55 Comments

• Intercessor | Mar 24, 2012, 11:03 AM EDT

  I meant to add: Even though it's estimated by the Church in the USA that one in three Catholics have left, in reality it's probably closer to 85%, with the majority of attendees being over 60! My guess, from what I've read is that less than 15% go to Mass on a weekly basis. It is this demographic that is supporting Santorum and the US Council of Catholic Bishops. WHY? Well, my guess is that they probably think they will get a plenary indulgence for doing so, and will not need to suffer the flames of Purgatory for days, months or years! They'd rather have "Hell of Earth!"

• Intercessor | Mar 24, 2012, 10:53 AM EDT

  I agree with Rabbi Waskow! In the upcoming election in the States, it looks as if the Church is backing uber-Catholic, Rick Santorum. If elected, Rick will probably end up doing the will of the USCB, US Council of Catholic Bishops for their invaluable endorsements. Fortunately, in the States, it is estimated that one in 3 Catholics, including myself, have left the Church, and most of us could care less about Santorum and even less about the Conservative, (Sharia) Catholic bishops (If that's possible)! It's interesting that the bishops are backing "Catholic Sharia Laws on birth control," but they still fail to do little about Priest Pedophilia and generations of coverups! One would think there would be Sharia Laws against molesting, raping and sodomizing children and teens, and covering up for Pedophile Priests by transferring them from parish to parish. I guess this is an example of "Selective Sharia Catholic Laws!"

• seanomelb | Mar 09, 2012, 06:04 PM EST

  Fair point brennanirish, maybe the Rabbi should condemn the anti-feminists in his own religion to balance the argument.

• brennanirish | Mar 09, 2012, 11:53 AM EST

  I agree with the comments made by the Rabbi but cant help wonder why no one....literally, not one high ranking Rabbi, of the American Jewish community, condemns the ever increasing militant practices of orthodox Jews in Israel. From eparate dress code restrictions for Women to not walking on the same side of the street and on and on....sounds Sharia-like to me.

• pilib04 | Mar 09, 2012, 10:56 AM EST

  Go raibh maith agat to Rabbi Waskow for his insightful remarks about the highly politicized USCCB. The bishops are at it again. They are the same ones who hammered the University of Notre Dame because ND had the gall to invite the President of the United States of America to their graduation ceremony and convey a degree. What morons. Father John Jenkins(CSC) really put them to shame with his introduction of the President. Not many bishops could speak the way he does. “The University of Notre Dame belongs to an academic tradition of nearly a thousand years – born of the Church’s teaching that human reason, tempered by faith, is a gift of God, a path to religious truth, and a means for seeking the common good in secular life. It is out of this duty to serve the common good that we seek to foster dialogue with all people of good will, regardless of faith, background or perspective. We will listen to all views, and always bear witness for what we believe. Insofar as we play this role, we can be what Pope John Paul II said a Catholic university is meant to be – ‘a primary and privileged place for a fruitful dialogue between the Gospel and culture.’” Finally, we remember how the bishops have repeatedly betrayed their flock in Ireland and America over the past two centuries. Repeatedly failing to provide moral leadership. Hats off to Rabbi Waskow.

• Starlet | Mar 09, 2012, 01:14 AM EST

  @ Posted by Seanmor on Mar 07, 2012, 09:03 PM EST Obviously had there been CONTRACEPTION available that poor nurse would have no baby to watch... That's his whole point!

• hollabackgurl | Mar 08, 2012, 08:42 PM EST

  America's laws are mandated by the US Constitution, not the Bible. Government is an expression of the will of the people, not the bishops.

• jamaicabay | Mar 08, 2012, 08:17 PM EST

  I'm with the rabbi on this one although the use of 'sharia' is a bit strong. Hey, that's what many are afraid of with the growing Muslim population here.(absurd) There really is no difference with what the bishops are doing. When my church begins to ordain women I might begin to listen to advicement. Till then they should keep their misogynist mouths shut on this issue. Feed the poor, help the sick. Fight for social justice. Live the Word of God. Didn't hear Jesus talking about controlling women's bodies.

