To the editor:
At a recent gathering at our parish, I overheard a group of people discussing the Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate. The consensus of their conversation could be summed up as follows: “The bishops are getting way too riled up over this issue. It is an election year after all and the president will back down on this.”
As Archbishop Chaput stated, “The current administration prides itself on being measured and deliberate. The current HHS mandate needs to be understood as exactly that.”
Not only is President Obama measured and deliberate, he is very savvy. He knows that in order to attack the Constitutional right to freedom of religion, it serves well to frame it as a “birth control” isssue. By doing so he will succeed in continuing to divide the Catholic vote.
If our president is elected for another term, the mandates will ramp up further. It is only logical that the president, who has been an avid supporter of Planned Parenthood in all regards, will next mandate that all medical practitioners and hospitals perform abortions through all nine months of conception. Insurance companies will be mandated to pay for those abortions.
So knowing that this is a spiritual battle even more than a political battle, let’s pray that “all Catholics” see this mandate for what it is, an attack on our religious liberty.
Greg Wagner, Middleton