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Today begins the most solemn and holiest days on the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. With the beginning of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper tonight, the Church enters into the Sacred Triduum. The Triduum concludes with Evening Prayer on Easter Sunday. On Holy Thursday, the Mass of the Lord’s Supper relives the institution of the Eucharist and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at the Last Supper, as well as the institution of the priesthood, which took place the evening before Jesus was crucified.

Our religious freedom in this nation is firmly rooted in the First Amendment. Yet, some elected officials continually try to throw dirt on our religious freedom in an attempt to bury it, once and for all, in our increasingly progressive secular society. We witnessed it recently during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s review of Brian Buescher, a Knight of Columbus, for a judgeship on the U.S. District Court as two Democrat Senators Mazie Hirono and Kamala Harris, questioned Buescher’s membership in the Knights of Columbus. They accused this fraternal organization of having “taken a number of extreme positions.”

In just two weeks, we will be in the midst of Holy Week. And when we attend the celebration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday in our churches, Catholics in the Diocese and around the world will be asked in a collection to be taken up to give their support to the Holy Land, where Christ lived, died and rose from the dead.

On the surface, the Equality Act, which was reintroduced in Congress this month and would add anti-discrimination protections for sexual orientation and gender identity to existing protections for race, color, national origin, sex, disability and religion, seems innocuous enough to many Americans. However, in a letter to members of the U.S. Senate, three bishops warned that while the proposed Equality Act purports to address issues of discrimination, it would actually create new problems and threaten fundamental freedoms.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) recently gave the movie, “Unplanned,” which will open in theaters March 29, an R-rating. According to the MPAA, “an R-rated film may depict adult activity, hard language, intense graphic or persistent violence, sexually oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements. Parents are counseled to take this rating very seriously. Children under 17 are not allowed to attend R-rated films unaccompanied by a parent or adult guardian.”

On March 1, U.S. Sec­re­tary of Educa­tion Betsy DeVos, along with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.), unveiled Education Freedom Schol­arships (EFS), the Trump Administration’s key proposal to expand and improve the education options available to students across the country.

In the last week, the pro-life movement gained some ground in one area but in another lost ground. A victory for life came when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that the Trump Administration, as promised, is restoring Title X family planning regulations to prohibit grantees from co-locating with abortion clinics, or from referring clients for abortion. “The Protect Life Rule” requires clear financial and physical separation between Title X funded projects and programs or facilities where abortion is a method of family planning.

Blessed John Henry Newman, a Roman Catholic cardinal, scholar, and founder of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England, will soon be a saint. Pope Francis approved his canonization on Feb. 13, after the Holy Father signed off on a second miracle attributed to the intercession of Newman, who was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.

An investigative report, conducted by a private detective agency, into the interaction last month between Coving­ton Catholic high school students and a Native American man has exonerated the students, according to the Diocese of Covington, Ky. The report was released nearly a month after controversy first erupted following an edited video emerging on Twitter showing what appeared to be a confrontation between a Native American elderly man with a drum — later identified as activist Nathan Phillips — and a group of students from Covington Catholic.

What a contrast in emotions! In President Trump’s State of the Union address last week, he honored the important role women play in society, pointing to the fact that there are more women serving in Congress now than at any time in the nation’s history.

No sooner had the ink dried on Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signing an abortion bill into law, effectively giving license to kill a child up to the moment of birth, than other states followed suit on such insanity. Last week, Democrats in the Virginia statehouse presented a bill to repeal restrictions on abortion, allowing terminations up until the moment of birth. Democratic Delegate Kathy Tran introduced the Repeal Act, which would allow a doctor to perform an abortion when a woman is dilating, moments before birth. It received support from Gov. Ralph Northam (D), a pediatrician, no less. Thankfully, the rest of the delegates came to their senses, and the measure failed to be voted out of subcommittee.

A new poll released on the eve of the annual March for Life finds that millennials, the largest group of American voters, are not in lock step with politicians on abortion on demand and their support of Roe v. Wade. Long considered a top issue for the younger generation, a Students for Life poll found that millennials are equally divided, 39 percent to 39 percent, in their support and opposition to abortion.

Sunday begins a special week in the Paterson Diocese and across the nation. It’s the start of Catholic Schools Week as schools celebrate their achievements with their faith community and the community at-large through event-filled days that offer an inside look at the innovative and cutting-edge educational opportunity they offer in an atmosphere of love and caring for every student.

An analysis by the Pew Research Center shows that the new, 116th Congress is slightly more diverse when it comes to religious affiliations than the prior Congress.

Omaha attorney Brian Buescher, a Catholic and member of the Knights of Columbus, was nominated by President Trump to serve on the U.S. District Court in Nebraska. But when the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on his nomination, U. S. Senators Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Kamala Harris of California, both Democrats, asked Buescher if he was willing to end his longtime membership in the Knights of Columbus if confirmed because in their view, the organization holds “extreme beliefs,” which they felt would cloud his ability to fairly judge cases.

On Jan. 14, thousands of Catholics across the country will join in prayer for “9 Days for Life.” The prayer campaign, sponsored by the Committee on Pro Life Activities of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, leads up to the annual Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children on Jan. 22. The novena and day of prayer are a time of recollection and reparation in observation of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade — the Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal throughout the United States.

This was a joyous Christmas season for Christians in Iraq. Just a day after Iraq celebrated the one-year anniversary of its victory over the Islamic State terrorist army, President Trump signed into law the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act (H.R. 390) Dec. 11. It’s designed to provide dedicated U.S. support directly to the Christian victims of ISIS’ campaign of genocide.

More than two thousand years ago, a baby was born in Bethlehem — and since that sacred day that baby’s life has impacted the world as no other life has. This Christmas Day can be a special time for us if we celebrate the birthday of Christ by giving him the gift he wants most from us — finding him in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the homeless, the sick, the addicted and the imprisoned.

Catholic Relief Services was founded in 1943 by the Catholic Bishops of the United States to serve World War II survivors in Europe. Since then, it has expanded in size to reach more than 130 million people in more than 100 countries on five continents.

All of us over the years can recall at some point in our life the difference a religious made in our life, be it in a Catholic school, a religious education program or at our home parish. They were the ones who shaped our faith. Today, many of them are in their senior years, still active in their communities. But their communities are struggling to provide for them in their retirement years.