Fortnight for Freedom

Richard A. Sokerka

With the Fourth of July around the corner, the U.S. Church is in the midst of celebrating its annual Fortnight for Freedom (June 21-July 4), which highlights important issues for Catholics to be acutely aware of regarding our religious freedom, our first and most cherished right as U.S. citizens.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has launched a website with a video to mark this year’s Fortnight for Freedom, focusing on religious freedom issues. Approximately 10 minutes long it features a number of legal, religious, and other personalities discussing the importance of religious liberty.

“Religious freedom is one of the basic freedoms of the human person because without religious freedom, the freedom of conscience, all other freedoms are without foundation,” Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami states in the video.

“A government that doesn’t acknowledge limits on its own power to regulate religious institutions is probably going to come after other institutions as well,” said Professor Rick Garnett of the University of Notre Dame’s Law School.

The video also chronicles the long strug­gle between the Little Sisters of the Poor and the Obama Administration’s HHS mandate of the Affordable Care Act, which sought to punish the nuns for non-compliance with draconian fines.

“When religious freedom goes away, and there is no transcendent authority, then the law is the only norm, and the people in power now are always the only power,” says Professor Helen Alvare of George Mason University Law School.

The video also summarizes “Dignitatis Humanae,” the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on religious freedom.

It’s a must-see video for all Catholics in these times when our religious liberties are threatened.

As the U.S. Bishops state: “Hold firm, stand fast, and insist upon what belongs to you by right as Catholics.”

While celebrating this 4th of July, be sure to view the video at: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/fortnight-for-freedom/.