Catholic bishops still whining about Obama administration's 'accommodation' on birth control

Cardinal Timothy Dolan A week after Health and Human Services announced new proposed rules for the implementation of its mandate that insurance companies cover the cost of birth control, the Catholic bishops are'surprise, surprise'still whining about how preventive health care for women is unconstitutional and un-Jesusy and blah blah blah freakin' blah:

Because the stakes are so high, we will not cease from our effort to assure that healthcare for all does not mean freedom for few. Throughout the past year, we have been assured by the Administration that we will not have to refer, pay for, or negotiate for the mandated coverage. We remain eager for the Administration to fulfill that pledge and to find acceptable solutions'we will affirm any genuine progress that is made, and we will redouble our efforts to overcome obstacles or setbacks. Thus, we welcome and will take seriously the Administration's invitation to submit our concerns through formal comments, and we will do so in the hope that an acceptable solution can be found that respects the consciences of all.

Of course, Cardinal Timothy Dolan's statement ignores the part of the new proposed rules that specifies "eligible organizations would not have to contract, arrange, pay or refer for any contraceptive coverage to which they object on religious grounds." In other words, that concern has been addressed and accommodated. But it's still not enough, of course. It will never be enough, unless every employer in America is allowed to deny women access to affordable health care, because of the Taco Bell rule, as explained by the bishops' general counsel last year: the absurd notion that someone who opens a Taco Bell should be allowed to deny employees access to birth control because it violates that person's religious beliefs. It's nonsense, of course, but that hasn't stopped the bishops from coordinating dozens of lawsuits by for-profit companies that have nothing at all to do with the Catholic Church, or any other religion.

The objection to women's health care on "moral" grounds would be offensive on its own, but that it's coming from the same organization that is still, as of last week, obstructing justice to protect the Catholic priests who raped and abused children and the Church hierarchy's widespread conspiracy to cover it up:

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles released 12,000 pages of internal files last Thursday on priests accused of sexually abusing children, saying that it was finally abiding by a settlement it signed with victims six years ago to make the painful history public.

But it now appears that the files the church released with much fanfare are incomplete and many are unaccounted for, according to the abuse victims' lawyers. In addition, on many documents the names of church supervisors informed of abuse allegations were redacted by the archdiocese, in apparent violation of a judge's order.

This is the same organization that has been insisting a fetus is a person'unless a Church-affiliated hospital is sued for malpractice, in which case not so much. (Not to worry, though'after the widespread reaction of shock to that news, the bishops in Colorado announced that it will not say that anymore, so never mind. Hey, look over there! Unregulated vaginas!)

But never mind all that stuff'what really has the bishops concerned is that a company that makes outdoor power equipment can't deny health care to women in the name of Jesus. Because that is the real moral outrage.