US bishops to address 'pervasive' challenges of pornography

 Baltimore, Md., Nov 12, 2013 / 04:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. bishops have overwhelmingly approved the creation of a statement on pornography to address the “serious pastoral challenges” and consequences that it poses on a spiritual, social and personal level.

 

“Pornography comes in many forms but leaves its effects on all those exploited by or exposed to it. It is a great temptation that ravages men, women and children,” Bishop Richard J. Malone, chairman-elect of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, told the bishops’ fall assembly Nov. 12.

“The number of men, women and children who have been harmed by pornography use is not negligible, and we have an opportunity to offer healing and hope to those who have been wounded.”

The growing awareness of pornography’s “grave” impact means the bishops have “an opportunity to educate and to shine light on the mercy and freedom found in Christ,” he said.

Bishop Malone, who heads the Buffalo diocese, noted that the U.S. bishops have not issued a statement explicitly addressing pornography. He asked the assembled bishops to approve his committee’s request to write a statement on the issue to encourage more pastoral attention to it.

The U.S. bishops approved his request by a vote of 226 to 5.

Bishop Malone said that pornography poses “serious pastoral challenges” for clergy and the faithful. Pornography is widespread and “more accessible than in the past,” affecting people of younger and younger ages. Fewer people disapprove of it, and its use is increasing among both men and women.

Pointing to statistics that pornography is “a significant factor” in nearly 60 percent of divorces, the bishop cautioned that it is “highly addictive” and capable of altering brain chemistry and causing harmful social consequences.

The average age of first exposure to pornography is 10-11 years old, an alarming fact, he said.

“Love resonates in the human heart, because we were made for it,” Bishop Malone explained. “But we also know that there are many obstacles to true, lasting love. There are many counterfeit versions of love that promise much but deliver little.”

“There are many ways in which the body, created in the image of God as male and female, becomes a place of exploitation and ‘use’ instead of a place of communion and love.”

Bishop Malone’s proposal drew strong support and suggestions from the floor of the assembly.

In the question period, Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay, Wis., spoke “very much in favor” of the proposal.

“There are great advantages to the advances in social media. This is the dark side of all of that,” he said.

He warned that pornography “captures younger and younger people” and is “destroying marriages and families at a very rapid rate.”

He praised his diocese’s anti-pornography addiction initiative Reclaiming Sexual Health, noting that there are many new resources and ministries on the topic.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City said that his diocese’s Catholic Charities affiliate reports that over 50 percent of family counseling clients had pornography use as a problem that impaired their marriages and family life. He suggested that awareness of this issue should be raised at Sunday Mass, if it can be done through lay witness.

Bishop David Foley, retired head of the Diocese of Birmingham, Ala., praised the Sacrament of Reconciliation for combating pornography.

“I have found the power of the Sacrament of Penance in overcoming pornography is tremendous,” he said.

“It’s true confessors are hearing of this sin more often, but they are working with their penitents. The regular practice of confession is an answer, a strong answer, to this problem.”

Archbishop George Niederauer called attention to the Cincinnati-based Religious Alliance against Pornography, a 30-year-old organization co-founded by Cardinals Joseph Bernardin and John O’Connor.

In addition, Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Neb., recommended the Covenant Eyes anti-pornography filtering and accountability computer program.

“I think it is the best out there,” he said.

Salt Lake City Bishop John Wester noted that the bishops’ Committee on Communications has been working on anti-pornography legislation. Bishop Curtis Guillory of Beaumont, Texas, said his diocese recently held a workshop on the issue for priests. Many of his priests said that they previously lacked information on pornography.

Another speaker, Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, asked that the statement highlight social aspects of pornography, including exploitation of women and children in the U.S. and abroad.

Bishop Malone said that possible statement topics include chastity and sexuality; basic information about pornography, its use and its effects on users and users’ families; the negative effects of pornography on society; an “authentic vision” of the human person; and “the mercy, grace of conversion and freedom Christ offers through his Church, especially through the sacraments and prayer.”

He said the statement could also recommend “proven practical resources” for pornography users, their loved ones, and clergy.

Now that the proposal for the statement has been approved, it must be drafted by bishops working in committee and then presented to the bishops at a future meeting.

As Wise as Pigeons: Lessons Never Learned - by Anthony Esolen

In Crisis

Why must the children of light always be ten revolutions and a hundred years behind the children of darkness?  If we cannot always defeat our enemies on the battlefield, can’t we at least learn to recognize their tactics so that we won’t be fooled the next time?  Never mind that.  Can’t we learn to recognize, from the bullets whistling past our ears and our comrades lying beside us shot through the heart, that they are our enemies?

Several days ago I was at a tent meeting with some of the oddest of the children of light.  These Christians preach Christ, and Him crucified.  Indeed, they preach so doggedly about Christ’s atonement for our sins and our complete helplessness to save ourselves, that they never get around to talking our new life in Christ.  Every day is Good Friday, and what happened on Easter merely confirms the power of Christ’s blood and so redirects our attention to the Cross.

None of this is wrong, as far as it goes.  But it doesn’t go far.  I have a soft spot in my heart for underdogs, especially when they preach about the Lord to a people stultified by bad schools, television, and the unutterable banality of vice.  I wish my friends well, though I suspect they believe I’m not “saved,” because I haven’t been struck blind on the road to Damascus.  My conversion was slower and more embarrassing, but that’s another story.

After the meeting I enjoyed refreshments with the members of the group, including several young people, three lads and a lass, between seventeen and twenty four years old.  We got to talking about school.  I’m an American, but we spend our summers in Canada, in Cape Breton.  And since I always ask my freshmen at Providence College what they’ve studied in high schools public and parochial, and, more to the point, what they have not studied, what they haven’t ever heard of, I asked the same questions to these pleasant Canadians.

“I’m going to name a few English writers,” I said.  “All I want to know is whether you recognize the names.  You don’t have to tell me anything about them.”  These people were bright enough, as you could tell from their presence at the meeting and their conversation.

Milton.  No recognition.  Wordsworth.  No recognition.  Tennyson.  One of the boys said, “Albert?”  That was a hint that he had once heard the name.  “Close,” I said.  “Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the great Victorian poet.  Can you tell me anything about him?”  No, nothing.  “What on earth do you do in school for twelve years?” I asked.  That’s a question I’ve asked a thousand times, in both countries.  They laughed.  They were not going to defend their schools, not even as Canadians to an American.  They knew they were indefensible.

They did tell me that they read Shakespeare, one play a year, detached from the history of England, from the tradition of English literature, and, most disappointing, from Shakespeare’s Christian faith.  Shakespeare is the most theological of English dramatists.  It’s not simply that he alludes to scripture all the time.  It’s that entire plays are structured around theological questions—and are incomprehensible without the foundation of the Christian story.

