Facing growing backlash from religious groups over the administration’s birth control insurance plan, President Obama on Friday will unveil a new arrangement whereby insurers at religiously affiliated institutions — such as Catholic hospitals and universities — will not have to provide contraception coverage.

The new approach effectively removes faith-based organizations from any involvement in providing contraceptive coverage or even telling employees how to find such coverage. It also maintains Obama’s pledge to ensure that almost all women with health insurance will not have to pay for it.

“These religious institutions will not have to offer it [contraception coverage] to their employees and do not have to pay for it,” said a senior administration official about an hour before the president was to make the official announcement, which was expected at 12:15 pm.

Initial indications were that, against all odds, the administration may have found a solution that satisfies both sides in a debate that seemed destined to dog the president throughout the campaign season and to wind up alienating either women or Catholic voters – both key demographics in his bid for reelection.

Religious leaders like Sr. Carol Keehan, head the Catholic Health Association – the umbrella group for more than 600 Catholic hospitals and a key player in the health care debate – said Friday she is “very pleased with the White House announcement that a resolution has been reached that protects the religious liberty and conscience rights of Catholic institutions.”

Keehan was a key supporter of the president’s health care reform law — going against the wishes of the U.S. hierarchy — but she voiced strong criticism of the initial contraception regulations.

At the same time, Friday’s decision was also welcomed by Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood, who had been working hard with pro-choice Democrats to keep the administration from providing any relief from the mandate to religious institutions.

“We believe the compliance mechanism does not compromise a woman’s ability to access these critical birth control benefits,” Richards said.

The solution proposed by the White House is surprising in that it is fairly straightforward and appears to effectively address most religious concerns, or at least blunt the harshest criticisms that Obama was trampling on religious freedom by forcing some faith-based organizations to subsidize something that runs counter to their beliefs.

The furor over the contraception mandate appeared to catch the White House off guard since Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the final regulations on Jan. 20, and did not broaden the exemption for religious groups as had been widely expected.

The administration struggled to frame the regulations as a way to ensure that women with health insurance would receive free birth control coverage – a position that is broadly popular among Americans, and especially women.

But religious leaders, chiefly the Catholic bishops and conservative evangelicals, were successful in framing the issue as one of religious freedom, not birth control, and they argued that the federal government was violating their conscience with the mandate.

These conservatives were also backed by numerous Catholic liberals and other supporters of the administration who felt that Obama had “thrown them under the bus,” as some put it, by not granting the broader religious exemption as they also wanted. In recent days it became clear that the administration had to do something, and quickly, and the solution announced Friday seemed to win back many of his allies.

“The unity of Catholic organizations in addressing this concern was a sign of its importance,” said Keehan.

But whether that unity will extend to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops was unclear.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

The White House has surprised observers and disappointed some liberal allies by signaling that it is willing to compromise and provide a broader religious exemption in its controversial regulations requiring all employers to provide free contraception coverage.

Given that birth control use is almost universal – even among Catholics – many wonder why the Obama administration could wind up retreating on its pledge.

Here are five reasons that may help explain the political dynamic the president is facing:

1. It’s about religious freedom, not birth control: U.S. Catholic bishops, who led the battle against the Health and Human Services Department mandate, know that they long ago lost their own flock on the contraception issue — 98 percent of Catholics use birth control, according to surveys. So they have carefully reframed the issue as a fight for religious freedom – an effort to keep the government from forcing the Catholic Church and other religious groups to subsidize something that goes against their teachings. That makes it a violation of conscience, a sacred principle that transcends any specific tenet of faith.

That argument also lends itself to the kind of heated rhetoric that plays well in today’s supercharged political atmosphere. For example, bishops and their allies are accusing the president of “anti-Catholicism” and worse: “The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To hell with you!’ ” Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik said after the HHS regulations were announced.

The bishops don’t have as much credibility with the laity as they used to, thanks to the clergy sex abuse scandal, among other things. But Catholics are still a potent tribe, and if outsiders are seen as attacking the church, Catholics can get defensive – and they can get even.

2. Obama has lost even the support of his liberal Catholic allies: Case in point: the HHS mandate has been opposed by liberal and centrist Catholics who have supported the administration on a range of other issues — including the Catholic Health Association and the NETWORK social justice lobby — and even went to bat to help pass health care reform despite threats from the bishops.

The president “utterly botched” the religious exemptions issue, wrote Washington Post columnist and liberal Catholic E.J. Dionne, and “Obama threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus.”

