God.”
Heaven is not for wimps! Heaven is for martyrs!
JUNE 22, 2012
PAGE 17
‘Fortnight’ not politics, Abp. Lori says
By Dennis Sadowski
Catholic News Service
ATLANTA — Archbishop
William E. Lori of Baltimore said
June 13 that the U.S. bishops’
Fortnight for Freedom campaign
has come under heavy criticism
in the secular media, in the blogosphere and by some Catholics as
being a partisan political effort.
But the two-week period is
meant to be free of politics and
will emphasize Church teaching on religious freedom, the
chairman of the bishops’ Ad Hoc
Committee on Religious Freedom said in Atlanta.
“Already we realize that defending religious freedom is not
a walk in the park,” Archbishop
Lori said during the spring meeting of the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops, saying that
politics plays no role in the effort.
“We’ve seen some reaction
to our work that is sometimes
hostile, sometimes unfair and
inaccurate and sometimes deri-
sive,” he said.
The upcoming Fortnight campaign will be a period of prayer,
education and action aimed at explaining how a federal health care
contraceptive mandate violates
religious principles. The mandate
requires most religious employers to provide free health insurance coverage for contraceptives,
abortion-inducing drugs and sterilizations.
The Fortnight was to open
with Mass June 21 at the Basilica
of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
Mary in Baltimore. It ends in
Washington, D.C., July 4 with
Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate
Conception and the tolling of
bells at churches across the country at noon.
Bishop Lori encouraged his
fellow bishops to maintain their
focus on religious rights as established in the U.S. Constitution and
to avoid choosing to “soft-pedal”
the Church’s basic message.
To establish and strengthen
peaceful relations and harmony,
. . . people’s supreme right and
duty to be free to lead
a religious life in society
must be respected.
—Vatican II, Declaration on
Religious Liberty
Franciscan Sisters of Mary
Visit us at www.fsmonline.org.
During a news conference
following the afternoon session,
Archbishop Lori said the bishops’
religious liberty campaign was
being funded by the Knights of
Columbus, the Knights of Malta,
Our Sunday Visitor and “many
other groups as well.”
Archbishop Lori said the bishops remain interested in meeting with officials from President
Barack Obama’s administration.
As part of his presentation to
the bishops, Archbishop Lori reviewed documents explaining
Church teaching on religious
freedom recently issued by the
bishops.
One document, “United for
TIMELINE
TIDBIT
May 21, 2012
43 dioceses
and Catholic
organizations
file lawsuits
around the
country against
the mandate
Religious Freedom,” which describes various threats to religious
liberty in the United States, was
adopted by the USCCB Administrative Committee in March. The
five-page statement explained
that the bishops’ concerns about
the contraceptive mandate of the
U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services under the health
care law as well as its “new definition of who we are as people
of faith and what constitutes our
ministry.”
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan
moved that the full body of bishops adopt the statement as its
own. His motion was approved
unanimously.
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PAGE 18
By Jennifer Brinker
[email protected]
This weekend marks one of
the key components of the archdiocese’s Campaign for Religious Liberty.
Archbishop Robert J. Carlson is calling on all parishes in
the archdiocese to participate in
a Religious Liberty Weekend of
activities June 23-24 in conjunction with the U.S. bishops’ Fortnight for Freedom.
The Fortnight for Freedom
is a special two-week period of
prayer, fasting and catechesis
being observed by dioceses
throughout the country from
June 21, the feasts of Sts. John
Fisher and Thomas More, to July
4, Independence Day. The event
was announced as part of the U.S.
bishops’ April 12 document, “Our
First, Most Cherished Liberty: A
Statement on Religious Liberty,”
which includes specific examples
of how religious liberty is under
attack in the United States.
Archbishop Carlson wrote
in a letter that “religious liberty is our first, most cherished
freedom. The threat the HHS
Duchesne High School
celebrates the retirement of
Mr. Terry W. Gravemann
The Duchesne family is grateful for Terry’s four
decades of outstanding service to our school and
the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
Q: What’s the big deal?
A: It’s about religious freedom. That’s why the Missouri Rally for Religious Liberty (March 27) was
co-sponsored by the Lutheran Church-Missouri
Synod and the Missouri Baptist Convention and
included the Assemblies of God. They were there
because they know that if our faith is on the chopping block today, it could be theirs tomorrow.
mandate poses to the Catholic
Church is no small matter.”
He later added, “It is imperative that we act now to protect
the freedoms upon which this
country is based.”
