Bishops to lead Catholics in a campaign for religious freedom in America

Catholic bishops call for national religious liberty campaign in parishes this summer

Published: Thursday, April 12, 2012

By Bruce Nolan, The Times-Picayune The Times-Picayune The nation’s Catholic bishops Thursday asserted that religious liberty and the traditions of several faiths are under attack in government and on campus. They urged Catholic pastors and laypeople across the country to push back with “all the energies the Catholic community can muster” in a national “Fortnight for Freedom” campaign ending on July 4.

Rusty Costanza/The Times-PicayuneFILE PHOTO: Three Dominican sisters from Cathedral Academy in New Orleans and Brother Mariano D. Veliz of St. Dominic's Parish, third from left, protest in front of the Hale Boggs Federal Courthouse, March 23, 2012, against the Obama Administration's mandate that faith-based hospitals and universities supply insurance coverage for procedures they find morally objectionable.

 

The bishops called for two weeks of teaching and special events beginning June 21, the vigil of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More – both executed by Henry VIII for their opposition to his marriage.
The call to action is contained in “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops published Thursday.
The document is part of the bishops’ opposition to a mandate by the federal Department of Health and Human Services requiring that Catholic universities and hospitals provide employees medical insurance coverage for artificial birth control, surgical sterilization and the so-called morning after pill.
The bishops have objected, saying all those products or procedures violate Catholic teaching.
Evangelical and Orthodox Jewish communities have objected, as well.
The Obama Administration has proposed an accommodation in which insurers would offer employees coverage for those services separate from the policies purchased by the institutions.
The bishops so far have rejected that proposal as insufficient.
Early opposition to the proclamation came from "Catholics for Choice," an organization that describes itself as a voice for Catholics "who disagree with the dictates of the Vatican on matters related to sex, marriage, family life and motherhood."
"The bishops have failed to convince Catholics in the pews to follow their prohibitions on contraception. Now, they want the government to grant them the legal right to require each of us, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, to set aside our own guaranteed freedom from government-sanctioned religious interference in our lives," the group said in a statement.
But the bishops sought to broaden their argument beyond the birth control mandate.
They offered six other examples, some involving the work of other faiths, curtailed by government or campus authority.
Among them:
A recent Alabama immigration law forbidding the “harboring” of illegal immigrants. The bishops said it effectively outlaws “Christian charity and pastoral care” offered by all faiths;
The Christian Legal Society’s banishment from the University of California’s Hastings School of Law, because the society required its leaders to be Christian and abstain from sexual activity outside marriage.
A recent rule by New York City denying small church congregations the weekend use of public schools, although the schools are open to other organizations.
They also noted that city, state and federal contractors have ended partnerships with Catholic charitable agencies over Catholic practice.
In some cases, as in Boston, San Francisco and Illinois, partnerships have ended because the Catholic agencies will not place adoptive children with same-sex couples.
Elsewhere the federal government ended a partnership with the church’s Migration and Refugee Services because the agency would not provide contraceptive or abortion services for women rescued from human trafficking.
The bishops asserted that religious freedom involves the freedom to do ministry, as well as freedom to worship.
“What is at stake is whether...the state alone will determine who gets to contribute to the common good and how they get to do it..," their statement said.
“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 bishops sketched the traditional understanding of religious tolerance, using the writings of Washington, Madison and Jefferson.
They quoted an 1804 Jeffersonian guarantee to the French Ursuline nuns of New Orleans in which Jefferson assured them the government would not interfere with their governance or their works in the newly Americanized city.
The bishops also quoted Martin Luther’s King’s letter from a Birmingham jail raising the legitimacy of resistance to an “unjust law.” But they did not place the HHS mandate in that category and did not call for resistance to it.