From the Pastor’s desk— June 25, 2023
This week is dedicated to National Religious Freedom Week in the Catholic Churches in the United States starting on June 22nd (the memorial of Sts Thomas More/John Fischer who were killed by King Henry VIII for standing up for the truth of our faith) til June 29th (feast of Sts Peter/Paul put to death for their faith by the Roman government). We will pray and work for the ways our faith is persecuted at the hands of governments. A full description of prayers, education, and activities can be found on the United States Council of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) website,
https://www.usccb.org/committees/religious-liberty/religious-freedom-week.
You might think we are supposed to have Church-state separation and the Church does not have a right to impose its beliefs on the state or American public. While it is true the 1st amendment established we cannot make any one faith the sole standard of our laws or leader, the same amendment guarantees the free exercise of one’s faith.
Yet from the earliest days of this country, when the majority of people were from England, they brought their hatred of the Catholic Church. This hatred found its way into anti-Catholic laws not permitting Catholics to live in most of the original 13 colonies, the exceptions being the state of Maryland and parts of Pennsylvania (through the tolerance of the Quakers). This anti-Catholic bias continued in the mid 1800’s through the “Know Nothing” political party established on an anti-immigrant platform with animosity for German and Irish Catholic immigrants. Churches and convents were burned, priests were beaten in this time.
Anti-Catholicism grew with the book, The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, a patently false book about alleged abuses in convents and rectories in the Catholic Church that hoodwinked generations about our faith. The Know Nothing party dissolved after the Civil War, but its ideas recirculated in the early 1900’s under the Ku Klux Klan that persecuted not only blacks but Catholics and jews as well. In our modern day the attacks are more subtle but still ever present.
While it is true that much of these attacks were not officially legislated attacks, it is also true that the lack of freedom to express our faith has not been adequately protected by the government either. Today, there are two places where our faith is under attack and needs our prayers and efforts. The first is the seal of confession, as some governmental institutions (police, courts have tried to force priests to break the seal of confession.) Second, our government is trying to force our Catholic hospitals to provide abortions, which is clearly against our beliefs and the 6th commandment.
It will take more than prayers to change our reality, it will take advocacy and our willingness to speak out against injustices against hospitals, priests, migrants, our sacred spaces, our student groups right to gather. The light of our faith is what true freedom is about and we are not truly free until all of us are free.
Parochial administrator
With a heart for Mission,
Fr. Ray