Dear Fr. Bob and Nathan,
I just read your exchange that you posted on your blog. I have to say that I agree with the fundamental thrust: we must always do the "about-turn" to the personal experiential encounter with the Person of Christ in order to find what is real. However, I think that there must be a bit of a pushback from the "scholastic" and rational perspective, in the following sense:
The experience of Christ, which is the root and foundation of all life, is hardly a communicable experience. Language and conceptual thought are necessary in order to make it something that can be shared and preached. If all we need to focus on as a Church is the experience and always to return to that experience, and we have no way of setting its basic contours down in objective form, then we are losing a huge element of Christianity, which is apostolate. How can we explain to the world Who Christ is, if not through some abstraction and philosophical definition? If someone wants to introduce me to a girl they might think I could hit it off with, it is absolutely necessary for me to first form a conceptual view of her (through her objective, external characteristics as relayed by my friend) in order for me to have any truly human experience of her once I meet her: is she pretty? what did she study? is she from this place or that place?, etc. Because Christ took human form, He is also subject to this kind of objective, rational appraisal, which at least serves as an introduction, a pointer, to Who He really is.
Therefore, the Apostles were moved to write down something about Christ, even though He did not commission them to write, but rather to communicate to the world their encounter with Him after the Resurrection, and all the things He had taught them. The Gospels and the rest of the New Testament are, even if minimally, a form of objectification of Christ, because it was necessary to do this in order to make him communicable. If this is true, how do we explain the veneration we have for Scripture, and indeed for the highly theoretical formulations we sometimes find therein (notably in St. Paul).
All I'm saying is that I think that an excessive attention to the experiential, mystical, intuitive approach makes the need for communication of Christ difficult to do. It is not possible to introduce any human being to anything if not through some manner of conceptual explication or introduction (at least initially).
I have made this point to you, Nathan, and (I think) you agreed, though I don't know if this changed your views at all. I think that a balance is necessary. After all, Augustine's, Thomas's and Newman's formulations of theology and doctrine came from their experiential knowledge of Christ plus their training in philosophical language. There is a link between the two (the formulation and the experience), which means that there is a value in those formulations, at least in so far as they point to something, to that experience. This function is strictly apostolic and pedagogic, and it cannot be overlooked. Indeed, it is fundamental.
Moreover, they serve another purpose, which is as guardians of truth. The formulations help us make sure we are not going astray, and they do this precisely by virtue of their objective structure, though this is another point (but, I think, equally important).
Thoughts?
Pedro José IzquierdoLL.M. Candidate, 2012
New York University School of Law
Dr. iur. Candidate, 2013
Universidad de Navarra
Dear Pedro,
I agree with a twist. The result of the experiential prayer of Simon with Christ (Lk. 9, 18) after being asked "who do you say that I am?" is the communicative/conceptual "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt. 16, 16). It seems that the reflection on the experience/consciousness of becoming another Christ by the self-transcendence of prayer ("no one can come to me if he is not drawn by my Father" [Jn. 6, 44]) is the formation of the concepts ("You are the Christ...") whereby we can communicate what has been experienced.
Of course, the experience itself cannot be communicated because it is the result of a free act of self-determination to pray. But an experience can be communicated by repeating the experience. Only if another freely determines hmself to pray can he experience Christ (ab intus). As Ratzinger wrote: the word "intellegere" = ab intus legere = to read from within. I can only know another "I" by experiencing in myself what that "I" experiences in himself. Hence, the only real mode of communication is experiential. But that must go hand in hand with the human intentional abstractive way of knowing so that I can initiate the experience. So I agree with a twist. Fr. Bob
Friday, April 20, 2012
Email Exchange Between Nathan Davis and Blogger
Nathan Davis to me
I thought you might like this:
Here is a choice quote from von
Balthazar’s Razing the Bastions:
”To honor the tradition does not excuse
one from the obligation of beginning everything from the beginning each time,
not with Augustine or Thomas or Newman, but with Christ. And the greatest
figures of Christian salvation history are honored only by the one who does
today what they did then, or what they would have done if they had lived today.
The cross-check is quickly done, and it shows the tremendous impoverishment,
not only in spirit and life, but also quite existentially: in thoughts and
points of view, themes and ideas, where people are content to understand tradition
as the handing-on of ready made results. Boredom manifests itself at
once, and the neatest systematics fails to convince, remains of little
consequence. The little groups of those who have come to an understanding with
one another and cultivate what they take to be the tradition become more and
more esoteric, foreign to the world, and more and more misunderstood, although
they do not condescend to take notice of their alienation. And one day the
storm that blows the dried-up branch away can no longer be delayed, and this
collapse will not be great, because what collapses had been a hollow shell for
a very long time.” (p. 34-35)
And here’s what Ratzinger thinks of
this passage from Von Balthazar:
The task is not, therefore, to suppress
the Council [Vatican II] but to discover the real Council and to deepen its
true intention in the light of present experience. That means there can be no
return to the Syllabus [Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors], which
may have marked the first stage in the confrontation with liberalism and a
newly conceived Marxism but cannot be the last stage…The fact is, as Hans Urs
von Balthazar pointed out as early as 1952, that the ‘demolition of the
bastions’ is a long-overdue task.
