Friday, August 14, 2009

When it really costs us to be Catholic: Belmont Abbey College

The President of Belmont Abbey College has done a fantastic job of recovering the college's Catholic identity. Enter in the anti-Catholic bigots, who have decreed that Belmont Abbey must cover something the Catholic Church has forbidden in it's employee health care plan.
Birth control.
Would a Muslim or Jewish University be forced to serve pork?
No, however, its always open season on authentically Catholic institutions.
Take heart, Belmont Abbey, it means you are serving God well when the devil takes an interest in you.
Here's a column in the Wall Street Journal by Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society. The EEOC ruled that contraceptives were mandated by a law covering pregnancy discrimination. Say what?! Reilly explains.
"The difference, however, between the EEOC's guidance and the North Carolina law is that the latter exempts religious employers such as a Catholic college, whereas the commission fails to consider that the tenets of a faith may preclude an institution from offering such benefits.
And that's the rub: Increasingly it is clear to Catholics and other religious groups that without very clear exemptions for religious employers—and conscience protections for individual doctors, nurses, pharmacists—federal health-care laws and guidelines could severely restrict religious freedom in the U.S."

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