The Biden administration is expected to pay $65,000 after attempting in 2021 to exclude fertility awareness-based family planning methods, a form of natural family planning, from health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act.
The faith-based legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) announced July 27 that a federal court has ordered the Biden administration to pay $65,000 in attorneys’ fees for violating regulatory laws when it attempted to end insurance coverage for fertility awareness methods, leaving women with only coverage for contraceptive and abortifacient drugs and devices.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had in December 2021, without explanation, removed “fertility awareness-based methods” (FABM) from the list of “preventative care and screenings” covered under the Affordable Care Act. The language allowing FABM had been in place since 2016.
Attorneys with ADF filed a lawsuit in May 2022 on behalf of Cami Jo Tice-Harouff, a Texas nurse practitioner, and her patients against HHS and its leadership. Tice-Harouff, who holds a doctorate in nursing practice and is a member of the Catholic Medical Association, instructs patients in FABM, the lawsuit said, and is reimbursed through insurance about $350-$400 each session.
“The Biden administration can’t impose its own preferred contraceptive methods on all women without explanation and without even allowing a real public comment period, as required by law,” ADF’s Senior Counsel Julie Marie Blake said July 27.
“[T]he successful resolution of this case benefits all women who may wish to use fertility awareness-based methods and can now keep their preferred doctor and insurance coverage.”
Fertility awareness methods enable women to track their fertile cycles by charting one or more biomarkers, such as basal body temperature, cervical mucus, and hormone levels. Among other things, couples can use this information, in line with Catholic Church teaching, to avoid or achieve pregnancy.
In late 2022, a federal court issued an order restoring fertility awareness-based family planning methods to health insurance plans nationwide under the Affordable Care Act. The Dec. 6, 2022, order of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, restores language to requirements issued under the Affordable Care Act that “instruction in fertility awareness-based methods … should be provided for women desiring an alternative method” to hormonal birth control. The same court had in August 2022 issued an order temporarily blocking the Biden administration’s action.
In a press release about the lawsuit, the Catholic Medical Association stressed: “Women choose FABM for a variety of reasons, including the desire to avoid the use of hormones and devices, to avoid the ill side effects of other forms of birth control, and to understand one’s natural body processes consistent with religious preferences.”
Grace Emily Stark, the editor of Natural Womanhood, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting fertility awareness and fertility charting as essential tools for women’s health, told CNA that unlike outdated methods such as the rhythm method, modern fertility awareness methods provide high rates of accuracy by relying on “real-time data” by tracking biomarkers that indicate when a woman can and cannot become pregnant.
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Washington D.C., May 21, 2020 / 12:50 am (CNA).- California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s efforts to lift some anti-coronavirus restrictions cannot single out churches for stricter treatment than other similar public activities, the U.S. Department of Justice has said.
“Simply put, there is no pandemic exception to the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights,” Eric S. Dreiband, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, said in a May 19 letter to Newsom joined by four U.S. attorneys for California.
“Religion and religious worship continue to be central to the lives of millions of Americans. This is true now more than ever,” the letter continued. “Religious communities have rallied to protect their communities from the spread of this disease by making services available online, in parking lots, or outdoors, by indoor services with a majority of pews empty, and in numerous other creative ways that otherwise comply with social distancing and sanitation guidelines.”
California’s rules allow restaurants and other businesses to reopen under social distancing guidelines, the Associated Press reports. Churches, however, are still limited to online services and similar efforts.
The letter to Newsom objected that this is a double standard.
“California has not shown why interactions in offices and studios of the entertainment industry, and in-person operations to facilitate nonessential e-commerce, are included on the list as being allowed with social distancing where telework is not practical, while gatherings with social distancing for purposes of religious worship are forbidden, regardless of whether remote worship is practical or not.”
Dreiband’s letter said this is an “unfair burden” on religious groups and “unequal treatment” that violates their civil rights protections. The letter does not threaten immediate legal action. It recognizes the duty “to protect the health and safety of Californians in the face of a pandemic that is unprecedented in our lifetimes,” but said leaders must balance competing interests and evaluate the changing information about the coronavirus.
“Laws that are not both neutral toward religion and generally applicable are invalid unless the government can prove that they further a compelling interest and are pursued through the least restrictive means possible,” the letter said.
Newsom has indicated religious institutions could start in-person services in the near future, with improvements in measurements of testing, infection, and hospitalization.
“I want to just express my deep admiration to the faith community and the need and desire to know when their congregants can once again start coming back to the pews, coming back together,” Newsom said May 18, Politico reports.