Here the young lady became the lead interlocutor.  She was the oldest and had read the most.  She wouldn’t allow that Shakespeare was a profoundly Christian author; not because her interpretation of Shakespeare differed from mine, but because, in comparison with the gospel, the Christian writer meant nothing, even if he was the greatest dramatist who ever lived.  She understood that many people flourished by being taught at home, but she was glad she went to high school, not for what she learned there, which she admitted was not a lot, but because it gave her the opportunity to witness to Jesus.

I couldn’t let matters rest.  “But that’s not what school is for,” I said.  “Look at what you might have learned, in a sane world.  You might have learned about Bach, that giant of a composer, who dedicated every work he composed to the name of Jesus Christ!”  She shrugged and said she enjoyed Bach, but she wouldn’t go so far as to call him a Christian.  She was moved not one inch by the wealth of Christian history, art, music, drama, and poetry that she had been denied the chance to study.  She said she reads Jane Austen for pleasure, but the humanities in themselves mean nothing to her.

It struck me that there’s a strange similarity between these Christians and the secularists who dominate our schools and who have eviscerated our curricula, replacing the great poets of our heritage with ephemeral scribblers upon “current events.”  That’s the one thing that cannot be taught with any perspective.  But it requires no special study (ignorance is a boon if you’re reading Maureen Dowd).  It exposes no deficiencies in the teachers.  The young people at the meeting didn’t care about Wordsworth or Tennyson, because they had Jesus.  The secularists are worse.  They don’t care about Wordsworth or Tennyson, because they have Tony Kushner or some other purveyor of twaddle.

Which brings me to the Common Core Curriculum that is being pedaled (not peddled; the governmental foot is on the accelerator) to our schools.  Apparently plenty of Catholic schools are on board, too.  That is baffling.  Every big “reform” of the public schools for the last sixty years has been disastrous—the expunging of any trace of religion from the classroom; the replacement of small schools with hulking institutions; the consolidation of school boards to attenuate local control and personal oversight; the abandonment of geography; the shift from history to current events; the New Math; the basal reader; comic books to amuse the poorer students in high school; the war on boys; the expansion of health class to “sex education” (what the heck is so complicated?); the corruption of the latter; teaching to standardized tests; the absurdly biased textbooks; the abandonment of any systematic study of grammar; teaching foreign languages “conversationally,” which means, in effect, illiterately; the abandonment of math-based sciences such as physics and chemistry, in favor of biology, reduced to ecology, reduced to cuddles; what on earth would make us think that anything this system produces can do us any good?  Homeschoolers enjoy their signal and mortifying success largely because they see everything that is done in school and then go and do precisely the opposite.

So why should Catholic schools line up for a curriculum that stiffs literature and the arts?  Why accept a curriculum whose utilitarian presuppositions are inimical to everything that a Catholic is supposed to believe about human flourishing?  Why, to recall the article published here a few days ago, rush to adopt the Big History program promoted by atheist Bill Gates—a program that certainly is Big but is sorely lacking in History, that is permeated with determinist assumptions regarding human life, and that wholly ignores or reviles the single most significant event in human history (the one event my young evangelizers know about and cherish), and that wholly ignores or reviles the single most culturally dynamic institution in human history, the Church?  Why should John Dewey or Bill Gates write our curricula?  That would be like having Alfred Kinsey write our sex education lessons.  Ah, but I forget—we have those, don’t we?  Or it would be like having Carl Rogers run a “spiritual” retreat for nuns—ah yes, we did that too, didn’t we?  It would be like hiring the disciples of the secularist architects Gropius and Von der Rohe to design worship-machines for us, boxes that consign the Stations of the Cross to scratches of graffiti a hundred feet away, and that awake no sense of mystery, and recall no rich heritage of symbols and gestures—but wait, we built those boxes, and when we didn’t build them, we transmogrified perfectly lovely churches into their image and likeness; and we breathed upon them, and they became mausoleums.

But why should there even be a national curriculum?  Have we lost our minds?  Have we forgotten who and what we are?  A man and woman marry and have children, and the responsibility to educate those children rests upon them, because children aren’t bottle caps to be stamped with the same label, one after another.  The principle of incarnation forbids it.  One home cannot be a copy of another, because the spiritual, intellectual, artisanal, and physical strengths of one couple and their kin are not the same as those of another.  No two siblings are alike.  The very idea of a national curriculum, to be pedaled upon the children of three hundred millions, should be repugnant to a freedom-loving people, and anathema to people of faith.

Here I throw my hands up in despair, because the leaders of my church, after a hundred years of the attenuation of genuine community life, consumed by Big This and That, still cannot understand that there’s as much difference between a community and a faceless aggregate as there is between a free man and a numbered inmate in a prison.  They cannot understand that even if the National Curriculum were acceptable—even if, this time, the man who sold us rat poison for corn meal is going to give us healthy food—that there should be no such, that the very existence of a National Curriculum fundamentally alters the relationship of the citizen, the school, the town, the state, and even the family to the national government?  Why is that so hard to grasp?

Then there’s the Catholic Health Association, giving its lordly fiat potestas—let there be might—to the national government, to control every feature of our health care system.  What has made the bishops so slow to understand that, even if a nifty legal filter could pick out the specks of rat poison in the meal for Catholic schools and hospitals, that doesn’t do a damned thing for individual Catholics, or for other Christian objectors, or simply for people of good faith who don’t want to pony up for somebody else’s pills or diaphragms or snuffed babies?  Why have they not seen that a nationalized medical system also fundamentally alters the relationship between the government and the citizen?  Why can’t they divine the difference between inequalities that result by circumstance, and rationing as a matter of principle?  They’ve climbed into the lifeboat, then they object if the skipper mistreats them—when the thing to do was to reject the lifeboat and its principles, and to use our own resources and our Christian mandate to assist people in need.

The wise Laocoon hurled his lance at the wooden horse and cried, “I fear the Greeks, even when they are bringing gifts!”  Why, why must the children of light say, “Look here, Mammon’s going to build us a new school and a new hospital, and they’re free!”

As wise as pigeons—or as innocent as snakes.

U.S. Catholic Relief Services distributes abortifacients in Madagascar: on-the-ground investigation by Patrick B. Craine

MADAGASCAR, July 25, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An on-the-ground investigation in Madagascar has found that the U.S. Bishops’ relief agency is distributing contraceptives and abortifacients in the African country as part of a cross-country program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The news comes as CRS scrambles to affirm its commitment to upholding Catholic teaching after LifeSiteNews revealed they had given over $13 million to the pro-abortion CARE in 2012, and are in the midst of giving a $2.7 million grant to the leading abortion-marketing firm Population Services International.

