Bp Swain of Sioux Falls, SD, condemns Catholic insurance agency for complying with HHS mandate

Bishop Swain, when he was still Monsignor Swain, was pastor of Madison’s Holy Redeemer Church at the time he was appointed bishop of Sioux Falls. That was only a short while after I returned to the practice of my Faith, so I never met him, though I did attend a talk he gave here to Madison’s Thomas More Society (a Catholic lawyers’ group) on religious liberty, last fall. He’s clearly more than just talk–back home in South Dakota, he’s recently had to take action.

SIOUX FALLS, SD, March 18, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Catholic bishop of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has taken action against a Catholic insurance agency that has chosen to cover contraception with no co-pay in order to satisfy the legal requirements of the Obama administration’s health reform law.

Bishop Paul Swain said the action of Avera Health Plans has created “public scandal,” because its practices are “inconsistent with Church teaching.”

The decision hits close to home, as the diocese of Sioux Falls is an Avera customer, although the changes do not affect the diocese’s policy.

continue at Laetificat Madison

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