The media have essentially become groupies for nuns, where everything they say is huzzahed and hoorahed as speaking truth to power. Essentially, nuns are the new Fr. Richard McBrien.
Well, certain kinds of nuns. You know, the ones who talk a lot about social justice and women’s rights and not really so much about…Catholicism. Them the media loves.
But something tells me that the media won’t like these nuns very much.
The Daily Caller reports:
The Little Sisters of the Poor told The Daily Caller that it may not qualify for a long-term exemption from Obamacare’s healthcare mandate. The law requires the order to provide government-approved health insurance to its 300 sisters who tend to the elderly in 30 U.S. cities.
The exception is needed, said Sister Constance Carolyn Veit, the Little Sisters’ communications director, because Catholic teaching opposes contraception and medical treatments that cause sterility or can cause abortions.
President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul law requires employers to include those services in qualifying health care plans they provide for their employees. Failure to comply will bring hefty fines — even for religious orders whose members have taken vows of poverty.
“[I]t could be a serious threat to our mission in the U.S.,” Constance told TheDC, “because we would never be able to afford to pay the fines involved. We have difficulty making ends meet just on a regular basis; we have no extra funding that would cover these fines.”
Yup, Obama’s insistence that nuns must pay for contraception and abortion pills might drive the Little Sisters of the Poor out of the country. But Obama’s a hero?
But when the Vatican says to these same nuns hey, maybe start talking about the actual faith instead of why abortion’s awesome, the Vatican is instantly portrayed as a bunch of patriarchal anti-women monsters.
Maybe if the Little Sisters of the Poor had a bus…
I guess some nuns get on the bus and some nuns get thrown under it.
December 20, 2012 at 12:28 pm
I just thought of something. The supreme court ruled the health care mandate a tax, right? The nuns, and other religious organizations are tax-exempt organizations. I'm not a tax lawyer, but doesn't this ruling by the supreme court exempt tax-exempt organizations from paying the fine, or "tax"?
December 21, 2012 at 5:20 am
Why do 300 sisters who have taken a vow of chasity need free contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization in their health care plan anyway? Have the president and Secretary Sebellius seriously thought about this one? I can imagine the attorney for the Little Sisters of the Poor making his argument before the federal judge now with 300 middle aged/elderly sisters sitting in the courtroom. All a lawyer would have to do is gesture towards the sisters and say "Really? They need this coverage or be fined?"