The federal ruling that religious schools and health institutions are required to provide coverage for contraception does not violate the religious freedom of religious institutions.
While Catholic bishops throughout the country are taking to their pulpits to denounce the ruling, the reality is that the church’s decision to offer a public service to the larger public places the question in a very different context.
Catholic hospitals, like St. Peter’s in New Brunswick, serve more than just a Roman Catholic population. They serve the entire community.
In many communities, those hospitals are the only health-care facilities.
In almost all cases, the facilities get tax breaks and generally get federal money for services (Medicare, Medicaid, other health-care money).
These facilities benefit greatly from their roles as community facilities.
Given this, it is difficult to see how we can consider them private and allow religious exemptions.
What do you think? Check out the poll on New Brunswick Patch and weigh in.
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- Read poetry at The Subterranean.
- Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
- Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Hank Kalet 
What are \”public facilities\”?Is there some entity called the \”public\” that gambles their resources to do a thankless task? Is there a membership list for this \”public\” that sacrifice their own wants to be a \”Good Samaritan\”? Or is \”the public\” an imaginary construction like a \”pink elephant\”?Of course, these Catholic institutions are composed of people who have First Amendment rights. And, as such, these institutions are the logical summation of all these people. Hence the \”institution\” has their First Amendment rights.So the Gooferment, politicians, and bureaucrats have no authority to impose their view of morality on others.If the Gooferment should prevail, then the Church has no choice but to shut down. Imagine Saint Peter's is just closed. Boarded up. Not sold; just closed. Imagine that?Peaceful civil disobedience. Like the apocryphal stories of good King Christian X of Denmark resisting the Nazis deportation of Jews. Think about a world where Catholics just refuse to cooperate. MLK would be a good exemplar.
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