By Denise M. Burke, Esq.

Nearly two years ago, the Obama Administration announced its patently unconstitutional "HHS Mandate," requiring many employers to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization without regard for the conscientious or religious objections of the employers or the employees to be covered by the insurance.  Since then, the Administration has issued two sets of proposed rules -- the most recent coming in February 2013 -- for implementing the Mandate.  Neither set of rules adequately protects freedom of conscience or religious liberties.

The fight over this coercive mandate continues both in the courts and in the equally important "court of public opinion."  Undoubtedly, the U.S. Supreme Court will eventualy have to decide whether the American Constitution still protects individual rights including freedom of conscience and freedom of religion.

Thus far, 50 lawsuits involving more than 150 plaintiffs (both organizations and individuals, both Catholic and Protestant) have been filed in federal courts around the country challenging the constitutionality of the Mandate.  And here we have some good news:  In 18 of 21 cases involving for-profit organizations challenging the Mandate, the courts have issued decisions as to whether or not the Mandate can be enforced against these for-profit organizations.  And in 13 of those 18 cases, the courts have ordered that the Mandate cannot be enforced.  In so finding, the courts have been required to evaluate the constitutionality of the Mandate.  Since they have -- for the most part -- declined to enforce the Mandate, this essentially means that the courts do not believe the Mandate is, in fact, constitutional.  These results bode very well for the continued litigation over the Mandate and for the Supreme Court's ultimate decision on the enforceability of the Obama Administration's coercive and politically motivated mandate. 

For more information about the ongoing legal fight against the Mandate, visit HHS Mandate Information Central | Becket
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By Denise M. Burke, Esq.

So many were overjoyed yesterday to hear the words, "Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum. Habemus Papam."  I must admit that I began to cry when I saw the white smoke rising from the Sistene Chapel and also teared-up when Pope Francis asked for our prayers before blessing us.

I, like so many others, have been eager to learn more about the man who will lead us.  George Weigel, who has spent some time with our new Pope, offers some insightful analysis at National Review Online: 

"The wheelchair-bound beggar at the corner of Via della Conciliazione and Via dell’Erba this morning had a keen insight into his new bishop: “Sono molto contento; e una profeta” (“I’m very happy; he’s a prophet”). That was certainly the overwhelming impression I took away from the hour I spent with the  archbishop of Buenos Aires and future pope last May — here was a genuine man of God, who lives “out” from the richness and depth of his interior life; a bishop who approaches his responsibilities as a churchman and his decisions as the  leader of a complex organization from a Gospel-centered perspective, in a spirit of discernment and prayer. The intensity with which Cardinal Bergoglio asked me to pray for him, at the end of an hour of wide-ranging conversation about a broad range of local and global Catholic issues, was mirrored last night in his unprecedented request to the vast crowd spilling out of St. Peter’s Square and down toward the Tiber to pray for him before he blessed them. Gregory the Great, in the sixth century, was the first bishop of Rome to adopt the title Servus servorum Dei (Servant of the Servants of God). That ancient description of the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church will be embodied in a particularly winsome way in Pope Francis, who named himself for the Poverello of Assisi, the most popular saint in history."

Read the entirety of George Weigel’s analysis at The First American
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