USCCB spokeswoman decries threats to religious freedom

July 10, 2012

Following the Fortnight for Freedom, Sister Mary Ann Walsh, director of media relations for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, asks, “Where do those who want to stand up for religious freedom go?”

She replies:

The answer is everywhere because religious freedom is a worldwide concern. Read the newspapers and you see massacres in churches in Nigeria and Iraq. Look to neighboring Cuba and you see how religious freedom has been severely restricted under the Castro regime. Look in the United States, where freedom of religion is guaranteed by the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, and you see a sophisticated type of assault. It is unbloody, but far-reaching. Ironically, the assaults are not from some guerilla group or despot, but from the government.

Sister Walsh then lists attacks on religious freedom in the US—from the HHS mandate to the insistence that same-sex ceremonies take place on the property of religious organizations opposed to homosexuality.

 

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Further information:

• Religious Freedom Campaign – It’s Only Just Begun (USCCB Blog)