4th Fortnight for Freedom concludes

July 07, 2015

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has concluded its annual observance of the Fortnight for Freedom, which it instituted in 2012 to raise awareness of threats to religious liberty.

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami preached the homily at the closing Mass, celebrated July 4 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

“In this country and in other liberal democracies, people of faith are being increasingly subjected to a soft despotism in which ridicule, ostracism, and denial of employment opportunities of advancement are being used to marginalize us,” Archbishop Wenski preached. “We see this when butchers and bakers and candlestick makers are being put into the legal dock for refusing to renounce their religious beliefs.”

“A new religious intolerance has established itself in our country,” he added. “Christian pastors are stalked and threatened for being ‘Christian’ pastors, social scientists are expelled from universities for having turned up ‘politically incorrect’ facts, charitable organizations and confessional schools are harassed if they take seriously their faith’s moral precepts and require their employees to support their missions. Yet, even in the face of such intolerance, we must give witness. To fail to do so would be to fail in the charity we owe our neighbor.”

 

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Further information:

• Professing religious faith does not make us second class citizens (Archdiocese of Miami)
• Fortnight For Freedom (USCCB)
• 4th Fortnight for Freedom begins (CWN, 6/23)