Video: Priests for Life Wins Emergency Relief From HHS mandate

On Saturday, December 28, Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, was on Fox News with  Mike Huckabee to talk about the contraceptive mandate and explains why it is an important issue. A federal judge in the NY Archdiocese had recently granted an injunction against the contraception mandate, but on Dec. 19, a judge in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had ruled in favor of the government in the Priests For Life case prompting Pavone to  file for an emergency injunction.

“I love my Church and I love my country and I want to be able to do both at the same time,” Pavone told Huckabee. “I do not want to be told that I have to choose between being a faithful Catholic and being a good citizen.”

Priests for Life’s  emergency injunction was  granted on New Year’s Eve.

Father Pavone released the following statement on his Priests For Life website:

4:58pm  An emergency injunction granted just moments ago in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit means that Priests for Life will not have to obey the contraception mandate contained in the Affordable Care Act as its appeal is being heard. It also means that, tomorrow, Priests for Life will not have to cancel health insurance for its employees.

Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, said he is grateful  his organization is free, temporarily at least, from having to comply with the unjust mandate or face steep fines by failing to comply when the ministry’s new insurance policy goes into effect on Wednesday.

“We would not have complied with this mandate in any case, as it promotes the very culture of death that Priests for Life works to combat,” Father Pavone said. “We are grateful for this temporary relief and look forward to a permanent injunction once the appeal is fully heard.”

“Our lawsuit was among the very first ones in the country and the necessity to launch it shows that religious freedom in America is in grave danger.  We have to take action.”

On Dec. 19, Priests for Life learned that the judge in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had ruled in favor of the government. Within an hour Priests for Life filed for the emergency injunction that was granted today.

Father  Pavone said that what the Obama administration has tried to do through the HHS mandate – which he called a “blatant act of tyranny” – is to give the federal government the power to determine what is and what isn’t important in an individual’s religion; that is not the government’s role.

Father Pavone concluded, “There have already been significant victories in the courts against the HHS mandate, and we have no doubt that Priests for Life ultimately will prevail in this historic fight.”

Andrew McCarthy explains what the ruling means….

The ruling holds that, at least for now, the government may not coerce religious believers, against the tenets of their faiths, to provide coverage for abortifacients and contraceptives. (The religious liberty position would not prevent those who want abortifacients and contraceptives – which are very affordable and easily accessible – from obtaining them; it would just prevent the government from forcing religious believers violate their beliefs by providing them.) Of course, as we’ve seen before, President Obama often does not deem himself bound by such trifles as judicial rulings and congressional statutes, so we’ll have to see how the administration reacts.

Father Pavone thanked  Rob Muise and his team at the American Freedom Law Center in his video announcement of the ruling:

On New Years Eve, Justice Sotomayor also granted a temporary Obamacare exemption to Catholic nuns who would have faced ‘draconian fines’ if they had failed to provide contraceptive coverage, as the healthcare law requires.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted a temporary exemption late Tuesday to a small group of Catholic nuns that shields it from having to comply with a part of President Obama‘s healthcare law that requires it to provide contraceptive coverage in its insurance plans.

She acted on an emergency appeal from lawyers for the group who said the nuns faced “draconian fines” beginning on New Year’s Day if they failed to comply with the law widely known as Obamacare.

Sotomayor gave the government until Friday to file a response in the case. Her order extends only to the group of nuns and does not apply more broadly to the Affordable Care Act and its requirements.

The Regime’s contraception mandate isn’t even central to the law – it’s not necessary for ObamaCare to survive — but out of anti-Christian hostility, they’re fighting like Demons to force Americans to violate their conscience, anyway. Forcing people to violate their beliefs and pay tribute to the almighty State is crucial for the forces of tyranny, and I fear,  a harbinger of a terrible things to come, if they succeed.