The president of a small Catholic college said Friday he would rather close the school’s doors than violate the church’s teachings on contraception should the college lose the latest battle involving health-insurance laws and religious freedom.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has determined that Belmont Abbey College violated discrimination laws because the school’s employee health insurance plan does not cover contraception, according to a letter the EEOC sent to the school.
“I hope it would never get this far,” college President William K. Thierfelder told The Washington Times, “but if it came down to it we would close the college before we ever provided that.”
I listened to an interview with President Thierfelde this week on Al Kresta’s show and it was quite nice hearing him defend the truth the Catholic Church teaches and to take a hard stance on the encroachment of the government into a Catholic college. He was even quoting Ex Corde Ecclesiae. Catholic college presidents who quote this document are rarer than hens teeth. I am sure there is some mutant hens out there with teeth.
“By denying prescription contraceptive drugs, [the college] is discriminating based on gender because only females take oral prescription contraceptives,” the EEOC wrote in a letter to the North Carolina college. “By denying coverage, men are not affected, only women.”
Yes this is the same tactic they always use – make it a case of gender inequality, even if it makes no sense. Liberal groups who hate the Catholic Church are quite willing to use the government to enforce their will on the small number of holdouts who still believe what the Church teaches. This is just on the state level, imagine the red tape they would try to strangle the Church with as a Federal manner.
… Mr. Thierfelder wrote at the time that “it is the clear, consistent, incontrovertible, public, official and authoritative teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that abortion, contraception and voluntary sterilization are actions which are intrinsically wrong and should not be undertaken because of their very nature.”
The college, which has about 1,500 students, no longer covers contraceptive services as part of its employee health coverage.
“As a Roman Catholic institution, Belmont Abbey College is not able to and will not offer nor subsidize medical services that contradict the clear teaching of the Catholic Church,” Mr. Thierfelder wrote in a letter explaining the changes.
Belmont Abbey College is one of the schools that is taking back its Catholic identity just as the University of Stuebenville did in the past. Unfortunately this case came about because of eight current and former faculty members. I guess they don’t make enough to be able to buy their own contraceptives. As if this was a significant expense in any way except on the moral calculator. Well any stick to beat the Church.
18 comments
Belmont Abbey is truly making an impressive turnaround. I’ve heard the president speak and I was impressed with him.
However, the problem with forbidding contraceptive coverage is that some women use hormone supplements and replacements for more than just contraception. Hormone therapies can be used for prevention of severe migraines, painful menses, and other problems. If by contraceptives they strictly mean emergency contraception, then that’s a different story, but otherwise, I hope that Belmont Abbey’s decision somehow takes into account a whole big slice of endocrinology that is still unknown and affects more of the woman than just her capacity to bring forth new life. A chaste Catholic woman with hormonal problems shouldn’t be assumed to be sinning if her doctor prescribes the pill. This is a moral issue that Catholic pharmacists have to come to terms with as well.
Laura K,
Unfortunately though doctors have become lazy in prescribing the pill for hormone treatment when there are other options available that might even be better. I believe the National Catholic Bioethic center has said this in the past.
But payment for this treatment would not be part of contraceptive coverage anyway.
Laura K… if a Catholic woman needs hormonal therapies to treat medical conditions, I would want to assume that she seeks treatments that don’t violate Catholic teaching. It’s actually wrong to assume that most Catholic women are using contraceptives as a “hormonal treatment” when it’s statistically proven that the vast majority of them are NOT chaste and are using them as contraceptives. This is just an example of a battle cry for women to try to continue to take the wide, easy road.
I’m very glad Belmont Abbey is taking a stand. It’s now a college that’s on my radar for my children. Notre Dame is out, Belmont Abbey is in.
Laura K… if a Catholic woman needs hormonal therapies to treat medical conditions, I would want to assume that she seeks treatments that don’t violate Catholic teaching. It’s actually wrong to assume that most Catholic women are using contraceptives as a “hormonal treatment” when it’s statistically proven that the vast majority of them are NOT chaste and are using them as contraceptives.
