Free Republic

Pope Benedict Defends Religious Liberty   PoliticsFebruary 23rd, 2012 Rebecca Ryskind Teti Bishops from the dioceses of Baltimore, Washington and Military Services were in Rome this month, making their requisite ad limina visit to Rome to pray at the tomb of St. Peter and renew their allegiance to his successor.It was a religious duty they were observing, but the Pope chose to speak to them not of prayer or sacraments, but about threats to religious liberty, the proper relations between Church and State and the role of the Catholic citizen in a secular nation.His appeal to all Catholics to defend...

People forget it now, but the Religious Freedom Restoration Act — the law that companies and nonprofit organizations are using to fight the Obama administration’s requirement that almost all employers cover contraception, sterilization, and drugs that may cause abortion in their insurance plans — was controversial among conservatives in its first years. The old debate over it should remind us of two truths that, while compatible, are in tension with each other: The principle for which conservatives are fighting in today’s cases is important, and it is not absolute.The story starts in the 1980s, when two drug counselors in...

Pope Francis recently reaffirmed that religious freedom is "a fundamental human right" and warned against the impulse to "relegate [religions] to the enclosed precincts of churches, synagogues or mosques." The freedom of religion cannot be reduced to the freedom of worship. This resonates with the rich tradition of religious liberty in our country, which has long allowed Catholics and other people of faith to live out their beliefs beyond the sanctuary, whether by healing the sick, educating the young or feeding and clothing the poor. But a mandate of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) now jeopardizes...

WASHINGTON - One of Obamacare's worst mandates that threatens to undermine our religious freedoms has run into a small, determined band of Catholic nuns. As key parts of President Obama's health care program went into effect Wednesday, a surprising Supreme Court order delayed a provision that will force religious groups to provide birth control procedures in their health insurance plans. In a David versus Goliath legal battle, Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued the stay late Tuesday in response to a plea from the Little Sisters of the Poor, a nonprofit order of nuns in Colorado who provide charitable services to low...

It was a rare and welcome victory for religious freedom for our all-volunteer military. Congress approved—and President Obama the day after Christmas signed—the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This new law contains stronger language than ever before that assures our service members do not have to give up their own freedoms while protecting ours. This new law contains some of Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) provisions to assure better implementation of freedom guarantees. In the past, the Obama administration has largely ignored protections for service members. This law provides clear deadlines for the Defense Department to issue new regulations. Military...

Pope Benedict XVI makes Archbishop Timothy Dolan a cardinal of the Catholic Church on Feb. 18, 2012 at Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) (CNSNews.com) - Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sent a letter on Friday to all the Catholic bishops of the United States reasserting the conviction of the Catholic Church that it will not yield to the Obama administration’s command—issued in the form of a Health and Human Services regulation implementing the president’s health-care plan--that Catholics and Catholic institutions must violate the teachings...

Religious liberty homily

As the recent battle for a proper understanding of religious liberty shows, our culture and many of our government leaders and organizations are becoming increasingly secularized and hostile to religion and religious practice.Yet another example of this is a recent rule change in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). According to this program, a person who has been engaged in Public Service employment for ten years, can have the remainder of their Student Loan form the government forgiven, presuming they have faithfully been paying it up till then.However, a recent rule change now excludes those who are involved in any...

“These are the ones most grateful to you for the new well . . .” With that, the chieftain of this Islamic village in Ethiopia, not far from Meki, took me over to meet about twenty beaming young girls, all who looked to be about the age of my niece, Grace, seven or eight years old. I was in the village with a delegation from Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the acclaimed international assistance agency supported by the Catholic community of the United States.  We had just been enthusiastically welcomed to this small village to bless and start-up their new well,...

The 4th Of July and Why we need to boldy fight for religious freedomBy: Msgr. Charles Pope It is the Fourth of July and a day to reflect on Liberty, on Freedom. And yet many today have concerns that their freedom is being eroded by increasing and over-reaching governmental intrusion.And, while as Catholics steeped in the moral vision of the Scriptures and Tradition we seek to balance individual rights and the common good, we do rightly have concerns that one of our most fundamental rights recognized in the very First Amendment is being threatened by an unprecedented mandate that...

A couple of items have appeared in the news which, when juxtaposed, go a long way to show just who the real threat is in the Church/State debate of recent decades. I’d like to excerpt these stories and make some comments. But first, we do well to recall the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.The part...

Sen. Mike Lee says a bill he introduced would prevent the Internal Revenue Service from denying tax-exempt status to any person or group that refuses to perform gay marriages. "What we're talking about here is the freedom of religious belief, the freedom of a church, for example, to adhere to its own religious doctrine so that it cannot be discriminated against by the government," the Utah Republican said in an interview with Newsmax. Lee said the federal government's failure to protect religious liberty — citing Obamacare mandates for contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs — was a key motivation for him to...

As the Left foams at the mouth over Phil Robertson, the Christian man who described Almighty God's take on homosexuality and other gross sins, their fear is becoming more and more apparent. They seem gradually to be realizing that they are a pernicious minority that only thrives because they are bolstered by Obama's morally corrupt federal government; intellectually lightweight media, devoid of principles; and interestingly, a general decency of American people influenced by the nation's Judeo-Christian roots. The masses, however, are becoming increasingly fed up with the Left's imposition of a twisted worldview that does not comport with anything resembling...

Phil Robertson, star of A&E hit reality show Duck Dynasty, has been suspended from the show because of “anti-gay” remarks he made in an interview with GQ Magazine. Explaining Robertson’s suspension, A&E indicated that “A&E Networks…have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community.” But, as far as I read the interview with Robertson, he wasn’t responding to a question about homosexuality. He was responding to a question about sin. When asked what he considered sinful, he mentioned homosexuality, bestiality, and promiscuity. Then he quoted from Corinthians that “…the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders,...

(CNSNews.com) – What a difference a year makes. Amid growing awareness of the plight of religious minorities in “Arab spring” countries and other parts of the Islamic world, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday passed legislation creating a special envoy post to focus on the issue.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, an American who heads the Vatican’s highest court, says that the Obama administration’s diminution of religious freedom in the United States “is an absolute contradiction of the founding principles of this nation.” Cardinal Burke, who is chief justice of the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura, made his remarks during a Dec. 13 interview with EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo on the program, The World Over. …

Court sides with Catholic schools, hospitals against HHS mandate  CWN - December 17, 2013 Invoking the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, a federal district court judge has barred enforcement of the HHS mandate against two New York-area Catholic high schools and two Catholic health care systems. The Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Rockville Centre, which are currently exempt from the mandate, also joined the lawsuit. The “plaintiffs have demonstrated that the Mandate … compels them to perform acts that are contrary to their religion,” ruled Judge Brian Cogan, whom President George W. Bush appointed to...

I'm interrupting my series on Common Core State Standards for public schools to join the appeal to Iran and North Korea for the release of American hostages like imprisoned American pastor Saeed Abedini and missionary Kenneth Bae. And I'm also calling upon President Obama and Congress to step up their action, stand for religious freedom and fight for the release of these godly men, whose crimes were nothing more than exercising their faith. For those who haven't followed the news on these men of the cloth, pastor Abedini was sentenced to eight years by an Iranian court last January for...

<p>The Supreme Court has turned away a Christian university's attempt to overturn a key part of the Obama administration's health care law.</p> <p>The justices did not comment Monday in leaving in place a federal appeals court ruling dismissing Liberty University's lawsuit.</p>