The
Religious
Liberty
Weekend in St. Louis is part of
the ongoing archdiocesen Campaign for Religious Liberty,
which began on Pentecost Sunday, May 27, and will continue
through Nov. 25, the feast of
Christ the King.
The archbishop recommended
that each parish’s Respect Life
Committee carry out the work of
the local campaign at the parish
level. The archdiocese has set
up a a special web page archstl.
org/liberty with information
and resources for the campaign.
Resources include:
• Calendar of events, which
includes important upcoming
SPEAK OUT
Archdiocese launches local
religious liberty campaign
Religious Liberty Weekend
to take place in all St. Louis
parishes June 23 and 24
JUNE 22, 2012
campaign events, such as the U.S.
bishops’ Fortnight for Freedom
June 21-July 4;
• Web-based parish action kit,
which includes numerous resources for communicating the religious
liberty issue. Resources include
web banners, a prayer card template, talking points and videos;
• Links to what the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the
Missouri Catholic Conference
and the archdiocesan Respect
Life Apostolate are saying on the
issue;
• St. Louis Review, including
a link to past coverage on the issue and information on how to
subscribe to the paper;
• Social media, including a
Twitter hashtag #libertystl that
the archdiocese is using to engage
in conversation on the topic of reliSee Campaign, Page 19
Catholic
Programming
In his honor, Duchesne has established a tuition
assistance fund advancing Terry’s commitment to
educating students in mind, body and spirit.
To make a gift to the Terry W. Gravemann
Legacy of Learning Tuition Assistance Fund,
please call (636) 946-2603 or visit duchesne-hs.org.
Tune Your
Dial To
WRYT 1080 AM
KHOJ 1460 AM
For Program Schedule Call (314) 752-7000
JUNE 22, 2012
TOPPER GOES HERE
Campaign
learn how to speak out
• Monday, June 25, Cardinal Sean O’Malley will host a Town Hall Meeting on CatholicTV at 7 p.m.
St. Louis time. See CatholicTV.net for more information.
• Tuesday, June 26, Ed Hogan will present “The HHS Mandate, Catholics and Voting — What
Every Catholic Needs to Know,” 7 p.m. at St. Mary Magdalen Parish, 4924 Bancroft Ave. in south St.
Louis;
• Wednesday, June 27, St. Louis Young Adults will hold its monthly “Summit: Young Adult Holy
Hour and Mass,” 6:30 p.m. at Our Lady of the Presentation Parish, 8860 Tudor Ave. in Overland.
The theme is religious liberty.
• Tuesday, July 17, Msgr. Michael Witt will present “HHS Mandate and the Catholic Church in
America,” 7 p.m. at St. Ferdinand Parish, 1765 Charbonier Road in Florissant;
• Tuesday, Aug. 28, Msgr. Witt will present “HHS Mandate and the Catholic Church in America,” 7
p.m. at Most Sacred Heart Parish, 350 E. Fourth St. in Eureka;
• Wednesday, Sept. 19, Msgr. Witt will present “HHS Mandate and the Catholic Church in America,” 7 p.m. at Immaculate Conception Parish, 7701 Highway N in Dardenne Prairie.
What you should expect during the
June 23-24 Religious Liberty Weekend
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gious liberty.
Because prayer and fasting are
important parts of the campaign,
Archbishop Carlson will recite
a prayer for religious liberty on
Covenant Radio every day at 3
p.m. The archbishop also is encouraging fasting on Fridays for
the protection of religious liberty.
For more information on the
campaign, call the archdiocesan
Respect Life Apostolate at (314)
792-7555. Additional resources
can be found online at archstl.
org/liberty.
TIDBIT
One nation under God
with liberty
and justice
for all.
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From Page 18
TIMELINE
liberty during homilies;
• Pray for the safeguarding of religious liberty
and provide parishioners
with prayer cards.
E
GOEDEKER’S
information on the Fortnight for Freedom in the
pastor’s bulletin article;
• Preach about the importance of religious
A C A DE
During the weekend of
June 23-24, parishes are
being encouraged to
take action. Each parish
has received a packet of
resources and is encouraged to do the following:
• During all Masses,
show a provided video
of Archbishop Carlson’s
speech from the March
27 Rally for Religious
Liberty at the state Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo.;
• Publish a bulletin insert provided by the U.S.
Conference of Catholic
Bishops and include
PAGE 19
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PAGE 20
By Liz O’Connor
“Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” are the first words of
the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791.
