The US Catholic bishops say religious freedom is being whittled away by same-sex marriage, abortion and healthcare legislation, and they are vowing to up their efforts to protect it.
“For some time now we have viewed with growing alarm the ongoing erosion of religious liberty in our country,” Bishop William Lori, bishop of Connecticut told the annual fall meeting of the US bishops.
“There is no religious liberty if we are not free to express our faith in the public square and if we are not free to act on that faith through works of education, health care and charity,” he said.
NCR reports the bishops’ decision to make religious liberty a high priority was triggered at least in part by two recent policy decisions by the Obama administration.
The first: a new Health and Human Services requirement that virtually all U.S. employers must include in their health insurance packages the full range of reproductive services legally available under federal law – including abortion, artificial contraception and contraceptive services that the church regards morally as abortions or at least in some cases abortifacient – with no additional charge to their insurees.
The second: the Obama administration’s recently instituted HHS requirement that faith-based social service agencies cannot obtain federal funds to support their services unless they include the full range of reproductive services that federal law allows.
The Bishops’ identified other examples of where religious liberty is being called into question, including
- Alabama’s recent crackdown on immigration, which prevents undocumented citizens from receiving religious services
- a New York town clerk who faces legal action for refusing to administer same-sex marriages after New York state last summer became the most populous state to legalize gay marriage
- Catholic charities in Illinois are considered discriminatory for not placing foster children with same-sex couples
- U.S. Department of Justice’s opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman and
- the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which prevented gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.
Lori said, “The services of the Catholic Church are more crucial than ever, but it’s becoming more difficult for us to deliver these services.”
Lori told NCR that his new committee believes “part of its mandate is to defend all aspects of religious liberty and to build bridges of ecumenical and inter-religious collaboration not only in areas of special Catholic concern, but across a broader spectrum.”
Sources