Written by Ben Johnson

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, February 27, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Chicago’s Francis Cardinal George is warning the HHS contraception/abortifacient mandate will close Catholic hospitals and universities or force them to secularize, a process he calls “a form of theft.”

If the regulation is not rescinded, the Catholic Church will be “despoiled of her institutions,” he said in a column printed on CatholicNewWorld, likening the proposed policies to the restrictive “freedom of worship” allowed in the Soviet Union.

“What will happen if the HHS regulations are not rescinded?” he asked. A faithful ministry must choose between selling itself to a non-Catholic group, paying “exorbitant annual fines” until going bankrupt, breaking its ties to the Church’s “moral and social teachings and the oversight of its ministry by the local bishop,” or closing down.

He urged people... http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-george-all-catholic-hospitals-...