From the Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs L.A. site:
Mr. President, you are trying to resolve the wrong problem. Your HHS new
federal rule governing mandated health care services is not just about
women's services and who pays for them.
Rather, the real question
is what protections and guarantees are afforded Americans and our
various institutions by the Constitution. Your ill-placed focus should
be frightening to all Americans.
Freedom of conscience and
religious liberty are not concessions grudgingly granted by the Federal
Government--either directly, or by way of exemption or exception. Our
nation was founded on those basic and inalienable rights as the bedrock
of who we are as Americans. Our Constitution was written precisely to
reject and to avoid the dreadful English model whereby the king and the
government are the granter of all rights, including religious rights--as
well as the single power to withdraw, limit, or negate those rights.
As
a Catholic American, I am outraged not only by your incredulous
contortions to justify your untenable position, I am insulted that you
would think that Americans who value and treasure our Constitutional
freedoms would even question your overreaching infringement on
individual freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.
Read the entire post.