WASHINGTON (CNS) – The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty has urged the House of Representatives to extend long-standing federal conscience protections to the Affordable Care Act’s new coverage mandates for private health plans.

Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore made the request in a letter to members of the House.

Saying the tradition of conscience rights in health care “has long enjoyed bipartisan consensus, but is now under greatly increased pressure,” Archbishop Lori asked in his letter to attach the conscience provision to upcoming appropriation bills for the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services.

“I urge Congress to address this problem when it considers proposals for continued funding of the federal government in the weeks to come,” he said.

“While the mandate for coverage of abortion-causing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization is hailed by some as a victory for women’s freedom, it permits no free choice by a female employee to decline such coverage for herself or her minor children, even if it violates her moral and religious convictions,” Archbishop Lori added.

He detailed precedents dating back 40 years on conscience rights in health care:

• The Church amendment of 1973 to shield individual and institutional health care providers from forced involvement in abortion or sterilization.

• A 1974 alteration to protect conscientious objection to other health services.

• An opt-out from coverage of “abortion or other services” for those with a moral or religious objection in former Sen. Daniel Moynihan’s failed 1994 health care reform bill.

• A congressional exemption in 1999 for both insurers and federal employees with religious objections to contraceptive coverage in health benefits.

• A 2000 appropriations provision instructing the District of Columbia to exempt those with moral or religious objections if it wished to approve a contraceptive mandate for its citizens.

The 1999 and 2000 provisions have been renewed annually since.

“It can hardly be said that all these presidents and Congresses, of both parties, had been waging a war on women,” Archbishop Lori said.

“I have seen no evidence that such laws, showing respect for Americans’ conscientious beliefs, have done any harm to women or to their advancement in society. What seems to be at issue instead is a new, more grudging attitude in recent years toward citizens whose faith or moral principles are not in accord with the views of the current governing power.”

Archbishop Lori also asked for a protection in current appropriations talks that clarifies current nondiscrimination laws to improve protection of individuals and institutions that decline involvement in abortion, allowing the victims of discrimination to vindicate their rights in court.

The amendment “places the Hyde/Weldon amendment, approved every year since 2004 as part of the Labor-HHS (Health and Human Services) appropriations bill, on a firmer legal basis by merging it with an older law against forced involvement in abortion training, the Coats-Snowe amendment of 1996,” he said.

“The Obama administration has said it supports both these laws and President Obama has signed Hyde-Weldon into law several times since 2008,” Archbishop Lori added. “We assume no one in Congress opposes the idea that people whose civil rights have been violated have a right to go to court. So this provision should be accepted without serious controversy.”

In his letter, Archbishop Lori also noted that in the new proposed rules issued by HHS Feb. 1 on the contraceptive mandate, the administration’s definition of an exempt “religious employer” is briefer than its original four-part definition, “but the administration itself says it does not ‘expand the universe’ of those who are exempt.”

He noted that under the new proposal, insurers, individuals and families, nonprofit or for-profit organizations that are not explicitly religious, and third-party administrators who object to the contraceptive mandate on moral grounds will have it “imposed on them without any recourse.”

“I fear that the federal government’s respect for believers and people of conscience no longer measures up to the treatment Americans have a right to expect from their elected representatives,” he said.

“It is most discouraging that this coercive element remains unchanged in the new notice of proposed rulemaking,” he said.

by Carol Zimmermann

WASHINGTON (CNS) – In a Nov. 4 speech at the University of Notre Dame, the apostolic nuncio to the U.S. warned that the “menace to religious liberty is concrete on many fronts” today particularly “within your own homeland.”

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, speaking in South Bend, Ind., at a university-sponsored conference on religious freedom, said threats to religious liberty in the U.S. may not be as obvious as the religious persecution in other countries, but he stressed that the “not so obvious” threat often “appears inconsequential or seems benign but in fact is not.”

The archbishop highlighted the Health and Human Services’ contraceptive mandate as a threat to religious liberty, but he was quick to point out it was just one example of attacks on “authentic and legitimate exercise of religious freedom” in the U.S. and stressed that people should not forget “the other perils to religious liberty that your great country has experienced in recent years.”

He said religious persecution occurs when “some people question whether religion or religious beliefs should have a role in public life and civic affairs.

“The problem of persecution begins with this reluctance to accept the public role of religion in these affairs,” he said, especially when the protection of religious freedom “involves beliefs that the powerful of the political society do not share.”