The Population Research Institute issued the first of a series of reports this afternoon after they sent an investigator to Madagascar for a month to interview officials and witness the Catholic agency’s work first-hand.

According to PRI’s report, the Catholic agency employs over 250 community health workers in the country who distribute contraceptives “under the name of Catholic Relief Services.”

See the Population Research Institute's report here.

PRI reports that USAID has divided the country into districts called “communes” which are each serviced by a different NGO. Each NGO is responsible for offering the “whole package of health activities” in its communes, including contraceptive and abortifacient drugs and devices.

PRI’s investigator interviewed USAID and CRS officials, who confirmed that CRS carries out the “same work” in its 125 communes as other NGOs do in theirs.

“We all [NGOs] do the same work, including in the area of family planning,” a CRS zone supervisor informed the investigator.

“For us, there’s nothing special with CRS: CRS works in family planning just like the others,” Jean Patrick Bourahimou, program manager for USAID-SantéNet, told PRI. “We, the USAID technical specialists, are there for that, precisely to assure that the implementers from the different consortium members are using the same approach.”

 A CRS business card in Madagascar includes CARE's logo.

Credit: Population Research Institute, pop.org

USAID officials also told PRI that CRS’ community health workers are given the same training as other NGO workers. According to the officials, “structural mechanisms were in place to ensure that all health workers used and promoted the same family planning programs, regardless of their NGO associations,” writes PRI.

The pro-life group points out that the head of one of CRS’ regional offices in the country, Andry Ramamonjisoa, used to work for the United Nations Population Fund. “Before this [CRS], I worked with UNFPA, mainly dealing with family planning,” he told them.

The pro-life organization also reports that the pro-abortion group CARE runs USAID communes in the country, and that CRS and CARE work so closely that CRS business cards have CARE’s logo on them in addition to CRS’ logo, and vice versa for CARE.

Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, who authored the report along with media coordinator Anne Roback Morse, told LifeSiteNews that their investigator has over 25 years of experience working with NGOs.

“Why would an ostensibly ‘Catholic’ organization decide to carry out such an objectively immoral program to begin with?” ask Mosher and Roback Morse in the report. “Was it the money? Was it pressure from USAID? Was it the progressive abandonment of its Catholic identity in favor of a comforting and undemanding view of itself as being merely one more secular humanitarian relief agency?”

“How many children have been aborted or contracepted out of existence by CRS?” they ask. “CRS should be able to tell us a number.  After all, all NGOs are required to submit periodic reports to USAID on their performance in increasing the ‘contraceptive prevalence rate.’”

“The Catholic Church teaches hard Truths, to be sure, but those individuals and organizations who would call themselves ‘Catholic’ are duty-bound to abide by them.”

Mosher and Roback Morse conclude by saying they hope the report “will be of assistance to the American bishops in carrying out much-needed reforms at Catholic Relief Services.”

LifeSiteNews contacted CRS for comment but did not hear back by press time.

Contact info:

Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Piazza del S. Uffizio, 11, 00193 Roma, Italy
phone: (011) 39-06-6988-3357
phone: (011) 39-06-6988-3413
Fax: (011) 39-06-6988-3409
E-mail: cdf@cfaith.va

Find contact information for all U.S. Bishops here.

Readers may also comment on Catholic Relief Services’ Facebook page.

Cardenal Dolan: Mandato abortista de Obama sigue amenazando libertad religiosa en EEUU

WASHINGTON D.C., 10 Jul. 13 / 10:35 pm (ACI/EWTN Noticias).- El Presidente de la Conferencia de Obispos Católicos de Estados Unidos (USCCB), Cardenal Timothy Dolan, señaló que los Obispos del país advierten que a pesar de los cambios del documento final del mandato del Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos (HHS), que obliga a las empresas a brindar planes de salud con tratamientos abortivos, la regulación sigue amenazando la capacidad de la Iglesia "para llevar a cabo la misión y el ministerio de Jesucristo".

El mandato de la HHS, exige que las empresas paguen en la cobertura de los planes de salud de sus trabajadores, tratamientos tales como esterilizaciones, anticonceptivos y fármacos abortivos.

Esta norma expedida en virtud de la Ley de Cuidado de Salud Asequible, se ha convertido en objeto de demandas al estado de más de 200 empleadores que alegan que se les obliga a violar sus creencias religiosas.
 
En medio de protestas en todo el país, el gobierno de Obama se ha comprometido en un proceso de varios pasos para modificar el mandato con el fin de permitir la libertad religiosa.
 
El primer cambio se dió a conocer el primero de febrero, permitiendo excepciones a algunas entidades religiosas pero no incluía obras de caridad, servicios sociales, y demás instituciones que están afiliadas a estas. La publicación final del mandato realizado el 28 de junio ha completado ese proceso.
 
Sin embargo el también Arzobispo de Nueva York, en una declaración de 3 de julio, explicó que hasta el momento no han concluido el análisis de la regulación final pero existen “algunos de los elementos básicos de esta regla que ya han entrado en el enfoque”, subrayando que la Conferencia no ha descubierto ningún nuevo cambio que elimine la necesidad de seguir defendiendo nuestros derechos en el Congreso y los tribunales".
 
La regla final permite que algunos empleadores religiosos tengan una exención total del mandato. Para calificar, deben cumplir con los criterios establecidos en febrero que "se refieren a las iglesias, sus auxiliares integrados y convenciones o asociaciones de iglesias, así como para las actividades exclusivamente religiosos de cualquier orden religiosa ".
 
El gobierno ha declarado que esto cubrirá principalmente "iglesias, otros cultos y sus organizaciones afiliadas".
Grupos religiosos que no están afiliados a un culto específico, como muchos hospitales religiosos, escuelas y organizaciones de caridad, no están cubiertos por la exención. Para hacer frente a estos grupos, el gobierno está ofreciendo una "acomodación" en su lugar.
 
La “acomodación” definitiva requerirá a los emisores de seguros "proporcionar pagos por los servicios de anticoncepción" directamente a las mujeres que trabajan para empleadores religiosos que se oponen a proveerlos.
 
Si un empleador religioso es asegurado por sí mismo, un tercero actuará en el lugar de una compañía de seguros para organizar el suministro de anticonceptivos de los empleados.
El Cardenal Dolan también expresó su preocupación por el intento de la administración para crear diferentes categorías de la libertad religiosa, distinguiendo entre aquellos empleadores que reciban una exención total, las que reciben sólo la acomodación y las que se están ejecutando con fines de lucro y no reciben protección alguna.
 
El Arzobispo señaló que los obispos "están preocupados como pastores por la libertad de la Iglesia en su conjunto - no sólo para toda la gama de sus formas institucionales, sino también para los fieles en su vida diaria - para llevar a cabo la misión y el ministerio de Jesucristo".
 
