For the third year the Bishops of our nation have invited us to observe a Fortnight for Freedom (June 21-July 4). These are meant to be two weeks of prayer and education regarding our first American freedom, namely, religious liberty. Religious freedom is a founding principle of our country protected by the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Before that, though, religious liberty is a fundamental human right, rooted in the dignity of every human person?people of any faith or no faith at all. Religious freedom is not a Catholic, Jewish, Orthodox, Mormon or Muslim issue? it?s an American issue, a civil rights issue. It is about allowing people the freedom to serve God and their neighbor. At 5:00 PM on Monday, June 30, Deacon Ray will lead a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament at Boyceville. Following the Spring Valley and Elmwood Masses of Tuesday through Thursday (July 1-3) we will pray Morning (or Evening) Prayer before the exposed Blessed Sacrament and conclude with Benediction.

The Pope?s representative to our country, Archbishop Carlo Vigano, has served in various posts around the world in the Vatican?s diplomatic corp. From the perspective of his international experience and in light of developments in the United States, the Archbishop spoke at Notre Dame University about religious freedom and the persecution of the Church: ?There are those who question whether religion or religious belief should have a role in public life and civic affairs . . . Persecution begins with this reluctance to accept the public role of religion in these affairs, especially . . . when the protection of religious freedom involves beliefs that the powerful of the political society do not share . . . The intention . . . of the persecutor is . . . to eradicate the public witness to Jesus Christ and His Church. An accompanying objective can be the incapacitation of the faith by enticing people to renounce their beliefs, or at least their public manifestations, rather than undergo great hardships . . . if believers persist in their resistance to apostasy. The plan is straightforward: if the faith persists, so will the hardships. In more recent times, martyrdom may not necessitate torture and death; . . . those who desire to harm the faith may choose the path of ridiculing the believers so that they become outcasts from mainstream society and are marginalized from meaningful participation in public life . . . While . . . persecution can mirror . . . martyrdom, other elements can be directed to sustaining difficulty, annoyance, and harassment that are designed to frustrate the beliefs of the targeted person or persons rather than eliminate these persons . . . The objective of persecution is to remove from the public square the beliefs themselves and the public manifestations without necessarily eliminating the persons who hold the beliefs. The victimization may not be designed to destroy the believer but only the belief and its open manifestations. From the public viewpoint, the believer remains but the faith eventually disappears.? Archbishop Vigano noted that, in the United States, 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, an intentional dividing of the Church, through this strategy, the body of the Church is weakened, and thus the Church can be more easily persecuted.?

I myself cannot shake the impression that many of our fellow citizens ? and many within the Church ? are sleepwalking through life. In a sobering analysis, Cardinal Francis George, the Archbishop of Chicago, commented on media reports about what he had said to a gathering of priests: ?Speaking . . . to . . . priests . . . I was trying to express in overly dramatic fashion what the complete secularization of our society could bring . . . I am (correctly) quoted as saying that I expected to die in my bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. What is omitted from the reports is a final phrase I added about the bishop who follows a possibly martyred bishop: ?His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.?

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us! Saint Luke, pray for us!
Father Kevin C. Louis, STL