Several months ago, I came across a two-volume history of the Church in the United States that I’d never read before: Theodore Maynard’s The Story of American Catholicism, first published in 1941. Maynard was not a professional historian and his telling of the American Catholic story has a bit more of the apologetic edginess of … Read more
This article appears courtesy of Law and Liberty Those who have learned about the Catholic position on church and state only from the study of European history or from Enlightenment commentaries upon it may surprised to read—and wary to accept—the assertion that “American Catholics have been advocates for religious liberty” from the earliest days of … Read more
If a decree like the HHS contraception mandate was issued during the Medieval era, Archbishop Dolan would probably have declared Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “anathema” and excommunicated her from the Church (see this famous scene from the movie Becket for an example). If President Obama was a tyrannical monarch in that era, he would be muttering … Read more
When the Witherspoon Institute’s task force on religious freedom released its monograph, Religious Freedom: Why Now?, earlier this month, the answer to the question in the title seemed obvious. The controversy occasioned by the Obama Administration’s mandate that all health plans pay the cost of contraception was in the front of the news, and the … Read more
Since the administration keeps insisting it made an “exemption” or “accommodation” for religious objection to the Obama contraceptive mandate, let’s take a closer look at what exactly that is. In the words of Adma Uddin, a Becket Fund for Religious Liberty attorney who specializes in domestic and international religious liberty cases. In her testimony before … Read more
A Loudly-Delivered Homily Recently this video, of a homily given by Father Sammie Maletta of St. John the Evangelist parish in St. John, Indiana, has been making the rounds of the Catholic blogosphere. Give it a listen, if you will. My reaction to this video was: “Thank God for this fine priest.” Examining the reactions of … Read more
It was a great way to start Lent. On Ash Wednesday, in an eagerly anticipated case, a federal judge in Washington State issued a ruling that strongly affirmed the centrality of the rights of conscience and religious exercise. The court ruled that Christian pharmacists could not be required to stock and dispense medication that violated … Read more
Proclaiming in a New York Times headline that “Obama Adjusts a Rule Covering Contraceptives,” the pro-Obama media tried to dig the president out of the political hole he had jumped into. But calling Obama’s revised rule an “adjustment” or an “accommodation” or another soft-sell word can’t cover the fact that the revision is essentially the … Read more
No, I’m not exaggerating. The American experiment in religious liberty is officially over. The First Amendment provided institutional structures that allow different religions to peacefully coexist. All groups agree to not try to capture governmental structures for the benefit of their own particular denomination. But the Obama administration has ended that truce. The administration made … Read more
What a fitting capstone to the Obama presidency. And imagine that a majority of professing Roman Catholics elected this man in November 2008.
You can now divide Americans into two groups: Those who believe government rightfully has the power to force people to purchase goods and services they do not want and those who don’t. Among the former are two subgroups: Those who believe only state governments have this coercive power and those who believe the federal government … Read more