Religious Freedom Week

Richard A. Sokerka

Challenges to religious freedom continue to emerge on an almost daily basis in our nation. That’s why it is so important for the U.S. Catholic Church to remain resolute in addressing them.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in his address to U.S. bishops in 2012, warned them of “Grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism” where there were “certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion.”

All Catholics should be aware of the growing proclivity of the radical left in our secular society to try to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

There is no doubt that there is intense pressure from the radical left to constrict and even end our religious freedom because it flies in the face of the secularist ideology; an ideology that stands in stark contrast to the moral teachings of the Church.

Our religious freedom is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, a protective wall that our Founding Fathers put in place.

That’s more than enough reason for all Catholics to participate in whatever way they can in Religious Freedom Week, which will take place from June 22 to 29. It begins with the feast day of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, includes the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and ends with the feast of Ss. Peter and Paul.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Religious Liberty has produced resources for prayer, reflection and action on a different area of concern for each day of the week on its website.

Remember these words from “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty,” issued by the U.S. Bishops in 2012: “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.”

We urge all Catholics to promote the importance of preserving the essential right of religious freedom, now and in the future.