Catholics Share Bishops' Concerns about Religious Liberty

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To Obama and Romney, Catholics Prefer the Pope

In the United States, the approval rating of Benedict XVI is rising. And also of the bishops, because of their battle on behalf of freedom. Six former ambassadors to the Vatican endorse the Mormon candidate. A survey by the Pew Forum

by Sandro Magister

via chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it

ROME, August 9, 2012 – In the message that he sent three days ago to the Knights of Columbus, on the eve of their annual congress, Benedict XVI once again united himself with the battle underway in the United States against the "unprecedented gravity of these new threats to the Church’s liberty and public moral witness:"

> "Dear Mr. Anderson..."

The "new threats" to which the pope is referring consist above all in the obligation imposed this year by the administration of Barack Obama on all religious institutions, including Catholic schools and hospitals, to provide insurance coverage for their employees extending also to contraception, sterilization, and abortion.

Against this imposition, the bishops of the United States – led by their president, the combative archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan – have reacted vigorously, to the point of promoting in all parishes a "Fortnight for Freedom," a campaign of two weeks of prayer, reflection, and public action for religious freedom immediately prior to Independence Day on July 4:

> Fortnight for Freedom

For the bishops, what is at stake is not only the freedom of the Church, but of all. Our battle, they wrote in a statement released last March 16, "is not a Republican or Democratic, a conservative or liberal issue; it is an American issue." The bishops of the United States charge Obama with nothing less than violating the first amendment to the American constitution, on freedom of religion.

Never before has an American president been charged with such a strong accusation, touching on the very foundations of the nation. And Benedict XVI has also allied himself with this audaciuous step, when in his message to the Knights of Columbus he invoked the defense of "the great biblical ideals of freedom and justice" that gave rise to the United States.

But to what extent is this battle being fought by the bishops and by the pope himself shared by Catholics and by the rest of the population of the United States?

And what influence can this battle have over the result of the upcoming presidential election, with the challenge between the Democrat Obama and the Republican Mitt Romney?
Read more here: http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350304?eng=y

Posted via email from deaconjohn's posterous