Archbishop Lori on Weapons for Defending Freedom
A ZENIT DAILY DISPATCH
Archbishop Lori on Weapons for Defending Freedom
Part 1Newly Appointed Baltimore Prelate Speaks Religion, Both Nationally and Internationally
By Ann Schneible
ROME, 2 JUNE 2012 (ZENIT)
Through education, catechesis and prayer, says Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, the ever-growing threat against religious liberty can be confronted.
Chairman of the United States bishops’ ad hoc committee for religious liberty, Archbishop Lori was invited to inaugurate the Religious Liberty Observatory in Rome last week with a press conference; the Observatory is an initiative established with the objective of confronting violations against religious freedom throughout the world. For his part, Archbishop Lori has been active in the defense of freedom of religion in the United States, an issue that garnered particular attention in recent months as a Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate threatens to require employers to provide contraceptive pharmaceuticals and sterilization procedures without giving allowances for conscience or religious belief.
In fact, currently the United States Conference of Bishops is hosting the Fortnight for Freedom: an initiative which seeks to lead Catholics across the country to a greater awareness of the nature of religious liberty, and how it is to be defended.
Archbishop Lori’s primary reason for being in Rome, however, was to receive the pallium conferred upon newly appointed archbishops by Benedict XVI. Succeeding Cardinal Edwin O’Brien, Archbishop Lori was officially installed as archbishop of Baltimore this past May.
The archbishop sat down with ZENIT and discussed religious freedom both in the United States and abroad.
ZENIT: You [addressed] the religious liberty observatory [last week]. What are some of the objectives of this observatory, and what is the contribution that you, as an American archbishop, can make to this international initiative?
Archbishop Lori: The talk [last week was] first, to express appreciation to the city of Rome and to the Italian government for establishing this observatory, which really looks at religious liberty issues — not just in Italy, but more broadly around the world — particularly in places where there is active repression and brutal persecution.
Secondly, it may seem a little odd for someone coming from the United States — which many regard as the birthplace of the modern democratic experiment — to come here and speak about threats to religious liberty at home, where we are not suffering as they might be in many places around the world. But I think it’s important to explain the subtle nature of the erosion that has taken place, and now the palpable threats that are beginning to emerge. It’s my role to be the “town crier,” you might say, to say “look: everything might look alright on the surface, but it’s not.” Repression is coming. Religious repression is coming. And it is coming most visibly because of the Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate which forces churches to violate their teachings by providing pharmaceuticals and surgical procedures that are contrary to our beliefs. But it also includes a definition of who and what churches are that would confine us to the sacristy. It says you can be exempt from violating your teachings if you don’t serve the common good, if you don’t go beyond hiring your own, serving your own, and just teaching doctrine. If you run Catholic charities, if you run inner-city schools, if you run hospitals, oh well; you’re not religious enough.
That, for the first time, this kind of incursion of the state into the internal life of churches — and principally, I think, the Catholic Church — it’s the first time it’s happening at the federal level. It’s happened at the state level before, but now it’s happening at the federal level.
What we bishops have done is recognized an erosion of religious liberty beginning as far back as the late 1940s, the various court decisions and ways of interpreting the Constitution that have trimmed religious freedom. We looked at threats at the state level. Some of them pertained to things like serving immigrants; some grow out of same-sex “marriage”: for example, dioceses that have been run out of doing foster care or adoption; [some elements of erosion pertained to] individuals who can no longer run their businesses according to Christian principles; and now the HHS mandate that would compromise our religious freedom in a very big way.
ZENIT: Right now the USCCB is supporting the Fortnight of Freedom. Why is it important for Catholics to participate actively in protecting religious freedom? And, more importantly, what is the role of prayer in this?
Archbishop Lori: The Fortnight for Freedom was conceived of long before we knew how the Health and Human Services Mandate would begin to play out. Early on, as soon as we organized the ad hoc committee for religious liberty, which occurred last November, we recognized that there was a great need for prayer, catechesis, education and action.
One of the bishops on the committee, looking ahead, said: “Why don’t we try to do something that would, at an appropriate time of year, be when the whole Catholic community and all of our ecumenical and interfaith friends could join us?” And thinking about it, we said: what about the two weeks running up to the 4th of July? We realized that, in those two weeks, we had Saint John Fisher, we had Saint Thomas More, we have Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and we recognize that everybody is sort of thinking about their country and about patriotism — at least we hope they are.
