Spendthrift

And another thing, not only is our President immoral, seriously so, but he's a spendthrift.  Just consider the chart below, provided by The Weekly Standard.  This is truly staggering, and ruinous.

Intrinsic Evil

Fr. Richard writes on his blog, Catholic Morality, about the intrinsic evil of the HHS abortion mandate.  He describes the problem perfectly: 

We are going to hear all sorts of attempts to accommodate the President's Mandate "accommodation" within Catholic ranks. The chiefs of Catholic Charities and the Catholic Health Association were obviously given the advance notice they needed to be ready to give the President the shout out on this. There will be many more. They will all make their comments based upon convoluted, moralistic platitudes about the good of providing universal access to health care which, they say, trumps participation in moral evil. These positions will be mortally flawed. Will they be corrected? I would hope so.

 Willing cooperation in grave evil in order to secure a benefit for oneself makes the person who cooperates equally guilty of the grave evil. What is the goal, exactly, of agreeing with the President on this? Is it because those who go along with the President's mandate want people to have access to these so-called preventive services? If so, the cooperation in the program of contraception, sterilization, and chemical abortions is immoral and gravely sinful. Is it because they want to maintain government funding and the ability to "serve" the general public? The cooperation is still gravely sinful.

 In fact, it is quite clear that these agencies and their affiliated institutions cannot cooperate in this plan to provide abortion, sterilization, or contraceptives. Indeed, this plan of the President's is morally evil, in itself. It is what moral theology and Catholic doctrine refer to as "intrinsic evil." Yes, that's right. The plan itself, not just the acts of abortion, contraception and sterilization, is intrinsically evil.

People are reluctant today to call an evil, evil.  I think it’s important to understand the gravity of this issue and what we are “accommodating” in the “accommodation.”  Please read Father’s post.

B.O. Backs Down, Sort of . . .

The Wall Street Journal announced that B.O. is backing down on the HHS mandate.  Here’s part of the story:

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama, hoping to quell an intensifying political backlash, on Friday will announce a new policy that no longer requires a broad swath of religious organizations to provide employees with contraception coverage in health-insurance plans.

Under the new policy, insurance companies will be required to offer free contraception for these workers, a subtle shift aimed at moving the onus from the employer to the insurer, a senior administration official said.

Catholic leaders had objected to the requirement, which exempted churches but not hospitals, charities and universities with religious affiliations.

Mr. Obama will announce the policy change Friday, a sign of how high-profile the issue has become. The new mandate will come from the Department of Health and Human Services via a regulation, people familiar with the decision said.

The policy will allow religious employers to opt out of the coverage mandate. If they do so, the employer's insurance company will be required to offer contraception for free in a separate arrangement with workers who want it. That is a variation of a system used in Hawaii, where a coverage mandate is already in place.

It seems to me, this isn’t a great compromise; contraceptives and abortifacients will still be provided through health insurance plans and, to make matters worse, it will raise the cost of insurance on all employers.  It means the Catholic organizations will still, in effect be providing these things under their health policies.