El Purpurado afirmó que los obispos de Estados Unidos "seguirán examinando" los cambios en el documento de 110 páginas y tendrá más que decir sobre el mandato después de determinar si minará "la proclamación efectiva" de enseñanza de la Iglesia por parte de grupos religiosos.

It is disturbing that so very little has been said by Catholic bishops in response to “Catholic” Melinda Gates’ giant international birth control program. Money, millions in fact, appears to be behind the silence - by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

September 21, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Since the launch of self-professed “practicing Catholic” Melinda Gates’ $4 billion global campaign to deliver abortion-inducing contraceptives to up to 120 million women worldwide, major media outlets have noted her open defiance of Catholic teaching on sexual morality. 

“Melinda Gates Takes on the Vatican,” blared one British newspaper in July. “Melinda Gates challenges Vatican,” said another. LifeSiteNews’ own characterization of the campaign, a “blatant attack on Catholic sexual morality,” was quoted by CNN, Time, and other major periodicals both in the United States and abroad. 

However, despite Gates’ very public and aggressive international effort to distribute unhealthy drugs that violate Catholic sexual morality and even kill the unborn, Catholic Church officials have been virtually silent on the matter with not a public word coming from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) or even Gates’ own bishop.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales were also mute in the face of Gates’ “Family Planning Summit,” held in their country, which generated over four billion dollars for her campaign.

According to American Life League President Judie Brown, she has contacted Gates’ Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain several times regarding Gates’ activities, and has never received an answer, nor even an acknowledgment of her correspondence. 

CNN has tried to get the Catholic side of the story as well, but was met with silence. “As far as the broader Catholic church stance on the Gates program, CNN requested a comment from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, but did not get a response,” wrote the news agency at the launch of the campaign.

The only official statement to come out on the matter thus far has had to come from the Vatican. The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano criticized Gates as having an “unfounded and second-rate understanding” of Catholic teaching on contraception. Moreover, Gates was accused of “disinformation, presenting things in a false manner” to the detriment of the poor in the developing world. 

Even the Vatican response however, was not issued by an Bishop, nor did it mention the moral implications of contraception, or suggest a sanction of Gates’ privileges as a Catholic.

The only US prelate who has spoken even tangentially about the campaign is Dallas Bishop Kevin J. Farrell, in a statement that apparently sought to address the alleged endorsement of Gates’ campaign by the nuns of the Ursuline Academy of Dallas, a school within the boundaries of his diocese.

Referring only to “recent news events,” without naming Gates or the nuns, Farrell noted that “Human sexuality and sexual expression in marriage are among God’s greatest gifts” and that “Artificial contraception violates the meaning of this gift.”

However, the statement made by Farrell has now disappeared from its original web page, and Google’s database has no record of it being posted anywhere else on the site.

Some priests, and many lay Catholics, have raised their voices against the campaign, most notably Human Life International, led by Fr. Shenan Boquet, and the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a lay organization specializing in international law and institutions, led by Austin Ruse.

Human Life International has created a web page and a powerful video presentation to combat the errors, while C-FAM has given interviews and has written its own refutations of Gates’ propaganda. Several Catholic media outlets, such as the National Catholic Register, Catholic World Report, and Britain’s Catholic Herald have also sounded off against Gates’ cynical campaign.

Meanwhile, the Church’s hierarchy remains virtually speechless, and Gates’ claim to be a pro-contraception “Catholic” stands unchallenged by ecclesiastical authority.

The USCCB in retreat?

Where are the Church’s leaders, the bishops, in this moment of crisis? Archbishop Dolan, President of the USCCB, only recently admitted that the hierarchy “forfeited the chance to be a coherent moral voice when it comes to one of the more burning issues of the day,” by failing to communicate the Church’s teaching on artificial birth control to the faithful in recent decades.

Pope Paul VI’s condemnation of contraception in 1968, “brought such a tsunami of dissent, departure, disapproval of the church, that I think most of us—and I’m using the first-person plural intentionally, including myself—kind of subconsciously said, ‘Whoa. We’d better never talk about that, because it’s just too hot to handle’,” said Dolan in early April.

“We have gotten gun-shy . . . in speaking with any amount of cogency on chastity and sexual morality,” he added.

However, Dolan’s office at the USCCB is now sitting on its hands as a self-identified Catholic launches the largest, most expensive campaign in the history of the world to bring abortifacient contraceptive drugs, with dangerous side effects, to millions of impoverished women worldwide.

Skeletons in the closet? The USCCB’s international aid agency receives millions from Gates

Although the USCCB has shown great signs of improvement of late on matters related to human life and family, it may have reasons for staying silent about Melinda Gates’ contraceptive campaign.

The USCCB’s international aid agency, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), receives tens of millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation itself, and repeats the organization’s claim that it is “guided by the belief that every life has equal value,” adding that “the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives.”

CRS’ relationship with the Gates Foundation creates an obvious conflict of interest. Moreover, as LifeSiteNews.com has reported recently, CRS itself has been involved in the promotion of birth control, and has donated millions of dollars to a contraceptive-distributing organization known as CARE. 

These unsavory relationships would likely be embarrassing to the bishops if they were to speak forcefully and clearly against Gates’ horrendous campaign.

The responsibility for this sad situation, however, lies not only with the bishops, but also with the laity, who often fail to encourage the hierarchy to remain firm under pressure. The Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church, however, establishes the right and even the duty of laymen to make their minds known to their prelates. Perhaps the bishops are only in need of some support from the faithful.

Contact information:

Pope Benedict XVI
benedictxvi@vatican.va

 

Msgr. Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Prefect
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Piazza del S. Uffizio, 11, 00193 Roma, Italy
phone: 011.3906.69.88.33.57
phone: 011.3906.69.88.34.13
Fax: (011 or other code for international calls) 39-06-69-88-34-09
E-mail: cdf@cfaith.va

 

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 Fourth Street NE
Washington DC 20017
202-541-3000
Email: http://www.usccb.org/about/contact-us.cfm

 

Archbishop J. Peter Sartain
Archdiocese of Seattle
710 9th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104
Phone: 206-382-4560
Fax: 206-382-4840
mary.santi@seattlearch.org

Join Michael Voris for his comments on the recent United States Supreme Court decision concerning Obamacare.

Rescatan dos textos procatólicos de Lincoln para la inminente campaña por la libertad religiosa

In Religión en Libertad

"Algunas leyes injustas imponen tales injusticias sobre individuos u organizaciones, que desobedecer las leyes puede estar justificado. Deben hacerse todos los esfuerzos posibles para rechazarlas. Cuando bienes humanos fundamentales, como el derecho de conciencia, están en juego, hemos de ser testigos de la verdad resistiendo a la ley e incurriendo en la sanción correspondiente".

