There are many people who may not have heard that the Bishops of this country are once again calling the Faithful to a “Fortnight for Freedom.” I am also surprised to hear from many people that this second Fortnight is reported to be a big yawn. Maybe everyone thinks that the issues regarding personal freedom and the issues surrounding the loss of First Amendment rights were all discussed, prayed about, acted upon, and resolved last year. I’m sad to say that is not the case.
While as many as 80% of the Catholic dioceses across the country participated last year, we still have not turned the corner on the issues of the HHS mandate and other social matters that are troubling to the people of faith.
The Bishops of the United States are once again calling all people forth to consider some of the issues that still require our attention and to thoughtfully reflect on what needs to be resolved.
The Fortnight for Freedom will be marked from 21 June until 4 July—a two-week period set aside to produce some unified and fresh thinking about basic elements surrounding the Constitution and other elements of government involving the free exercise of our religious liberties. Our time is filled with trivial pursuits and so many superfluous additions to our already crowded lives. This Fortnight is quickly becoming a time for us to reconsider time honored values and depth of character that has always marked the land of the free and the home of the brave. Catholics have had a major share in building this country from the ground up. We have always been proud to love God and country—without fear or reprisal. This is not a time for us to forsake either love. Once again it is time to stand up and show that we have not abandoned faith in God or faith in our country. The new religion of secularism threatens both. As in past moments of America’s history, people of faith, and Catholics in particular, were ridiculed and ostracized for their beliefs, threatened, and discriminated against. Catholics rallied and the Constitution prevailed.
This Fortnight for Freedom is calling us as patriots to do it again!
“Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit, which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors. Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage, and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.”
–Abraham Lincoln
Check out the information at usccb.org or at dioceseoflacrosse.com and, of course, I’ll see you at Sunday Mass!