Using hormonal contraceptives, even the birth control pill, for conditions NOT related to contraception are valid.
From Catholic Answers, an explanation of such:
Do some skirt this provision? Undoubtedly, but it is not sinful to use the pill to treat another condition if the intent is treatment and not contraception.
I also heard Fr. John Corapi speak on, and reiterate, this.
There are some things I don’t understand.
1.) Why do all the news stories I’ve seen about this focus on oral contraceptives? Presumably a Catholic college wouldn’t want to pay for diaphragm fittings, IUDs, or contraceptive shots. Nor would they want to pass out a monthly condom stipend to their workers.
2.) Is shutting down the college really the next step? I would think the next step would be cancelling insurance coverage. Does state law require them to provide insurance?
3.) Do any of the college’s employees–either the ones involved in the complain or the ones not–believe this lawsuit is actually going to make their lives any better?
4.) Given that contraceptives are usually a wholly elective thing, why fund them anyway? Not all elective treatments/procedures are covered. Do the insurance companies want to cover contraceptives? And does the average insurance consumer want his premiums contributing indirectly to abortions?
5.) Why accept work at a Catholic institution if you do not like their benefits package and/or do not approve of fairly basic, well-known Catholic teaching that could affect their benefits?
6.) Whence this new American attitude of stores/workplaces/government must provide me with everything I could conceivably want–including my “right” not to conceive? Wal-mart doesn’t carry the morning-after pill in its pharmacies–rather than going to a store that does, I’ll change state law to make them carry it! This pharmacist won’t fill my prescription or my doctor won’t refer me for an abortion–rather than taking my business elsewhere, I’ll howl to the press about unfairness! My Catholic employer won’t fund my contraceptives–rather than paying for them myself or changing jobs, I’ll sue! Is this a conscious belief on the part of people who seem to hold it, or unconscious?
Or is it not really a belief at all, but outrage that someone (the Church) would dare to disapprove of anything about them–outrage so fierce they must sue or change laws or do whatever it takes to *make* the offending party approve?
When a doctor prescribes the pill to treat the myriad of endocrine problems women experience (acne, mood swings, painful menses, headaches, etc…) they are being more than lazy. It’s an irresponsible form of treatment that only covers up the symptoms of an underlying hormonal imbalance. Unfortunately, it’s all too common in this country to put a teen on the pill to regulate her period. Then, years later, when she is ready to conceive she find that she has problems conceiving and/or maintaining a pregnancy. The doctors “solution” to infertility; IVF.
I’ve known many women who have been more rationally, and successfully, treated by doctors using natural and common sense approaches like diet changes or Napro technology. Napro was actually designed by a group of Catholic doctors with Creighton University.
Birth control pills also were invented and designed by a Catholic doctor. In fact, hormone treatment was all he meant them to do, if I recall correctly. So… “designed by Catholic doctors” is not an argument you should use for Napro.
You want to focus on “knowledge and technology have moved along, and there are now better, less harsh treatments”.
Maureen, my comment about Napro being invented by Catholic doctors was merely an aside. I have recommended it to many women because of its effectiveness. It is also less much less harsh on the body, and tends to fix the underlying problems, not just cover them by masking the symptoms, as the pill does. Geez.
Given that contraceptives are usually a wholly elective thing, why fund them anyway?
According to the story at least, under the applicable state law, if a plan covered prescription drugs, it also had to cover prescription contraceptives, although the state law allowed for a religious institution exemption which the state agency agreed Belmont met.
Using hormonal contraceptives, even the birth control pill, for conditions NOT related to contraception are valid.
You’re right… I know this. I know it very well. However you missed what I was saying.
It’s wrong to assume that a Catholic college should have to take the VERY minor group of women that NEED hormonal therapies to correct specific conditions and pay for their treatments when they know it opens the flood gates for all the other women (the vast majority) that are NOT using hormonal therapies for treatments, but rather contraception.