“J’accuse!” Michael Sean Winters, a columnist for the liberal National Catholic Reporter, wrote in a florid column that channeled Émile Zola’s famous 1898 letter accusing the French government of anti-Semitism in the Dreyfus affair. “The issue of conscience protections is so foundational, I do not see how I ever could, in good conscience, vote for this man again.”

3. It’s not just Catholics: Even though evangelicals and other conservative Protestants generally don’t have religious objections to contraception, they do have a big problem with “big government” and with perceived infringements on religious freedom. Evangelicals – both their leaders and their troops – have never been big Barack Obama supporters anyway, so they were happy to provide any electoral and rhetorical muscle the Catholic hierarchy could not muster.

“We do not exaggerate when we say that this is the greatest threat to religious freedom in our lifetime,” evangelical leaders Timothy George and Chuck Colson wrote in an open letter to their fellow believers on Wednesday (Feb. 8). George and Colson compared the administration mandates to policies enacted in Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler.

4. It gives Republicans a potent campaign wedge issue: Mitt Romney wasted no time in accusing Obama of launching an “assault on religion” by way of the contraception mandate, and he declared that his first act as president would be to overturn the HHS regulations. “Remarkably, under this president’s administration, there is an assault on religion, an assault on the conviction and the religious beliefs of members of our society,” Romney said.

Romney’s rivals, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, were not to be outdone, and ramped up their rhetoric against Obama – while also noting that Romney had accepted similar policies while he was governor of Massachusetts.

In short, this is a political fight that the White House neither wants nor needs in an already tough re-election campaign.

5. Obama needs the Catholic vote: In particular, he needs the support of white Catholics, which is the core of this large swing vote (nearly one-quarter of the electorate). They are concentrated in crucial battleground states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and while Obama won the overall Catholic vote 54 percent to 46 percent in 2008, he lost the white Catholic vote, 47 percent to 53 percent.

“To the extent Catholic voters think of this as a religious liberty issue, it does have the potential to pull Catholic voters toward Republicans or away from Democrats,” John Green, an expert on religious voting patterns and director of the University of Akron’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, told Bloomberg Businessweek.

A poll on the contraception mandate released Tuesday by the Public Religion Research Institute showed Catholics overall tended to support free contraceptive coverage, but white Catholics were evenly split on the issue. The Obama campaign can’t afford to sacrifice any of those votes, or risk watching the issue grow as a political liability when the election season heats up.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, told the bishops’ biennial assembly on 1 February that the widening of the gap between rich and poor is “a matter of serious concern for the church.”

“We have two sets of Indians. One section of the people is racing ahead while the majority are limping,” Gracias said. Meeting in Bangalore, the assembly runs from 1-8 February and is being attended by 170 bishops.

Gracias, who is also archbishop of Mumbai, said the challenge before the Indian church is to be “conscience keepers to the nation,” quoting American civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. and he urged his colleagues to “make a difference in the life of the marginalized.”

Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, reiterated the concern over the wealth gap in India in an address on 2 February.

Quoting U.N. figures, Turkson pointed out that despite India emerging as the fourth largest economy in the world, nearly 35 per cent of the Indian population lives on less than US$1.00 a day.

Turkson, who is from Ghana, noted that 80 percent of the Indian population, more than 800 million people, are surviving on less than US$2.00 a day.

“Our ability to transcend ourselves and to anchor onto Christian values of love and service of our neighbours is the pre-eminent way to social development in India,” recommended the Vatican official.

T. K. Oommen, a prominent sociologist in India, challenged the gathering to examine “on whose sides are we — on the side of the flourishing few or the sinking many?”

Though churches in India are known for their dedicated service in the field of education and healthcare, Oommen said they should also conduct a critical assessment of the number of poor students and beneficiaries in some of the elite Christian institutions.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

After months of urging from other Baptists around the country, the Rev. Fred Luter told his African-American congregation that he will seek to become the first black man to lead the predominantly white Southern Baptist Convention.

Several Baptist leaders said Luter becomes the prohibitive favorite for the post, to be filled in a potentially historic election at the Southern Baptists’ annual meeting here in June.

SBC Today, a Baptist-focused news website, carried the announcement on Wednesday (Feb. 1). Youth pastor Fred “Chip” Luter III separately confirmed Luter’s announcement to his church on Sunday.

Luter appears to be the first candidate to declare for the post, which will become vacant this summer when the Rev. Bryant Wright of Marietta, Ga., finishes his second one-year term.

