The statement below forms the basis of the USCCB’s call for a Fortnight for Freedom, a 14-day period of prayer, education and action in support of religious freedom, from June 21-July 4, 2012.
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."
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.
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."
- 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.
- 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.
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."
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."
George Washington wrote that "the establishment of Civil and
Religious Liberty was the Motive that induced me to the field of battle."
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."
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."
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