The Church cannot choose the times in
which she will live….She must relinquish many of the things that have
hitherto spelled security for her and that she has taken for granted. She must
demolish longstanding bastions and trust solely to the shield of faith.” (Principles of Catholic Theology, p.391).
It’s interesting to consider this
last statement in light of Pope Benedict’s call for a “Year of Faith.” How
many will rush around to prop up those exact same bastions, all in the name of
the “year of faith”?
I totally agree with von Balthasar
and Ratzinger on the need for something new, although I would favor the Joyces’
“deepening of the roots” to von Balthasar’s “razing the bastions.”
And here’s what Ratzinger thinks of
this passage from von Balthasar:
The task is not, therefore, to suppress
the Council [Vatican II] but to discover the real Council and to deepen its
true intention in the light of present experience. That means there can be no
return to the Syllabus [Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors], which
may have marked the first stage in the confrontation with liberalism and a
newly conceived Marxism but cannot be the last stage….The fact is, as Hans Urs
von Balthasar pointed out as early as 1952, that the ‘demolition of the
bastions’ is a long-overdue task.
The Church cannot choose the times in which she will live….She must relinquish many of the things that have hitherto spelled security for her and that she has taken for granted. She must demolish longstanding bastions and trust solely to the shield of faith.” (Principles of Catholic Theology, p.391).
The Church cannot choose the times in which she will live….She must relinquish many of the things that have hitherto spelled security for her and that she has taken for granted. She must demolish longstanding bastions and trust solely to the shield of faith.” (Principles of Catholic Theology, p.391).
It’s interesting to consider this
last statement in light of Pope Benedict’s call for a “Year of Faith.”
How many will rush around to prop up those exact same bastions, all in the name
of the “year of faith”?
I totally agree with von Balthasar
and Ratzinger on the need for something new, although I would favor the Joyces’
“deepening of the roots” to von Balthasar’s “razing the bastions.”
From Blogger:
Nathan,
I love it. The Von Balthazar evaluation and the Ratzinger comment.
The fundamental point is to start over from the real start: the experience of
the Person of the God-man. Only there can we know the meaning of what is real
(the Word of God) and the meaning of man. In both cases, the
Person of Christ. And we must be receptive of Him, and take Him into ourselves
and live Him out in the daily life of today. That is the root of all meaning.
First order sensation and abstraction which is scholastic methodology and part of the Enlightenment - in a word: objectification - will not cut it in a world about to be become totally virtual with Project Google Glass which I just posted (by Ross Douthot). And this because a world that has been objectified is already reduced and partially unreal. Hence, what I respect, and apologized to you for, is to be true to faith and revelation experience. If you experience anything with the experience of self-transcendence, it is real. I salute it. Tight reasoning and Tradition as conceptual (and not experiential) is not necessarily real for the long haul historically. Therefore, raze the bastions and replant the Seed of the Word today in the soil of magnanimous hearts as Our Lady, and let's rebuild. Lots and lots of material of the last 2,000 years + and outside Christianity will fit in the organism of this new tree built on the footprint of Vatican II and the Magisterium of these last three popes. Fr. Bob
First order sensation and abstraction which is scholastic methodology and part of the Enlightenment - in a word: objectification - will not cut it in a world about to be become totally virtual with Project Google Glass which I just posted (by Ross Douthot). And this because a world that has been objectified is already reduced and partially unreal. Hence, what I respect, and apologized to you for, is to be true to faith and revelation experience. If you experience anything with the experience of self-transcendence, it is real. I salute it. Tight reasoning and Tradition as conceptual (and not experiential) is not necessarily real for the long haul historically. Therefore, raze the bastions and replant the Seed of the Word today in the soil of magnanimous hearts as Our Lady, and let's rebuild. Lots and lots of material of the last 2,000 years + and outside Christianity will fit in the organism of this new tree built on the footprint of Vatican II and the Magisterium of these last three popes. Fr. Bob
Epistemologically Trapped in a Google Full-Service Cage: Awaiting "The Pink Police State:" Never to Know God.