Many began openly promoting Luter for the top job last summer, moments after he was elected the convention’s first African-American first vice president.

“If he runs, he’ll get elected overwhelmingly. He may be unopposed,” said Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

“Black people are so lazy. They need to get off the welfare and food stamps and get jobs.”

Though that sounds like something Archie Bunker would’ve said back in the day, it’s actually the kind of stuff Gingrich people are accusing Republican presidential candidate hopefuls Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich of saying on the campaign trail.

Gingrich was criticized for repeatedly calling President Barack Obama a “food stamp president” and for saying that he’d be happy to teach young black people in economically depressed areas how to have a work ethic, so that they wouldn’t have to grow up to be pimps or prostitutes.

Santorum was criticized for saying that he didn’t want “to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

Republican presidential hopefuls Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have been criticized for saying things that could be perceived as racist on the campaign trail.

Based on what they said, it’s understandable why people are accusing the two of racism and more than 40 leaders in the Catholic Church have told the two to chill out with the race baiting.

Either they are trying to appeal to a racist element in their party or they are ignorant of the facts.

Either way, as seasoned politicians these guys should know better. They should know that when they open their mouths, they shouldn’t be espousing empty rhetoric that relies heavily ill-founded stereotypes.

If Gingrich and Santorum did the research they would know that according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one-third of the 223 million white people in the United States receive food stamps.

If you look at the raw data alone, more white people (about 74 million) receive food stamps than the total black population (38.9 million) of the United States.

I imagine that if they had been armed with this knowledge, they probably wouldn’t have let such racial diatribe come out of their mouths, and had they told the truth they would have ended up alienating their voter base.

As Christians, these guys should know better as well.

The heart of God is pretty clear throughout the Bible on discrimination (See James 2, Galatians 3:28, John 7:24, Romans 10:12) – it’s abhorrent to Him because all people were made in His image (Genesis) and He hates partiality (Leviticus 19:15, Malachi 2, Deuteronomy 16:19, Proverbs 24:23) . In the Bible, partiality is the term most often used for “bias.”

Because we are prone to bias, we have to constantly watch what we say.

In Matthew 15, the scribes and Pharisees confronted Jesus about his practice of eating and drinking with the ritually unclean–sinners.

To explain his position on the issue, Jesus called those around him to come near.

He said, He said to them, “Hear and understand: ¹¹ Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.”

The Pharisees were enraged when they heard Jesus take on the matter and they left abruptly.

After the exchange, Jesus explained what he meant to his disciples: ”¹⁷ Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? ¹⁸ But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. ¹⁹ For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.”

I don’t know who is going to get the Republican nomination, but if either of these guys do, one of the questions I’ll be asking myself at the polls is, can I really trust a candidate who unabashedly repeats inaccurate information in an attempt to bolster himself, while never really trying to actually address or understand the needs of one group of people he seeks to govern?

Though  Gingrich and Santorum claim they care about “right to life issues,” and the cause of Christ, it’s obvious that they aren’t really trying to love their brothers and sisters in Christ, and the fact that are publicly proclaiming racist stereotypes shows that they are biased. These are serious spiritual deficiencies of which they need to take care.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Pope Benedict XVI praised new communications technologies like Twitter on Tuesday (Jan. 24), saying that even “concise phrases, often no longer than a verse from the Bible,” can convey “profound thoughts.”

Benedict did not explicitly refer to Twitter in his yearly message for World Communications Day, but Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, told reporters that “it’s safe to say that a reference to ‘tweets’ is there.”

Benedict wrote that in today’s world, “various types of websites, applications and social networks” can help people “find time for reflection and authentic questioning.”

A number of high-ranking churchmen already use Twitter. Cardinals Sean O’Malley of Boston; Odilo Scherer of Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, have thousands of followers. According to Celli, most of the visitors to the Vatican’s online news portal, www.news.va, arrive from social networks.

In his message, the pope also focused on the value of silence in communication, saying that without it, meaningful messages “cannot exist.”

“When messages and information are plentiful,” he wrote, silence becomes essential if we are to distinguish what is important from what is insignificant or secondary.”

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Jimmy Carter was president for four years, but his new book is based on a role that he’s held for nearly 70 years: Sunday school teacher.

“Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President,” offers advice for Christians and provides insights into his life as president, submarine officer, missionary and husband.

Carter, 87, answered questions about prayer, death and relating to non-Christians. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Is this a devotional written by a Baptist who happens to have been president, or by a president who happens to be a Baptist?