• epclarkIII | Mar 08, 2012, 06:17 PM EST

  Hollabackgurl, If you were brought up a Catholic, you should know that obeying the word of God (The Ten Commandments) and the tenets of the Catholic Faith, takes precedence over a government edict that indicates otherwise. Genocide, torture and Slavery, were in all cases unholy practises carried out by governments (even today.) The Church, Centuries ago, while under protection of Pretender Popes looked the other way at these horrendous practises but in later years repented. There were many martyrd Saints who spoke out against these horrific practises and died at the hands of the "Inquisitors". The Church was not always correct nor just, but over time became more demure in it's ideas. There are however some things that are still taught by the Church, that are absolute, until such time as the Church finds otherwise. We as devout Catholics are obliged to obey these rules. If we feel that some Government Law should take precedence over a Church Law, we are free to choose we obey. But while the Government Law may be appealing to many and convenient, it may not be the right thing to do. Should you choose government over the Church, you should also refrain from calling yourself a Catholic. Personally I would opt to choose the Church so I could maintain my Faith and remain loyal to the Church and Jesus Christ and the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. The Government can NEVER save my soul. Only Christ through the Church can.

• mairint | Mar 08, 2012, 05:10 PM EST

  A Rabbi ??? Look at the state of the Jewish faith - or what is left of it. Divided between Orthodox and the re-invented version. For those of us Catholics who actually attend Church regularly, we do not hear our priests condemning other religions. Their job is to re-enforce our own. Perhaps that rabbi should look to his own flock and follow the Torah.

• Colliegirl | Mar 08, 2012, 04:52 PM EST

  Gee, the idea that church based institutions might not want to fund contraceptives for women sure bothers a lot of people. Back in the sixties a pope wrote an encyclical against 'the pill'. Women's reproductive issues and organs weren't the point of the encyclical. He predicted that acceptance and use of artificial contraception would result in a weakening of the marriage bond between husband and wife, widespread promiscuity, the breakdown of the family, and the rise of abortions. Old men aren't always wrong just because they're old or men.

• snakehips | Mar 08, 2012, 04:20 PM EST

  One has to wonder why so many men (Old men at that, i.e.Rabbi's,The Pope and his gang of bishops, congressmen)are so obsessed about women's reproductive issues and organs. Boys get out of the bedrooms of people and take up a hobby or some other diverting activity!

• Colliegirl | Mar 08, 2012, 03:39 PM EST

  What is so outrageous for a Catholic institution refusing to offer a health plan benefit that provides a person with the means to do something that the church (that started and supports said institution) recognizes is immoral? The institution is not forcibly preventing a person from doing the immoral act, just refusing to support or approve of it. The institution isn't firing or demoting employees who do the immoral act. It's not even making the act difficult (condoms are easily available, cheap and sometimes free). It's just saying, "I won't be complicit in your sin. I won't make money easily available for you to do it. I won't provide a health plan that does that either." Pregnancy isn't a disease. Prevention of pregnancy isn't 'health care'. It's ludicrous for a person to expect their employer to provide for them to do something the employer is strongly opposed to on moral grounds, especially when this was made clear before they accepted employment. When the government attempts to force a religiously supported institution to do so it is a clear infringement on religious liberty. This is a not so subtle move by the government to force the Catholic church and other faith based organizations to give up their hospitals. And who will be able to take them over. Why, the government! One more step closer to socialized medicine. And who will ultimately suffer? The child conceived but not yet born, the 'defectives', the unproductive sick, the old, the chronically ill. These are the very ones the church-based organizations have served over the years. Who pays or saving money isn't the issue. The percentage of Catholics who follow the teachings of their church isn't the issue. The issue is: does the federal government have the right under the constitution to force faith based organizations to actively promote actions directly against the tenets of that faith.

• cynicus | Mar 08, 2012, 03:15 PM EST

  Who cares? The higher up the mountain the more the monkey shows his ass. Seems to be more political than spiritual-religious debate.

• eiriamach | Mar 08, 2012, 02:11 PM EST

  kilgara is also mistaken. "Who pays" is not an issue. "Covering contraception saves money for insurance companies by keeping women healthy and preventing spending on other health services. For example, there was no increase in premiums when contraception was added to the Federal Employees Health Benefit System and required of non-religious employers in Hawaii. One study found that covering contraception lowered premiums by 10 percent or more" (See Wall Street Journal, Feb. 11, 2012, 1, 4). The only real issue, and the only threat in the minds of the bishops, is the freedom of American women to take moral responsibility according to their individual consciences for their sexual activity.

• eiriamach | Mar 08, 2012, 02:02 PM EST

  hermitTalker mis-states facts: RU-486 is specifically NOT included in the HHS mandate since the FDA has linked it with some deaths and it can function as an abortifacient. The HHS mandate excludes abortifacients. The repetition of such lied by those who will not bother to provide any clinical sources (because there are none) for repeating it becomes wearisome, to say the least. Do they think that if they just keep repeating a lie, it somehow becomes true?