Before then, established churches—the Church of England in most
colonies—were the rule throughout colonial America. While other
beliefs were tolerated in some
of the colonies by the time of the
founding of the United States, the
established churches were supported by taxes, and public officials
usually had to swear adherence to
the established church.
Religious liberty was desirable
in the minds of the founders of the
republic from the beginning, ac-
COURAGE,
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Courage is the only
national, Vatican-approved
Catholic ministry to men
and women living with
same-sex attraction. Our
approach is primarily one
of spiritual support to assist
men and women to live
chastely according to the
teachings of the Church.
Courage is not an
orientation change group.
Meetings are held every
Wednesday. To speak with
a priest who works with
Courage and Encourage,
call (314) 792-7993.
Encourage is a support
group for spouses and
parents of men and women
living with same-sex
attraction. It meets the
second Tuesday of each
month from 7:00 to 8:15PM.
Call (314) 792-7993.
Q. What does “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” mean?
A. This phrase started out as a prohibition on Congress’ either establishing a national religion or interfering with the established religions of the states. It has since been interpreted
to forbid state establishments of religion, to forbid governmental preference (at any level)
cording to Douglas Laycock, law
professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He said
that political conflicts over religion
were a part of living memory for
many of them, and wars fought
over beliefs were chronologically
closer than the Civil War is to contemporary Americans. They wanted to be sure, he said, “that none of
that should ever be repeated here.”
He said Baptists and Presbyterians were “the political muscle” behind the First Amendment: “Catholics mostly weren’t here yet.”
The first major conflict over the
First Amendment came, according to Professor Michael McConnell, director of the Constitutional
Law Center at Stanford University,
with the influx of Irish and German
Catholic immigrants beginning in
of one religion over another, and to forbid direct government funding of religion.
the 1830s, resulting in riots, McConnell said, over public schools’
use of the King James Version of
the Bible. In the 1870s conflict
centered on government funding
of schools Catholics were establishing as alternatives to the public
schools dominated by Protestant
teaching that used the King James
Version.
Laycock listed three clusters of
issues regarding religious freedom
in the United States resulting in a
“very, very mixed body of law.”
The first cluster centers on religious practice and covers a variety
of issues, some of which, he said,
legislators and prosecutors “have
more sense than to meddle with.”
These would include such matters
as the Catholic Church having a
male celibate clergy and allowing children to receive Communion from the chalice. The second
cluster involves government funding, such as the provision of funds
for social and human services or
school vouchers. The third cluster
of issues revolves around religious
speech, both private and government-sponsored, including school
prayer, Christmas displays and displays of the Ten Commandments
and various monuments on public
grounds.
McConnell said fewer arguments now break along Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or Muslim lines. Rather, he said, the
SPEAK OUT
U.S. approaches to
religious liberty have
developed over time
JUNE 22, 2012
most conservative members of
all those groups tend to come
out on one side of an issue, and
more moderate or slightly liberal members of religious groups
are willing to work together. At
the outlying extreme, he said,
are liberal members of religious
groups and religiously indifferent or anti-religious secularists
who strongly oppose any cooperation between government
and religious groups as well as
any kind of religious observance
or display connected with civil
events.
Liz O’Connor is a freelance
writer in the Philadelphia area
and former editor of The Long
Island Catholic and of CHURCH
magazine
Religious Liberty
“Let God be our
guiding force.”
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JUNE 22, 2012
Classified Ads: Classified Ads may be faxed to (314) 792-7534; or emailed to
[email protected]. For information call (314) 792-7515.
PAGE 21
CLASSIFIED
HELP WANTED
HELP WANTED
EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT FOR FACILITIES - DAUGHTERS OF CHARITY
The Diocese of Belleville is seeking a full time Executive Administrative Assistant. This position provides
administrative support which includes general clerical duties as well as coordinating special projects, meetings
and events and arranging and scheduling travel. Applicant must have strong written and oral communication skills,
be highly organized and flexible, able to work well with others, and must maintain confidentiality of church and
professional issues.
Essential qualifications include a minimum of an Associate’s Degree; Bachelor’s Degree preferred, or equivalent
experience; 5+ years experience in a related role of providing executive support, plus knowledge in Microsoft Office
and other computer programs/applications. Practicing Catholic required.
To apply send cover letter with resume and preferred salary range to Human Resources, Diocese of Belleville,
222 S. 3rd St., Belleville, IL 62220. FAX to (618) 722-5020; email to [email protected].
Application deadline: Friday, June 29, 2012.
