He has our backs

Richard A. Sokerka

With the Supreme Court deciding the fate of the blatantly anti-Catholic Blaine Amendments that have long struck a blow to the heart of religious liberty, it is good to know that we have someone who has our backs when it comes to religious freedom issues. That person is U.S. Attorney General William Barr, one of this nation’s foremost proponents of religious liberty’s vital importance to our nation.

Last fall, he spoke on religious liberty at the University of Notre Dame’s Law School and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. He called religious liberty “an important priority in this Administration and for this Department of Justice… in keeping an eye out for cases or events around the country where states are misapplying the Establishment Clause in a way that discriminates against people of faith, or cases where states adopt laws that impinge upon the free exercise of religion.”

The Attorney General, a staunch Catholic, called religion a public good because it “trains people to want what is good. It helps to frame a society’s moral culture, and instills moral discipline. No secular creed has emerged that can do what religion does,” he said. And by casting religion out, we are dismantling the foundation of our public morality.

He pointed to the force, fervor, and comprehensiveness of the assault on religion today. “Secularists, and their allies among the ‘progressives,’ have marshaled all the force of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values,” he said. “These instruments are used not only to affirmatively promote secular orthodoxy, but also to drown out and silence opposing voices, and to attack viciously and hold up to ridicule any dissenters.”

Those who defy the progressive agenda, “risk a figurative burning at the stake — social, educational, and professional ostracism and exclusion waged through lawsuits and savage social media campaigns,” he said. “The problem,” Barr said, “is not that religion is being forced on others. The problem is that irreligion and secular values are being forced on people of faith.”

“Militant secularists today do not have a live and let live spirit — they are not content to leave religious people alone to practice their faith. Instead, they seem to take a delight in compelling people to violate their conscience,” Barr said.

[We will continue next week to examine Barr’s views on religious liberty and where he thinks” ground zero” on religious attacks are focused with New Jersey in the crosshairs.]