Using your logic, we can therefore believe abortion should remain legal by having the “health of the woman” clause. Because to protect that VERY minor group (less than 1%), the vast majority get to ride in on such an abomination by abusing the system.
Because of the abortifacent mechanisms in hormonal contraception, it isn’t something a Catholic college should be forced to accept, let alone pay for, for a small minority of women. I can’t imagine that there is a significant price difference between a teen getting the pill and a grown woman getting the pill, so why doesn’t this woman that needs the pill go to Planned Parenthood? I’ve heard they’ve got great contraception rates through the federal government.
Phil Maff, you obviously have never had a debilitating illness that has stumped doctors. I hope you never have. To call doctors who prescribe hormone therapy (or any other kind of drugs) “lazy,” is to display a base cluelessness that probably accompanies a personal theory that migraine or other related neuro-endocrine disorders are “all in one’s head.”
Women who have to make hard moral decisions concerning their health will hopefully consult their doctors *and* their priests rather than comboxes on the internet. And those who are affiliated with Belmont Abbey, hopefully, will find that university willing to work with them.
“By denying prescription contraceptive drugs, [the college] is discriminating based on gender because only females take oral prescription contraceptives,” the EEOC wrote in a letter to the North Carolina college. “By denying coverage, men are not affected, only women.”
Only women are affected through the denial of contraceptive coverage? Yes, only women take oral contraceptives, but men are still affected, or there would be no perceived need for contraceptives. This is some result-directed reasoning.
Has anyone noticed the timing here? Catholic Answers was recently fined by the IRS, now Belmont Abbey College is catching grief from the EEOC. Why didn’t these things happen a year ago, or five years ago? George Bush wasn’t out to stick it to Catholics, that’s why.
I read that Belmont Abbey used to be a liberal college. It is possible that the eight who protested were hired by the former administration.
Laura K. you have badly mischaracterized both my meaning and sentiments. Please re-read my comments.
I have never thought that these issues were “all in one’s head”, ever. And I resent the implication. However, I stand by my statement about a doctor being more than lazy using only the pill for treatment. Yes, sometimes it’s important to get rid of the symptoms, especially if they are debilitating. But there needs to be an addressing of the underlying problems. If a doctor has neither the interest nor the ability to do so, you need to get another doctor.
I go to this college. I am what many would consider to be a traditional-minded conservative Catholic. I am against the college funding contraception in it’s health care policy, but I am also against the college doing so by slightly underhanded means. In order to get federal funding, the college tried very hard to convince the state that it was not a religious institution at all. Now when it wants to remove contraceptives from its health care, it is a religious institution.
Now, the monastery next door is indeed a religious institution, but even the monks will tell you that the college and the monastery are two separate entities. One does not have much say in the other, though some monks are on the college’s board of trustees. The college’s president is an all around decent guy for the most part, but he really has no place to go around saying he is going to close the school. The school is owned by the monastery I believe, and the Abbot of the monastery replied in a local paper that the president can’t just close the college and doubted that would happen: http://www.gastongazette.com/news/college-37151-coverage-abbey.html
These 8 professors, as far as I know, are atheists and liberal Catholics. They consequently happen to be some of our best professors in terms of teaching quality. I have had a few for some of my classes, and they are very good at presenting the material to be covered in an unbiased way and know how to get their students to think about the subject and provoke deeper thought. These 8 (some have quit) are only the vocal minority. There are many more who felt as they did, but had enough sense not to publicly speak out against the school’s decision.
It’s all a big mess. I love the college and I love the chance to broaden my Catholic faith. That chance is entirely dependent upon the individual student’s will to have their faith broadened, because it won’t happen in any classroom. It only happens when one chooses to make frequent use of the sacraments that the monks accommodate at mass.
Very much utilitarian enter but there are some point where I will not agree. But all-inclusive its pure good.
Great headline. If your cookie has a bite-sized action and your reader completes the action, I think two things happen. Their self-confidence goes up (which feels good) and their trust in you increases.
Poetically just posting this criticism to conduct that I drop in on your blog daily.
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