POSITION & QUALIFICATION SUMMARY: The Administrative Assistant will be located in the Central West End and
will report to the Provincial Facilities Director and will be responsible for providing efficient and effective clerical and
administrative support for the Facilities department. The Administrative Assistant must be exceedingly well organized,
flexible and enjoy the administrative challenges of supporting a developing office with diverse needs. The ability
to interact with staff (at all levels) in a fast paced environment, remaining flexible, proactive, resourceful and efficient,
with a high level of professionalism and confidentiality is crucial to this role. Excellent written and verbal communication
skills and attention to detail are equally important.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:
1. Performs general clerical duties to include but not limited to: photocopying, faxing, mailing, filling, typing, proofreading, and processing confidential reports, memos, and letters. Creates presentation materials, using Microsoft
PowerPoint.
2. Maintains appointment calendar and makes travel and meeting arrangements as well as expense report preparations.
3. Develop and maintain databases (in primarily Excel and Access) to manage various types of data. Provide reports
that are current, accurate and clear to the reader based on this data. Typical types of data include information relating to
capital projects, property, vehicle fleet and drivers.
4. Maintain all pertinent fleet vehicle information files (licenses, title, registration and insurance) both electronically
and in hard copy. Reach out to drivers regarding upcoming renewals and provide follow up throughout the renewal
process. Coordinate with city and state employees as adjustments to the fleet are made due to renewals, new purchases
and sold vehicles.
5. Maintain current copies of all drivers’ licenses as they are renewed. Reach out to drivers monthly to request this
information and follow up until it is received.
6. Organize and maintain documentation relating to the purchase and disposal of property and fleet vehicles.
7. Prepare property insurance information required to comply with Ascension Health reports. Assist remote facilities
staff in the generation of this information. May also require interaction with architects and consultants.
8. Coordinates with other departments and locations in preparation of meetings, prepares and distributes minutes from
various committees, and assists in the coordination and implementation of other meeting activities.
9. Work independently with the Director, employees and vendors. Maintain confidentiality in all aspects of the position.
10.. Perform other duties as assigned.
OTHER ACCOUNTABILITIES:
1. Promotes, exemplifies and supports the values of service to persons who are poor and the mission and values of the
Daughters of Charity.
2. Provides continuing evaluation of current procedures and systems and suggestions for improvements.
3. Pursues continuing education to advance knowledge in position related areas.
4. Creates an environment within the three functions that fosters teamwork, effective communication, responssiveness
and service.
5. Performs special assignments or projects as directed.
6. Cross trains with associates in other departments to understand how to perform their duties in the event of
unplanned, heavy work cycles and absences.
PHYSICAL DEMANDS AND WORK ENVIRONMENT: Office Environment
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: The position requires a high school diploma and a minimum of six years experience
in a similar capacity to the functions described above. Experience working with Fleet Management or Asset
Management (property and maintenance) programs in a not-for-profit or religious organization is desirable. College
coursework toward a degree is preferred.
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES: This position requires a candidate with a high level of organization and
flexibility, who enjoys the administrative challenges of supporting a developing office with diverse needs. The ability
to interact with staff (at all levels) in a fast paced environment, remaining flexible, proactive, resourceful and efficient,
with a high level of professionalism and confidentiality is crucial to this role. Excellent written and verbal communication
skills and attention to detail are equally important. Candidate must also be proficient in all Microsoft Office products.
ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS: This position reports to the Provincial Facilities Director (Position located in St.
Louis); supports the Provincial Facilities Director; collaborates/coordinates with Sisters, Campus Facilities Directors, CFO,
and other Administrative Assistants.
Interested applicants are asked to send their resume to [email protected]. EOE
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Hudson Services, a locally owned and operated
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candidates for Armed & Unarmed Security Officers,
Supervisors, and Guest Services-Concierge positions
both Full and Part Time positions in the St. Louis Metro
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Requirements: Candidates must have own
transportation, a minimum of two (2) years Security or
Military experience, High School Education/GED, strong
Customer Service and Communications skills. Hudson
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as vacation pay. Apply in person at 314 N. Jefferson
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Our Lady’s Inn, a pro-life ministry, is currently
accepting applications for a Program Director (FT) for
the St. Charles location. The Director will have primary
responsibility for creating/maintaining a therapeutic
environment, developing a positive team atmosphere
among staff, and assuring that services meet
accreditation standards.
The position requires an understanding of the
residential environment; strong managerial and
communication skills; a passion for helping women
and children; ability to provide clinical support to staff;
and an understanding of child welfare practices and
community resources. Minimum requirements include
MSW or related advanced degree, residential
experience and 3 years supervisory experience.
