by Maria Wiering

BALTIMORE (CNS) – On the eve of the feast day of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori held up the two martyrs as a source of inspiration for American Catholics during a Mass June 21, launching the U.S. bishops’ much-anticipated Fortnight for Freedom.

“Their courageous witness of faith continues to stir the minds and hearts of people yearning for authentic freedom, and specifically, for religious freedom,” he said.

With the hope of drawing greater attention to the weakening of religious freedoms in America, the U.S. bishops called for the Fortnight for Freedom, which lasts through July 4, to be 14 days dedicated to prayer, education and public action.

According to the parish’s sacristan, more than 1,000 people from Maryland, the District of Columbia and surrounding states attended the 7 p.m. Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore, which Archbishop Lori called “a monument to religious freedom.”

The basilica was America’s first Catholic cathedral, commissioned at the turn of the 19th century by America’s first Catholic archbishop, John Carroll of Baltimore.

Archbishop Lori celebrated the Mass with Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem and former archbishop of Baltimore; Baltimore Auxiliary Bishops Mitchell T. Rozanski and Denis J. Madden; and about 65 priests.

In a homily that received a standing ovation, Archbishop Lori described the integrity St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher demonstrated as the king asked them to violate their personal consciences, calling the men symbols of two “inseparably linked” aspects of religious freedom – the freedom of individuals and the freedom of institutions.

The two men were martyred separately in 1535 for refusing to sign the Act of Supremacy, which repudiated papal authority and acknowledged the king of England as head of the church.

Archbishop Lori presented St. Thomas More – a devout Catholic, husband, father and lawyer – as a symbol of the individual’s religious freedom, and St. John Fisher – bishop of Rochester in Kent – as a symbol of the religious freedom of institutions, many of which were destroyed or forced to break ties with the Catholic Church in the wake of England’s upheaval.

“If we fail to defend the rights of individuals, the freedom of institutions will be at risk, and if we fail to defend the rights of our institutions, individual liberty will be at risk,” he said. “More needs Fisher, and Fisher needs More.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called for the fortnight in March in their Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty’s statement, “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty.” Archbishop Lori is chairman of the committee.

The statement outlined several instances of “religious liberty under attack.” Foremost among the U.S. bishops’ concerns is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate that employers, including most religious ones, provide insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, which Catholic teaching considers “morally objectionable.”

Since the mandate was announced in February, the bishops have also expressed concern about its “narrow” definition of church as a body which mostly hires and serves its own members, and exists to advance its own teachings – excluding faith-based universities, charities, hospitals and other institutions that seek to serve the common good.

“We must never allow the government – any government, at any time, of any party – to impose such a constrictive definition on our beloved church or any church,” Archbishop Lori said.