Archbishop Vigano said religious liberty has been threatened when Catholic Charities agencies across the country are “being removed from vital social services that advance the common good because the upright people administering these programs would not adopt policies or engage in procedures that violate fundamental moral principles of the Catholic faith.”

When religious liberties are threatened, he said, they are not always defended by “influential members of the national American community – especially public officials and university faculty members – who profess to be Catholic.”

Instead of explaining and defending Catholic teachings in light of current public policy issues, he said, they are “allying with those forces that are pitted against the church in fundamental moral teachings dealing with critical issues such as abortion, population control, the redefinition of marriage, embryonic stem-cell commodification, and problematic adoptions, to name but a few.”

The archbishop also noted the responsibility lay Catholics have to implement and defend their faith in the modern world, which he said was emphasized by Blessed Pope John Paul II’s “Christifideles Laici,” a 1998 apostolic exhortation about the mission and vocation of the laity.

Archbishop Vigano said today’s Catholics are still “a far cry from embracing” Pope John Paul’s charge to Catholic lay men and women particularly “when we witness in an unprecedented way a platform being assumed by a major political party, having intrinsic evils among its basic principles, and Catholic faithful publicly supporting it.”

“There is a divisive strategy at work here,” he continued, adding that it is “an intentional dividing of the church,” which he said weakens it and enables it to be more easily persecuted.

Catholics must “live and proclaim the Gospel through the church’s teachings,” Archbishop Vigano said.

by Wendy Long

While crisscrossing the state in my campaign for the U.S. Senate, I was recently sitting around a table talking with some women. I asked them, “What’s the most important issue facing our nation and our state?”

The tears welled up in one woman’s eyes, then spilled down her cheeks.

“Wendy, my daughter just graduated from college. She has a huge amount of debt. She can’t find a job anywhere. I was so proud of her, and now we don’t know what to do. Our children have become New York’s biggest export.”

With so many families struggling with unemployment, the high cost of groceries and gas, Medicare and Social Security headed for bankruptcy, and the federal government debt skyrocketing to unprecedented levels, it’s understandable that many Catholics here in New York have not focused on another threat to our values – a threat that’s as big as the failure of our elected officials to address our broken economy.

As I write this, our freedom as Catholics is being stomped upon by the Obama Administration. Obamacare is forcing Catholic institutions such as hospitals, schools, and charities, as of Aug. 1, to provide and pay for insurance coverage of sterilization, contraception, and abortion-causing drugs.

The Obama Administration and my opponent, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, insist that this government mandate is an issue of “women’s health.” Sen. Gillibrand actually claims that the Catholic Church is behind “attacks that are being launched against women’s rights and women’s health.”

Her charge is so grossly wrong that it is hard to know where to start. But let me set the record straight:

- The Catholic Church has been at the forefront of protecting the lives and health of women, and all Americans. I don’t think there is another institution in our nation’s history that has done so much for so many – whether in caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, helping the poor, educating our children, and defending and protecting the weakest among us. The Church and her institutions have never attacked anyone, and they are certainly not attacking women.

- The Catholic Church believes in free will. The Church passes on to us its teaching of more than two millennia about human dignity and the sanctity of human life. The Church offers unconditional healing and help to all of us sinners. But Holy Mother Church has never — ever — attempted, as my opponent claims, to “make medical decisions for someone” who is employed by a Church institution.

- Our nation was born of the bedrock principle of freedom of religion: that the government may not dictate to people of faith that they have to take actions that violate that faith. As Cardinal Timothy Dolan has said, “The federal government should do what it’s traditionally done since July 4, 1776, namely back out of intruding into the internal life of the Church.”

- But for the first time in the history of our country, a President of the United States – and his allies, like my opponent – are ordering faithful Catholics and other people of conscience to genuflect at their altar of almighty government, to fall in line and obey, even if it violates their religious beliefs. If they do not abide by Obamacare’s abortion-contraception-sterilization mandate, many Catholic charitable institutions – as well as private businesses run by Catholic Americans – will face millions of dollars in fines that will force many of them out of business.

- This issue has nothing whatsoever to do with women’s health. It is about government intrusion into our Catholic faith and into the lives of all people of conscience. No one’s faith and beliefs will be safe if the Obama-Gillibrand mandate is allowed to stand. President Obama and Senator Gillibrand intend to force their anti-Catholic views on every single Catholic in this nation. And if they can crush Catholics under their boot heel, they can crush anyone else, too.

The Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Rockville Centre have filed suit against the Obama Administration to reverse the clear violation of religious liberty and freedom of conscience in Obamacare.

Bishop DiMarzio has issued the call to all of us: “As citizens of a nation that prides herself on religious liberty, we should be outraged that the government would … coerce any institution to cooperate with what they deem to be evil.”

Amen. We cannot sit by silently any longer as Washington attempts to crush our faith and our Church.

by Patricia Zapor

WASHINGTON (CNS) – To the enthusiastic reception of an audience of John Carroll Society members Sept. 10, New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan traced the historic origins of U.S. religious freedom in light of a current battle with the government over those rights.

Saying that he wanted to “restore the luster” on “this first and most cherished freedom,” Cardinal Dolan, who also is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), said he was afraid “that the promotion and protection of religious liberty is becoming caricatured as some narrow, hyper-defensive, far-right, self-serving cause.”

Rather, he said, “freedom of religion has been the driving force of almost every enlightened, unshackling, noble cause in American history.”

This year, the U.S. bishops have waged a campaign to draw attention to what they describe as “religious liberty under attack” through a variety of governmental policies and societal trends.

Chief among the issues they have cited is a mandate from the Department of Health and Human Services that employers provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, including some that can induce an abortion, and sterilization. The USCCB and other religious organizations say an exemption to the mandate for religious employers that consider such services morally objectionable is too narrow.

Other concerns highlighted by the USCCB’s summer “Fortnight for Freedom” events included court rulings and policies — such as allowing adoption by same-sex couples — that have pushed Catholic institutions out of adoption, foster care and refugee services. They also cited threats abroad, including attacks on churches in Iraq, Nigeria and Kenya.

Cardinal Dolan, who holds a doctorate in American church history, said a historical perspective can help explain that the defense of religious freedom “is not some evangelical Christian polemic, or wily strategy of discredited Catholic bishops, but the quintessential American cause, the first line in the defense of and protection of human rights.”

Speaking in Washington to a standing-room-only audience at a 450-seat theater in the Newseum, Cardinal Dolan noted that religious freedom has always been understood in the United States as one of the fundamental freedoms, “spheres of free thought and action essential to individual liberty and a civil society.” A 74-foot marble display outside the entrance of the Newseum, a museum of news, enshrines the five freedoms of the First Amendment: religion, press, speech, assembly and petition.

In pressing for religious rights, Cardinal Dolan said: “We citizens of any and all faiths, or none at all, are not just paranoid and self-serving in defending what we hoard as ‘ours,’ but we are, in fact, protecting America. We act not as sectarians, but as responsible citizens. We act on behalf of the truth about the human person.”

His audience, members of the John Carroll Society, a Catholic lay organization composed largely of legal professionals, applauded enthusiastically, giving standing ovations before and after Cardinal Dolan spoke.

He ran through a list of historic events, from the American Revolution through the abolition, temperance, civil rights and peace movements, citing them as campaigns whose leaders were acting out of religious convictions.

Among secular leaders who recognized the importance of religious freedom, Cardinal Dolan quoted Thomas Jefferson — “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?” — and Alexis de Tocqueville — “Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. Religion … is more needed in democratic republics than in any others.”

In nearby Maryland, Cardinal Dolan said, Catholic leaders were an important part of the founding of the nation, including John Carroll, the first bishop of Baltimore and founder of Georgetown University, and his cousin, Charles, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence.

Maryland was itself established as a place of religious diversity and freedom and was the only colony with “a notable Catholic population,” and one which “provided the laboratory” for religious freedom, he said.

“Your ancestors here were shrewd,” he said. “They did not want any favored status for either their beloved Catholic faith or any other religion. Nor did they want their faith, however normative in their own life, to have any institutional input in the colonial government. Mainly, they just wanted to be left alone. Left alone … to practice their faith, and follow their properly formed consciences in the public square.”

by Elizabeth Deffner

From left, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, retired archbishop of Los Angeles, New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan and Supreme Knight Carl Anderson are pictured Aug. 7 at the States Dinner during the 130th Supreme Convention of the Knights of Columbus in Anaheim, Calif.

ANAHEIM, Calif. (CNS) – Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson called the number of attendees at the Knights of Columbus 130th Supreme Convention in Anaheim “a testament to the growth and development” of the international fraternal organization.