We decided that, first and foremost, it should be a time of prayer. Anything important in life that we aspire to requires prayer. Religious liberty is no exception: if we’re going to defend it, if we want to foster it, preserve it, we have to pray for these things. Just as when you want an increase of vocations to the priesthood and religious life: you have to get down on your knees and pray.
We decided that it would be a wonderful thing if we did a couple of national events — two Masses, in particular — if we would have parishes pray. It could be as easy as inserting a petition on Sunday in the general intercessions, or [hosting] special prayer services, asking families to pray, and giving everyone little prayer cards that they can pray while they’re on the train on their way to work, or if they’re taking a coffee break. Prayer is number one. Jesus says “without me you can do nothing.”
Secondly: education. It can be disheartening to talk to people and to find out how little they know about our heritage as Americans. While we bishops are not history teachers, we are citizens, and we believe it’s a good thing to know about our foundation, our founding documents, the intent of our founders, and to know about the nobility of the American experiment. It’s not exactly identical philosophically with what the Church teaches about religious liberty, but there are broad areas of compatibility.
And that brings us to the third thing, which is catechesis. That is really helping people understand the Church’s social doctrine in the context of everything the Church believes and teaches. It doesn’t stand alone: it’s part of a whole. In singling out from that, Dignitatis Humanae, the decree on religious liberty from the Second Vatican Council, reading it anew, recognizing that, in some sense, it was an American contribution to the council, and it expresses very well the noblest aspects of our American and democratic experiment.
Once people understand what religious liberty is, understand how fragile it is, begin to pray for it; then they are going to look at the specific threats, and they’re going to say to themselves: “we can’t let this happen.” As believers, as citizens, as patriots, we cannot let our country become something it was never meant to be.
We’re not trying to throw the election, but we are trying to get the attention of our elected officials, and the candidates, and to say, as a religious community — Catholics, evangelicals, Protestants, Jews and Muslims — trying to say: “We’re watching. This is important for us. You have a responsibility toward us. You have a responsibility to defend the God-given nature of religious freedom and all that the founding documents say about the commitment of our country to protect that.”
______________________________________________________________________________Part 2Newly Appointed Baltimore Prelate Speaks Religion, Both Nationally and Internationally
By Ann Schneible
ROME, 3 JULY 2012 (ZENIT)
Through education, catechesis and prayer, says Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, the ever-growing threat against religious liberty can be confronted.
Chairman of the United States bishops' ad hoc committee for religious liberty, Archbishop Lori was invited to inaugurate the Religious Liberty Observatory in Rome last week with a press conference; the Observatory is an initiative established with the objective of confronting violations against religious freedom throughout the world. For his part, Archbishop Lori has been active in the defense of freedom of religion in the United States, an issue that garnered particular attention in recent months as a Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate threatens to require employers to provide contraceptive pharmaceuticals and sterilization procedures without giving allowances for conscience or religious belief.
In fact, currently the United States Conference of Bishops is hosting the Fortnight for Freedom: an initiative which seeks to lead Catholics across the country to a greater awareness of the nature of religious liberty, and how it is to be defended.
Archbishop Lori's primary reason for being in Rome, however, was to receive the pallium conferred upon newly appointed archbishops by Benedict XVI. Succeeding Cardinal Edwin O’Brien, Archbishop Lori was officially installed as archbishop of Baltimore this past May.
The archbishop sat down with ZENIT and discussed religious freedom both in the United States and abroad.
Part 1 of this interview was published Monday.
ZENIT: You are in Rome to receive the pallium, having been recently installed as the new archbishop of Baltimore. What sort of initiatives will you be taking as archbishop of Baltimore to defend religious freedom?
Archbishop Lori: We were privileged to open the Fortnight for Freedom in Baltimore, in the nation's first cathedral [The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary], cornerstone laid by John Carroll in 1806, the cousin of John Carroll of Carrolton who signed the Declaration of Independence. Designed by Benjamin Latrobe, it's just beautiful. It really reflects the American experience at its roots, and at the same time embodies our Catholic tradition. That Mass [for the opening of the Fortnight] energized the archdiocese greatly. I think there were 60 or 70 priests who concelebrated that night. There were people from all over the archdiocese, and there is a very full roster of regional events that are going on throughout the archdiocese during the Fortnight. And thank goodness for it. Much of it was under way before I ever showed up, so I’m just the beneficiary of it.
