Cheer! Cheer!

The University of Notre Dame Sues to Stop HHS Mandate

In a U.S. federal district court complaint by the University of Notre Dame filed today against the Obama administration’s HHS Mandate, numbered paragraphs from the legal pleading outline how the federal mandate violates religious liberty for Catholic institutions:  

271. The Free Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause protect the freedom of religious organizations to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.

272. Under these Clauses, the Government may not interfere with a religious organization’s internal decisions concerning the organization’s religious structure, ministers, or doctrine.

273. Under these Clauses, the Government may not interfere with a religious organization’s internal decision if that interference would affect the faith and mission of the organization itself.

274. Notre Dame is a religious organization under the general control and direction of the Roman Catholic Church.

275. The Catholic Church views abortifacients, sterilization, and contraception as intrinsically immoral, and prohibits Catholic organizations from condoning or facilitating those practices.

276. Notre Dame has abided and must continue to abide by the decision of the Catholic Church on these issues.

277. The Government may not interfere with, or otherwise question the final decision of the Catholic Church that its religious organizations must abide by these views.

278. The Government may not interfere with the Catholic Church’s affiliated religious organizations, including Notre Dame, with regard to their religious beliefs on abortifacients, sterilization, and contraception.

279. In accordance with this Catholic doctrine, Notre Dame has made the internal decision that its employee and student health plans may not cover, subsidize, or facilitate abortifacients, sterilization, or contraception.

280. The U.S. Government Mandate interferes with Notre Dame’s internal decisions concerning its structure and mission by requiring it to either facilitate practices that directly conflict with Catholic tenets or face substantial penalties.

281. As a University with a publicly stated goal to ensure that its Catholic character informs all its endeavors, Notre Dame is an integral part of the Catholic Church.

282. The U.S. Government Mandate and its religious employer exemption interfere with the organizational structure of Notre Dame as part of the Church by requiring Notre Dame to include or facilitate coverage for practices that directly conflict with its Catholic tenets but purporting to exempt the Church.

283. Because the U.S. Government Mandate interferes with the internal decisionmaking and organizational structure of Notre Dame in a manner that affects its faith and mission, the U.S. Government Mandate violates the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

284. The Government is also requiring student health plans, including the one currently offered by Notre Dame, to include abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception, and related education and counseling.

285. Defendants have again violated the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment by requiring Notre Dame’s student health plan to include services that violate its religious beliefs, and thereby interfering with the internal decisionmaking and organizational structure of Notre Dame in a manner that affects its faith and mission.

Read the full complaint here.

Our Own Moral Compass

Contrary to what remains of its Catholic identity, Georgetown gave the bully pulpit to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius this week, who addressed the graduates of the University’s Public Policy Institute with vapid remarks about how they, like she, might find their way through difficult public policy debates. At one point, Ms. Sebelius invoked the ghost of President John F. Kennedy for the misstated proposition that “the separation of church and state [is] a fundamental principle of our democracy.” Others have questioned her reliance on Kennedy’s statement.

What is more interesting--and disturbing--is her proposition that one’s individual “moral compass” directed to the “common good” serves to direct sound public policy. Two quotes from her speech:

So my first hope for you today is that you always hold on to your commitment to work for the common good. If you let that focus guide you, you will never go off course.
***
Contributing to these [public policy] debates will require more than just the quantitative skills you have learned at Georgetown. It will also require the ethical skills you have honed – the ability to weigh different views, see issues from other points of view, and in the end, follow your own moral compass.

Of course, a compass of any worth must be set to the objective truth of true north. The “common good” is not found by resort to our “own moral compass.” Achieving the consensus of our “own moral compass” leads to public policy based on a tyranny of the majority. Seeking the “common good” requires moving beyond the limited sense of “our own moral compass.”

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ full remarks to Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute