Pope Francis held a 50-minute private talk with President Obama Thursday, a time period that one Catholic news service called an “extraordinarily long time.”
The Pope reportedly wanted to discuss two major issues with the President, treatment of the poor and growing inequality around the world and also the increasing amount of military conflicts around the world.
The President was very generous in his praise of the Pontiff after the meeting.
“Those of us as politicians have the task of trying to come up with policies to address issues,” the President said, “but His Holiness has the capacity to open people’s eyes and make sure they’re seeing that this is an issue.”
The Pope reportedly did not directly discuss the Affordable Care Act, which is facing legal challenges to mandates that would force Christian business owners to pay for treatments that include abortion drugs. However, the Vatican’s Secretary of State reportedly took the President to task on issues of religious freedom in America.
The Pope gave the President a copy of his work The Joy of the Gospels. The President said he would probably read it in the Oval Office to which the Pope said “I hope.”
The President reportedly asked the Pope at the conclusion of the meeting to pray for him and his family.
The Chief Justice of the Vatican made a rare attack on a foreign leader by saying that President Obama and his administration has been the most hostile administration ever toward Christians.
Cardinal Raymond Burke told Polonia Christiana magazine that President Obama “promotes anti-life and anti-family policies.”
“It is true that the policies of the president of the United States have become progressively more hostile toward Christian civilization,” Burke said. “Now he wants to restrict the exercise of the freedom of religion to freedom of worship, that is, he holds that one is free to act according to his conscience within the confines of his place of worship, but that, once the person leaves the place of worship, the government can constrain him to act against his rightly-formed conscience, even in the most serious of moral questions.”
Burke even took issue with the Affordable Care Act, saying that a law of its nature “would have been unimaginable in the United States even 40 years ago.”
Burke did express some optimism about America, saying that he believes it’s possible that abortion could be overturned in the United States by the younger generation.
Hobby Lobby’s challenge to the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act is scheduled for oral arguments before the Supreme Court Tuesday.
The challenge, if upheld by the court, would establish the right of Christian business owners and other people of faith to operate their businesses based on their beliefs. It would also extend the long-claimed rights of individuals to religious freedom to business entities.
The Obama Administration’s defense in the case is that companies are not individuals and therefore the government can deny free exercise rights and force them to do whatever the government wants in return for being allowed to operate.
Hobby Lobby’s challenge to the law has been folded in with multiple other cases but the company is one of two major for-profit corporations that are issuing a challenge to the law. If the law is upheld, it would cost Hobby Lobby almost $475 million a year to operate without providing the coverage that goes against the owner’s faith.
Hobby Lobby’s attorneys are expected to point out to the court that the Administration has given exemptions to non-profits and religious organizations that have the same objections.
A panel of public policy experts has said that the most important issue facing Christians today is how the government is undercutting religious freedom.
The discussion at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention featured many nationally known experts on law such as Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, NRB Chief Legal Counsel Craig Parshall and Rafael Cruz, father of Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Parshall pointed to the current Hobby Lobby case against the Affordable Care Act as a major example of the government trying to strip away the rights of a Christian to own and operate their businesses in a manner consistent with their Christian values.
Jay Sekulow said that Christians and conservatives need to be careful about putting all their eggs in the Supreme Court’s basket. He pointed to the decision regarding the allowance of the Affordable Care Act by a 5-4 decision where Chief Justice John Roberts, who conservatives believed would follow conservative values, voted with the liberal wing of the Court to give President Obama his signature legislation.
They also discussed the wave of intolerance in much of the major media. Fox News reporter Todd Starnes shared the blessing of working at Fox where Christians are welcome and can openly write about their faith.
“I’ve found those who preach tolerance and diversity are many times the most intolerant. I love those opportunities when I can write a story how a life has been changed by the blood of Jesus Christ,” Starnes said.
Pastor Cruz, who was a Cuban immigrant in 1957 who came to the U.S. with only $100, said that he blames pastors for the loss of religious liberty in America.
“If I can blame anyone for our loss of religious liberty in America, I blame our pastors,” said Cruz. “They are hiding behind their pulpits and 501(c)(3)’s. It’s about time we become biblically correct instead of being politically correct. I would rather go to jail than violate what God is telling me to do.”
Arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby has officially filed their brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in their lawsuit against the Obama administration and the Affordable Care Act.
