Archbishop Dolan Basically Says Obama Is A Lying Liar

Photograph by Calek / Shutterstock

Now that the Obama Administration has signaled it will reconsider the requirement to make insurance plans offered by Catholic universities and charities provide women with birth control without charging them, Archbishop Timothy Dolan is happy... for now. He told the Daily News, "I would welcome the fact of the government saying we’re willing to rethink this... The federal government should do what it has traditionally done since 1776 and keep its hand out of the internal workings of the church."

Dolan appeared on CBS This Morning, saying that when he met with President Obama last year, Obama said the provision would go away. Now, Dolan says, the administration's decision to enforce it "seems to be at odds with very sincere assurances that he gave me, that he wanted to continue to work with the church in these endeavors and views and projects he shared a passionate interest in, so I can’t figure it out." Dolan added, "I am hoping that this massive negative reaction to this ruling, I am hoping that [the President] will go back to those assurances that he gave me" last year.

The issue is a powder keg for Election Year Obama: The National Review's Rich Lowry explains, "In Obama’s decision (and yes, he did okay it), we see again an encroachment of secular government, with its web of rules and regulations, on a free, civil society," while liberal Catholic columnist E.J. Dionne wrote, "One of Barack Obama’s great attractions as a presidential candidate was his sensitivity to the feelings and intellectual concerns of religious believers. That is why it is so remarkable that he utterly botched the admittedly difficult question of how contraceptive services should be treated under the new health care law."

However, liberal religious leaders representing Reform and Conservative Jews, Methodist and Episcopal groups issued a statement saying, "We believe that women and men have the right to decide whether or not to apply the principles of their faith to family-planning decisions, and to do so they must have access to services. The administration was correct in requiring institutions that do not have purely sectarian goals to offer comprehensive preventive health care." Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Catholic, weighed in, "I am dumbfounded that in the year 2012 we still are fighting about birth control. It is sad that we have to stand here yet again to fight back against another overreach and intrusion on women's lives. The power to decide whether or not to use contraception lies with a woman, not her boss... What is more intrusive than trying to allow an employer to make medical decisions for someone who works for them?"

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By Jen Chung in News on February 9, 2012 12:59 PM

Comments [rss]

meadowlands

- Love the way these politicians consider themselves Catholics. You wouldn't join a country club or an organization if you didn't agree with or abide by the rules. So why do Gillibrand, Pelosi, Biden et al continue to call themselves Catholics? They are deluding themselves. When they kick the bucket they will be met by all the babies they helped murder. Then those angels will sing a chorus of "Burn, baby,burn" as they are free falling to h*ll

felixthecat

Dolan, shut the fuck. Shame on you. St Patrick's bling bling is offensive.

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Summers_Eve

As a feminine hygiene product, I think I know a little bit more about vaginas and related issues. So you stick to your patriarchal knitting and start worrying more about the poor and hungry and leave the vaginas to the ladies and those of us who were 'conceived' by the C. B. Fleet corporation that care for them (vaginas that is).

ANGRYGOD11

You are such a douche.

Adrian Tawfik

Health insurance will never get figured out well until they get the big money out of federal, state and local elections. The poor can't protect themselves from corporations if the election is not functioning. I think this is connected to China, the Arab Spring and everything - democracy is the only way to solve these complex issues!!!
Check out my website please
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WZA

Ha!

The Catholic Church accusing someone else of lying.
*slaps knee*

ANGRYGOD11

A few years ago, before it became a child/wife abuse crisis, polygamous Mormon communities won local and state building contracts by underbidding competitors. Because of their religious beliefs, they could keep kids out of school and make them work unpaid full-time by the time they were 12. As they boys grew up, they were cast out because when the leaders are old men with over a dozen of wives, the young men are competition for the limited number of teen brides.

ChicagoD

That's a great story.

Daniel Harris

This regulation already exists in several states (I believe it's 25) and is fairly well established. From what I understand it was modeled after New York and California policies that grant exemptions to religious employers who hire and serve primarily people of their faith. It only seems logical that if they serve a secular function, they are treated as secular organizations.

Vas

what has this archbishop ever said about America's wars, or Occupy Wall Street?..

frankyburns

"You" work. "You" earn the pay package. "YOU" make the decisions.

At least that is how it should be, unless some bishop wants to make those decisions for you.

My question to the honorable reverend Dolan -- "Would you also feel morally compelled to control how I spend the cash portion of my pay package, if you thought you had that power?" (and: Isn't your conscience just a bit overexpanded??)

ChicagoD

In fairness, Dolan knows from lying . . .

DonKeysHoTea

stop messing with the internal workings of the church? sure, right after you stop coating the inside of children's' rectums with semen. keep your hands (cocks) out of my internals!

Mark Moran

This is about whether or not a religious organization should be forced to pay for a product that violates its religious beliefs. It should not; not in this case, not in this case, and not in any case. What's next - requiring religious employers to pay for assisted suicide? This ruling plainly violates the first amendment.

Gillibrand's comments are delicious - calling a religious employer's long-established practice of refusing to pay for what it considers to be a morally offensive benefit for its employees "an intrusion" and an "overreach" - while the government's FORCING the religious employer to do so is just good policy. The Entitlement Mentality has reached its crescendo.

Yes, the power to decide to use contraception lies with each individual; and indeed contraception has been used for nearly 50 years without this rule being in place. Employees can pay for it themselves, or refuse to work for an employer that doesn't offer this benefit.

Inspector Spacetime

It's not called the Equal Protection Clause for nothing.

taracorinne

when a religious institution stops receiving any city/state/federal funds to support their charity, then the government can stop telling them what to do.

ChicagoD

Meh. If the government wants to fund all of the works charities undertake they can really call the tune. Dolan's wrong on this, but so are you.

taracorinne

so in that same logic, in order for safety regulations to apply to the building of sports arena that is heavily subsidized by the local and state economy, it must be fully paid by the state and/or the city?