Washington D.C., May 4, 2017 / 01:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Religious freedom advocates credited President Donald Trump with taking a “first step” toward protecting religious freedom with an executive order he signed on Thursday, but stressed that there is still more work to be done.
“I thought the executive order was a great step forward,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. told CNA. “[Trump] himself says this is the first step. But it’s the beginning, and we’ve waited a long time for it.”
President Donald Trump signed a religious freedom executive order on Thursday in the White House Rose Garden, on the National Day of Prayer, with religious leaders – including Cardinal Wuerl – standing around him.
The executive order instructs government agencies to consider issuing new regulations to address conscience-based objections to federal HHS mandate, which requires employers to offer health insurance plans that fund contraception, sterilizations and some drugs that can cause early abortions.
It also calls for a loosening of IRS enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits religious ministers from making endorsements of political candidates from the pulpit to retain the tax-exempt status of churches.
Congressional action is required to formally repeal the law, but the executive order is an important move in ensuring that religious entities can weigh in on political issues without losing their tax-exempt status.
Attending the signing of the executive order were the Little Sisters of the Poor, plaintiffs in one of the HHS mandates case against the federal government. Trump honored two of the sisters who were present in the Rose Garden, calling them “incredible nuns who care for the sick, the elderly, and the forgotten.”
“I want you to know that your long ordeal will soon be over,” he told the sisters of their years-long HHS mandate case, and saying that his order would protect them and other religious organizations from the mandate.
“We are grateful for the president’s order and look forward to the agencies giving us an exemption so that we can continue caring for the elderly poor and dying as if they were Christ himself without the fear of government punishment,” said Mother Loraine, Mother Provincial of the Little Sisters of the Poor.
For years, the HHS mandate has been the subject of heated legal debates. It originated in the Affordable Care Act’s rule that health plans include “preventive services,” which was interpreted by President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to include mandatory cost-free coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-causing drugs in health plans.
After a wave of criticism, the government offered an “accommodation” to religious non-profits who conscientiously objected to complying with the mandate – they would have to notify the government of their objection, and the government would directly order their insurer to provide the coverage in question.
However, dozens of religious charities, schools, and dioceses still sued, saying that even with the “accommodation,” they would still be required to cooperate with – and possibly even to pay for, indirectly – the objectionable coverage. EWTN is among the organizations that have filed lawsuits. CNA is part of the EWTN family.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has defended a number of the groups suing the government over the HHS mandate, explained that the order will empower federal agencies to ensure protections for religious organizations in mandate cases.
“The agencies have everything they need to review these rules and make sure groups like the Little Sisters are protected,” Lori Windham, senior counsel with the Becket Fund, told reporters.
“We will engage with the Administration to ensure that adequate relief is provided to those with deeply held religious beliefs about some of the drugs, devices, and surgical procedures that HHS has sought to require people of faith to facilitate over the last several years,” Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Houston-Galveston, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, stated on Thursday.
“We welcome a decision to provide a broad religious exemption to the HHS mandate, but will have to review the details of any regulatory proposals,” he added.
The new order also declared that “It shall be the policy of the executive branch to vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom” and instructed the Attorney General to “issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in Federal law.”
Still, many religious freedom advocates felt that the order did not go far enough. For example, it does not offer protections for health care workers and facilities that decline to perform abortions, or adoption agencies that place children only in homes with both a mother and a father.
“Today’s executive order is woefully inadequate,” Ryan T. Anderson of the Heritage Foundation stated in The Daily Signal, saying it “does not address the major threats to religious liberty in the United States today.”
It is narrower than the previous draft of a religious freedom executive order that had earlier been leaked to The Nation, but was ultimately scrapped in February. That draft had outlined religious freedom exemptions for not only religious organizations, but also closely-held for-profit businesses in many different areas, like education, health care, and employment.
Religious freedom advocates – including over 50 members of Congress, in an April 5 letter to President Trump – had hoped for broader religious protections in a new executive order.
Cardinal DiNardo noted that “in areas as diverse as adoption, education, healthcare, and other social services, widely held moral and religious beliefs, especially regarding the protection of human life as well as preserving marriage and family, have been maligned in recent years as bigotry or hostility – and penalized accordingly.”
“We will continue to advocate for permanent relief from Congress on issues of critical importance to people of faith,” he added.
Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote.org, told CNA that the order was “an important first step” toward protecting religious freedom, but more must be done.
“The substance of the order is certainly a win for groups like EWTN, Notre Dame, the Little Sisters of the Poor, but it is not everything that we hoped for,” he told CNA. “And therefore I describe it as a work in progress, in terms of the fight for religious liberty. We didn’t get into this mess in one fell swoop, and we’re not going to get out of it in one clean solution.”
He stressed the need for “protections for faith-based groups on the issue of marriage, on gender, the right of the Catholic Church to carry out its social services when they receive federal grants.”
Burch also pushed for legislative action, like the First Amendment Defense Act and the Conscience Protection Act.
The administration also needs to be staffed with the right people in federal agencies who will be friendly to religious freedom, Professor Robert Destro of Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law told CNA.
“Personnel is policy,” he said, and Trump still needs to make hundreds of hires in these regulatory agencies that interpret existing law, including the agencies that will be dealing with HHS mandate protections for religious organizations.
Trump signed the executive order on the National Day of Prayer, and after he met with Cardinal Wuerl and Cardinal DiNardo.
“We had an opportunity to thank him first of all, for this executive order on religious liberty which is so important,” Cardinal Wuerl said of the meeting.
He also hoped the conversation was a starting point for further dialogue on many other topics. “One of the things that we need, I think, just to continue to talk about, the whole range of human value issues,” Cardinal Wuerl said. “He is certainly supportive of the life issues, supportive of religious liberty. And so we have to continue now to talk about other areas where we might find a place to work together.”
The White House also announced Thursday that Trump would be traveling to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Vatican. Cardinal Wuerl said that the president “was also very, very, I thought, focused on this trip he’s going to take that will include a visit to the Vatican. So it was a very good meeting.”
[…]
These are just allegations and while I have compassion for any victim of abuse, its disgraceful to find someone guilty before they have even been tried which is what these actions amount to.
Very true.
On the other hand, they should have banned his music years ago on the grounds of being utter tripe.
That made me laugh Leslie.
To those who have been given much, much will be expected.
Anyone in a position of leadership or influence, especially when the influence is over the young or vulnerable, should be held to the highest standard. I am a retired Catholic school teacher. I guarantee I would have been immediately dismissed for some of the comments, innuendos, and actions made toward me and 2 of my daughters 20+ years ago by another “famous” Catholic Church musician. My diocese did absolutely nothing. We were told “It’s not the whole of (person’s name.)” But this person played a pivotal role in damaging and undermining my children’s trust in the Church. Eventually, he was put “underground” for a few years until something “move visible” happened. Afterward, he resurfaced in another diocese. Sound familiar?
It is time to stop giving the benefit of the doubt to people who abuse their position and listen to the “targets” of their bad, and at worst sick, behavior. This is not an argument about church music nor is it an attack on a person. It doesn’t matter how famous, popular, or powerful someone is. It doesn’t matter if the person is a better musician than Bach. While we stand in a stupor, drinking in the “charisma” of these predators, their “targets” are being dehumanized and losing their trust in the Church. How many testimonies does it take before we listen?
Unlike some others who have commented here, I have enjoyed singing some of David Hass’ music. I am not against contemporary music in the Church. But a “rock concert” is not going to keep young people or anyone Catholic, especially when they or their family or friends are being abused by the ones appointed to shepherd them.
I believe in innocent until proven guilty, but I also believe that fame, power, or popularity should not give a person special allowances. Too many Catholics are unwilling to look beyond their own comfort zone in the Church, let alone listen to the “cries of the poor.” People who step forward in cases like this are mistrusted, called crazy, diminished, blamed, etc.
Most decent people don’t want to see someone else lose their job. But a choice has to be made. Why do we as a Church keep choosing the famous, powerful, and popular over our ordinary brothers and sisters? That’s what predators count on. That’s how they succeed.
PS. Yes, I am still Catholic. I am Catholic because of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
Well said, Bertasi!
These are only allegations so far.
The censure seems a bit hasty.
Can we not separate the man from the music?
My low opinion of his music has never wavered over the years. And it wouldn’t change even if he was made a “Venerable” or praised by a pope.
I quite liked his Mass our choir sang. (I don’t know if he had more than one).
I also believe I remember our choir director (different choir, different director) saying that Schubert’s Ave Maria was once a no-no because he wrote it for his mistress. More than a few musicians/artists were scoundrels. (Not suggesting Haas’s music is on the same level as Schubert’s).
His music is unsuitable for the Liturgy. Good riddance. This is a small victory for those who want actual sacred music at Mass.
Haas admitted guilt when he apologized last year on his website, after initially denying any wrongdoing. I don’t think any diocese can or should support the use of his music.
Surely Haas deserves his day in court in order to prove or disprove his innocence, however, in my court his contribution to church music has been an abysmal failure.
The OCP has 733 hymns in their publication. Now tell me, just which congregation needs more than 50 to 100 hymns(or 25 to 50) in the first place. Not only that, looking through the publication, more than just the David Haas hymns should be scrapped. For far too long Catholics have been subjected to the singing of a new church into being and having things raining down upon her people, for crying out loud. We could have a grand bon fire with all the misbegotten hymns in print forced upon us in the past 50 years.
Let’s get back to worshipping God with our voices, not each other.
My understanding is that OCP has a stranglehold on church music.
OCP preys on musically ignorant music directors/cantors and distracted/uninvolved pastors. They have an integrated system that “makes it easy” for any one off the street to choose music to plan a Mass. Unfortunately, the choices are usually all of their second-rate composers with their accompanying mediocre music. OCP profits off selling the copyrights of this music. Parishes purchase the same music year after year in a missalette-type subscription format (“Breaking Bread”) rather than a hardbound pew hymnal. It’s expensive besides.
As for Haas, he’s not just a nameless, faceless composer, who has been accused of some sinful things; rather, he used his parish-sponsored workshops and his “Music Ministry Alive” group (which he founded) to groom underage victims whom he later would go on to abuse. He is well-known in certain circles, and used his stature within the Church to gain access to these women. Talk about a “safe environment.” Hearing his music at Mass now, whether one is a victim or simply has heard about these accusations, makes worship a distraction. We can do so much better.
There is a wealth of Catholic music out there which can often be downloaded and reprinted for free, if you look around online or have a savvy music director at your parish. Until parishes have the scales removed from their eyes, OCP will remain the driving force behind mediocre music during the Liturgy.
St. Cecilia, pray for us!