Este texto, contundente como pocos, expresa la voluntad decidida de los católicos norteamericanos de resistir al plan de Barack Obama de imponer a las instituciones de la Iglesia que los seguros sociales de sus empleados incluyan anticonceptivos y abortivos. Lo han redactado los obispos de Estados Unidos y será incluido en todos los boletines parroquiales y leído en todas las iglesias durante la Quincena por la Libertad que han convocado del 21 de junio al 4 de julio.

La fecha en que termina no es casual. El 4 de julio celebran los estadounidenses la declaración de independencia de su país y es el día patriótico por excelencia, un patriotismo que incluye allí el orgullo de haber constituido una nación sobre la base de la libertad religiosa, a punto de ser conculcada como en ningún país occidental.

Lincoln defendió a los católicos
En el contexto de esta batalla ideológica y legal, grupos católicos han rescatado dos textos de Abraham Lincoln donde defendía explícitamente a los católicos de los ataques que, a pesar de las afirmaciones legales, también sufrieron en otras épocas de la historia del país.

Entre los días 6 y 8 de mayo de 1844 tuvieron lugar violentos disturbios contra los católicos en Filadelfia. El 12 de junio, Lincoln convocó un mítin en Springfield(Illinois), que incluyó una declaración expresa de apoyo a los católicos ante esa persecución: "La garantía de los derechos de conciencia, en cuanto fundada en nuestra Constitución, es sagrada e inviolable, y corresponde a los católicos no menos que a los protestantes. Y cualquiera que viole esos derechos, sea católico o protestante, lo haga directa o indirectamente, cuenta con nuestra desaprobación decidida y nuestra más eficaz oposición. Reprobamos y condenados todos y cada uno de los incidentes de Filadelfia y las causas que los provocaron, vengan de donde vengan".

Del mismo modo, en 1855, en pleno auge del movimiento Know Nothing, que se oponía al creciente papel de las minorías alemana e irlandesa en la sociedad estadounidense, Lincoln desautorizó cualquier intento de vincularle a ese grupo: "No soy un Know-Nothing. ¿Cómo podría serlo? ¿Cómo puede alguien que se opone a la opresión de los negros estar a favor de la opresión contra personas blancas? Creo que nuestro camino de degeneración está siendo muy rápido. Como nación, comenzamos declarando que todos los hombres fueron creados iguales. Ahora prácticamente lo interpretamos como que todos los hombres fueron creados iguales, menos los negros. Cuando los Know Nothing tomen el control, se leerá que todos los hombres fueron creados iguales, menos los negros, los extranjeros y los católicos. Cuando eso suceda preferiría emigrar a un país que no presuma de amar la libertad: a Rusia, por ejemplo, donde el despotismo es puro, sin aleación alguna de hipocresía".

Apropiación indebida
La utilización de textos de Abraham Lincoln contra Obama es especialmente apropiada para alguien como el actual presidente, que ha intentado apropiarse la figura de su predecesor asesinado en 1865, remedando incluso en 2008 el viaje en tren que hizo aquél hasta Washington para instalarse en la Casa Blanca.

Recientemente, una biografía sobre Lincoln (Ahora y para siempre, libres, de Martín Alonso, en la editorial Gota a Gota) denunciaba este intento de apropiación de aquel presidente por grupos progresistas. Mientras que Obama es un relativista, Alonso sitúa a Lincoln en esa tradición aristotélico-cristiana que cree en unos derechos naturales del individuo independientes de cualquier mayoría democrática. Razón por la cual se opuso a la esclavitud y se opondría hoy, afirma el autor, al aborto. En su opinión, los sudistas -como los relativistas hoy- entroncaban más bien con la tradición que nace en Kant y cuaja en el despotismo rousseauniano de la voluntad general y de un historicismo que no cree en verdades objetivas e inmutables.

La lucha por la libertad religiosa en Estados Unidos, que habría parecido algo impensable en aquel país hace sólo un año, se ha convertido en uno de los temas estrella de la campaña presidencial. Está en juego la supervivencia de prácticamente todas las instituciones católicas de acción social en el país, sobre todo escuelas y hospitales. La Iglesia cuenta con el apoyo de las demás confesiones religiosas, y ha dejado bien claro que no va a aceptar la ley, esto es, que cerrará todos los centros a los que se les obligue a garantizar a sus empleados métodos contrarios a la ley de Dios.

Cardinal Dolan: President Obama's Remarks on Marriage 'Deeply Saddening'

In USCCB

May 9, 2012

WASHINGTON—Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), issued the following statement:

President Obama’s comments today in support of the redefinition of marriage are deeply saddening. As I stated in my public letter to the President on September 20, 2011, the Catholic Bishops stand ready to affirm every positive measure taken by the President and the Administration to strengthen marriage and the family. However, we cannot be silent in the face of words or actions that would undermine the institution of marriage, the very cornerstone of our society. The people of this country, especially our children, deserve better. Unfortunately, President Obama’s words today are not surprising since they follow upon various actions already taken by his Administration that erode or ignore the unique meaning of marriage. I pray for the President every day, and will continue to pray that he and his Administration act justly to uphold and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman. May we all work to promote and protect marriage and by so doing serve the true good of all persons.

Bispos US preparam católicos para perseguição e martírio - A Statement on Religious Liberty

In USCCB 

Our First, Most Cherished Liberty

A Statement on Religious Liberty

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty

We are Catholics. We are Americans. We are proud to be both, grateful for the gift of faith which is ours as Christian disciples, and grateful for the gift of liberty which is ours as American citizens. To be Catholic and American should mean not having to choose one over the other. Our allegiances are distinct, but they need not be contradictory, and should instead be complementary. That is the teaching of our Catholic faith, which obliges us to work together with fellow citizens for the common good of all who live in this land. That is the vision of our founding and our Constitution, which guarantees citizens of all religious faiths the right to contribute to our common life together.

Freedom is not only for Americans, but we think of it as something of our special inheritance, fought for at a great price, and a heritage to be guarded now. We are stewards of this gift, not only for ourselves but for all nations and peoples who yearn to be free. Catholics in America have discharged this duty of guarding freedom admirably for many generations.

In 1887, when the archbishop of Baltimore, James Gibbons, was made the second American cardinal, he defended the American heritage of religious liberty during his visit to Rome to receive the red hat. Speaking of the great progress the Catholic Church had made in the United States, he attributed it to the "civil liberty we enjoy in our enlightened republic." Indeed, he made a bolder claim, namely that "in the genial atmosphere of liberty [the Church] blossoms like a rose."1

From well before Cardinal Gibbons, Catholics in America have been advocates for religious liberty, and the landmark teaching of the Second Vatican Council on religious liberty was influenced by the American experience. It is among the proudest boasts of the Church on these shores. We have been staunch defenders of religious liberty in the past. We have a solemn duty to discharge that duty today.

