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?

Marriage: our understanding

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The Code of Canon Law reads: “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament” (Canon 1055).

The Code asserts these elements: (1) marriage is a covenant [more than a contract], (2) marriage is a relationship capable of procreation, (3) the relationship of the two parties is the primary aspect of marriage [hence children are per se not essential to the validity of a marriage], and (4) the Church recognizes this union as a sacrament.  Is this how we understand marriage and live it?  

I believe Catholics in general acknowledge marriage as a sacrament, but don’t know why.  The sacramental essence has to do with manifesting the Spirit of Christ and salvation.  Clearly, marriage has something to do with sex, but also with prayer; it has something to do with household management (in original Greek oiko nomos=economy), but also with generosity and charity.  One’s spouse has a privileged place in the process of one’s salvation, and visa-versa; the destiny of the couple is each other’s salvation wrought within married life, not because of it (ha, ha).  All of this, in part, is the description of the covenantal—permanent—aspect of marriage.  Covenant is different than contract.

The public realm adjudicates contractual agreements.  Society protects the institution of marriage for the sake of property ownership, protecting children, and guiding lineage, especially tracking leadership roles.  Divorce is relegating proper distribution of property, custody, and lineage.  The Church, which has been outside of the legal system, certainly of late, is concerned with the sacrament and the human trauma of a collapsing marriage.  The Church has its own “court” and processes to deal with questions leveraged against a presumed marriage (e.g., validity or nullity).

How do we live our and promote Christian marriage and family life?

If mutuality is key to spousal life, what are the values we model and teach to our children?  Our sons, especially, should learn about mutuality.  Conquest has no place in marriage.  Thus, abuse or bullishness ought not be in any Catholic marriage.  Is this the case?  Why not?   

If fidelity, chastity, and permanence are characteristic of marriage, our youth should be signs of personal integrity and of proper boundaries.  Shouldn’t sexuality be held in esteem, not experimented?  Never should a young woman feel unsafe/vulnerable in the presence of a young Catholic fellow. If not, what are we about?  Are we setting the bar too low and too influenced by other values?

Parents are the primary educators of their children.  What do we teach our children: how to have a busy life?  Are we given to distraction…with gadgets?  Do we practice praying?  Do we teach the youth the awe of the world, how to listen to others, and how to respect others?  Knowing what virtue is and how to live it is crucial.  It is not intuited.  

Persons live longer, so the challenge for a life-long union is great.  Only spiritually deep persons thrive, much less persevere.  And in an imperfect world and a pilgrim church, we ought to show what compassion is to those whose marriage has ended badly, and to widows/ers who feel isolated by their loss.

 

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