Archbishop Dolan and Obama at odds with Mandate

Dolan: Obama says he's not anti-religious, but he's getting harder to believe

Published February 14, 2012

| Associated Press

• The top U.S. Catholic bishop vowed legislative and court challenges Tuesday to a compromise by President Barack Obama to his healthcare mandate that now exempts religiously affiliated institutions from paying directly for birth control for their workers, instead making insurance companies responsible.

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, who heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in an interview with The Associated Press that he trusted Obama wasn't anti-religious and intended to make good on his pledge to work with religious groups to fine-tune the mandate. 

"I want to take him at his word," Dolan said in Rome, where he will be made a cardinal Saturday. But he stressed: "I do have to say it's getting harder and harder," to believe Obama's claim to prioritize religious freedom issues given the latest controversy.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/14/dolan-obama-says-hes-not-anti-religious-but-hes-getting-harder-to-believe/#ixzz1mTozN9EG

New "Compromise" on Contraception does nothing

WASHINGTON, February 10, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The White House announced today that, instead of forcing religious employers to pay for birth control, it will force insurance companies to offer the drugs free of charge to all women, no matter where they work.

The plan, touted as a concession to freedom of religion and conscience, was immediately denounced by pro-life Rep. Chris Smith. “The so-called new policy is the discredited old policy, dressed up to look like something else,. said Smith. .It remains a serious violation of religious freedom. Only the most naï or gullible would accept this as a change in policy.”

“The White House Fact Sheet is riddled with doublespeak and contradiction,” Smith continued. “It states, for example, that religious employers ‘will not’ have to pay for abortion pills, sterilization and contraception, but their ‘insurance companies’ will. Who pays for the insurance policy? The religious employer.”

In a statement released today, the White House said, “Under the new policy announced today, women will have free preventive care that includes contraceptive services no matter where she works.”

“If a woman works for religious employers with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide contraception coverage but her insurance company will be required to offer contraceptive care free of charge.”

The birth control rule announced last summer was intended to force virtually all employers to cover sterilizations and contraception, including abortifacient drugs such as ella, a sister drug to RU-486. The religious employer exemption essentially applied only to houses of worship, creating an uproar in the Catholic community as hospitals, schools, and charities would have been forced to pay for the drugs. The furor only grew stronger when the administration announced last month that the concerned religious organizations would be given an extra year to comply.

President Obama reiterated the statement in a press conference this afternoon, saying that “the insurance company, not the hospital, not the charity, will be required to reach out” to women employed by such institutions to offer birth control “without copays, without hassles.”

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Archbishop Dolan Speaks out about Mandate

(CBS News) 
UPDATED 10:05 a.m. ET
The head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Thursday urged President Obama to reverse his administration's decision requiring all employers to provide birth control as part of their health plans. There is an exemption for churches and other houses of worship, but the rule includes hospitals and schools affiliated with religious organizations.

"This was a terribly misguided judgement," Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York said in an interview on "CBS This Morning."

Dolan, who is set to become a cardinal later this month, said he met with Obama in the Oval Office late last year and was promised the White House would work with the Catholic church on a number of issues, including education, healthcare and charitable work.

"I am hoping that this massive negative reaction to this ruling, I am hoping that he will go back to those assurances that he gave me," Dolan said.
Dolan said Mr. Obama called him on January 20 to inform him of his decision.

"I expressed to him sincerely my disappointment and my disapproval," Dolan said.

Watch the Interview Here

Hormones and Contraception

With the large distribution of contraceptives all over the world, a question has come up recently in in the scientific community: do contraceptives affect how men and women interact with each other? According to Janet Smith and the scientific research of Lionel Tiger, contraceptives have actually been shown to affect the natural interaction of men and women. How did they discover this conclusion? How everything else is tested nowadays in the medical field: monkeys.

Check out this YouTube video to learn more about this scientific discovery:

Contraceptives and the Environment

A little known fact about contraceptives is that the contraceptive pill produces numerous harmful effects upon the environment. How is this possible? Check out the article below:

CHERRY HILL, N.J. (CNS) -- Mark W. LeChevallier agrees with Dr. Lester Ruppersberger, a pro-life obstetrician and gynecologist, that natural family planning is safe, healthy and effective. But he would add one more characteristic: It's environmentally responsible.LeChevallier is director of innovation and environmental stewardship at American Water, the largest water and wastewater provider in North America. Along with his wife, he also has been a certified instructor of natural family planning for the past 25 years.