A: It’s by a Baptist who happens to be a president. It’s a summary of 45-minute lessons, each one reduced to one page.

Q: The lessons published in this book include some you taught during your presidency. Did you have a different approach — or subjects you didn’t touch — when you were leading the country?

A: No, I didn’t have a different subject. What I try to do each Sunday is begin my lesson for about 10 or 15 minutes discussing current events, the recent experiences that I have had or where I’m going next week. And then seeing how that applies to biblical principles, basic moral values that apply to every human life.

Q: You talk openly about parts of your personal life, such as disagreements with your wife, or selfishness. Do you think that helped your classes relate to you more as a fellow Christian than a former president?

A: I think it does. I know that everybody in the audience has similar personal relationships at one time in their life. And so I try to apply what has happened to me and how I withstood those challenges in my own life in a way that might be applicable to other people’s lives.

Q: You also admitted that it’s sometimes hard for you to pray. Why is that?

A: Sometimes I feel a little bit estranged from religious factors or from God.

One time that I remember specifically: I ran for governor the first time and I was a moderate on the race issue. I wanted to see an end of segregation in the South and my main opponent was an arch segregationist in Georgia, Lester Maddox. And eventually he won the election and I lost so I kind of gave up on God and on my faith.

But I had a very famous evangelical sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton. She ministered to me and pointed out to me that when we faced a serious loss or sorrow or disappointment in our life, or failure, that that should strengthen us, give us patience and actually improve our ties with God because we can’t solve our problems on our own.

Q: You say Christians need to share their relationship with Christ with the world. What if you approach uninterested non-Christians?

A: If they say “I’m not interested,” I’m reluctant to push it. It depends on the circumstances. But quite often I find that non-Christians are interested in the basic elements of Christianity. I’ve had national leaders, presidents of countries when I was in office — the communist leader of Poland, the dictator of South Korea at the time — who actually asked me about my Christian faith and I ministered to them.

Q: You quote Jesus speaking about hope in eternal life. Do you ever fear death?

A: No, I don’t fear death. I’m not looking forward to dying. I’d like to live as long as I can in a healthy and productive way, but I don’t have any fear of death.

Q: Is there one particular issue of injustice you think deserves special attention?

A: The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. That’s the biggest need that’s not been met yet in the world, and the biggest challenge that we have.

Q: How much longer do you expect to teach Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church?

A: We have a very small church. We only have about 30 members that come every Sunday. But we have anywhere from 100 to 800 visitors who come to our little church just to hear me teach. That’s a special ministry that we have. So I’ll teach as long as I’m physically and mentally able and as long as the church wants me to continue.

Q: You’ve taught the Bible for decades. Are there still some lessons to be learned?

A: Sure, there are. My wife and I read the Bible every night just before we go to bed. One night she reads it aloud and the next night I read it aloud. We actually do it in Spanish so we can learn more about Spanish language. You get different inspiration or ideas from the Bible as you read it a second time or a third time or, sometimes, a 10th time.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Catholics who have pushed back against a White House policy that would require many religious insurers to cover contraception are getting a high-profile assist from dozens of evangelical leaders.

“We write in solidarity, but separately — to stress that religious organizations and leaders of other faiths are also deeply troubled by and opposed to the mandate and the narrow exemption,” the leaders wrote Wednesday (Dec. 21) in a letter to President Obama.

Like Catholic officials, the evangelicals object to a mandate under the health care reform law that would require employers to offer insurance coverage for contraception to employees, including treatments that some equate with abortions.

“It is not only Catholics who object to the narrow exemption that protects only seminaries and a few churches, but not churches with a social outreach and other faith-based organizations that serve the poor and needy,” they wrote.

Signatories include National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson; Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land; Focus on the Family Senior Vice President Tom Minnery; and Stanley Carlson-Thies, president of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance.

The letter to Obama was sent the same day that evangelical Colorado Christian University joined Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic school, in suing the Department of Health and Human Services over the rule, which is scheduled to take effect in August.

An HHS official said the department is reviewing public comments on the proposed religious exemption on contraceptives.

The head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, voiced his concerns to Obama in a meeting, and said the president promised to “look long and hard” at the issue.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

President Obama told a supportive crowd of Reform Jews here on Friday (Dec. 16) that no other administration in U.S. history “has done more in support of Israel’s security.”

“Don’t let anybody else tell you otherwise. It is a fact,” Obama told more than 4,500 people attending the biennial convention of the Union for Reform Judaism.

