The U.S. Supreme Court has sent the Zubik v. Burwell case, which challenges the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive requirement for employers, back to the lower courts.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has sent the Zubik v. Burwell case, which challenges the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive requirement for employers, back to the lower courts.
As an ongoing response to the Year of Consecrated Life, St. John’s University’s Campus Ministry and the Vincentian Vocation Office commemorated the World Day of Prayer for Vocations by hosting Sisters’ Nite April 17.
Less than a week after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive requirement, the court released an order requesting that additional briefs be submitted showing if and how contraceptive insurance coverage could be obtained by employees through their insurance companies without directly involving the religious employers objecting to this coverage.
During oral arguments March 23 at the Supreme Court, attorneys on both sides of the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive requirement examined how the mandate either violates or strikes a balance with religious freedom.
Co-Sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, the diocese’s annual Pro Vita Awards Mass honored two groups that care for the elderly and deal with end-of-life issues: the Little Sisters of the Poor and the staff at Calvary Hospital’s Brooklyn unit at NYU Lutheran Hospital, Sunset Park.
I was happy to see the Little Sisters of the Poor receive the Diocese’s Pro Vita Award last weekend (See story on Page 3.). The Little Sisters have been the face of the Church’s struggle for religious freedom while going about its daily business. So, it was great to see them recognized for the work they do with the elderly, particularly at Queen of Peace Residence in Queens Village.
Visuals often are much easier to grasp than a complicated thicket of issues. That may be why the Little Sisters of the Poor have become the public face of Zubik v. Burwell, which goes before the U.S. Supreme Court March 23.
The head of the Eternal Word Television Network said Feb. 18 that a federal appeals court ruling handed down earlier that day “in effect” orders the Catholic global network “to violate its religious beliefs and comply” with the federal contraceptive mandate or “pay massive fines to the IRS.”
Sister Constance Veit, l.s.p., communications director for the Little Sisters of the Poor in the U.S., explains why the sisters could not “just sign the form” – the so-called “accommodation” to the HHS contraception mandate.
The U.S. Supreme Court Jan. 29 announced that it will hear oral arguments March 23 in seven pending appeals in lawsuits brought by several Catholic and other faith-based entities against the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate.