"The president seemed very earnest..."

Archbishop Timothy Dolan gets a bit of an education as to this President:

In the wake of Presdent Obama's controversial decision to mandate that religious groups pay for contraceptives for their employees, much of the coverage focused on how the president had disappointed progressive allies by giving religious groups an extra year to comply.

But the decision also had New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, feeling personally betrayed.

"I have to say, there's a sense of personal disappointment," Dolan said Tuesday after he gave a lecture on "Law and the Gospel of Life" at Fordham Law School.

Last November, amid deepening tensions between the bishops and the administration over the pending contraception mandate and other issues, Obama invited Dolan to the Oval Office, where the two men shared what Dolan called a productive and "extraordinarily friendly" meeting.

"The president seemed very earnest, he said he considered the protection of conscience sacred, that he didn't want anything his administration would do to impede the work of the church that he claimed he held in high regard," Dolan recalled on Tuesday. "So I did leave a little buoyant."

That optimism ended last Friday, however, when Obama phoned Dolan to tell him that he was not expanding the conscience exemption to include religious institutions — such as Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies. In a bid to appease critics like Dolan, the White House gave church organizations an extra year to find a way to comply with the mandate that all health insurance plans provide free contraceptive coverage.

"I had to share with him that I was terribly let down, disappointed and disturbed, and it seemed the news he had given me was difficult to square with the confidence I had felt in November," Dolan said.

I have tremendous respect for Archbishop Dolan.

I hope he uses this as a teachable moment.

Comments

[Locutisprime]

A teachable moment? Excuse me?

The man has in essence spit in the face of the first amendment guaranteeing 'freedom of religion?' And this Catholic Bishop feels a little betrayed by all of this? And our omnipotent messianic savior has appeased them a bit by giving them a year to try and figure out how to reconcile the obvious conflicts with the very foundations and tenants of their faith?

I am sorry, but Christians all across this nation should literally be up in arms and the Catholics should be leading the way in all out opposition to this interloping fabian socialist atheist and his ongoing attempts to as he put it: "fundamentally change this nation."

He is doing just that and the so called leaders of the Christian faith and the leaders of all major Christian faiths are just sitting there in their squishy pants and not doing anything while he is allowed to do it.

I wonder what the prophet Mohamed and his followers will have to say about this when they are told that they too will have to provide these mandates of Obama's change.

[Marv]

The funny thing about things like this is that it all boils down to taxes/benefits. If corporations and non profits stopped providing benefits and gave that money to employees directly, then this problem doesn't exist. I'm sure it is cheaper for companies to purchase the health care directly (otherwise it wouldn't be much of a benefit.....maybe it's not?).

I would say that the Bishop needs to drop health coverage and up the pay rates as best he can. Of course, I'm assuming that the Obama health mandate will be overturned, otherwise the Bishop is screwed.

On the other hand, the Bishop could separate every function into small enough 'entities' to get out from under the health care mandate (if it doesn't get repealed). Of course legal wrangling is such a waste of human effort and energy that should be put to more productive efforts.

This government is becoming more and more and enemy (a bully really) of the people.