A resume and cover letter can be e-mailed to
[email protected] or by mail/fax to
Gloria Lee, Operations Director; Our Lady’s Inn;
4223 S. Compton Ave; St. Louis, MO 63111; Fax
(314) 351-2119. EOE
Visible
a d v e r t i s e
IN PRINT / ONLINE
i n T H E S T. LO U I S
REVIEW CLASSIFIEDS
314
792-7500
MEDICAL ASSISTANT
PT/FT Medical Assistant for NFP only OB/GYN office.
Please send current resume to: St. Gerard Obstetrics
and Gynecology, 10004 Kennerly Road, Suite
386B, St. Louis, MO 63128. ATTN: T. Aten.
VISIT US
ONLINE AT
stlouisreview.com
PAGE 22
JUNE 22, 2012
CLASSIFIED
HOME SERVICES
CONCRETE
Expansion Joints Rotten? Professional crack and
joint caulking. Pressure washing & sealants. Drives,
Pools, Patios. B & D Pavement Maintenance. 2579 Rock
Hill Ind. Ct. (314) 966-3639
JACK DAYLES CONCRETE
• Flatwork • Waterproofing • Hauling
• Block & Concrete Walls • Small or Large Jobs
• 30 Years Experience • Insured • Guaranteed
GENERAL CONTRACTORS
MOVING
PLUMBING, COOLING & HEATING
Free Estimates
$100
W W MOVING SERVICE $70 per hour - for 2 men. $97
per hour - for 3 men. 3 1/2 minimum. (636) 447-0865
BIEG PLUMBING CO. Water heaters. Sewer service.
Repair work. Remodeling. 2015 Lemay Ferry Road.
(314) 487-4564
Carpentry • Masonry • Tuckpointing
Painting • Plumbing • Waterproofing •
Siding • Gutters • Soffit & Fascia •
Remodeling • Porches • Decks • Roofing
PAINTING & DECORATING
$100
RELIABLE HOME REPAIR
(314) 210-2209
ELECTRICIANS
ANY JOB $1,000 OR MORE
EXPERIENCED PAINTER Interior/exterior painting.
Plastering. Wallcoverings. Big or small jobs. Bob
(314) 567-0066
(314) 544-3202
SHE REMODELS and Discount painting. “No job too
small.” 30+ years. Free est. Call Laura. (314) 919-5466
15% Senior
Discount
A+ Rating
$100 .00 OFF
9810 S. Broadway, St. Louis, MO 63125
Family owned & operated since 1934
ACTION HOME REPAIR
LICENSED - BONDED - INSURED
• Commercial
- Institutional
- Industrial
- Custom
Commercial - Institutional
- Industrial
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Residential
New
Construction,
Renovation
and
Service
Residential
Design/Build
Commercial - Institutional
- Industrial
• New
and- Custom
ServiceResidential
Voice,Construction,
Video, Data andRenovation
Security
New Construction, Renovation and Service
Energy-Saving Lighting Maintenance
• Design/Build
Design/Build
24-Hour Emergency Service
Voice,Video,
Video, Data
Data and
• Voice,
andSecurity
Security
Energy-Saving Lighting
Maintenance erelectric.com
314.892.7800
www.schae
• Energy-Saving
Lighting
24-Hour Emergency
ServiceMaintenance
Ser ving the Entire St. Louis Region with
• 314.892.7800
24-Hour
Emergency
Service
www.schae
Per formance, Quality
& Integrityerelectric.com
since 1935
314.892.7800
Ser ving the www.schaefferelectric.com
Entire St. Louis Region with
FAMILY OWNED & OPERATED FOR 30 YEARS
• ALL INTERIOR & EXTERIOR WORK • WATERPROOFING
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We Can Work At Your Convenience
Residential • Commercial • Industrial • Institutional
• Room Additions • Remodeling • Rewiring • Rathskeller Specialist • Bucket Truck
& Trenching Services Available • Concealed Wiring Specialist • Landscape
Lighting • Service Upgrades • Licensed, Bonded & Insured For Your Protection
Your Christian Electric Company, Licensed By St. Louis City & County, St. Charles, St. Peters &
Jefferson County, Serving a 50 Mile Radius
FREE ESTIMATES
(314) 966-3388
Our 24 Hour Fax Line is Always Open.
FAX (314) 792-7534
DEADLINE MONDAY 5 PM
Your Ad Could Be Here!