We need, therefore, to speak frankly with each other when our freedoms are threatened. Now is such a time. As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we address an urgent summons to our fellow Catholics and fellow Americans to be on guard, for religious liberty is under attack, both at home and abroad.

This has been noticed both near and far. Pope Benedict XVI recently spoke about his worry that religious liberty in the United States is being weakened. He called it the "most cherished of American freedoms"—and indeed it is. All the more reason to heed the warning of the Holy Father, a friend of America and an ally in the defense of freedom, in his recent address to American bishops:

Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion. Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

Here once more we see the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church's participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society.2

 

Religious Liberty Under Attack—Concrete Examples

Is our most cherished freedom truly under threat? Sadly, it is. This is not a theological or legal dispute without real world consequences. Consider the following:

• HHS mandate for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. The mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services has received wide attention and has been met with our vigorous and united opposition. In an unprecedented way, the federal government will both force religious institutions to facilitate and fund a product contrary to their own moral teaching and purport to define which religious institutions are "religious enough" to merit protection of their religious liberty. These features of the "preventive services" mandate amount to an unjust law. As Archbishop-designate William Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, testified to Congress: "This is not a matter of whether contraception may be prohibited by the government. This is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government. Instead, it is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization, even if that violates their religious beliefs."3
• State immigration laws. Several states have recently passed laws that forbid what the government deems "harboring" of undocumented immigrants—and what the Church deems Christian charity and pastoral care to those immigrants. Perhaps the most egregious of these is in Alabama, where the Catholic bishops, in cooperation with the Episcopal and Methodist bishops of Alabama, filed suit against the law:

  It is with sadness that we brought this legal action but with a deep sense that we, as people of faith, have no choice but to defend the right to the free exercise of religion granted to us as citizens of Alabama. . . . The law makes illegal the exercise of our Christian religion which we, as citizens of Alabama, have a right to follow. The law prohibits almost everything which would assist an undocumented immigrant or encourage an undocumented immigrant to live in Alabama. This new Alabama law makes it illegal for a Catholic priest to baptize, hear the confession of, celebrate the anointing of the sick with, or preach the word of God to, an undocumented immigrant. Nor can we encourage them to attend Mass or give them a ride to Mass. It is illegal to allow them to attend adult scripture study groups, or attend CCD or Sunday school classes. It is illegal for the clergy to counsel them in times of difficulty or in preparation for marriage. It is illegal for them to come to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings or other recovery groups at our churches.4

• Altering Church structure and governance. In 2009, the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut Legislature proposed a bill that would have forced Catholic parishes to be restructured according to a congregational model, recalling the trusteeism controversy of the early nineteenth century, and prefiguring the federal government's attempts to redefine for the Church "religious minister" and "religious employer" in the years since.
• Christian students on campus.In its over-100-year history, the University of California Hastings College of Law has denied student organization status to only one group, the Christian Legal Society, because it required its leaders to be Christian and to abstain from sexual activity outside of marriage.
• Catholic foster care and adoption services. Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and the state of Illinois have driven local Catholic Charities out of the business of providing adoption or foster care services—by revoking their licenses, by ending their government contracts, or both—because those Charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried opposite-sex couples who cohabit.
• Discrimination against small church congregations. New York City enacted a rule that barred the Bronx Household of Faith and sixty other churches from renting public schools on weekends for worship services even though non-religious groups could rent the same schools for scores of other uses. While this would not frequently affect Catholic parishes, which generally own their own buildings, it would be devastating to many smaller congregations. It is a simple case of discrimination against religious believers.
• Discrimination against Catholic humanitarian services. Notwithstanding years of excellent performance by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services in administering contract services for victims of human trafficking, the federal government changed its contract specifications to require us to provide or refer for contraceptive and abortion services in violation of Catholic teaching. Religious institutions should not be disqualified from a government contract based on religious belief, and they do not somehow lose their religious identity or liberty upon entering such contracts. And yet a federal court in Massachusetts, turning religious liberty on its head, has since declared that such a disqualification is required by the First Amendment—that the government somehow violates religious liberty by allowing Catholic organizations to participate in contracts in a manner consistent with their beliefs on contraception and abortion.

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? Without religious liberty properly understood, all Americans suffer, deprived of the essential contribution in education, health care, feeding the hungry, civil rights, and social services that religious Americans make every day, both here at home and overseas.

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. Religious believers are part of American civil society, which includes neighbors helping each other, community associations, fraternal service clubs, sports leagues, and youth groups. All these Americans make their contribution to our common life, and they do not need the permission of the government to do so. Restrictions on religious liberty are an attack on civil society and the American genius for voluntary associations.

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America issued a statement about the administration's contraception and sterilization mandate that captured exactly the danger that we face:

Most troubling, is the Administration's underlying rationale for its decision, which appears to be a view that if a religious entity is not insular, but engaged with broader society, it loses its "religious" character and liberties. Many faiths firmly believe in being open to and engaged with broader society and fellow citizens of other faiths. The Administration's ruling makes the price of such an outward approach the violation of an organization's religious principles. This is deeply disappointing.5

This is not a Catholic issue. This is not a Jewish issue. This is not an Orthodox, Mormon, or Muslim issue. It is an American issue.

The Most Cherished of American Freedoms

In 1634, a mix of Catholic and Protestant settlers arrived at St. Clement's Island in Southern Maryland from England aboard the Ark and the Dove. They had come at the invitation of the Catholic Lord Baltimore, who had been granted Maryland by the Protestant King Charles I of England. While Catholics and Protestants were killing each other in Europe, Lord Baltimore imagined Maryland as a society where people of different faiths could live together peacefully. This vision was soon codified in Maryland's 1649 Act Concerning Religion (also called the "Toleration Act"), which was the first law in our nation's history to protect an individual's right to freedom of conscience.

Maryland's early history teaches us that, like any freedom, religious liberty requires constant vigilance and protection, or it will disappear. Maryland's experiment in religious toleration ended within a few decades. The colony was placed under royal control, and the Church of England became the established religion. Discriminatory laws, including the loss of political rights, were enacted against those who refused to conform. Catholic chapels were closed, and Catholics were restricted to practicing their faith in their homes. The Catholic community lived under these conditions until the American Revolution.

