First American Right

Details: 04 November 2011

Bishops’ Concern

Last October 26th, Bishop William Lori, the Catholic Bishop of Bridgeport and the Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on Religious Liberty, testified before a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representative in the U. S. Congress. He noted that the Bishops of the United States, representing more than 69 million Americans who are Catholics, are very concerned about recent grave threats to religious freedom in our country. He remarked that both the Bill of Rights and our Declaration of Independence require the government "to acknowledge and protect religious liberty as something fundamental, no matter the moral or political trends of the moment." Bishop Lori said, " However, in recent days the Bishops of the United States have watched with increasing alarm as this great national legacy of religious liberty, so profoundly in harmony with our own teachings, has been subject to ever more frequent assault and ever more rapid erosion."

In the name of all the American Catholic Bishops, Bishop Lori urged some "corrective action by the Congress". He said "The ultimate root causes of these threats to religious liberty are profound and lie beyond" (the scope of the Congress to fix) "But, we can and must also treat the symptoms immediately, lest the disease spread so quickly that the patient is overcome before the ultimate cure can be formulated and delivered."

Six Areas

The Bishop stated that there are six areas of immediate and urgent concern for the Bishops and for American Catholics: First, there are the regulations issued last August by the Federal Department of Health and Human Services, mandating coverage of contraception, sterilization, and other evil practices in almost all private health insurance plans in the U.S., (as though those things have anything to do with "health"), with a conscience exception clause so preposterously drawn that, as one observer said, Jesus and the Apostles would be required by Mrs. Secretary Sebelius to get involved in artificial birth prevention and other wickedness. Second, there is a new requirement by the Federal HHS that would force the Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services to agree to provide the "full range of reproductive services, including abortion and contraception, to all human trafficking victims and all unaccompanied refugee minors."

The third attack by the current federal government upon religious freedom and upon the Catholic Church in particular involves a new requirement by the U.S. Agency for International Development that Catholic Relief Services and all other contractors include condom distribution in all HIV prevention activities and provide contraception in a wide range of international relief and development programs. Fourth, there are the Department of Justice actions to mischaracterize the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, which states that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, as an "act of bigotry", and the Justice Department also is actively attacking the DOMA’s constitutionality. Fifth, that same Justice Department is working hard to undermine all "ministerial exceptions" which generally exempt religious institutions from civil laws when it comes to hiring and firing (their own priests or ministers, etc.). Sixth, State actions promoting same-sex marriage resulted in Catholic Charity agencies in Illinois "being driven out of the work of adoption and foster care" and "some county clerks in New York State having to face legal action for refusing to participate in same-sex unions." Bishop Lori said that "these areas are only the most recent instances in a broader trend of erosion of religious liberty in the United States." The ardent and fanatical secularists are unrelenting in their determination to force their anti-religion on the United States, trying to make us accept godlessness as our "national church".

Final Verses

It was on September 14, 1814, that Francis Scott Key, a Washington D.C. lawyer and poet, was being held captive on a British warship off the harbor of Baltimore and witnessed the bombardment by the British fleet of the American-held Fort McHenry. The next morning when the mist and smoke had cleared, he saw the American flag still flying over the fort and was inspired to write "The Star Spangled Banner". As he wrote the poem he kept in mind the cadence of an old English drinking song "To Anacreon in Heaven", and the poem almost immediately was set to the music of that tune and then quickly became very popular throughout our country. On March 3, 1931, by an Act of Congress, all four of its verses became the official national anthem of the United States.

The fourth verse is little known and seldom sung, except in wartime, but it stands as another refutation of the efforts to force national secularism on our country: "O thus be it ever, when free men shall stand between their loved homes and the war’s desolation. Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven rescued land praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: In God is our trust! And the star spangled banner in triumph shall wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

In 1831, Samuel Francis Smith, using the melody of the national anthem of Great Britain ("God Save the King"), wrote one day within a half hour the words of the patriotic hymn "My Country ‘Tis of Thee". Its last verse is the famous prayer: " Our fathers’ God, to Thee, Author of Liberty, to Thee we sing. Long may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light. Protect us by Thy might, Great God. our King."

Some Quotes

It is useful occasionally to recall some interesting words of George Washington, especially in relation to the current controversies about church-state issues and religious freedom. The father of our country wrote and said much that is useful for America even today. He said, "While just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support." Under date of March 11, 1792, he wrote in a private letter, "I am sure that there never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States, and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that Agency, Which was so often manifested during our revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God Who is alone able to protect them."

On November 19, 1794, Washington said in a speech: "Let us unite, therefore, in imploring the Supreme Ruler of nations to spread His holy protection over these United States; to turn the machinations of the wicked to the confirming of our constitutions: to enable us at all times to root out internal sedition, and to put invasion to flight; to perpetuate to our country that prosperity which His goodness has already conferred, and to verify the anticipation of this government being a safeguard to human rights."

A wise man stated that trying to be neutral between belief in God and atheism is like trying to be neutral between the fire and the fire department. That kind of neutrality always favors the fire.