More than 2,000 Knights from around the world – many of them with their wives and children – along with 12 cardinals and more than 70 bishops attended the Aug. 6-8 convention.

Anderson made the comments at the States Dinner, a high point of the convention that brings Knights together in a celebration of patriotism.

The bishops, archbishops and cardinals attending the dinner processed through a massive exhibit hall in the Anaheim Convention Center, each waving a flag and smiling at the Knights cheering from either side of the aisle. After the clergy reached their seats on the dais, the assembly joined in the national anthems of countries in which the Knights are represented.

Later, as dinner was served, an orchestra performed the anthems of each U.S. state, as well as Canadian provinces.

The celebratory tone carried through the keynote speech of Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York – a member of the Knights of Columbus for more than 30 years – who got a big laugh after thanking Anderson for booking him into the honeymoon suite of the hotel where the convention took place.

He went on to say he wanted to turn his audience’s attention away from “the crimson tide” of bishops and cardinals seated before them and focus instead on the Knights and their wives and the sacrament of marriage.

“We Catholics are hopeless romantics, you know, when it comes to married love,” he said, recalling something a staff member had said to him when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee. In striving to increase vocations to the priesthood and religious life, Jan Ruidl told him, he was not thinking along the right lines.

“The greatest vocation crisis today is to lifelong, loving, faithful, life-giving marriage,” she said. “You take care of that one, and you’ll have all the priests and sisters you need.”

“‘For an increase in vocations to the priesthood, consecrated life and the sacrament of marriage’ should perhaps become the new phrasing for a prayer of the faithful at every Mass,” Cardinal Dolan went on, referring not to high divorce rates but to low sacramental marriage rates.

Other speakers focused on the issue of religious liberty – a hot topic at a convention with “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land” as its theme.

Pointing out that the clergy and the faithful of the United States had launched a robust defense of the fundamental right of religious freedom, Archbishop Richard W. Smith of Edmonton, Alberta, the newly elected president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, noted that their neighbors to the north are also facing many challenges to their religious freedom.

“Freedom of religion is not merely the right to freedom of worship – it’s the right to live out our beliefs in the public square,” he said. “On an issue of such fundamental importance, we must be vocal.”

In his homily during the opening Mass, celebrated earlier that day, Orange, Calif., Bishop Tod D. Brown also touched on the issue of religious liberty.

“We face a growing secularism, attacks on the value and gift of human life, attempts to redefine traditional marriage, and serious curtailment of our religious rights,” said Bishop Brown, a Knight of Columbus for 40 years. “Certainly, there is a clear and demanding need today for the new evangelization called for by Blessed John Paul II and, now, Pope Benedict XVI.”

These are difficult times – just as St. Juan Diego lived in difficult times, he said. “In those tumultuous times in Mexico, Our Lady (of Guadalupe) brought a message of love and peace. Millions of native peoples embraced Christianity in the years that followed,” Bishop Brown said.

As the patroness of the Americas and of the Knights of Columbus, Mary provides a model of how to respond to the Lord’s call, a model that will be all the more important as clergy and laypeople around the world begin to respond to the call to the new evangelization.

“I’m confident,” Bishop Brown said, that the Knights “will be in the front ranks of the evangelizers.”

ALBANY, N.Y. (CNS) – The lawsuit filed against a Catholic hospital by a same-sex couple seeking spousal benefits is a “cautionary reminder of the true implications of the redefinition of marriage on religious liberty,” according to the New York State Catholic Conference.

The lawsuit was filed anonymously June 19 in a federal court in New York by a female hospital employee and her spouse who said their spousal health benefits had been denied. The couple is seeking past and future health care benefits as well as a declaration that they are entitled to the benefits.

Defendants named in the lawsuit are St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers, N.Y., and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, the hospital’s insurance company. The woman who filed the suit works at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Harrison, N.Y., a division of St. Joseph’s Medical Center.

According to the lawsuit, the couple married last year when same-sex marriage was legalized in New York.

Self-insured employers such as St. Joseph’s are governed by federal regulations and exempt from many state laws, including New York’s Marriage Equality Act. These employers can decide if they want to provide benefits to same-sex spouses and can deny coverage under the federal Defense of Marriage Act that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

In the lawsuit, the employee said it was discriminatory and unconstitutional to deny coverage based on the federal definition of marriage.

