A Statement
on Religious Liberty
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."1
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.2
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 beprohibited 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."3
§
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.4
§
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.5
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.
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."6 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."7 George Washington wrote that "the establishment of Civil and
Religious Liberty was the Motive that induced me to the field of battle."8 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."9
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."10
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.11
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.12
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."13
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.14 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."15
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.
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.
Acknowledgements
Excerpts from The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott,
SJ, General Editor, copyright © 1966 by America Press, Inc. Reprinted with
permission. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from Pope
Benedict XVI, Ad limina address to bishops of the United
States, January 19, 2012, copyright © 2012, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican
City. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2012, United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC. All rights reserved. No part of this work may
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder.
The document Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious
Liberty, was developed by the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious
Liberty of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). It was
approved by the Administrative Committee of the USCCB at its March 2012 meeting
as a statement of the Committee and has been authorized for publication by the
undersigned.
Msgr. Ronny E. Jenkins, JCD
General Secretary, USCCB
General Secretary, USCCB
Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty
Chairman
Most Rev. William E. Lori, Archbishop-designate of Baltimore
Most Rev. William E. Lori, Archbishop-designate of Baltimore
Bishop
Members
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington
Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap, Archbishop of Philadelphia
Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory, Archbishop of Atlanta
Most Rev. John C. Nienstedt, Archbishop of St. Paul–Minneapolis
Most Rev. Thomas J. Rodi, Archbishop of Mobile
Most Rev. J. Peter Sartain, Archbishop of Seattle
Most Rev. John O. Barres, Bishop of Allentown
Most Rev. Daniel E. Flores, Bishop of Brownsville
Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix
Most Rev. Thomas J. Paprocki, Bishop of Springfield, IL
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington
Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap, Archbishop of Philadelphia
Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory, Archbishop of Atlanta
Most Rev. John C. Nienstedt, Archbishop of St. Paul–Minneapolis
Most Rev. Thomas J. Rodi, Archbishop of Mobile
Most Rev. J. Peter Sartain, Archbishop of Seattle
Most Rev. John O. Barres, Bishop of Allentown
Most Rev. Daniel E. Flores, Bishop of Brownsville
Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix
Most Rev. Thomas J. Paprocki, Bishop of Springfield, IL
Bishop
Consultants
Most Rev. José H. Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles
Most Rev. Stephen E. Blaire, Bishop of Stockton
Most Rev. Joseph P. McFadden, Bishop of Harrisburg
Most Rev. Richard E. Pates, Bishop of Des Moines
Most Rev. Kevin C. Rhoades, Bishop of Fort Wayne–South Bend
Most Rev. José H. Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles
Most Rev. Stephen E. Blaire, Bishop of Stockton
Most Rev. Joseph P. McFadden, Bishop of Harrisburg
Most Rev. Richard E. Pates, Bishop of Des Moines
Most Rev. Kevin C. Rhoades, Bishop of Fort Wayne–South Bend
ENDNOTES
1.
Cardinal James Gibbons, Address upon taking possession of Santa
Maria in Trastevere, March 25, 1887.
3.
Most Rev. William E. Lori, Chairman,
USCCB Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, Oral Testimony Before the
Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives, February 28,
2012.
6.
James Madison, "Property,"
March 29, 1792, in The Founding Fathers, eds. Philip B.
Kurland and Ralph Lerner (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987),
accessed March 27, 2012. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s23.html.
. . .
7.
James Madison, "Memorial and
Remonstrance Against Religious Assessment," June 20, 1785, in The Founding Fathers, accessed March 27, 2012. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions43.html.
. . .
9.
Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States (Harper & Brothers Publishers,
1950), 678.
10.
Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran
Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U.S.
___, 132 S. Ct. 694, 703 (2012).
12.
Second Vatican Council, Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae),
no. 2, in The Documents of Vatican
II, ed. Walter M. Abbott (New York: Guild Press, 1966).
13.
Letter from Leith Anderson et al. to
President Obama, December 21, 2011 (available at www.becketfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/To-President-NonCatholics-RelExemptionSigned.pdf.
. . ).
14.
Evangelicals and Catholics Together,
"In Defense of Religious Freedom," First Things, March 2012.
15.
Cardinal Roger Mahony, "Federal
Government Mandate for Contraceptive/Sterilization Coverage," Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs L.A.(blog), January
20, 2012,cardinalrogermahonyblogsla.blogspot.com/2012/01/federal-government-mandate-for.html.
. . .
No comments:
Post a Comment