Learning to be Quick to Listen

Religious sisters should not be forced to choose between caring for the poor and obeying their conscience, the Little Sisters of the Poor told the Supreme Court in a recent legal brief, adding that this is what the government is demanding of them through the HHS mandate. “As Little Sisters of the Poor, we offer the neediest elderly of every race and religion a home where they are welcomed as Christ,” said Sister Loraine Marie Maguire, mother provincial of the Little Sisters of the Poor. “We perform this loving ministry because of our faith,” she continued, adding that the Little Sisters “cannot possibly choose between our care for the elderly poor and our faith, and we shouldn’t have to.” Sister Maguire’s comments came Jan. 4, as the Little Sisters filed their Supreme Court brief against the federal contraception mandate. The case will be heard this Supreme Court term as part of a bundle of cases against the administration’s contraceptive mandate. Representing the Little Sisters an...

The need to defend religious liberty, a key issue this year for the U.S. Catholic bishops and other religious leaders, will now have a new venue for discussion and action in a handful of state legislatures. Leaders from nine states -- Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Tennessee -- announced October 9 that they would be part of a new group of state religious freedom caucuses to develop state policies to protect religious liberties. The initiative was spearheaded by the American Religious Freedom Program, which is part of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington think tank. Tim Schultz, the program's state legislative policy director, said in a teleconference that there has been a "renewed interest in religious freedom" in the United States. He said the discussion of religious freedom should extend beyond the courts to determine proper boundaries of religious freedom and give a place in each state where people of faith...