• eiriamach | Mar 08, 2012, 01:40 PM EST

  I've been trying to decide whether the rabbi went too far when he compared the bishops' campaign against contraceptives to sharia law. "Sharia law" seems extreme; perhaps he meant to shock us into looking closely at the bishops' "religious freedom" argument. Whenever we decide for others-- employers deciding what health insurance their employees will have, for ex.-- our concern is the common good, which we all share as members of a society. The common good here is workers' freedom of conscience, not control by employers' conscience. "Religious freedom" is an argument you give when the law coerces you *against your* conscience, not when you are deciding *for others*. In that sense, the rabbi is right to compare the USCCB campaign to Sharia law, which cares nothing about the freedom of those whose moral choices it controls. Where, I wonder, is the Catholic courage of those who wrote Dignitate Humanis in 1965? This encyclical recognizes the freedom of every citizen based on "the dignity of the human person ... known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself": "This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all ... are to be *immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power,* in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone *or in association with others*, within due limits." HOW someone takes responsibility for her sexual activity is a matter of her conscience; by RCC doctrine the bishops must support their employees' freedom to decide.

• etighe1130 | Mar 08, 2012, 01:32 PM EST

  IC hates the church.

• kilgara | Mar 08, 2012, 12:24 PM EST

  This is not all that complicated. How can the government force a religious institution to pay for something that this institution has ALWAYS preached is immoral and that those who use these products are gravely risking eternal damnation?Ridiculous. As for the arguement that the product will be supplied free of charge by the insurer , we all know that there is no "free lunch" and that ultimately the insured {i.e. The Catholic Church} would bear the cost.Obama and his ilk must be defeated.

• hollabackgurl | Mar 08, 2012, 11:20 AM EST

  In America you put your hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the U. S. Constitution. The Catholic Bishops and Rick Santorum have it completely backwards.

• hermitTalker | Mar 08, 2012, 10:54 AM EST

  despite the claim on here birth control, contraception, is not the only item covered. The morning after R-U 4 is also, BC has changed since the 1960 first pill. It also covers sterilisation. Again the issue is not whether Jews or Mormons or Catholics or Evangelicals. It is whether there are organisations or individual consciences are forced to pay bfor them in their insurance plan. Getting the insurance providers to distribute them solves no problem. Someone has to pay for them, guess whom? The Hyde Amendment is next the way this POTUS and HHS are headed. The whole plan was rammed through, not ever really discussed, so its excellent points are mixed in with fake quotes from what it is supposed to contain and there is one awful mess out there. This is not a US Bishops' issue, it is an American Constitutional issue. Save your attacks on Church, faith groups for the apporpriate site, but not this topic. It is about FREEDOM OF RELIGION and keeping the government's Big Nose out of the Tent, more pertinently, backing in so its smelly stuff drives us out of the tent.

• hollabackgurl | Mar 08, 2012, 10:50 AM EST

  The Rabbi is correct. I was raised Catholic but I'm appalled by the backward, hardline stance of US bishops.

• wizardofoz | Mar 08, 2012, 06:47 AM EST

  This auld Zionist Jew, rabbi Waskon, fifty-years ago, would not have dared raised the subject of a Christian Church’s ability to set the rules for its employees. It goes to show how much Jews have gained control of, not only the American political system, but also the so-called ‘evangelistically’ Protestant Churches. All you good old ‘American’ boys get ready, to die for Israeli, Iran stands in the way of a ‘Greater Israel’ and Israel can beat, humiliate and dehumanize an oppressed Palestinian people and the rest of the world looks on and does nothing. But, Iran, they can never beat on a one, on one, scrip. Enter the American stooges. They the (Jews) own your main-line media they run your banking system, (robbed you blind three years ago) they control your Senate and your Congress. They have spied on you like no other so-called ‘ally’ in all your long history. Sold your defensive secrets to the former Soviet Union, and the Chinese, they despise you yet you spend billions of US tax dollars each year on this slothful trove. And now, you will commit hara-kiri for no other reason Israel and her controlling lobby decrees it so! By-by, America, you deserve all you get!!!

• AMWilson | Mar 08, 2012, 04:30 AM EST

  "there is NO 'abortifacient contraception' mandated...". Who said there was??? Really, eiriamach, grow up! A group of ADULTS are having a serious and largely civil discussion, and you just have to burst in, guns blazing, and pick a fight!

