"The mandate’s definition of a religious organization contradicts decades of precedent and practice. Republicans and Democrats alike have long agreed that the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty includes not only what goes on within the four walls of a church but also the religiously motivated acts of service that fulfill the mission of that church’s faith. Only now, with this mandate’s demands, has the federal government said that we must leave our conscience behind when we step into the public square.
If the mandate’s religious exemption is left unchanged, it would allow an employee of the federal government to determine what is, or is not, a religious ministry. The Archdiocese of Washington is this area’s largest nongovernmental provider of social services. Catholic schools in the archdiocese teach and nurture 28,000 children. Catholic hospitals provide millions of dollars’ worth of uncompensated care every year to our city’s poor and vulnerable. As the Catholic maxim states, “We serve others not because they are Catholic, but because we are Catholic.” Yet it is possible that not one of these organizations would fit the mandate’s definition. Does anyone really think that the work of Mother Teresa wasn’t religious?" Cardinal Wuerl
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We have been too quiet here for the last few days. This will stir things up. Wuerl is saying here what I said in laying out the Church's position as to the purpose and therefore the identity of religiously centered institutions connected to the Catholic ministry to mankind.. He says that the Church's people do these things because they are done in God's name and therefore these institutions are essentially religious.
Some of our correspondents here are Catholics who insist that they, not the hierarchs like Wuerl are "the Church," and that their collective will and identity trumps.Matthew: 16:18.
IMO that sets the stage for a schism (split). Well,, when you get that settled let me know so I can choose which church I prefer. pl
