Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz
Photo Credit: www.archlou.org
“The Freedom to Serve” was the crucially relevant theme of the third annual Fortnight for Freedom, imploring God to protect America’s threatened freedom of religion and conscience through prayers and special masses, and highlighting the Catholic Church’s claim and commitment to religious freedom. Like those of 2012 and 2013, it began on June 21, followed by an opening mass at the Shrine of the Assumption in Baltimore on Sunday June 22, the feast days of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher. It concluded on July 4 with a mass at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.
The closing mass began with the hope that faithful Christians will have the grace to continue to live out their faith. Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, delivered the homily. He noted that “people of faith have had a profound impact of the life of our nation.” People “have used this freedom to serve others.” This is because the particular kind of faith that Christians hold, and especially the kind of faith that the Catholic Church teaches, sees charity as a vital part of faith. “Faith that does not show itself in acts of service to others is a dead faith” Archbishop Kurtz said. He noted that Jesus was critical of those who do not put faith into action. This clearly indicates that to live out the Catholic faith at least, as the First Amendment clearly supports in its guarantee of the “exercise of religion,” it must be possible to engage in charitable activity in the world. If one cannot act according to the standards of one’s particular faith, such activity is not a distinct “exercise of religion.” He noted the statement of John Paul II that “Christ teaches us that the best use of freedom is charity.”
There are, said the archbishop, thousands of religious communities involved in charitable activity in this country. While applauding the Hobby Lobby decision in its protection of the liberty of conscience of owners of for-profit businesses, he noted that the decision does not specifically protect religious non-profit organizations engaged in charitable work. The outcome of this battle is yet to come. As an example, Archbishop Kurtz cited the Little Sisters of the Poor, who serve the most frail and elderly members of their local communities. He noted that the laypersons assisting the Little Sisters in their work “share the same charism” (i.e., the same spiritual gift) as the nuns themselves. This brings a spiritual dimension to their activity not possible in state social service. Quoting Isaiah, the archbishop said that if you “serve others, then light shall rise for you in the darkness.” Such charity is not done “without convictions, conscience and a sense of right and wrong,” but is “providing intimately personal care, a care that we deeply desire for our family members and for all people in need.” “Faith filled service is good for America” Kurtz asserted, and then referring to a comment by Cardinal James Hickey from the late twentieth century, he said that Catholics “serve people not because they’re Catholic, but because we’re Catholic.” Therefore, they should never violate the core belief that motivated those services. The clear and present danger of the current Administration’s secularist policies is that it will require Catholic social services to “separate our acts of service from the living faith that motivates these acts,” and “to facilitate immoral acts that go against our clearly demonstrated living faith .” Quoting Cardinal Timothy Dolan, his predecessor as President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Kurtz said that “America is at its best when religion has a place at the table.”
Kurtz noted that oversees many people are persecuted for their faith. However, the assault on religious freedom is “also sadly at our doorstep.” Again noting the Little Sisters of the Poor, he said that the HHS mandate currently at issue in the courts is giving a person of faith the choice between “stop service to the poor to maintain the integrity of my faith,” or to stop serving as an act of faith. Kurtz insisted that a “healthy pluralism does not entail privatizing religion” or relegating faith to churches, synagogues, or other houses of worship. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which was the basis of the Hobby Lobby decision, rightly held the government to high standards requiring the government to show a compelling state interest to “burden” the “free exercise of religion,” which is then applied in the least restrictive way. The court was not clear as to whether there was a compelling state interest in the Hobby Lobby case, but the fact that the government could pay for abortion inducing drugs itself meant that the least restrictive means of burdening religious liberty was not used. In this connection, both the U.S. Catholic bishops and other religious groups interested and supportive of religious liberty have sent Congress a letter urging that the law be protected against those who wish to change it to deny religious liberty.
Two more areas in which religious liberty is threatened were noted by Kurtz. First, we must “protect the precious gift of marriage” and “must be able to do so without the threat of government sanction.” Also, we must be free to “reach out to the immigrant.”
Kurtz concluded that Catholics “seek only to be good citizens, good citizens of heaven and good citizens of earth … our nation is built on this service, and needs this service. Our faith requires it.”
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