The second thing that is looming on the horizon right now [In Maryland] is a marriage referendum. Maryland is one of those states, as was Connecticut once I came, where same-sex marriage is legal. But in the case of Maryland, the law was just passed and signed into law by the governor, and it is easier to do a referendum in Maryland than in Connecticut. Therefore, we are undertaking a referendum to overturn it, and to do what we think is the will of the people by defending traditional marriage for all the reasons that your readers would find persuasive.
Why is that important from a religious liberty perspective? Well, in the law in Maryland, there is a very stingy religious exemption; I think we're exempt from not having to preside at same-sex marriages, which is guaranteed anyway by the First Amendment, so that's no exemption at all. Right there we have a challenge to religious liberty. Washington DC in the archdiocese already had its travails with the DC city council in this regard some time ago, and they were driven out of foster care and adoption services.
More toward the city of Baltimore, pregnancy centers were told some time ago by the city administration that they had to post signs saying what they didn't do – first and foremost, abortions. We think that is an incursion, not into religious liberty but free speech. You see, religious liberty – the freedom to bring our values into the public square – and freedom of speech are joined at the hip; they rise and they fall together.
ZENIT: How can Americans, who are very active politically when it comes to issues such as freedom of religion, contribute to the international forum in regards to the issue of religious liberty?
Archbishop Lori: Let me answer the question that you asked and that you didn't ask: let me answer internationally and let me answer domestically.
Internationally, we look around the world and we see priests cannot appear as a priest; where it is illegal to say Mass; where people, like the Chaldean Christians in Iraq, have been massacred. It's mostly Christians who are the object of religious persecution. And there are martyrs being made: we still live very much in the age of martyrs. [These occurrences are] very far from our experience as Americans.
But here's the thing: how can we, credibly, champion the rights of these persecuted, repressed people, while we are allowing the torch of liberty to flicker at home? How can we be content that the State Department would issue its report on religious rights around the world, but this year drop the section on religious liberty, and refer the reader to a report that is several years old and badly outdated?
I think our credibility is on the line. We are simply doing what citizens always do: we're calling our country to be true to itself. We think the founders acknowledge religious freedom, not just because it was useful, and not just because it was a way to avoid anarchy, but I think they thought it was good. And we should think it is good around the world, and our country should be out there saying: Not everyone has to be a believer, but religion is a good thing. We're not saying that now. We're not even saying it's neutral.
Also, we are exporting our secularist culture vigorously, and sometimes that takes the form of forcing Catholic international relief agencies to violate the teaching of the Church: famously, Migration Refugee Services and Catholic Relief Services. Now, Catholic Relief Services has received some relief on the subject; I think the State Department has awakened and said: "Yes, we do have to respect your liberty; you can compete for these contracts." But Catholic Migration Refugee Services has received no break; we're dealing with international victims of human trafficking. A huge incursion on religious liberty at the international level by our government. It's not just that the torch is flickering: it's that we are being actively impeded from serving the poorest of the poor internationally because of our religious beliefs.
If you look at it domestically, here's the challenge: We're in a very partisan season. In fact, I think, with the rise of relativism, all we have is our two parties bandying their opinion, and it's not any longer an appeal to truth, but it is an appeal to power. I think, to a certain extent both parties need to have an examination of conscience.
What's our role here? Our role, as believers and citizens, is to call both parties back to principles, ideals, enduring truths, that span the partisan divide, and whether you are a Catholic, whether you are a Democrat, or a Republican, to work from within, to bring that about in one's own party, and in the body politic. Religious liberty will not rest easy so long as we are in this relativistic power-driven culture.
This article has been selected from the ZENIT Daily Dispatch
© Innovative Media, Inc.
ZENIT International News Agency
Via della Stazione di Ottavia, 95
00165 Rome, Italy
www.zenit.org
To subscribe http://www.zenit.org/english/subscribe.html
or email: english-request@zenit.org with SUBSCRIBE in the "subject" field
Provided Courtesy of:
Eternal Word Television Network
5817 Old Leeds Road
Irondale, AL 35210
www.ewtn.com
HOME - EWTNews - FAITH - TELEVISION - RADIO - LIBRARY - MULTIMEDIA
WHAT'S NEW - GENERAL - RELIGIOUS CATALOGUE - PILGRIMAGES - ESPAÑOL
Terms of Use Privacy Policy