Richard Barnes, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, said in a June 21 statement that the lawsuit confirms what the state Catholic Conference predicted would happen a year ago, when its objections were dismissed as “silly and far-fetched.”

“We have seen come to pass exactly what we warned would occur,” he said. “An individual is suing a Catholic facility, attempting to use the force of law to compel the hospital (and all Catholic employers) to violate their religious beliefs.”

He also pointed out the significance of the timing of the lawsuit, noting that it was filed just before the U.S. bishops’ “fortnight for freedom” campaign – a two-week period of prayer, education and action aimed at explaining how a federal health care contraceptive mandate violates religious principles.

Barnes pointed out that a year ago when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo “made the redefinition of marriage his top legislative priority, we warned not only that such action would have negative consequences for society, but also that it would infringe on the religious liberty of Catholic employers.” Barnes said these warnings went unheeded, as advocates for same-sex marriage insisted that the state’s Marriage Equality Act would not impact religious institutions.

The Catholic Conference warned that the religious exemption language included in the legislation was “insufficient to protect religious institutions.”

Now, in response to the lawsuit against the Catholic hospital and its insurer, Barnes said the governor and the state legislature should “pass legislation immediately to provide a full religious exemption to this ill-conceived law.”

by Ed Wilkinson

Much of the contents of this week’s paper deals with religious liberty.  Check out the Bishop’s column, the front page story, the editorial and Father Lauder’s column.  There is a growing realization that the Church is under attack and we must respond.

The Obama Administration’s Affordable Health Care Act has mobilized church circles because of its threat to religious conscience and the ability to live by our faith.

Religious freedom is the fundamental basis of the U.S. Bill of Rights.  From it, all other freedoms emanate.  The brilliance of the Founding Fathers was to recognize that this is what made America different from the oppressive nations that wished to rule the New World.  People came to America to be free, to worship as they please, to believe in the religion of their choice.  The only restriction put upon religion was that the government would not establish a national church.

But the provisions of the new health laws, which are currently under review by the Supreme Court, would force all Americans to buy health insurance and require all companies supplying health care to pay for some practices that violate their religious tenets, such as birth control and abortifacient drugs.

Conscientious objection has been tossed out the window.  Could you hear the cry if freedom of conscience had been denied during the Vietnam War and everyone who was drafted had to submit to a combat role.  There would have been an uproar demanding the right to believe what one believes.

The same thing is at stake here.  Religious organizations are being threatened with laws that demand they violate their own teachings.

Fortunately, Catholics, who seem to be the primary target of these rules, are beginning to realize what are the repercussions of such acts.  Catholics who read and pay attention to the news see the discrimination that is being foisted upon them.  As a matter of fact, all persons of good faith are uniting in an effort to produce reasonable health care reform and not the travesty that was legislated in the Affordable Health Care Act.  Remember the famous dictum that we had to pass the law to find out what was in it.  Well, we passed it, and now we don’t like what we’re discovering.  It’s wrong.  It’s discriminatory.   It’s a threat to America’s ideals.

As good Americans, we are preparing to celebrate our nation’s 236th birthday.  The U.S. bishops have invited us to participate in a Fortnight of Freedom leading up to the Fourth of July.  It is a time to educate ourselves about the threats to our basic rights.  As Bishop DiMarzio points out in his column this week, liberties are not taken away all at once.  They are eroded, sometimes without realization of what is going on.  This is clearly what is happening under the current leadership of the country.

The diocese also will afford us opportunities to keep ourselves informed and to take action.  There is a check list on Page 4 beneath the bishop’s column to guide us.

“It’s important to say the struggle we are engaging in here is not a partisan issue,” said Archbishop William Lori, chairman of the bishops’ ad hoc committee on religious liberty. “We didn’t choose the time. We didn’t choose the place.

“We’re not trying to throw an election. We’re simply trying to defend fundamental freedoms. It’s not a Republican or Democratic issue. It’s not a Catholic issue. It’s a freedom issue.

As we prepare for the celebration of our national Independence Day on July 4, it is incumbent on us as American Catholics to understand the scriptural and theological foundations of our own teaching on religious liberty.

Our concerns about recently announced federal policies directly challenging our right to free exercise of religion, guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, are not based solely on legal or political arguments. Catholic social teaching on religious liberty, firmly rooted in the nature of the human person and human actions, has a long and quite interesting history of development of which every Catholic should be aware. Surprisingly as it may be to some no doubt, Church teaching is much closer to the foundational principles of our constitutional republic than many of our contemporaries might be aware of.

