Archbishop Listecki voices opposition to federal mandate

OAK CREEK -- Speaking after a mass in Oak Creek, Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki voiced his objections to a U.S. Health and Human Services mandate that all employers provide free contraceptives.

Listecki said mass at St. Matthew's Parish in Oak Creek Saturday afternoon as part of the 'Fortnight for Freedom", a 14-day period to support religious freedom by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. 

Listecki says the government mandate - which requires employers to provide free contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion, regardless of moral or religious objections - violates the Constitutional right of religious liberty.

"Catholic agencies are going to be defined how the government wants to define it and not how the church wants to define it," Listecki said. "That's totally intolerable. That is not the sense of religious freedom as we know it."

Listecki believes Catholic institutions should be exempt from the mandate.  The archbishop will be saying mass at parishes in West Bend, Hubertus, Oconomowoc and Elm Grove as part of the "Fortnight for Freedom", which ends on July 4th.