The Man With the Google Glasses
By
ROSS DOUTHAT
Published:
April 14, 2012
A MAN wakes up in a New York
apartment, brews coffee and goes out into the world, and everything that can
appear on a smartphone or iPad
appears before his eyes instead: weather reports, calendar reminders, messages
from friends, walking maps of New York, his girlfriend’s smiling face.
This is the promise of Google’s
Project Glass, which released the video
I’ve just described earlier this month, as a preview of a still-percolating
project that aspires to implant the equivalent of an iPhone
into a pair of science-fiction spectacles.
Even if the project itself never comes to fruition, though, the video deserves a life of its own, as a window into what our era promises and what it threatens to take away. If modernity’s mix of achievement and alienation was once embodied by the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, now it’s embodied by the Man in the Google Glasses.
On the one hand, the video is a
testament to modern technology’s extraordinary feats — not only instant
communication across blocks or continents, but also an almost god-like access
to information about the world around us. The Man in the Google Glasses can
find his way effortlessly through the mazes of Manhattan; he can photograph
anything he sees; he can make an impulse purchase from any corner of the world.
But the video also captures the
sense of isolation that coexists with our technological mastery. The Man in the
Google Glasses lives alone, in a drab, impersonal apartment. He meets a friend
for coffee, but the video cuts away from this live interaction, leaping ahead
to the moment when he snaps a photo of some “cool” graffiti and shares it
online. He has a significant other, but she’s far enough away that when sunset
arrives, he climbs up on a roof and shares it with her via video, while she
grins from a window at the bottom of his field of vision.
He is, in other words, a
characteristic 21st-century American, more electronically networked but more
personally isolated than ever before. As the N.Y.U. sociologist Eric Klinenberg
notes in “Going Solo: The Extraordinary
Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone,” there are now more
Americans living by themselves than there are Americans in intact
nuclear-family households. Children are much more likely to grow up with only a
single parent in the home; adults marry less and divorce relatively frequently;
seniors are more likely to face old age alone. And friendship, too, seems to be
attenuating: a 2006 Duke University study found that Americans
reported having, on average, three people with whom they discussed important
issues in 1985, but just two by the mid-2000s.
The question hanging over the future
of American social life, then, is whether all the possibilities of virtual
community — the connections forged by Facebook and Twitter; the back alleys of
the Internet where fans of “A Dance to the Music of Time” or “Ren & Stimpy”
can find one another; the hum of virtual conversation that’s available any hour
of the day — can make up for the weakening of flesh-and-blood ties and the
decline of traditional communal institutions.
The optimists say yes. If you
believe writers like Clay Shirky, author of 2008’s “Here Comes Everybody,” the buzzing hive mind of
the Internet is well on its way to generating a kind of “cognitive surplus,”
which promises to make group interactions even more effective and enriching
than they were before the Web.
The pessimists, on the other hand,
worry that online life offers only a simulacrum of community. In “Alone Together”
(2011), Sherry Turkle argues that the lure of Internet relationships,
constantly available but inherently superficial, might make both genuine
connection and genuine solitude impossible.
Seeing the world through the eyes of the Man in the Google Glasses, though, suggests a more political reason for pessimism. In his classic 1953 work, “The Quest for Community,” the sociologist Robert Nisbet argued that in eras of intense individualism and weak communal ties, the human need for belonging tends to empower central governments as never before. An atomized, rootless population is more likely to embrace authoritarian ideologies, and more likely to seek the protection of an omnicompetent state.
The kind of totalitarianism, fascist
and Marxist, that shadowed Nisbet’s writing isn’t likely to come back. But a
kinder, gentler kind of authoritarianism — what the blogger James Poulos has
dubbed “the pink
police state,” which is officially tolerant while scrutinizing your
every move — remains a live possibility.
Today, social media are hailed for empowering dissidents and undercutting tyrannies around the world. Yet it’s hard not to watch the Google video and agree with Forbes’s Kashmir Hill when she suggests that such a technology could ultimately “accelerate the arrival of the persistent and pervasive citizen surveillance state,” in which everything you see and do can be recorded, reported, subpoenaed ... you name it.
In this kind of world, the Man in
the Google Glasses might feel like a king of infinite space. But he’d actually
be inhabiting a comfortable, full-service cage.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
USCCB Statement On Religious Liberty
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
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 United States
From well before Cardinal Gibbons, Catholics
in America
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
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-Ã -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
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 Alabama Alabama Alabama
§
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
§
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
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 Maryland by the Protestant King Charles I of England Maryland Maryland
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
[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
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
In his famous "Letter from Birmingham
Jail" in 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. boldly said, "The goal of America America
I
would agree with Saint Augustine
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
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
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-Ã -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
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.
. . .
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