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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Mass Times:    M-F 7:15am   M&W 5:15pm   Sat 4:30pm, 6:00pm(Kor)   Sun  8:30am, 10:30am, 12:30pm(Spa), 5:30pm   Confession Sat 3-4:00pm

Religious Liberty, What is at stake?

Peace and Justice Committee

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Mission Statement:

Following Catholic Social Teachings, we stay awake to the needs of the poor and oppressed, both locally and globally. We focus on actions that promote justice in both society and our Church as well as prayer and reflection on the principles of catholic social teaching.


On-going activities include JustMatters modules (in conjunction with St. Charles Borromeo Parish), the Thanksgiving and Lenten Food Drives, Operation Rice Bowl, EarthCare and Bread for the World initiatives.

Past activities have also included death penalty awareness, an information session and ecumenical prayer service about undocumented immigrants, peace advocacy (Pax Christi) and issues related to injustices within the church.

Students, faculty and year-round community members are equally invited and encouraged to attend! Our ability to serve the needs and desires of the parish hinges on the number of members that we have. New ideas are always needed and welcome. Please contant Amy Prociuk at amyprociuk 'at' gmail.com for more information.


Bread for the World
Bread for the World is a collective Christian voice urging our nation's decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. God's grace in Jesus Christ moves us to help our neighbors, whether they live in the next house, the next state, or the next continent. St. Paul's is a member parish.

Each year, Bread for the World invites churches across the country to take up a nationwide Offering of Letters to Congress on an issue that is important to hungry and poor people. In October 2010, members of St. Paul's wrote many letters to Congress urging them to preserve the Earned Income Credit (EIC) for the working poor.

Food Drives
Click here for more information on the food drive.

EarthCare
The Earth Care movement brings Hoosiers of faith together to help curb global climate change by educating, acting, and speaking up.  Earth Care programs include a task of the month action program to cut household energy use, energy audits to reduce energy use in houses of worship and individual homes, walk-bike-carpool-or-bus-to-worship weekends (Walbicus), and educational events.

Through Earth Care, the St. Paul Peace & Justice Committee seeks to help our parish and our parishioners care for God's Creation by living more prudently and supporting policies that embody creation care.  We join Earth Care in recognizing that "the decreases in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from all energy efficency work benefits everyone, everywhere, for generations to come."

For more information or to sign up for the newsletter click here.

JustMatters
JustMatters is an expanding series of formation materials from JustFaith Ministries. JustMatters allows participants to focus on a particular current social justice topic. The general format for these topic-focused modules is prayer, readings, videos, speakers and dialogue. JustMatters allows a group of eight to fifteen people to give sustained attention to a specific area of social concern or social ministry (with special emphasis on Catholic social teaching) and culminating in a call to engaged action. In conjunction with St. Charles, St. Paul's has participated in Living Solidarity: Government, the Federal Budget and the Common Good and will soon participate in Crossing Borders: Migration, Theology, and the Human Journey.

Operation Rice Bowl (Catholic Relief Services)
Operation Rice Bowl is a yearly project undertaken during Lent. Each Lent, nearly 13,000 faith communities across the United States participate to demonstrate solidarity with the poor around the world. Seventy-five percent of Operation Rice Bowl donations come to CRS to help fund development programs designed to increase food security around the world. Twenty-five percent of the donations support hunger and poverty alleviation efforts in dioceses within the United States.

Pax Christi
Pax Christi USA strives to create a world that reflects the Peace of Christ by exploring, articulating, and witnessing to the call of Christian nonviolence. This work begins in personal life and extends to communities of reflection and action to transform structures of society. Pax Christi USA rejects war, preparations for war, and every form of violence and domination. It advocates primacy of conscience, economic and social justice, and respect for creation.

Pax Christi USA commits itself to peace education and, with the help of its bishop members, promotes the gospel imperative of peacemaking as a priority in the Catholic Church in the United States. Through the efforts of all its members and in cooperation with other groups, Pax Christi USA works toward a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world. St. Paul's is a member parish.

Pax Christi is a section of Pax Christi International, the Catholic peace movement.

Upcoming events:

March 5th-April 30th: Operation Rice Bowl (Rice bowls will be distributed on March 5-6).

March 25th- April 24th: Lenten Food Drive

April 26th: Bagging and Sorting for the Lenten Food Drive 7:30PM

March (dates TBA): JustMatters: Crossing Borders: Migration, Theology, and the Human Journey. Please contact Jane Walter at waltjm 'at' gmail.com for more information.

April (date TBA): Fr. Dan Broody speaking on immigration issues at St. Charles, event open to the public


 

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