Tag: religious liberty

On
Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Protect freedom to worship and serve

At their spring assembly held June 14-15 in Indianapolis, the U.S. Catholic bishops voted to made their ad hoc religious liberty committee a permanent committee.

In some ways, it is unfortunate that we need this committee at all. However, freedom of religion has eroded in our country as it has in many other parts of the world.

Freedom curtailed

Although Catholics in the United States can worship freely in our churches and homes, the freedom to practice our religion in the public arena has been questioned and even curtailed.

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Vince Metcalf

Pray that rights to life, liberty, and happiness will survive

To the editor:

We, the people of the United States of America, who profess to be Christians, are facing one of the greatest threats to our religious liberty since our forefathers included these God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence more than 200 years ago.

In a case now being heard before our U. S. Supreme Court, the constitutionality of the Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate will be decided. This mandate demands that all hospitals and clinics providing health care must also do abortions on demand to all requests and that all drug-dispensing facilities must distribute contraceptive supplies.

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Fr. Frank Pavone

Just a pinch of incense: refusing to compromise on religious principles

Guest Column

In The Offense of the Cross, W. A. Criswell points out, “The Roman Empire was the most tolerant, the most liberal, the most wise, and the most accurate in its handling of the many provinces and religions of its empire of any kingdom that ever existed. Men could worship, have temples, and do as they pleased.

“And yet the Roman Empire and the Caesars persecuted the Christians. Why? For one simple reason: the Christian refused to compromise his faith with any other religion whatsoever.”

That refusal to compromise is seen in the response of the apostles themselves to the command not to teach in the name of Jesus: “We will obey God rather than men!”

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Patrick Delaney, For the Catholic Herald

U.S. bishops call for prayer and postcard campaign addressing critical concerns

Patrick Delaney

At their annual meeting in November 2012, the U.S. Catholic bishops launched a pastoral strategy addressing critical life, marriage, and religious liberty concerns. This strategy included first and foremost a call to prayer and sacrifice along with the activism of a nationwide postcard campaign.

In addition to the continued promotion of contraception and abortifacients in our schools, neighborhoods, and in international population control programs, and the resulting sadness and crime of widespread surgical abortion, two additional recent “flashpoints” elevated the urgency of our need for prayer and action.

First ‘flashpoint’: HHS Mandate

The first is the Health and Human Services (HHS) Mandate which requires almost all employers, including Catholic employers, to pay for employees’ contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs regardless of conscientious objections. Not only, therefore, are Catholics and other people of good will expected to live in a society which promotes these evils to our young people with our tax dollars, but now the government wants us to pay for and provide them ourselves within our own communities.

Each of these practices violate what Pope Benedict XVI called the “language of creation,” traditionally referred to as the Natural Moral Law, which proceeds from the Creator and is inscribed on the human heart. And attempting to force Catholic and non-Catholic citizens to violate the laws of God the Creator is a grave affront to America’s first freedom, religious liberty, as well as to the inherent dignity of every human person.

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George Weigel

Religious liberty and its contemporary enemies

The Catholic Difference column by George WeigelIndependence Day concluded the Fortnight for Freedom mandated by the U.S. bishops, a two-week period of reflection and prayer on the defense of religious liberty that began on the vigil of the liturgical memorial of St. Thomas More.

In 2012, we may be grateful that none of us faces the headsman’s axe, as More did in Tudor England. But neither should we be indifferent to, or flippant about, the 21st-century threats to religious liberty that surround us.

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Susanna D. Herro, For the Catholic Herald

We are both Catholics and Americans

Bishop Paul J. Swain of Sioux Falls, S.D., speaks on the topic of religious freedom to the St. Thomas More Society in Madison. (Catholic Herald photo/Kat Wagner)

MADISON — Religious liberty is one of the first values protected in the Bill of Rights. People had come to America to avoid religious persecution and so those writing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution knew the importance of providing for religious liberty.

Bishop Paul J. Swain, formerly in the Air Force, a lawyer, legal counsel to Governor Lee Dreyfus, and a convert to Catholicism, recently spoke as a guest of the St. Thomas More Society on the Feast of St. Thomas More.

Bishop Swain is well known in the Madison area, having spent about 40 years here, discerning his call to priesthood, converting, becoming a priest, pastor, and vicar general before being named Bishop of Sioux Falls, S.D.

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Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

A man for all seasons: We need St. Thomas More’s example today

Editor's View by Mary C. Uhler

Back when I was in high school, I first saw the movie A Man for All Seasons about the controversy between King Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More.

Sir Thomas was lord chancellor of England at that time and a loyal member of the Catholic Church. When the king wanted Sir Thomas to approve his marriage to Anne Boleyn after he divorced the queen, Sir Thomas refused.

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