Our bishops are calling on us to participate in a “Fortnight for Freedom,” a 14-day period of prayer, education and action in support of religious freedom, June 21-July 4. As you may have read in last week’s Tablet, this initiative is taking place on both national and local levels. Readers may continue to inform themselves by consulting the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (usccb.org), by reading our diocesan paper and consulting their pastors, who have received directions from our diocesan bishop.

We strongly suggest, as a good way to begin, a prayerful and reflective reading of Dignitatis Humanae.  Contrary to the distortion that is being widely disseminated throughout the secular media — that this is somehow an attempt by the Church to impose its unpopular (and often misunderstood) teaching on contraception (cf. Humanae Vitae) — the current challenge is a dagger to the heart of the fundamental human right to follow one’s conscience.

Vatican II issued a Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae), which can be found in The Documents of Vatican II, ed.  Walter M. Abbott (New York: Guild Press, 1966). The bishop’s quote from this document in the Statement on Religion Liberty, Our First, Most Cherished Liberty, found on the USCCB website — is also highly recommended reading.

To participate intelligently and, therefore, effectively in this most important national issue that affects all Americans, it is imperative that all Catholics fully inform ourselves not only of the fundamental human and civil liberties that are on the line but also of the basic teachings of our own faith which uphold them. Our hope and prayer is that every reader will take this challenge seriously. If we do not understand and defend our rights and freedoms, who else will?

Thanks to Sister Angela

As the academic year draws to a close in parishes and schools throughout the diocese, a moment of prayerful reflection and thanks is in order.

Today’s catechists, teachers and other lay pastoral ministers form the core of our faith formation teams.  We are mindful of their faithful service in so many ways, which often extends well above and beyond the terms of a contract or a commission. No one serves as a more radiant example and no one is singularly more responsible for the development of our lay ministries than Sister Angela Gannon, C.S.J.

On Saturday, June 16, a celebration of lay ministry benefiting the Pastoral Institute of the Diocese and its Scholarship Fund will be held in Sister Angela’s honor at the Immaculate Conception Center, Douglaston. We strongly urge the support of our readers. In addition to her many years of pastoral service as an educational and administrative professional, Sister Angela, currently secretary for Catholic Education and Formation of the Diocese of Brooklyn, has fostered the work of the Pastoral Institute for 10 years.

Those wishing to attend the Mass at 5 p.m., the dinner-dance to follow, or to sponsor an ad in the journal, may find more information on the diocesan website, dioceseofbrooklyn.org­­­.

Your prayerful and personal support is a way of participating in the evangelizing mission of the Church and a spiritual work of mercy. May God continue to bless Sister Angela and add many fruitful years to her work in the vineyard.

by Cindy Wooden

Gian Lorenzo Bernini's statue of the Roman Emperor Constantine is seen in the portico of St. Peter's Basilica during the closing Mass of the Synod of Bishops for Africa at the Vatican in this file photo. The statue shows Constantine looking at the appearance of a cross in the sky in Rome in 312.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – For Vatican historians, the roots of a Christian idea of religious liberty go way back: in fact, back 1,700 years to the Emperor Constantine’s victory on Rome’s Milvian Bridge and to his conversion.

At a Vatican conference in late April marking the anniversary, the head of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences said Constantine’s victory in 312 under the sign of the cross was “the foundation of a new world” marked by religious freedom for Christians and separation between church and state.

However, Norbertine Father Bernard Ardura, committee president, also admitted that “many centuries would be needed” before there was a widespread recognition of full religious freedom for everyone in a pluralistic society and before a respectful church-state separation was achieved.

In fact, said Cardinal Agostino Vallini, papal vicar for Rome, it wasn’t until the Second Vatican Council that the Catholic Church fully, formally recognized everyone’s right to religious freedom.

The council’s document on religious freedom said: “The human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.”

Even as the international group of historians gathered at the Vatican to discuss the latest scholarship about Constantine’s conversion, it was his connection to the modern idea of religious liberty that was seen as most relevant both for the world at large as well as for the Catholic Church.

For example, the U.S. bishops have said the Obama administration is threatening religious freedom by attempting to force Catholic institutions to include contraception – which the church teaches is immoral – in health care plans. And the Second Vatican Council’s recognition of religious freedom is one of the sticking points in the ongoing discussions between the Vatican and the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X.

