New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the former head of the nation’s Catholic bishops, warned President Barack Obama the Catholic Church will not stop opposing the HHS mandate. Cardinal Dolan told ‘Meet the Press’ Sunday Obama’s lost Catholic support because of it:
The Christian Post reported:
New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan explained Sunday why the Catholic Church continues to oppose President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, saying it is incomprehensive as it excludes the undocumented immigrant and the unborn baby.
“We’ve been asking for reform in healthcare for a long time,” Dolan, the former president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“So we were kind of an early supporter in this,” he continued. “Where we started bristling and saying, ‘Uh-oh, first of all this isn’t comprehensive, because it’s excluding the undocumented immigrant and it’s excluding the unborn baby,’ so we began to bristle at that.”
Dolan said the Church supported health care “because of our religious conviction and because the dictates of our conscience… And now we’re being asked to violate some of those.”
The health care law, or “Obamacare,” requires employers and health care providers to include contraceptive and family-planning services in their coverage. To address the concerns, Obama provided for employers to choose not to provide contraceptive coverage for moral reasons, but allowed consumers to get it directly from insurers.
“So that’s when we began to worry and draw back and say, ‘Mr. President, please, you’re really kind of pushing aside some of your greatest supporters here,” Dolan said. “We want to be with you, we want to be strong. And if you keep doing this, we’re not going to be able to be one of your cheerleaders.’ And that sadly is what happened.”
