MSNBC host Chris Matthews said that religious leaders have a “duty” to maintain their principles against contraception, despite the Health and Human Services mandate that they cover contraception, a regulation he decried as a violation of religious liberty.
“We are watching a real conflict here,” Matthews said of the HHS rule’s contradiction of Roman Catholic teaching on contraception. “It will be the duty of religious leaders to follow their consciences. It will be the work of politicians, the President on down, to do what they do: work this out.”
Matthews rejected the idea that the right to contraception was the primary issue at stake. “It is not about the right to birth control or the right even of abortion but, again, about the right of the Catholic Church or any religious organization to refuse to participate in it,” he said. “There are millions of liberal Catholics who did not wish for this conflict but can see with powerful clarity its validity.”