In separate talks July 26 to a national conference in Cherry Hill, LeChevallier and Ruppersberger approached the topic of natural family planning from very different directions but reached similarly positive conclusions.

[...]LeChevallier shared the podium with Roxana U. Barillas, a domestic policy adviser at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, for a discussion on "Toxins, the Environment and the Child in the Womb." He spoke about the drastic effects that discarded contraceptive medicines and devices have been having on the nation's water and animals, especially fish.

In a talk with the daunting title of "Endocrine Disruptions: Chemical Contraceptives in Sewage Effluents," LeChevallier explained that like secondhand smoke, "secondhand estrogens are being released into the environment," to devastating effect on fish, panthers, alligators and other wildlife.

[...]
"the synthetic estrogen used in birth control pills can wreak havoc on the sex lives of fish," LeChevallier said, citing reduced penis size in male fish, masculinized female fish and other sex-related changes.

Because the synthetic estrogen is not absorbed well into the body, much of the drug is released into the environment through women's urine, he said. In addition, used contraceptive rings and patches are having a further polluting effect, he said.

Noting that in Europe, drug manufacturers are required to provide a bag for disposal or return of used contraceptive devices, LeChevallier recommended that the U.S. adopt the same policy. "Why do pharmaceutical companies here get a free ride?" he asked.

[...]

Barillas' presentation focused on the "distinctly Catholic approach to environmental concerns," which she said is neither "a new message for us" nor "an issue that is out there just for people who live close to the woods."

Of special concern for Catholics is the fact that "the poor and powerless are most likely to bear the burden of our environmental carelessness," she said.

"The poor, the elderly and persons with disabilities often are exposed to multiple contaminants," Barillas said, adding that children especially are at risk because they suffer "greater exposure pound for pound" and have a "diminished ability to detoxify and excrete many chemical toxins."

Unborn children also face many environmental risks, including lead, mercury, pesticides and other chemicals, she said.

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What is a healthy and eco-friendly alternative to contraceptives that respects the dignity of the sexual act?

Check out Natural Family Planning!

The Pill Kills

To continue our posts on the harmful effects of contraceptives, we move on to focus on the Pill.

Every year all across the nation people protest the pill and try to inform the populace about the harmful effects it is having on women. In reality, the pill that is used to avoid pregnancies is not only killing babies but is actually killing the women who use it. Here are some of the cases from thepillkills.com:

Why is it that Julie Hennessey, a 31-year-old Irish woman, died of a blood clot after taking the birth control pill? The pill caused her to develop deep vein thrombosis. 2
What about Ashley Lewis, a 17-year-old high school junior from St. Louis, Missouri? Ashley died after developing a blood clot in her lung, because she was wearing the birth control patch for six months. 3
Tanya Hayes, a 24-year-old Australian woman who died from a pulmonary embolism because of the combination of the birth control pill Yasmin and another drug, Accutane. 4
A 24-year-old mother of two children had been taking oral contraceptives for several years and had been doing so up to one month before having an operation. This young mother died seven days after the operation. It was determined that she had an increased risk of postoperative venous thrombosis, due to taking the oral contraceptives. 6
Zakiya Kennedy, an 18-year-old fashion student from New York who hoped to be a model, died after using the patch. 7

Not only that, but "Studies show that most women who have died from the use of the pill or other birth control products have died from blood clots, heart attacks, and pulmonary embolisms. As you can see on our side effects link, the pill also causes many other serious problems such as cancer, pelvic inflammatory disease, depression and much more." (the pill kills)

For more information on the pill and its side effects, click here.






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Contraceptives are bad for mental health, researcher finds

To expand on the issue of contraception, which is now at the forefront of the news recently, let us examine why the Catholic Church's stance on contraception is so important to understand.

First, here is further proof that birth control is even going against nature and what God intended for the marital act:

PAISLEY, Scotland, August 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Research from Scotland finding that heterosexual sex without using condoms is more likely to make people happy than "safe sex" with condoms, has stirred controversy among "sexual health" campaigners. The lead researcher wrote of the survey respondents, "The more often they have sex without condoms, the better their mental health."
[...]

Brody wrote, "The more often they have sex without condoms, the better their mental health." His findings suggest that condom use negates the mental health benefits of what he called "evolutionarily relevant sex." He theorized that there is a direct biochemical response in natural heterosexual relations that is blocked by condoms.