The brief supports the chain’s position that the government forcing them to provide contraception care that includes the abortion pill is forcing them to violate their religious beliefs and thus is a violation of the Constitution’s protections of religious freedom.
The brief focuses on the company’s original mission statement that clearly lays out the religious foundation behind the company. It reads that Hobby Lobby will be “honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles.”
The brief calls the mandate from the Obama administration “one of the most straightforward violations…this Court is likely to see of a 1993 law preserving the exercise of faith.”
The Obama administration claims that you cannot allow a business owner to transfer their beliefs into a company they own and operate.
Hobby Lobby, who has filed a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act because of its regulations forcing them to violate their religious beliefs, is finding a broad base of support for their suit.
“Where else do you see Catholics, evangelicals, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus and Jews coming together?” Lori Windham, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty asked. “Religious freedom is important to Americans of all faiths, and we hope the Supreme Court will protect that freedom.”
The owner of Hobby Lobby, David Green, said that his chain would close rather than have the Obama Administration force their beliefs on his family and company.
Hobby Lobby has openly operated through Christian principles since its founding in 1972. The store closes on Sundays, donates more than 10% to charity and pays its employees more than the minimum wage.
The Affordable Care Act forces employers to provide abortion-causing drugs to their employees which Christian business owners say violates their religious freedom.
Lawmakers have raised the alarm over the discovery of abortion fees being hidden inside premiums for the Affordable Care Act, in violation of federal laws.
Nowhere on the healthcare.gov website does an applicant discover that they will be paying at least $1 a month to fund abortions.
Representative Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, chair of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health, told Fox News that when the President promised the healthcare bill would not cover abortion it was a lie because the bill stipulated the $1 a month surcharge for abortions.
A house bill is being introduced this week to demand full disclosure of the hidden abortion funding and a separate itemized premium. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor will introduce the bill, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act”.
The communications director for Rep. Pitts told Fox they could not find a single plan within the Healthcare Marketplace that disclosed the abortion funding as part of their plans.
Obama-appointed Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has issued an injunction on behalf of two Catholic groups that claim the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that birth control be provided through insurance plans violates their freedom of religion.
The order was issued late New Year’s Eve, just before the mandate was to go into effect.
The injunctions were on behalf of Denver-based Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged and Christian Brothers ministries. Justice Sotomayor said the Obama administration must present their case against the Catholic groups by 10 a.m. Friday morning.
Justice Sotomayor was joined by judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in issuing injunctions. The injunctions from the appeal court included the Archdiocese of Washington, DC and Catholic University.
The Catholic groups faced a fine of $100 per day per person if they did not comply with the law and if they drop their health care coverage will be fined $2,000 per full time employee after the first 20 employees.
A lawyer for the charities said the groups are being given the choice of violating their religious Scriptures or face crippling government fines.
The Michigan State Legislature has approved an initiative that would require any woman that wishes to have abortion coverage purchase it as a separate rider on their insurance rather than having it covered as part of Obamacare’s main packages.
Michigan Right To Life began the citizen-initiated petition drive after Republican Governor Rick Snyder vetoed similar legislation last year when it was inserted into a bill to change the state’s Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Republicans in the legislature said taxpayers should not have to pay for a woman’s abortions. Representative Nancy Jenkins said the bill doesn’t stop abortion in the state in any way or even restrict access to abortion for any woman.
Almost all Democratic members of both houses were vehemently and loudly opposed to the initiative and passage. They said that the bill was an overreach of government.
Democratic Representative Marcia Hovey-Wright said that supporting the bill to not make the state pay for abortions via Obamacare placed someone on the wrong side of history.
The Catholic group Priests For Life has joined with individual plaintiffs to file a lawsuit against Obamacare’s demands that employers provide free contraceptives to employees.
Father Frank Pavone of PFL said that forcing his group to provide no-cost access to contraception that can actually induce abortions violates their religious freedom. He also said that even if the group is given an exemption from the law requiring them to provide the plan, the requirement they facilitate employees finding access to another provider on their own brings unacceptable costs.
The lawsuit is now one of 80 by religious groups across the country regarding the health care law’s infringements on religious rights. The University of Notre Dame and the Fellowship of Catholic University Students filed suits last week.
“I think the Obama administration’s attempts to take religious freedom away from anyone are bound to fail,” Matthew Bowman, the senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, told Fox News.