• eiriamach | Mar 08, 2012, 04:01 AM EST

  Once again, look at the facts: there is NO "abortifacient contraception" mandated by the HHS Rule. It complies with the Hyde Amendment. This is a lie promulgated by the USCCB, a lie designed to enlist the help of Catholics who support public funding for contraception but who oppose abortion. The only Catholics I know of who fall for this lie are the ones who post on IC! The sad fact is that almost no one but the bishops opposes the HHS rule. Many Catholic institutions already comply with identical rules by several states. Catholic hospitals, which are heavily dependent on federal funding, support the rule. Surely they know that women will oppose continued public funding and tax exempt status for institutions that refuse to provide reproductive health care for women. And the hospitals care about loss of support. The bishops don't seem to care.

• AMWilson | Mar 08, 2012, 01:50 AM EST

  adrienrain, very thoughtful and thought-provoking post. fpf22fpf, I think you're definitely on to something, but the RCC has kind of painted itself into a corner on contraception, and it can't really change its position on abortifacient contraception in particular without reconsidering abortion in general, somewhere I'm sure they don't want to go because even in strictly medical terms, abortion is an ugly procedure. I guess it ultimately starts with the Catholic idea that all sex should aim at contraception, a notion which also informs the RCC's position on homosexuality. I sense that, at least in talking to my own priest, that the RCC is starting to back off on that idea a bit, and has begun to speak of the beauty and pleasure that God has created as part of sexuality. Hopefully that's a start, but the RCC moves painfully slow, as you point out. I think that, in this day and age, your linking of an expanding population with increasingly scarce resources is an aspect of this issue that is seldom considered.

• fpf22fpf | Mar 07, 2012, 10:45 PM EST

  As an Irish/German Catholic, I learned in a theology class at St.Meinrad Seminary in the 1970's that the people live the faith., the theologians codify the lived faith and the Bishops preserve this faith. While the bishops are so busy preserving the lived faith of the people, the people are moving on with their faith. The way the system is set up, the bishops never do catch up with reality! Look what they did to Joan of Arc. She claimed/believed that God spoke to her. The hierarchy of the Church were upset that a woman, especially, would claim this. Joan also dressed as a man and rode a horse. Do you know what upset the hierarchy the most? The fact that she dressed as a man We, the peole of faith, believe that we are not to have all the children we can possibly produce. We, women, are worth more than being barefoot and pregnant! At this point on this planet of limited space, we need to be realizing that the human race is the only population that is increasing! What are we doing to the other creatures(plants and animals)whose environments we are destroying. Contraception is a way of limiting the human population! It will take at least another 100 years before the male hierarchy realizes this! People of Faith live as God speaks to your heart. All humans are fallible. We all make mistakes and this includes the hierarchy!

• adrienrain | Mar 07, 2012, 09:56 PM EST

  The Catholic church isn't being forced to pay for birth control. The compromise specified that the insurance companies must cover it on their own. It's in their interest to do so, because birth control is much cheaper than pregnancy with all its procedures, hazards, C-sections, neonatal intensive care. But people keep thinking that all hormone therapy is contraceptive - it isn't. Lots of women and girls (including nuns) take it for ovarian cysts, endometriosis, and periods so heavy they cause severe anemia. And sometimes women are in no shape to carry a child. In the 60s, the pope said that birth control pills were acceptable to regulate menstrual cycles! That being the case, the issue becomes one of doctor/patient confidentiality. Should doctors prescribing hormones for their patients be required to tell the world why they are prescribing them? Further, many insurance companies cover Viagra and even treatments for baldness - neither are medically necessary, but sometimes hormone therapy is. The bishops just have dirty minds. Not surprising, is it?

• AMWilson | Mar 07, 2012, 09:49 PM EST

  padraiginrua, seriously. I bet Walmart is loving this whole debate, because it totally deflects public discourse away from the millions of Americans who get ZERO healthcare benefits from their employers. Does anyone know if Walmart employees have been invited to any Congressional hearings?

• Seanmor | Mar 07, 2012, 09:03 PM EST

  I wonder if Rabbi Waskow agrees with Mount Sinai Hospital for forcing Nurse DeCarlo to assist in an abortion under threat of dismissal in July of 2009. The Philippina nurse who is staunchly pro-life was compelled to watch the dismemberment of a 22-week old baby and has suffered great distress an accout of this experience. This rabbi probably is opposed to the strong pro-life position of Alveda King, nice of the famous ciliv rights leader. Would the rabbi support Obama if he were to attempt to force institutions of other faiths to violate their sacred tenets for the convenience of their employees?