By the end of the 18th century, our nation's founders embraced freedom of religion as an essential condition of a free and democratic society. James Madison, often called the Father of the Constitution, described conscience as "the most sacred of all property."6 He wrote that "the Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate."7 George Washington wrote that "the establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive that induced me to the field of battle."8 Thomas Jefferson assured the Ursuline Sisters—who had been serving a mostly non-Catholic population by running a hospital, an orphanage, and schools in Louisiana since 1727—that the principles of the Constitution were a "sure guarantee" that their ministry would be free "to govern itself according to its own voluntary rules, without interference from the civil authority."9

It is therefore fitting that when the Bill of Rights was ratified, religious freedom had the distinction of being the First Amendment. Religious liberty is indeed the first liberty. The First Amendment guarantees that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Recently, in a unanimous Supreme Court judgment affirming the importance of that first freedom, the Chief Justice of the United States explained that religious liberty is not just the first freedom for Americans; rather it is the first in the history of democratic freedom, tracing its origins back the first clauses of the Magna Carta of 1215 and beyond. In a telling example, Chief Justice Roberts illustrated our history of religious liberty in light of a Catholic issue decided upon by James Madison, who guided the Bill of Rights through Congress and is known as the architect of the First Amendment:

[In 1806] John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States, solicited the Executive's opinion on who should be appointed to direct the affairs of the Catholic Church in the territory newly acquired by the Louisiana Purchase. After consulting with President Jefferson, then-Secretary of State James Madison responded that the selection of church "functionaries" was an "entirely ecclesiastical" matter left to the Church's own judgment. The "scrupulous policy of the Constitution in guarding against a political interference with religious affairs," Madison explained, prevented the Government from rendering an opinion on the "selection of ecclesiastical individuals."10

That is our American heritage, our most cherished freedom. It is the first freedom because if we are not free in our conscience and our practice of religion, all other freedoms are fragile. If citizens are not free in their own consciences, how can they be free in relation to others, or to the state? If our obligations and duties to God are impeded, or even worse, contradicted by the government, then we can no longer claim to be a land of the free, and a beacon of hope for the world.

Our Christian Teaching

During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Americans shone the light of the Gospel on a dark history of slavery, segregation, and racial bigotry. The civil rights movement was an essentially religious movement, a call to awaken consciences, not only an appeal to the Constitution for America to honor its heritage of liberty.

In his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. boldly said, "The goal of America is freedom." As a Christian pastor, he argued that to call America to the full measure of that freedom was the specific contribution Christians are obliged to make. He rooted his legal and constitutional arguments about justice in the long Christian tradition:

I would agree with Saint Augustine that "An unjust law is no law at all." Now what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.11

It is a sobering thing to contemplate our government enacting an unjust law. An unjust law cannot be obeyed. In the face of an unjust law, an accommodation is not to be sought, especially by resorting to equivocal words and deceptive practices. If we face today the prospect of unjust laws, then Catholics in America, in solidarity with our fellow citizens, must have the courage not to obey them. No American desires this. No Catholic welcomes it. But if it should fall upon us, we must discharge it as a duty of citizenship and an obligation of faith.

It is essential to understand the distinction between conscientious objection and an unjust law. Conscientious objection permits some relief to those who object to a just law for reasons of conscience—conscription being the most well-known example. An unjust law is "no law at all." It cannot be obeyed, and therefore one does not seek relief from it, but rather its repeal.

The Christian church does not ask for special treatment, simply the rights of religious freedom for all citizens. Rev. King also explained that the church is neither the master nor the servant of the state, but its conscience, guide, and critic.

As Catholics, we know that our history has shadows too in terms of religious liberty, when we did not extend to others the proper respect for this first freedom. But the teaching of the Church is absolutely clear about religious liberty:

The human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that in matters religious no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs … whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits. . . . This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed. Thus it is to become a civil right.12

As Catholics, we are obliged to defend the right to religious liberty for ourselves and for others. We are happily joined in this by our fellow Christians and believers of other faiths.

A recent letter to President Obama from some sixty religious leaders, including Christians of many denominations and Jews, argued that "it is emphatically not only Catholics who deeply object to the requirement that health plans they purchase must provide coverage of contraceptives that include some that are abortifacients."13

More comprehensively, a theologically rich and politically prudent declaration from Evangelicals and Catholics Together made a powerful case for greater vigilance in defense of religious freedom, precisely as a united witness animated by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.14 Their declaration makes it clear that as Christians of various traditions we object to a "naked public square," stripped of religious arguments and religious believers. We do not seek a "sacred public square" either, which gives special privileges and benefits to religious citizens. Rather, we seek a civil public square, where all citizens can make their contribution to the common good. At our best, we might call this an American public square.

The Lord Jesus came to liberate us from the dominion of sin. Political liberties are one part of that liberation, and religious liberty is the first of those liberties. Together with our fellow Christians, joined by our Jewish brethren, and in partnership with Americans of other religious traditions, we affirm that our faith requires us to defend the religious liberty granted us by God, and protected in our Constitution.

Martyrs Around the World

In this statement, as bishops of the United States, we are addressing ourselves to the situation we find here at home. At the same time, we are sadly aware that religious liberty in many other parts of the world is in much greater peril. Our obligation at home is to defend religious liberty robustly, but we cannot overlook the much graver plight that religious believers, most of them Christian, face around the world. The age of martyrdom has not passed. Assassinations, bombings of churches, torching of orphanages—these are only the most violent attacks Christians have suffered because of their faith in Jesus Christ. More systematic denials of basic human rights are found in the laws of several countries, and also in acts of persecution by adherents of other faiths.

If religious liberty is eroded here at home, American defense of religious liberty abroad is less credible. And one common threat, spanning both the international and domestic arenas, is the tendency to reduce the freedom of religion to the mere freedom of worship. Therefore, it is our task to strengthen religious liberty at home, in this and other respects, so that we might defend it more vigorously abroad. To that end, American foreign policy, as well as the vast international network of Catholic agencies, should make the promotion of religious liberty an ongoing and urgent priority.

"All the Energies the Catholic Community Can Muster"

What we ask is nothing more than that our God-given right to religious liberty be respected. We ask nothing less than that the Constitution and laws of the United States, which recognize that right, be respected.

In insisting that our liberties as Americans be respected, we know as bishops that what our Holy Father said is true. This work belongs to "an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture."

As bishops we seek to bring the light of the Gospel to our public life, but the work of politics is properly that of committed and courageous lay Catholics. We exhort them to be both engaged and articulate in insisting that as Catholics and as Americans we do not have to choose between the two. There is an urgent need for the lay faithful, in cooperation with Christians, Jews, and others, to impress upon our elected representatives the importance of continued protection of religious liberty in a free society.

We address a particular word to those holding public office. It is your noble task to govern for the common good. It does not serve the common good to treat the good works of religious believers as a threat to our common life; to the contrary, they are essential to its proper functioning. It is also your task to protect and defend those fundamental liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. This ought not to be a partisan issue. The Constitution is not for Democrats or Republicans or Independents. It is for all of us, and a great nonpartisan effort should be led by our elected representatives to ensure that it remains so.