CALL
(314) 792-7515
INTERIOR
& EXTERIOR
WORK
ALLALL
INTERIOR
& EXTERIOR
WORK – FREE ESTIMATES
Kitchens and Bathrooms, Carpentry, Porches,
Decks, Painting, Guttering, ROOFING,
TUCKPOINTING, Chimney Repair, Siding,
Soffit & Facia, Windows & Doors Plumbing,
Electric, Plastering & Drywall, Concrete
Chris Boucher, President
12 years experience
Senior Discount
(314) 805-4550
Fully Insured
(314) 773-4955
FAX YOUR AD
TO US FOR
IMMEDIATE
ATTENTION!
WATKINS
PAINTING
(314) 853-3559
remodeling and
STEVE GRESS TUCKPOINTING
Chimneys • Whole Houses
Solid - Spots
A+
Rating
(314) 645-8991
PAVING
COMMERCIAL
RESIDENTIAL
PAV I N G &
SEALING
CO M PA N Y
• Resurfacing • Patching
• Quality Sealing
COMMERCIAL
RESIDENTIAL
Serving Entire Metro
Area • Liability Insured • Free Estimates
Resurfacing Patching
Quality Sealing www.pioneerpaving.com
(314) 544-3241
Serving Entire Metro Area
Liability Insured Free Estimates
A+
Rating
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
twitter.com/StLouis_Review
(314) 993-1110
www.galmicheandsons.com
4th Generation Family Business
ALL WORK GUARANTEED • LIEN WAIVERS FURNISHED • SMALL OR LARGE JOBS
CHRISTOPHER
HOME REPAIR
SINCE 1950
SALES & SERVICE
FREE ESTIMATES
Interior/Exterior Painting. Wallpaper Removal. Plastering
& Drywall Repair. Quality stain work & enamel woodwork
finishing. Dependable & experienced. Reasonable rates.
In business since 1975. Call Pete. (314) 359-9126
20% DISCOUNT FOR
SENIOR CITIZENS
Per formance, Quality & Integrity since 1935
FIELDER ELECTRICAL SERVICES INC.
SALLER & SONS PAINTING
(314) 919-5053
Serving the Entire St. Louis Region with
Performance, Quality & Integrity since 1935
HEATING & COOLING
Air Conditioning & Heating
• Carpentry • Porches • Decks • Concrete • Roofing • Tuckpointing
• Chimney Repair • Guttering • Painting • Siding, Soffit & Facia
• Windows & Doors • Plumbing • Electric • Plastering & Drywall
CALL FOR
$100 COUPON
GALMICHE AND SONS
(314) 544-3241
SEALCOAT EXPRESS
www.pioneerpaving.com
Residential • Commercial
Waterproofing Basements/Paving
• Sealcoat • Crack-fill • Patching • Restriping
(314) 488-3087
www.designaire.net
2% of furnace or A/C purchase will be donated to
your parish
(314) 739-1600
JOSEPH H. BEETZ PLUMBING CO.
2651-2659 GRAVOIS AVE.
(314) 771-0868
Fax: (314) 771-2778
Plumbing & Heating Repairs
NEW WORK
Hot Water Heaters
REMODELING A SPECIALTY ELECTRIC SEwER SERvICE
EMAIL: [email protected]
ROOFING
REPUBLIC ROOFING T. Krause. F. Wolff. Residential.
Commercial. Institutional. Since 1967. Members:
Roofing & Siding Contractors Alliance, Inc., MRCA.
(314) 965-5504
SOUTH SIDE ROOFING
COMMERCIAL & RESIDENTIAL
(314) 968-4800
• Shingles • Flat Roofs • Rubber
• Hot Asphalt • Slate • Tile
JUNE 22, 2012
PAGE 23
CLASSIFIED
HOME SERVICES
MISCELLANEOUS
ROOFING
HELP THE POOR
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY ROOFING
DONATION OF STORAGE SPACE
Family Owned For Over 45 Years
www.mississippivalleyroofing.com
(314) 838-4451
TUCKPOINTING
Donation of Warehouse Storage Space Sought to store/
sort St. Cronan Parish St. Vincent DePaul clothes/housewares
for Give Aways, held every other month for those in need.
Contact: Dorothy Lucey (314) 803-1858.
PROF. SERVICES
PROF SERVICES
REAL ESTATE
SENIOR CARE
VACATION RENTALS
Logo Usage &
Reproduction Notes
Caring for You...
