Newsflash


Write Your Congress Person about this issue Read More about conscience protection at USCCB

In 1634, a mix of Catholic and Protestant settlers arrived 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 the land by the Protestant King Charles I of England.  While Catholics and Protestants were killing each other in Europe, Lord Baltimore imagined Marylandas a society where people of different faiths could live together peacefully.  This vision was soon codified in Maryland’s 1649 Act Concerning Religion (also called the “Toleration Act”), which was the first law in our nation’s history to protect an individual’s right to freedom of conscience.

Maryland’s early history teaches us that, like any freedom, religious liberty requires constant vigilance and protection, or it will disappear.  Maryland’s experiment in religious toleration ended within a few decades.  The colony was placed under royal control and the Church of England became the established religion.  Discriminatory laws, including the loss of political rights, were enacted against those who refused to conform.  Catholic chapels were closed and Catholics were restricted to practicing their faith in their homes.  The Catholic community lived under this coercion until the American Revolution.

By the end of the 18th century our nation’s founders embraced freedom of religion as an essential condition of a free and democratic society.  So when the Bill of Rights was ratified, religious freedom had the distinction of being the First Amendment.  Religious liberty is indeed the first liberty.

This is our American heritage, our most cherished freedom. If we are not free in our conscience and our practice of religion, all other freedoms are fragile.  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. Is our most cherished freedom truly under threat?

Among many current challenges, consider the recent Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate requiring almost all private health plans to cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs.  For the first time in our history, the federal government will force religious institutions to facilitate drugs and procedures contrary to our moral teaching, and purport to define which religious institutions are “religious enough” to merit an exemption.  This is not a matter of whether contraception may be prohibited by the government. It is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government.  It is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception and sterilization, even when it violates our religious beliefs.

Taken from the USCCB Conscience protection initiative- READ MORE.

What You Can Do!

1) PRAY - Follow the following links to guided prayer cards to our Lord with the intercession of our Blessed Mother and St. Thomas More.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas

Mary Immaculate, Patroness of Our Country

St. Thomas More, Patron of Religious Freedom

2) Write to Congress & HHS opposing the mandate and calling for conscience protections. !!!Deadline = June 19!!!

Click HERE to electronically write Congress (with an optional pre-written letter) voicing your conscience protection concerns.

3) Read more about the issue and decide what action is best for you.

USCCB CONSCIENCE PROTECTION WEBSITE

 

 

 
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Religious Liberty, What is at stake?

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For freshmen, the start of the IU academic year is the best of times and the worst of times:  

The Best of Times—a new and exciting world; my first long-term foray into geographic independence from my nuclear family, to try out my wings on my own and prove my competence as an adult (to myself and them…and others).

The Worst of Times—never have I experienced as much dislocation from my environment (house, town, school building) as moving to IU-Bloomington, shifting all of my network of relationships (phone and texting just isn’t the same as being there), and confronted with a new degree of academic accountability (this ain’t high school!).  I have fears as I face so many things for the first time (I truly am a novice at this.   Will I look silly stumbling around looking for classrooms or places to process ID’s, the bursar office, and on and on…?).

One consolation: most every upper classmen ahead of me has faced these joys and fears…and they made it.  So can I.  How can I help make this transition more successful for myself?

Admit to myself my fears.  Realize that these feelings are real, but not restricting.  I also have courage and desire…desire to make good things happen.  This kind of positive outlook can carry me a long way.

Asking for advice or help is not weakness.  It is piecing together a new puzzle.  The advice I seek is not just information (e.g., classroom location), but also heart talk.  This is where pastoral ministers here at St. Paul are ready and willing to listen.  Talk through your concerns and fears; talk through your struggles with habits or addictions.  Don’t let them determine you; grab ahold of your life.

Know my center.  To know one’s center involves reflective prayer.  Let me look at my personal prayer life.  I might need to put it in gear!  Prayer is a powerful interior strength.  Try it and see.  Learning/Knowing my center helps me to negotiate situations that I will encounter:  (a) sorting out the millions of requests, invitations, and opportunities so that I keep proper balance with my priority of education; (b) how to handle myself in party situations that provide alcohol abundantly (and who knows whatever else); lest I fail to read signals of being lured into positions where I am compromised and something happens TO me without my consent, etc.; (c) reminding myself that this first semester I will be experiencing a lot of “failures” from choices, but that does not have to ruin everything; and (d) my time at IU is more than an academic exercise; it is building personhood.  What kind of person do I want to become?  What kind of values will I develop into habits and define my character?  How does my Catholic faith help to solidify my integrity?  If not, have I failed to discover the heart of this faith…and judge it too superficially?

Be wise!  Be attentive!  Not everything is as friendly at it might appear, or as threatening as it might appear.

Be joyful! Be adventuresome!  Discover how your giftedness is given for your growth and the benefit of the world and its legacy.  What are you going to contribute to it?  You probably won’t know…until years later, but the work of building personhood now will manifest itself day-by-day and will eventually become your history and the world’s history.  Make it the best possible.  Spirituality is essential for a successful person.

 

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