"Students of Faith" Video
Spokane Bishop Daly says priests will face jail rather than comply
On May 2, 2025 Washington state governor, Bob Fergusen, signed a bill into law which requires all members of all clergies to report instances of child abuse and neglect with no exception for information learned in the confessional. The Canon Law of the Catholic church holds that the seal of the confessional cannot be broken and any such action would be punishable by excommunication. The state of Montana is considering a similar law denying the sacredness of the seal of the confessional.
Per the National Catholic Register of May 7, 2025, “It’s long-standing and settled law in the U.S. that priest-penitent discussions are privileged private communications that can be withheld from legal authorities.”
The first clash with the civil courts regarding information learned in the confessional was People v. Philips, dating back to 1813. In that case it was decided that the secrecy of the confessional is the essence of the practice and removing it would annihilate this part of the Catholic religion.
As reported by the Catholic News Agency on May 6, the Department of Justice is now investigating the Washington law : “Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, sent a letter to the governor and called the mandate a “legislative attack on the Catholic Church and its sacrament of confession, a religious practice ordained by the Catholic Church dating back to the Church’s origins.” “Not only does this new law put state authorities in direct conflict with the free exercise of a well-established religion, but your law demands that priests disobey one of the Catholic Church’s first authorities related to confession,” she wrote. “This state command runs afoul of the First Amendment.”
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Code of Cannon Law. Title IV – The Sacrament of Penance 983 §1. The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.
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of the Rosary for America
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A PATRIOT'S PRAYER
I am one American.
I strive to be an American patriot.
Sometimes, Lord, I feel alone and discouraged.
Sometimes the work of defending my country is too hard
and I am not adequate to the task.
I pray that you, Lord, who inspired America’s Founding Fathers,
who strengthen our soldier sons and daughters,
who bless this country to the good of its citizens and the world,
would open my eyes to the light of your truth.
That You ask nothing of me without giving me the way.
That You put nothing before me without giving me the strength.
That I need only open my heart to Your love and Your will.
America trusts in God and on You I can rely.
I am strong enough.
You have made me so.
I am wise enough.
You have made me so.
If You are with me, who can prevail against me?
I will stand as the American Patriot You guide me to be.
Amen.
©2024 by Barbara Samuells
STUDENTS MAY PRAY IN SCHOOL
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
ARE NOT “GOD-FREE ZONES”
America’s children need not leave their faith outside the school house door.
For students to be silenced or disciplined by a school authority for appropriate religious expression should never happen. Sadly, young students may well conclude…
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Educational resources for parish members who work to support Religious Freedoms.
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AT WORLD MEETING OF FAMILIES: DEFENDING FREEDOM OF RELIGION
Barbara Samuells, president of Catholics for Freedom of Religion and a parishioner at St. Matthew’s, Dix Hills, shares her experience at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RALLY 2018
IN SERVICE TO THE CHURCH
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Pope Francis has observed that “religion [cannot] be relegated to the inner sanctum of personal life, without influence on societal and national life.” Evangelii Gaudium. . . , no. 183. In insisting that our liberties as Americans be respected, Pope Benedict XVI said that this work belongs to “an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture.” Therefore, catechesis on religious liberty is not the work of priests alone. If religious liberty is not properly understood, all people suffer and are deprived of the essential contribution to the common good, be it in education, health care, feeding the hungry, civil rights, and social services that individuals make every day, both here at home and overseas.
CATHOLICS FOR FREEDOM OF RELIGION
MISSION STATEMENT
America’s First Amendment guarantees its citizens five freedoms, the first of which is Freedom of Religion. Freedom of Religion includes the freedom to worship according to one’s beliefs as well as the freedom to practice that faith in everyday life according to one’s conscience.
So that this First Amendment freedom may be practiced and preserved for generations yet unborn it is essential that Americans understand this freedom and the circumstances from which it came. A fitting place for the development of this understanding and protection of Religious Freedom is inside all faith communities.
Catholics for Freedom of Religion offers resources to parish members who work to support Religious Freedom by initiating parish laity groups with these suggested goals:
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To educate and inspire for Freedom of Religion
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To remain non-partisan, advocating for no candidate or party
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To invite and include other faith communities
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To become a permanent group within each parish to educate every generation of Catholics about our Freedom of Religion…how rare it is, how dearly it was purchased for us and how certainly it is being lost.
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To recognize and oppose attacks on Freedom of Religion from any source
“We hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, that religion, or the duty we owe our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence. The religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right.” James Madison
“While Americans presume that the Constitution guarantees their rights, in practice our rights survive or disappear based on how firmly we defend them.” Archbishop Charles J. Chaput