Two Republican legislators have introduced a resolution to limit the governor’s emergency powers. Assemblymember Kevin Kiley said such powers are meant for “conditions of extreme peril” and are not intended to “give a single person the ability to remake all of California law indefinitely.”
In Sacramento County, health officials have received state approval for a more rapid lifting of limitations. The county will allow “drive-through” religious services. San Diego County supervisors have asked the state for permission for a more rapid reopening, including outdoor religious services with restrictions, the Associated Press said.
Some churches in the U.S. and South Korea are believed to be at the center of so-called “super-spreader” events, when numerous infections from the novel coronavirus result. On May 12, the Centers for Disease Control said 53 of 61 choir members who took part in a March 10 choir practice at a church in Skagit County, Washington contracted a confirmed or probable case of the coronavirus. Three singers were hospitalized and two died, E.W. Scripps News reports.
Dreiband’s letter to Newsom cites the Department of Justice’s promise to act on any abuses of religious freedom after some state and local governments sought to enforce tough restrictions on Easter services during the coronavirus pandemic.
Attorney General William Barr issued a statement in mid-April saying that governments cannot put special burdens on religious practice that they do not also impose upon other activities. While state and local governments may enact public emergency restrictions, these regulations cannot impede religious practice while allowing exemptions for similar public activities.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco spoke about epidemic restrictions on churches during a May 13 online briefing “The Church, the State and the Pandemic,” hosted by the San Francisco-based Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship. Stanford Law School professor Michael McConnell, a former federal appellate court judge, was the main speaker at the briefing.
The archbishop, citing his interactions with government leaders, suggested public officials “don’t understand what we can do to keep people safe.” Church leaders need to reach out to officials and inform them what is possible, he said.
“When they think of a worship service they think of something like a megachurch, 1,000 to 2,000 people jammed in a crowded area,” he said. “They don’t think that we can have distance in our churches, or that we can have outdoor services.”
Cordileone cited suggestions from the Thomistic Institute of the Dominican House of Studies, which published guidance on coronavirus and churches composed by a working group of theologians, liturgists, and health care experts.
“It’s a very thorough and detailed document about what we can do to open up for Mass,” Cordileone said.
The California bishops sent a letter to Gov. Newsom with the Thomistic Institute document attached. A few days later the governor “spoke positively about worship and the necessity of faith” and appeared “more favorable to churches opening up for worship,” said the archbishop.
Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly speaks with EWTN News President and COO Montse Alvarado on Thursday, July 11, 2024, regarding the organization’s decision to cover mosaics by the accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik in chapels in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut. / Credit: EWTN News
Rome Newsroom, Jul 11, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
The Knights of Columbus announced Thursday they will cover mosaics by the accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut, a dramatic move that represents the strongest public stand yet by a major Catholic organization regarding the former Jesuit’s embattled art.
The 2.1-million-member lay Catholic fraternal order said July 11 it would use fabric to cover the floor-to-ceiling mosaics in the two chapels of the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington and in the chapel at the Knights’ headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut — at least until the completion of a formal Vatican investigation into the Slovenian priest’s alleged abuse.
Patrick Kelly, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, told EWTN News Thursday the opaque material would be installed “very soon” but gave no firm timetable. The Knights said in a statement released Thursday afternoon that the artwork may later be more permanently hidden with a plaster covering after the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issues its ruling on Rupnik.
The decision by the Knights to cover the sprawling works, which envelop both spaces, was made at the end of a comprehensive, confidential review process that included consultations with sexual abuse victims and those who minister to them, art historians, pilgrims to the shrine, bishops, and moral theologians.
“The Knights of Columbus have decided to cover these mosaics because our first concern must be for victims of sexual abuse, who have already suffered immensely in the Church, and who may be further injured by the ongoing display of the mosaics at the shrine,” Kelly said in the statement.
“While opinions varied among those consulted,” he said, “there was a strong consensus to prioritize the needs of victims, especially because the allegations are current, unresolved, and horrific.”
Kelly reiterated that point in his interview with EWTN News.
“Our decision process really came down to multiple factors. But the No. 1 factor was compassion for victims,” Kelly said. “We needed to prioritize victims over anything, any material thing. So that was our primary consideration.”
The first segment of Kelly’s interview with EWTN News will air on “EWTN News Nightly” Thursday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET. Additional comments will air on “EWTN News In Depth” on Friday at 8 p.m. ET.
Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly speaks with EWTN News President and COO Montse Alvarado on Thursday, July 11, 2024, regarding the organization’s decision to cover mosaics by the accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik in chapels in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut. Credit: EWTN News
Once a renowned artist Rupnik, whose mosaics are featured in hundreds of Catholic shrines, churches, and chapels around the world, was expelled from the Jesuits in June 2023.
His expulsion followed a long review of what the society called “highly credible” accusations of serial spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse of as many as 30 religious sisters by the priest spanning decades. Some women allege Rupnik’s abuse sometimes happened as part of the process of creating his art at the Centro Aletti, an art school he founded in Rome.
The Vatican announced in late October 2023 that Pope Francis had waived the statute of limitations in the Rupnik case, allowing the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to do a canonical investigation into the abuse allegations.
There has been no further communication from the Vatican about the inquiry, and it is unclear whether Rupnik may still be living in Rome despite having been given priestly faculties in a diocese of his home country of Slovenia last year.
Growing public outcry
What to do with Rupnik’s once widely-praised works, colorful mosaics characterized by grand, flowing figures and large eyes, has proven to be a divisive question in the wake of the numerous allegations against him, which first came to public attention in December 2022.
While some want to await Vatican judgment before dismantling and replacing Rupnik’s works, much of it made in collaboration with other artists of the Centro Aletti — a Rupnik-founded art school and theological center in Rome — the public outcry for the removal of his art has intensified.
The Knights also announced several immediate changes that would be enacted at the shrine in solidarity with abuse victims, including providing educational materials about the mosaics, making clear that their display during the consultation process “was not intended to ignore, deny, or diminish the allegations of abuse.”
Every Mass at the St. John Paul II National Shrine will now also include a prayer of the faithful for victims of sexual abuse, and saints with connections to abuse victims, such as St. Josephine Bakhita, will be specially commemorated.
The group said it became aware of the allegations against Rupnik in December 2022 — and noted that the artist, while under investigation, remains a priest in good standing in the Diocese of Koper, Slovenia.
“This decision is rooted in a foundational purpose of the Knights of Columbus, which is to protect families, especially women and children, and those who are vulnerable and voiceless,” Kelly said in the July 11 statement.
The “Redemptor Hominis” chapel of the National Shrine of St John Paul II in Washington, DC, is decorated with mosaics by Fatherr Marko Rupnik. Credit: Lawrence OP|Flickr|CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The St. John Paul II National Shrine is a pastoral initiative of the Knights of Columbus, established in 2011, and designated a national shrine by the U.S. Catholic bishops in 2014.
Rupnik’s mosaics were installed at the shrine in 2015. The Holy Family Chapel at the Knights’ headquarters has featured Rupnik’s art since 2005.
Highlighting the John Paul II shrine’s mission of evangelization, the supreme knight said, “the art we sponsor must therefore serve as a stepping stone — not a stumbling block — to faith in Jesus Christ and his Church.”
Rupnik has not made any statements since the allegations came to light.
An eye on Lourdes
The Knights’ move to conceal the mosaics follows just a week after the bishop of Lourdes, France, said that despite his personal feelings that Rupnik’s artwork at the renowned Marian shrine there should be removed, he has decided to wait to make a final decision due to “strong opposition on the part of some.”
After forming a special commission in May 2023, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes announced July 2 that more time was needed “to discern what should be done” about Rupnik’s mosaics at the Marian apparition site, because his belief that they should be torn down “would not be sufficiently understood” and “would add even more division and violence” at this time.
As a “first step,” the French bishop said he had decided the mosaics will no longer be lit up at night during the shrine’s nightly candlelight rosary processions.
In his interview with EWTN News, Kelly said the Lourdes bishop’s intent to make a decision of some kind this spring galvanized the Knights to act at this time.
In his July 11 statement, Kelly thanked the Lourdes bishop for his “thoughtful decision” and said it “both informed and confirmed us in our own decision-making. Shrines are places of healing, prayer, and reconciliation. They should not cause victims further suffering.”
Emphasizing the importance of discernment based on mission and context, the supreme knight said: “Every situation is different. In the United States, Catholics continue to suffer in a unique way from the revelations of sexual abuse and, at times, from the response of the Church. It is clear to us that, as a national shrine, our decision must respect this country’s special need for healing.”
The Knights of Columbus was founded in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1882 by Blessed Michael McGivney, a parish priest. Dedicated to the advancement of the group’s key principles — charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism — its members in 2022 provided 50 million service hours and nearly $185 million to charitable causes in their communities.
National Catholic Register Editor-in-Chief Shannon Mullen contributed to this story.
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