Pax Christi, Call to Action chapters plan to oppose diocese, back HHS mandate in court

(CWN) Call to Action Pennsylvania, Catholics for Social Justice, Pittsburgh Area Pax Christi and the Association of Pittsburgh Priests are seeking permission from a judge to file a friend-of-the-court brief in defense of the HHS mandate.

The four organizations criticized the Diocese of Erie, which has filed suit to overturn the mandate, for “join[ing] the attack on an important legislative effort to provide universal health care -- a vital human right that Church teaching has supported for decades as a natural right possessed by all people as a matter of social justice.”

The diocese’s opposition to the mandate “inappropriately inserts the Church into a civil dispute publicly viewed as partisan,” the organizations added.

One of the four organizations, the Association of Pittsburgh Priests, is not an official diocesan organization; rather, it is a self-described group “of ordained and non-ordained women and men who act on our baptismal call to be priests and prophets.” The National Catholic Reporter estimated in 1999 that 10% of Pittsburgh priests belong to the organization.

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• Pax Christi, Call to Action chapters plan to oppose diocese, back HHS mandate in court