As so many pastors and Church leaders have taken the opportunity today to extend the Bishops' invitation to stand up for the full meaning of Religious Liberty to their flocks, I also wanted to provide some resources via this blog. From Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez, find his opening message and homily on YouTube. From the Archdiocese of Boston, find Cardinal Sean O'Malley's address and various materials: www.bostoncatholic.org/Freedom.
Today's celebration is particularly interesting because June 24 is the Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist. As Fr. Bill Neubecker, OMV pointed out this morning at St. Peter Chanel, John was an outspoken activist politically, challenging the immorality of his king, Herod. This characteristic makes him a great patron of this particular movement in the Church and in our country, giving us an example of where we must draw our bottom line in insisting upon the dignity of all of humanity and the standards that this dignity demands. Fr. Bill and Archbishop Gomez both insist that Religious Liberty has always encompassed more than freedom of worship and faith; it also includes the freedom of conscience, to be able to follow our faith-based morality without coercion.
Fr. Larry Darnell, in his brief talk this past Thursday to open the Fortnight observance at St. Peter Chanel, addressed the fact that most charitable activities of the Catholic Church, if they are not limited to serving only Catholics, effectively declassify that church or institution of its religious status. That is, by exercising the Christian spirit of charity toward all human persons in their basic needs, those institutions become legally non-Christian and thereby waive their First Amendment protections. This is huge! This kind of disqualification policy certainly does not flow from the sentiments in which our founding fathers fled their homeland and certainly does not reflect the decades of legal and judicial process in this country up to this point.
As Fr. Bill also pointed out this morning, echoing the warning of Pope Benedict XVI during the US Bishops' Ad limina visit to the Vatican, what we are experiencing is a radical secularization in our culture - a forceful removal of God from every public equation, and now extending into citizens' private affairs as well. And the Pope has written extensively on the topic of secularization and its dangers both here and in various European countries, as I was fortunate to read in my Contemporary Philosophy class this past Fall.
Joining with the whole Church, let us again implore the intercession of Mary Immaculate and the Forerunner, John the Baptist, for the restoration of the protections that millions of Americans agree religion deserves, and for the swift repentance of this great nation in every way.
Love the Immaculata!
Mariam cogita, Mariam invoca
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