• Michael O'Hara | Mar 07, 2012, 09:01 PM EST

  Rabbi Waskow is correct. The religious institutions are not even being forced to pay extra for anything they don't want their female employees to have access to, but they still object. This has nothing to do with their organizations' sponsorship or affiliation, but with their role as the employers of females who need access to preventative health care. The rules are the same for all employers and there are no reasonable excuses for an organization to restrict their employees' access to this care. This rule has been in place by state law in 28 states for more than a decade and it's about time that it be put in effect for the rest of the country.

• padraiginrua | Mar 07, 2012, 06:59 PM EST

  Not all employers provide all health serv ices yet no one is up in arms over the failure to provide dental, vision or hearing services Non=Catholic employees are free to use contraceptives at their own expense, To force Catholic emplouers to provide something they believe morally wrong is the state attempting to force itself where it doesn't belong.

• AAudio | Mar 07, 2012, 06:46 PM EST

  Why should a religious organization, one that many people look up to and respect have to pay for other peoples birth control or abortions. This is a huge breach of religious free, just so the society of death pushes it's view on the people who prefer life. This is a very slippery slope when a government start telling a religion what it has to do. Sounds very like China to me. The catholic church is not imposing it's views on it's employees, it merely doesn't want to pay for something that is against it's morals. It's very simple really. If anybody who works in a Catholic institution, weather it be a Catholic university, hospital or charity and they wish to use birth control or have an abortion, that's up to them. But please don't ask them to pay for as well. This is one of the most stupid things that the President has done and he really didn't need to start acting like a dictator, there is enough of them on the right wing. This really makes him look like a control freak. The Catholic church is not banning abortion or birth control, they simply just don't want to pay for it. Simple really.

• jpf | Mar 07, 2012, 06:19 PM EST

  He is right the Catholic church is stuck in pre-reformation era. Its the Bishops who do not want women who work at Catholic universities and Catholic hospitals who might be Protestant Jewish or god forbid Muslim to have access to birth control. NO church should impose its beliefs on its employees. this is between an issue of women who want to have control over there bodies and eliminate the need for abortion vs the phoney Freedom of religion argument which is more like religious tyranny.

• AAudio | Mar 07, 2012, 05:12 PM EST

  I wonder if the government or Obama, enforced Jewish people to eat pork would he be so against it?

• seanomelb | Mar 07, 2012, 04:56 PM EST

  The good Rabbi makes a few valid points and exposes the hypocrisy of the bishops.It's the Bishops who are the extremist hear. I have watched over the years the lurching of the papacy and the bishops to the extreme right coupled with the reduction in numbers of the faithful. Given time extremism will always implode on its self. Religious extremism has taken over the GOP this can be proven by the rhetoric from the republican candidates, falling over each other claiming to be the best religious zealot(excluding Ron Paul).

• adrienrain | Mar 07, 2012, 03:35 PM EST

  The RC ban on birth control apparently has its origins in something Aquinas said about it being sinful to have intercourse even with one's own wife, unless the purpose is to produce children. So the Rhythm Method should also be banned. And the SIN in birth control is rooted in LUST - one of the 7 deadlies. So, a man should have sex with his wife only until she becomes pregnant, then stop until she has given birth and finished breastfeeding. Women should strive not to enjoy sex - her part in this sin is much simpler. She need not experience lust in order to conceive, and then she will be blameless.

• rainbowbrew | Mar 07, 2012, 03:33 PM EST

  Yes this guy is right - been thinking the same. The right wingers are all about sharia law like marriage it can only be what th religious right and catholics think it should be. yep we have had sharia type law for a long time andthe catholics will continue.

• EphraimKibbey | Mar 07, 2012, 02:11 PM EST

  @Scrivner - lets see? My employer has one health insurer - my only game in town. The public can go to any restaurant that serves the food they chose. Yea, that seems like a resonable comparison. All this could have been avoided if the congress had had the guts to do a single payer health care law.

• Collette2 | Mar 07, 2012, 01:47 PM EST

  No doubt he will have his detractors, but he certainly has a point. Bit of courage too, to take on the establishment.

• patrickesq | Mar 07, 2012, 01:18 PM EST

  What a sad day for the Catholic Church. The efforts by the US bishops to impose their narrow minded theological views on federal law and all people employed by catholic institutions is emblematic of the fact that the hierarchy of the Church is hopelessly out of touch with the real world and the rights of women to control their reproductive rights. Marriage was never intended to be a baby mill and most Catholics totally reject the Church's unreasonable views on birth control. God save the Catholic Church from its autocratic male enthroned masters who have contributed much to its continuing decline based on their failure to embrace all human rights, including gender equality and freedom of conscience.