In fact, the U.S. district of the society explained its position April 13 in an article that described as “problematic” a recent statement by the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty. The SSPX statement said, “As for man’s ‘liberty,’ mankind has been endowed with free will, but only to use for good – that which corresponds with truth (i.e., Christ and his church) – but not to do evil…. Error never has any rights. However, the secularistic and anti-Catholic principle of religious liberty denies this reality and instead, makes error equal to truth.”

While the council affirmed traditional church teaching that people have an obligation to seek the truth, and that the fullness of truth is found in the Catholic Church, it insisted that no one could be forced to accept truth.

Opinions about Constantine’s legacy – and even his conversion – differ, even among Catholic scholars. Contrasting points of view on the sincerity of Constantine’s faith and his impact on the faith of others in the Roman Empire came to the fore quickly during the Vatican conference April 18-20.

While preserving academic decorum at a small Vatican news conference announcing the Constantine confab, two historians agreed that the fourth-century emperor played an important role in the development of the idea of church-state separation, but they did not agree on how he actually did that.

Claire Sotinel, a professor of Roman history at the University of Paris-Est Creteil and one of the organizers of the conference, said, “Constantine’s conversion marked a new way of thinking about religion and power. It was a complete break. When Constantine became Christian, it was the first time the ruler (of the Roman Empire) was not also the religious leader.”

But Giovanni Maria Vian, a historian better known as the editor of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said that while Constantine identified himself as a Christian after the battle on the bridge in 312, “he never gave up the (then pagan Roman) title ‘Pontifex Maximus,’ he continued to preside over pagan rituals and was baptized only on his deathbed.”

Still, Vian said, by identifying himself as a Christian and solidifying the rights of Christians to practice their faith, “Constantine made Christianity available to the poor – the masses – and not just the elite. He made it possible for the church to be what it is today.”

Vian also said the so-called “Constantinian revolution” wasn’t all it is popularly cracked up to be. The systematic persecution of Christians in the West ended before his reign and Christianity was not proclaimed the official religion of the empire until some 47 years after his death, he said.

He and Sotinel dismissed the claims of some historians that far from promoting religious freedom, Constantine’s embrace of Christianity, or at least the favors he granted the church, actually gave birth to centuries of Christian teaching and violence against the Jews.

Sotinel said there is no historical evidence, including in Jewish sources, of anti-Jewish activity on the part of Christians in the empire before the fifth century.

The topic of Constantine and religious liberty will be given even greater attention by historians and church leaders in 2013 when they mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan – a proclamation of tolerance of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire signed by Constantine and the Emperor Licinius, who ruled the eastern part of the empire.

Demonstrators participate in a “Stand Up for Religious Freedom” rally near the offices of U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand in Melville, L.I.

WASHINGTON (CNS) – The U.S. bishops urged Catholics and “all people of faith” across the nation to observe March 30 as a day of prayer and fasting for religious freedom and conscience protection.
The bishops announced the day-long observance in a statement titled “United for Religious Freedom” that was approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Administrative Committee.
They asked Catholics and others to join them in “prayer and penance for our leaders and for the complete protection of our first freedom – religious liberty – which is not only protected in the laws and customs of our great nation, but rooted in the teachings of our great tradition.”
The bishops said that among current threats to religious liberty is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate that forces employers, including religious ones, to provide coverage of contraception/sterilization in their health plans.
Prayer resources have been posted on the USCCB website, www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/conscience-protection/resources-on-conscience-protection.cfm.
Also, “Prayer for Religious Liberty” prayer cards are available as a downloadable PDF file. The cards are available in English and Spanish, and feature three different images: Mary as the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the U.S.; Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas and the unborn; and St. Thomas More, the patron saint of the legal profession who was martyred for standing up for his religious beliefs.
In a letter about the day of prayer addressed to Catholics in their state, Pennsylvania’s bishops said the observance was planned in response “to the assault by the federal government on constitutionally guaranteed religious liberty.” They, too, cited the federal contraceptive mandate, saying it “punished the church for its firmly held beliefs and consistent teaching.”

Editor’s Note: Bulk packages of “Prayer for Religious Liberty” prayer cards will soon be available. They can be ordered at www.usccbpublishing.org and will be ready for shipping in April.