Like Family
♦Caring Companionship
♦Personal Care/Bathing
♦Medication Reminders
Janice & Jeff Noser, Owners
♦Meal Prep & Planning
♦Transportation/Errands ♦Bonded & Insured
♦Housekeeping/Laundry ♦Hourly, Live-in
♦Available 24/7
♦Respite Care
EXCLUSIVE, LOCAL PROVIDER OF CERTIFIED COMPANION AIDES
KEN SINGLETON
• Tuckpointing • Painting • Carpentry • Siding
• Guttering • Roofing • Chimney Leaks Stopped
Guaranteed
SENIOR CARE
Jeff or Janice Noser
314-849-4111
GoodSamaritanSeniorCare.com
Call (636) 674-5013
• Tuckpointing
• Chimney & Foundation Repair
A+ Member of BBB
Call Don
(314) 865-0558
TAYLOR’S TUCKPOINTING
Whole House or Spots
Chimneys • Porches • Patios • Brickwork • Waterproofing
Basement Walls. Small or Large Jobs. Licensed & Insured.
Free Estimates • Senior Discount
(314) 952-9150
THE
PROFESSIONAL TUCKPOINTING
LAURA SINGLETON - DAVE BURCH
•CHIMNEY SPECIALIST •BRICKWORK •WHOLE HOUSES
•FOUNDATIONS •BASEMENT WALLS
(314) 638-7210
INTERNET SERVICES
Serving St. Louis
Allen & Sally Serfas, Parishioners
Live-in or Hourly Care
Caregivers
are
carefully
Caregivers are carefully •• Live-in
or Hourly Care
•
Companionship
screened,bonded
bonded
screened,
•• Companionship
Respite Care
and insured.
and insured.
•• Respite
Care
Meal Preparation
•• Meal
Preparation
ContactUs
UsToday!
Today! Medication Reminders
Contact
•• Medication
Laundry andReminders
Light
and receive 10% OFF
Housekeeping
•
Laundry
and
Light
andduring
receive
10%
OFF
first month
• Housekeeping
Bathing, Dressing and
of service
GroomingDressing and
•
Bathing,
of service
• Grooming
Transportation/Errands
• Dementia/Alzheimer’s
636-724-4357
636-724-4357
• Transportation/Errands
www.assistancehc.com
• Dementia/Alzheimer’s
On Call 24/7 - 365 days a year
www.assistancehc.com
On Call 24/7 - 365 days a year
FREE ESTIMATES - OVER 25 YEARS EXPERIENCE
WINDOWS
M & P WINDOW WASHING & GUTTER CLEANING
Since 1983. Reasonable rates. Free Estimates. Fully
insured. Mark-cell (314) 805-7367. Mark-home
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Your Ad Could Be Here!
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(314) 792-7515
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please contact:
Heavenly Helpers Senior
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Owner
Celebrating 7 years of advertising with The St. Louis Review!
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For More Information
PHONE: 314-963-9913
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• Easy to use
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REAL ESTATE
CONDO FOR SALE
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open condo w/abundant light streaming in through
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Offered by Jon D. Lieb Real Estate 314-781-5058 / 314973-1631. Owners retiring and want an offer. *OPEN
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All real estate advertised herein is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act, which makes it illegal to advertise “any preference, limitation, or discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex,
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any such preference, limitation or discrimination.”
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Follow us on Facebook
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SPORTS CAMPS
TENNIS CAMP
VODICKA LLC - Lance Vodicka Summer Camp held
in Forest Park. “Inspiring and developing junior tennis
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YARD SERVICES
LANDSCAPING
ACCENT LANDSCAPE & DESIGN Tree/shrub pruning &
removal. Yard cleanups/retaining walls. Power washing.
Free estimates. (314) 393-0117
TREES
BUSKEN TREE & LANDSCAPE SERVICE Complete tree
& landscape work. Seasoned firewood. Fully insured.
Ron. (314) 781-7628, (636) 677-5255
COLLINS TREE AND STUMP SERVICE Complete Tree
& Shrubbery Care. Brush, Tree & Stump Removal.
Deadwooding, Trimming, Excellent Cleanup. Fully
Insured. (636) 349-5945
PATRICK KEHOE TREE SERVICE Tree trimming,
topping, removal, power stump removal. 32 yrs.
experience. Professional. Fully insured. Call Anytime.