• jamthecat | Mar 07, 2012, 01:03 PM EST

  SeamusMor, you could say the same about the Catholic Church, forcing its views down the throats of those who are not even Catholic. Tho' you are right about no witches being burned at the stake in america; they were hanged.

• Scrivner | Mar 07, 2012, 12:43 PM EST

  Rebbe, there's a new Kosher restaurant that opened in my neighborhood. To the south live many orthodox Jews, to the north live many African Americans (mostly Baptist). Since restaurants are considered public facilities subject to non-discrimination laws, what if some African Americans came in and asked for soul food. If the proprietor declined saying that he doesn't serve traif, would he be in violation of the law? Similarly, contraception is not on the "menu" of Catholic institutions. Respectfully submitted by this old Protestant.

• Nicomax | Mar 07, 2012, 11:58 AM EST

  The imposition of any religious law over secular law in this country is in direct violation of our constitution. Madison and friends were fearful of this, so they clearly stated it up-front in Article ! of the Bill of Rights-often referred to as the 'Establishment Clause'. Now we just have to convince some of those running for POTUS and Congress to read this clause.

• EphraimKibbey | Mar 07, 2012, 11:41 AM EST

  WISE! does this site make these letter substitutions just to drive me crazy? I swear I proof read that post three times!

• EphraimKibbey | Mar 07, 2012, 11:38 AM EST

  A wisw man to see the similarity between the RCC and the Taliban! God save mankind from the "my way or you die" religions of the world. Some how I believe that Jesus would not have approved of the RCC's inquisition. @jetsnoon - in Salem, they were crushed by having one stone added at a time as they were asked to admit that they were witches. Those who kept telling the truth died while those who lied survived. So much more civilized than the European imolation! W. and Cheney learned so much from American history. God save us all from stupid people, especially those who believe that He is on their side.

• joan1954 | Mar 07, 2012, 11:37 AM EST

  I agree with johnnycuredents and why is it I think the bishops are only talking for the catholics who are actively practicing their faith. Regarding church institutions, if you are not catholic don't work at them if the issue is important to you. Ya'all this needs to be toned down as many have strong opinios pro or con on it. God Help us all or Gaia (spirit of the earth) if you wish.

• ceceann | Mar 07, 2012, 11:31 AM EST

  The pot calling the kettle blackass.

• JimmieM | Mar 07, 2012, 11:31 AM EST

  No....I think The Obama announced a compromise with out regard to the Bishops....which of course is not a compromise

• hermitTalker | Mar 07, 2012, 10:22 AM EST

  Tha Rabbi seems to get his "news" from the New York Times or some other medium from the anti-Catholic spinners. As a rabbi he knows darned well that he and his fellow Jews must be ever vigilant to preserve religious freedom, instead of insulting the Catholic bishops, and Orthodox Jews and Evangelical Christians and some Imams and Atheists who oppoes the HHS mandate as a violation of the First Aamendment of freedom to practice a faith and freedom from any Government attempting to impose it or forbid its practice. Something to what Saudi Arabia does and Israel's extremists try to do to non-Jewish fellow-citizens, including taking over the Land that should be allowed to them, in a shared or separate State as human beings made in God's image as their Book of Genesis tells us. And stolen from them in the first place when the western powers did their usual carving up of the world to "solve" a problem in 1948 and caused one that still persists.

• SeamusMor | Mar 07, 2012, 10:21 AM EST

  The Rabbi should schtick to Torah and Talmud, and keep his big nose out of other people's business!

• SeamusMor | Mar 07, 2012, 10:20 AM EST

  Murph46: No one was ever burned at the stake in the U.S.

• SeamusMor | Mar 07, 2012, 10:19 AM EST

  The Rabbi should schtick to Torah and Talmud and keep his big nose out of other people's business!

• Nicoletta | Mar 07, 2012, 09:57 AM EST

  Sharia law? He obviously has no idea what he's talking about.

• CapDan9270 | Mar 07, 2012, 09:54 AM EST

  He has no problem complaining about the Bishops, but doesn't say anything about the Rabbis who are taking over communities and making people adhere to their beliefs. As far as they are concerned, a community only consists of their members, everyone else is not part of the community and their opinions and beliefs do not matter.