In response to the federal threats to religious freedom, pastors in Catholic churches across the country this Sunday are announcing the “Fortnight for Freedom,” a program of public action and special events to “highlight the importance of defending our first freedom.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called for the period from June 21, when the Church commemorates Catholic martyrs to political persecution, through Independence Day, to be dedicated to “this ‘Fortnight for Freedom’ – a great hymn of prayer for our country,” emphasizing “both our Christian and American heritage of liberty” and constituting “a great national campaign of teaching and witness for religious liberty.”
The bishops call for an “end to an institutional coercion by the government against conscience, and government intrusion into the ordering of Church institutions,” as a letter from our local archbishop phrased it.
In an article titled “A Statement on Religious Liberty,” the bishops make the case that religious liberty is “more than freedom of worship.”
Religious liberty is not only about our ability to go to Mass on Sunday or pray the Rosary at home. It is about whether we can make our contribution to the common good of all Americans. Can we do the good works our faith calls us to do, without having to compromise that very same faith?
What is at stake is whether America will continue to have a free, creative, and robust civil society-or whether the state alone will determine who gets to contribute to the common good, and how they get to do it…
Restrictions on religious liberty are an attack on civil society and the American genius for voluntary associations.
Read more here.
U.S. Constitutional Free Press 