Brody wrote in the study, "Possible explanations for the interference of condoms with the health benefits of PVI include blocking of antidepressant and immunological agents in semen and genital secretions, reduced sexual satisfaction and intimacy, and psychopathology-prone persons who are more psychologically immature and/or heterosocially anxious being more likely to use condoms for PVI."

In an interview with the UK's Independent newspaper, Brody responded to criticisms from sex-campaigners at the Family Planning Association that his findings, if they were acted upon, would result in increases in sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies.

"I have an interest in the best possible science," he said. "I don't want to let anything get in the way, whether its political correctness, or religion. I have deliberately not used the term 'heterosexual sex'," he said.

"Evolution is not politically correct, so of the very broad range of potential sexual behaviour, there is actually only one that is consistently associated with better physical and mental health and that is the one sexual behaviour that would be favoured by evolution. That is not accidental."

[Emphasis added]

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Once again this shows that the more we abuse our bodies and use them for our own selfish pleasures, the more harmful side effects there will be for both our bodies and our souls. As humans we are a composite being with a body and a soul, if we use our bodies in the wrong way, our souls and minds will suffer in a similar way.

Therefore, let us respect our bodies and follow God's divine plan for human sexuality! Only then will we be able to live life to the full and experience what God has destined for us!

The Catholic Church and Contraception

This past weekend, Bishops from across the United States of America had a letter read to their flock about the actions of the administration of Obama to mandate coverage for contraception for everyone, regardless of religious affiliation [Click here to read Bishop Callahan's letter]. This issue is not only about the hurtful consequences of contraception, but more importantly about religious freedom. Here is what the USCCB has to offer on the topic:

The HHS has issued a rule forcing nearly all private health plans to include coverage for all FDA-approved prescription contraceptive drugs and devices, as well as surgical sterilization. These are listed among "preventive services for women" that all health plans will have to cover without co-pays or other cost-sharing -- regardless of whether the insurer, the employer or other plan sponsor, or even the woman herself objects to such coverage.

The exemption provided for "religious employers" is so narrow that it fails to cover the vast majority of faith-based organizations, including Catholic hospitals, universities, and service organizations that help millions every year. Ironically, not even Jesus & his disciples would have qualified.

During the public comment period last fall, the bishops' grassroots campaign alone generated over 57,000 comments to HHS opposing their mandate.
Now that the Administration has refused to recognize the Constitutional conscience rights of organizations and individuals who oppose the mandate, the bishops are now urging Catholics and others of good will to fight this unprecedented attack on conscience rights and religious liberty. [USCCB]

To explain this issue directly, Archbishop Timothy Dolan released a video addressing his concerns:

Click here to view his video

This is principally a matter of religious freedom, as the government is forcing the Catholic Church to go against her conscience and to provide something that we believe to be morally evil. But why is it that the Church is so against contraception? Here is an excerpt from an article from a well-known speaker that helps get at the heart of the matter:

 Only in the last 50-70 years has this been viewed primarily as a “Catholic” issue.  Until 1930, all Christian bodies stood together in their condemnation of any attempt to sterilize the marital act.  That year, the Anglican Church broke with more than nineteen hundred years of uninterrupted Christian teaching.  When the pill debuted in the early 1960's, the Catholic Church alone was retaining what in 30 short years had come to be seen as an archaic, even absurd position.

[...]

When Margaret Sanger and her followers started pushing contraception in the early 1900's, wise men and women – and certainly not just Catholics – predicted that severing sex from procreation would eventually lead to sexual and societal chaos.  Today’s culture of adultery, divorce, premarital sex, STD’s, out-of-wedlock births, abortion, fatherless children, homosexuality, poverty, crime, drugs, and violence was all foreseen

[...]People throughout history have been tempted to commit adultery.  It’s nothing new.  However, one of the main deterrents from succumbing to the temptation has been the fear of pregnancy.  What would happen if this natural deterrent were taken away?  As history demonstrates, rates of adultery would skyrocket.  What’s one of the main causes of divorce?  Adultery.  Apply the same logic to pre-marital sex.  Such behavior has, indeed, skyrocketed.  Premarital sex, as a kind of “adultery in advance,” is also a prime indicator of future marital breakdown.

[Read More...]

This issue of contraception is almost commonplace in the modern world and yet, it has proven to be the source of many of our problems. Here are some more resources to help understand the issue: http://www.catholic.com/tracts/birth-control