(314) 962-5763
PAGE 24
are being represented by firms
including the Becket Fund for
Religious Liberty, the Alliance
Defense Fund and the Thomas
Every day, employees who More Law Center.
come to work at O’Brien IndusNoting that “time is running
trial Holdings on the near southout,”
Archbishop Robert J. Carlside of St. Louis pass by a statue
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that son said May 21 that the “religious employer” exemption the
sits in the corner of the lobby.
federal government created as
The Sacred Heart of Jesus was part of the mandate is too narrow,
enthroned to the business in 1992 adding that it is aimed at religious
by then-owner Nick Franchot organizations that primarily work
and remains under the leader- with people of their own faith.
ship of chairman Frank O’Brien,
“It should come as no surprise
one of many ways that the busito
anyone that this exemption
ness has created
falls drastically
a framework of
Catholic values in “It is a human issue, short in protecting
the religious liberthe workplace.
ties of Catholic St.
a
moral
issue
and
an
But the federal
Louisans,” said
health care man- American issue.”
the archbishop. As
date, which will
the mandate currequire businesses
rently stands, it is
like O’Brien’s to — Archbishop Robert J. not clear if an orinclude full cover- Carlson
ganization such as
age of contracepCatholic Charities
tion, abortion-inwould qualify for
ducing drugs and
the exemption, as
sterilizations, goes against those the organization primarily serves
values. In response, O’Brien, a people of other faiths or no faith
member of St. Gerard Majella background.
Parish in Kirkwood, filed a law“It is a human issue, a moral
suit against the federal government March 15 in U.S. District issue and an American issue,”
Archbishop Carlson said, not an
Court in St. Louis.
He’s not alone. The Arch- issue of contraception. “Never
diocese of St. Louis and Catho- before has the U.S. government
lic Charities of St. Louis joined forced the Catholic Church to
with 41 other plaintiffs across provide a product that violates
the country in filing 12 separate our religious beliefs. I cannot –
lawsuits against the government will not – stand by and watch this
May 21. The plaintiffs in those happen to the flock entrusted to
suits, which include dioceses and my care.”
The American Center for Law
archdioceses, Catholic schools
and universities, Catholic health and Justice, a pro-life Washingsystems and Catholic charitable ton, D.C.-based law organizaorganizations, are being repre- tion that focuses on U.S. constisented by international law firm tutional law and human rights
law and is representing O’Brien
Jones Day.
In total, there are 23 lawsuits in his case, said the suit was the
and 56 plaintiffs across the coun- first in which a private business
try who have filed suit against owner has challenged the federal
the government. Other organiza- mandate.
In the suit, O’Brien said the
tions who have filed suit include
Priests for Life, EWTN, Legatus, new federal regulations, under
Belmont Abbey and others. They the Affordable Care Act, “vioBy Jennifer Brinker
[email protected]
Q. Why is the Catholic Church fighting so hard on this issue
now?
A. Never before has the U.S. government forced the Catholic
Church to provide a product that violates its religious beliefs.
The fear is that, if this mandate goes into effect, it will only be
the first of the things we are told that we must or must not do.
late an employer’s religious and
moral values.”
Francis J. Manion, senior
counsel with the ACLJ, said that
with the mandate in the news
the last several months, O’Brien
took a closer look at his company’s health plan through United
Health Care and discovered, to
his dismay, that the plan covered
contraception.
O’Brien Industrial Holdings
LLC is the holding company of
the Christy family of companies,
which explore, mine and process
refractory and ceramic raw materials, with its products going to
more than 40 countries. There are
87 employees.
“The fact of the matter is,
most CEOs of companies don’t
really know exactly what’s in
their health plans — like most
employees,” said Manion. “The
policy doesn’t say we don’t cover birth control. It just says we
have a prescription drug benefit.”
Manion cited another example
of an organization of women religious, who, up until two years
ago didn’t know that their health
plan covered contraceptives.
“I think a lot of people are
probably examining their policies
in light of all of this recent coverage of this issue and are saying,
‘Oops, I don’t want that,’” said
Manion.
Because the health plan isn’t
up for renewal until next January, O’Brien would have to wait
to change the plan until then. But
under the federal mandate, he
won’t be able to change it, said
SPEAK OUT
Lawsuits show
Catholics serious
about mandate
JUNE 22, 2012
Manion.
“We are really reasserting the
right to religious liberty in these
cases,” said Manion. “It’s amazing how little people think about
that and how little they value
that, compared to the Founding
Fathers who put it into our Constitution.
“The government does not
have the right to compel and
coerce people to do this sort of
thing that directly violates their
religious beliefs,” he said. “If the
government thinks that universal
access to contraception is so important, the government can provide that without coercing institutions or employers like Frank
O’Brien who have objections to
that.”
Your
CATHOLIC
news!
ST. LOUIS
REVIEW
AND
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