Fortnight for Freedom:Standing Up for Religious Freedom

Fortnight for Freedom

Tomorrow begins the second annual Fortnight for Freedom, which was initiated by the US Bishops. According to the USCCB the purpose of the Fortnight for Freedom is to promote:

[A] two-week period of prayer and action, to address many current challenges to religious liberty, including the August 1, 2013 deadline for religious organizations to comply with the HHS mandate, Supreme Court rulings that could attempt to redefine marriage in June, and religious liberty concerns in areas such as immigration and humanitarian services.

Threats to Freedom
The USCCB cites a list of threats to freedom. We are already seeing infringements take place and more are likely in the near future. In just last year and half we've seen a court rule that a Catholic diocese cannot enforce its moral criteria (not to mention the employment contract) in the hiring and firing of teachers. We've recently heard of the IRS targeting Catholic speakers and possibly Catholic institutions. The HHS mandate deadline (August 1st) for religious organizations to comply is looming.

According to Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, the keynote speaker at the National Religous Freedom Award Dinner, the threats are real:

There is no doubt that religious freedom faces extraordinary and novel challenges that grow out of increasing and aggressive secularism, coupled with fundamental redefinitions of core social institutions. These changes are putting some religious communities on a collision course with newly emerging social concurrences on matters of morality, equality and how we define fundamental civil and human rights.

You are Charged with Being Catholic.How do you plead?

Imagine if they were putting Catholics on trial for what they believe. This is not a too far fetched idea in some countries. Some might argue in light of the HHS mandate that we aren't that far from such a scene here in the US.

Here's a creative video that portrays that very notion, with a twist. When you finish watching the video, ask yourself "What would the judge decide in my case?"

We Must Trust and Follow Our Church Leaders

Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archdiocese of New York 

Cardinal Dolan is catching quite a bit of flack in Catholic circles for inviting President Obama to attend the Alfred E. Smith dinner which raises money for Catholic Charities, especially for the needy children in New York. Traditionally, but not always, during an election year, the two party candidates for the presidency are invited to speak. The dinner is more like a roast with each of the speakers joking at each other's expense.

Without question this is and has been a particularly contentious year between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church. In fact, Cardinal Dolan has been the point man criticizing the President for overreaching his constitutional authority through the implementation of the HHS Mandate. Despite that, Cardinal Dolan has decided to still invite President Obama to the dinner. As a result, some members of the Catholic media have taken it upon themselves to not only publicly disagree with Dolan, but to begin urging people to call and email Cardinal Dolan.

I believe, that while these people are well intentioned in their pursuit of turning back the HHS mandate, they are severely misguided in their efforts to coerce and harass the Cardinal. In my opinion, they suffer from the ill conceived notion that the Catholic Church should operate as a democracy. It does not, nor should it. These men are our shepherds and to paraphrase St. Ignatius of Antioch, the bishop is "like the living image of God the Father" (CCC #1549).

Instead, we faithful laity should follow, trust and pray for our Church leaders. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church #2234:

God's fourth commandment also enjoins us to honor all who for our good have received authority in society from God. It clarifies the duties of those who exercise authority as well as those who benefit from it.

Additionally, CCC #2238 advises:

Those subject to authority should regard those in authority as representatives of God, who has made them stewards of his gifts:43 "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. . . . Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of God."44 Their loyal collaboration includes the right, and at times the duty, to voice their just criticisms of that which seems harmful to the dignity of persons and to the good of the community.

I am so tired of reading columns and comments belittling and degrading our Church leaders. Surely they have made mistakes and will make more, but they are our leaders. Instead of spending our time denigrating them, we should be praying for them. I can't help but think of something St. Josemaria Escriva wrote in The Way:

It cut you to the heart to hear people say that you had spoken badly of those Priests. And I am glad that it hurt: for now I am sure you have the right spirit! (The Way #73)

HHS Mandate Goes Into Effect August 1st

Conscience Cause

True Freedom

Today, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan's book True Freedom: On Protecting Human Dignity and Religious Liberty is available to download at Amazon for 99¢. This short book (only 37 pages long) is an important resource in helping one learn the Church's teaching on freedom. This particularly important as the Church in the United States faces the recent attack on religious freedom.

Most of us learned when we were very young that this country was founded on a principle of religious freedom. Did anyone ever teach us what that really meant? What does this mean today, when we live under the "dictatorship of relativism"?

This is a great way to start your summer reading program. Even if you don't have a Kindle, you can read the book on your computer through Amazon or on the Kindle app available on all Apple iProducts and Android phones.

For a more comprehensive review of the book go to Brandon Vogt's review.

First they came for...

The Execution of Blessed Miguel Pro

The recent attack on religious freedom reminded me of this famous quotation from Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I was Protestant.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

This current battle is not about contraception. It's about religious freedom. If we stand (sit) by and let the Obama administration impose its will, what will be next? Priests being banned from preaching on faith and morals? You might think that's a far stretch, but it has already happened in Sweden.

Father Robert Barron makes this point in yesterday's National Review:

The secularist state wants Catholicism off the public stage and relegated to a private realm where it cannot interfere with secularism’s totalitarian agenda. I realize that in using that particular term, I’m dropping a rhetorical bomb, but I am not doing so casually. A more tolerant liberalism allows, not only for freedom of worship, but also for real freedom of religion, which is to say, the expression of religious values in the public square and the free play of religious ideas in the public conversation. Most of our founding fathers advocated just this type of liberalism. But there is another modality of secularism — sadly on display in the current administration — that is actively aggressive toward religion, precisely because it sees religion as its primary rival in the public arena.

We live in times for men and women of action and prayer. More precisely "these world crises are crises of saints" (St. Josemaria, The Way #301).

Viva Cristo Rey!

STOP HHS!

I have been surprised (I don't why I should, but I have been) by the number of people that do not know about the Obama administration's HHS mandate that would force Catholics to violate their own consciences in supporting abortifacients, contraceptives, and sterilizations.

We must send a message to Congress that we will not sit idly by as our religious rights are violated. All that is needed for evil to prevail is for good men and women to do nothing.

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Get informed:

Further reading:

• Catholic Vote, Memo to Obama: You've Got a Problem, 2/7/12
• National Review, The Corner 2/7/12
• USCCB, 6 Things Everyone Should KnowAbout the HHS Mandate, 2/6/12