Bishops Seek Liberty to Impose Birth Control Dogma
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops held an administrative meeting in Washington Tuesday and Wednesday, after which they vowed to “continue our vigorous efforts at education and public advocacy on the principles of religious liberty.”
In the run-up to the meeting, the president of the Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, penned an unambiguously bellicose letter to his fellow bishops on March 2, stating, “We have made it clear in no uncertain terms to the government that we are not at peace with its invasive attempt to curtail the religious freedom we cherish as Catholics and Americans. We did not ask for this fight, but we will not run from it.”
Bishop William Lori, the chairman of the Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty and star of the all-male Republican hearings on “religious freedom,” mildly told the Religion News Service that the bishops “are not looking for a fight with the administration.” Although the statement they issued after the administrative meeting employed softer language than Dolan’s letter, the battle lines already have been drawn. The bishops didn’t mince words: There will be no retreat from their efforts to persuade the public and policymakers and press their agenda in the courts and legislatures.