We recognize that a special responsibility belongs to those Catholics who are responsible for our impressive array of hospitals, clinics, universities, colleges, schools, adoption agencies, overseas development projects, and social service agencies that provide assistance to the poor, the hungry, immigrants, and those faced with crisis pregnancies. You do the work that the Gospel mandates that we do. It is you who may be forced to choose between the good works we do by faith, and fidelity to that faith itself. We encourage you to hold firm, to stand fast, and to insist upon what belongs to you by right as Catholics and Americans. Our country deserves the best we have to offer, including our resistance to violations of our first freedom.

To our priests, especially those who have responsibility for parishes, university chaplaincies, and high schools, we ask for a catechesis on religious liberty suited to the souls in your care. As bishops we can provide guidance to assist you, but the courage and zeal for this task cannot be obtained from another—it must be rooted in your own concern for your flock and nourished by the graces you received at your ordination.

Catechesis on religious liberty is not the work of priests alone. The Catholic Church in America is blessed with an immense number of writers, producers, artists, publishers, filmmakers, and bloggers employing all the means of communications—both old and new media—to expound and teach the faith. They too have a critical role in this great struggle for religious liberty. We call upon them to use their skills and talents in defense of our first freedom.

Finally to our brother bishops, let us exhort each other with fraternal charity to be bold, clear, and insistent in warning against threats to the rights of our people. Let us attempt to be the "conscience of the state," to use Rev. King's words. In the aftermath of the decision on contraceptive and sterilization mandates, many spoke out forcefully. As one example, the words of one of our most senior brothers, Cardinal Roger Mahony, thirty-five years a bishop and recently retired after twenty-five years as archbishop of Los Angeles, provide a model for us here: "I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience than this ruling today. This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic community can muster."15

A Fortnight for Freedom

In particular, we recommend to our brother bishops that we focus "all the energies the Catholic community can muster" in a special way this coming summer. As pastors of the flock, our privileged task is to lead the Christian faithful in prayer.

Both our civil year and liturgical year point us on various occasions to our heritage of freedom. This year, we propose a special "fortnight for freedom," in which bishops in their own dioceses might arrange special events to highlight the importance of defending our first freedom. Our Catholic institutions also could be encouraged to do the same, especially in cooperation with other Christians, Jews, people of other faiths, and indeed, all who wish to defend our most cherished freedom.

We suggest that the fourteen days from June 21—the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More—to July 4, Independence Day, be dedicated to this "fortnight for freedom"—a great hymn of prayer for our country. Our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power—St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, St. John the Baptist, SS. Peter and Paul, and the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome. Culminating on Independence Day, this special period of prayer, study, catechesis, and public action would emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty. Dioceses and parishes around the country could choose a date in that period for special events that would constitute a great national campaign of teaching and witness for religious liberty.

In addition to this summer's observance, we also urge that the Solemnity of Christ the King—a feast born out of resistance to totalitarian incursions against religious liberty—be a day specifically employed by bishops and priests to preach about religious liberty, both here and abroad.

To all our fellow Catholics, we urge an intensification of your prayers and fasting for a new birth of freedom in our beloved country. We invite you to join us in an urgent prayer for religious liberty.

Almighty God, Father of all nations,
For freedom you have set us free in Christ Jesus (Gal 5:1).
We praise and bless you for the gift of religious liberty,
the foundation of human rights, justice, and the common good.
Grant to our leaders the wisdom to protect and promote our liberties;
By your grace may we have the courage to defend them, for ourselves and for all those who live in this blessed land.
We ask this through the intercession of Mary Immaculate, our patroness,
and in the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
with whom you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Acknowledgements

Excerpts from The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, SJ, General Editor, copyright © 1966 by America Press, Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from Pope Benedict XVI, Ad limina address to bishops of the United States, January 19, 2012, copyright © 2012, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder.

The document Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty, was developed by the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). It was approved by the Administrative Committee of the USCCB at its March 2012 meeting as a statement of the Committee and has been authorized for publication by the undersigned.

Msgr. Ronny E. Jenkins, JCD
General Secretary, USCCB

Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty

Chairman
Most Rev. William E. Lori, Archbishop-designate of Baltimore

Bishop Members
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington
Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap, Archbishop of Philadelphia
Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory, Archbishop of Atlanta
Most Rev. John C. Nienstedt, Archbishop of St. Paul–Minneapolis
Most Rev. Thomas J. Rodi, Archbishop of Mobile
Most Rev. J. Peter Sartain, Archbishop of Seattle
Most Rev. John O. Barres, Bishop of Allentown
Most Rev. Daniel E. Flores, Bishop of Brownsville
Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix
Most Rev. Thomas J. Paprocki, Bishop of Springfield, IL

Bishop Consultants
Most Rev. José H. Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles
Most Rev. Stephen E. Blaire, Bishop of Stockton
Most Rev. Joseph P. McFadden, Bishop of Harrisburg
Most Rev. Richard E. Pates, Bishop of Des Moines
Most Rev. Kevin C. Rhoades, Bishop of Fort Wayne–South Bend

ENDNotes

1. Cardinal James Gibbons, Address upon taking possession of Santa Maria in Trastevere, March 25, 1887.
2. Benedict XVI, Ad limina address to bishops of the United States, January 19, 2012.
3. Most Rev. William E. Lori, Chairman, USCCB Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, Oral Testimony Before the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives, February 28, 2012.
4. Most Rev. Thomas J. Rodi, Archbishop of Mobile, August 1, 2011.
5. Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, Statement, January 24, 2012.
6. James Madison, "Property," March 29, 1792, in The Founding Fathers, eds. Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), accessed March 27, 2012. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s23.html. . . .
7. James Madison, "Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessment," June 20, 1785, in The Founding Fathers, accessed March 27, 2012. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions43.html. . . .
8. Michael Novak and Jana Novak, Washington's God, 2006.
9. Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States (Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1950), 678.
10. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U.S. ___, 132 S. Ct. 694, 703 (2012).
11. Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963.
12. Second Vatican Council, Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae), no. 2, in The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott (New York: Guild Press, 1966).
13. Letter from Leith Anderson et al. to President Obama, December 21, 2011 (available at www.becketfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/To-President-NonCatholics-RelExemptionSigned.pdf. . . ).
14. Evangelicals and Catholics Together, "In Defense of Religious Freedom," First Things, March 2012.
15. Cardinal Roger Mahony, "Federal Government Mandate for Contraceptive/Sterilization Coverage," Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs L.A. (blog), January 20, 2012, cardinalrogermahonyblogsla.blogspot.com/2012/01/federal-government-mandate-for.html. . . .