Chaput speaks out against policy to require Catholic employers to provide contraceptive health insurance coverage

Some Catholic employers currently don’t provide their workers with health insurance that covers contraceptive services — things like birth control, emergency contraceptives and vasectomies.

But a ruling by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services could change that. The agency announced last month that soon all employers will be required to cover such family-planning services in their insurance policies. That’s not sitting well with Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput.
“Unless the ruling is overturned, faithful Catholics will be forced either to violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees and suffer the penalties for doing so,” he writes in a letter distributed to diocesan parishes. “It betrays the good faith of many Catholics who — until now — have supported the current administration with an honest will.”

Chaput is asking Catholics to pray about the matter and to contact their lawmakers to make clear Catholics’ resistance to the ruling.

Chaput has requested that his letter be read at weekend masses around the diocese.