Cardinal Dolan Accuses New York Times of Media Bias on HHS Mandate

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, is calling out the mainstream media, specifically the New York Times and television media, for ignoring his big victory against the Obama administration in court last week.

In a landmark ruling against the Obama administration’s HHS Mandate, a federal judge last week ruled that the supposed “safe harbor” in the mandate was not adequate to protect religious organizations, including the New York Archdiocese, from suffering imminent harm from the mandate. As a result of this ruling, the archdiocese’s lawsuit challenging the Obama administration on the mandate may now move forward.

“Did you hear about the decision last week?” Cardinal Dolan asked in his column on the archdiocese’s website released Wednesday. “You probably did not, as there seems to have been no mention of the decision – in favor of the archdiocese, by the way – in any local newspaper or on television.”

Criticizing the New York Times for unequal treatment of the recent HHS Mandate court decisions, Dolan accused the paper of ignoring the favorable ruling in the case of the New York archdiocese while “it couldn’t wait to publish an editorial this past October, admonishing the bishops, when a federal judge in Missouri found for the administration and dismissed a similar case brought by a private, for-profit, mining company.”

Dolan went on to say, “The Times also didn’t have much to say last week, when the appeals court temporarily blocked the bad Missouri decision the Times had gushed over.”

In an assertive ruling in favor of the Archdiocese of New York, U.S. District Court Judge Brian M. Cogan dismissed the administration’s argument that the lawsuit was premature.

“There is no, ‘Trust us, changes are coming’ clause in the Constitution,” Judge Cogan remarked. “To the contrary, the Bill of Rights itself, and the First Amendment in particular, reflect a degree of skepticism towards governmental self-restraint and self-correction.”

The judge noted that the archdiocese could be saddled with millions of dollars in fines should the HHS mandate take effect. “Ignoring the speeding train that is coming towards plaintiffs in the hope that it will stop might well be inconsistent with the fiduciary duties that plaintiffs’ directors or officers owe to their members,” Judge Cogan said.

In his column, Cardinal Dolan wrote that for the archdiocese, and others that are suing the Obama administration, “there is still a long way to go before these cases are final, and it would be our hope that the administration will be true to their word and amend the HHS mandate so that it does provide a real religious exemption and freedom of conscience protection.”