The audience of rabbis, lay people and members of an enthusiastic contingent of Reform teenagers were on their feet numerous times during his 30-minute speech.

Obama credited the Reform movement — representing 1.5 million people and 900 synagogues in North America — with contributing to a range of social justice issues, including helping draft civil rights legislation. “Without these efforts I probably wouldn’t be standing here today,” he said.

Obama ticked off his accomplishments, such as repealing the ban against openly gay military members, working for equal pay and health care reform.

He also made a special case for his administration’s Israel policy, which has been criticized by some conservative Jewish groups as too pro-Palestinian, and caused some to wonder if some Jewish voters will abandon Obama in next year’s elections.

“As president, I have never wavered in pursuit of a just and lasting peace — two states for two peoples, an independent Palestine alongside a secure Jewish State of Israel,” he said.

Obama added that he has worked with allies against a particular threat to Israel by trying to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Washington-based Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said after the speech that his organization has appreciated that Obama has made the Iranian threat “a major priority.”

Earlier in the meeting, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak stated his assurance of the strong links between the U.S. and Israel, including work to deter Iran.

“The unshakeable bonds between Israel and America and their respective Defense establishments under the guiding hand of President Barack Obama are stronger and deeper than ever, and we are very thankful and appreciative of that,” he said in remarks on Thursday.

Obama’s speech came within weeks of the Washington meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition, where most of the GOP presidential candidates hammered Obama on his Middle East policy.

On Thursday, the “Emergency Committee for Israel” took out ads in major U.S. newspapers questioning Obama’s record on Israel.

The ads accused the Obama administration of treating Israel “like a punching bag,” and quoted “cheap shots” made by U.S. officials about the Jewish state.

David A. Harris, president and CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council, countered the ads saying the Republicans who placed them “have plenty of cash on hand to spread myths about this president, and to shamefully turn support for Israel into a partisan football.”

Pollster Jim Gerstein, writing last month (November) in The Forward, a prominent Jewish publication, predicted that Jews’ approval of the president’s job performance — which is higher than the approval of the American electorate — and their general opposition to political conservatives and the Republican Party will help Obama in the 2012 election.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Charitable giving is trickling back up as the economy heals, but it could take years to return to pre-recession levels, nonprofit leaders say.

Giving totaled $291 billion in 2010, according to the 2011 annual report by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. That’s up 3.8 percent from 2009 and follows two consecutive years of declines.

This year shows little change. Charity Navigator, a Glen Rock, N.J., organization that evaluates nonprofits, anticipates donations will be flat during the holiday season.

About 35 percent of nonprofit contributions come from state, federal and local government grants and contracts, and those gifts are declining, CEO Ken Berger said. Only 15 percent is from individuals.

“Staying the same is generally not a great place to be when you’ve got increases in demand and operational costs because of inflation and so on,” said Patrick Rooney, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy.

If the recuperation continues at its current rate, it will take U.S. charities six years to return to where they were financially in 2007, Rooney warns. “We are not out of the recession, and we are not recovered from the recession,” he said.

Some leaders in the nonprofit world see the glass as half-full. An American Red Cross survey of 1,020 adults this fall found that although 80 percent of respondents said their finances were the same or worse than the same time last year, 57 percent plan to give to a charity during the holidays. Almost seven in 10 say that because of the economy, it is important to give to charity.

“Despite the difficult economy, Americans want to give to help others in need,” said Gail McGovern, Red Cross president and CEO.

The Center on Philanthropy report said Americans contribute 2 percent of their disposable income, a figure that has remained constant for decades.

Nonprofit leaders agree that charitable organizations must think innovatively to keep the cash coming in.

Berger of Charity Navigator said organizations should avoid duplicating services. He said nonprofits should adjust to meeting the public’s need for openness about finances and organization.

Some organizations try to grow by making sure potential donors feel engaged, while others have been reaching out to young people to stay viable.

The Jewish Communal Fund, a New York group that allows people to donate to various causes through investment funds, began its outreach to adults 35 and under just as the economy began to slide.

The group has actively recruited younger adults onto its board and lowered minimum contributions from $5,000 to $1,800.

“We didn’t want to be struggling like some organizations are with an aging membership,” said Ellen Israelson, vice president of marketing and donor relations.

There are other innovations for charities to consider, such as making sure they use social media for outreach and technology for accepting donations, Rooney said.

Be Sociable, Share!

•