"Students of Faith" Video
"Religious liberty is fragile, and religious intolerance and persecution have been recurring features of human history." -Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito
New federal regulations proposed by the US Dept of Health and Human Services would cripple Catholic and other faith-based institutions from hospitals, healthcare, education, and social services and would deny rights of conscience to Catholic employers, healthcare providers and other millions of faithful Americans. Among other things, the regulations would:
* Force doctors to perform gender transition procedures, including surgeries, and mandate insurance coverage for them
* Enshrine gender identity and sexual orientation ideology into education and mandate students be allowed to access restrooms, locker rooms and sports according to their asserted gender.
* Discriminate against religious beliefs in social services
* Suppress faith-based groups at college campuses
* Remove conscience protections for health care professionals' conscience rights
* Would not afford equal treatment to faith-based charities. (1)
"For centuries, the Church's ministries of healing, education, and social services have borne witness to Jesus Christ and built up the common good," wrote the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). "Church institutions are expressions of Christian ministry dedicated to human flourishing. Most Americans understand that mission-driven organizations should be free to operate in accordance with their missions. But a cascade of changes to current regulations is being adopted by various executive agencies that would prevent Christian ministries - and others - from carrying out their work, harming the public who benefits from them." (2)
The proposed HHS rule…” also disregards medical professionals’ duty to provide sound care and tramples on the deeply held religious beliefs of many by forcing them to participate in the practices of gender transitions and abortion,” said Jason Thacker of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). (3)
These new regulations trample on the religious liberties and conscience rights of health care providers, hospitals, physicians, group health insurers, third party administrators of health plans and all employers with fifteen or more employees…and must be stopped.
(usccb.org, 7/25/22(1)(3); healthaffs.org,7/25/22; aeaweb.org, 7/25/22; tax.thomasreuters.com, 7/28/22) (BaptistPress.com, 7/27/22(2)
America's commitment to religious freedom is 'essential.' ... It constitutes one of our most treasured and jealously guarded constitutional rights." -Statement from U.S. Attorneys General
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN A MINUTE
August 14, 2022
Religious Freedom protects
the Right to Choose Life.
Watch now.
"Catholics for Freedom of Religion" founder
Barbara Samuells talks with
Fr. Michael P. Orsi host of "Action for Life TV"
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
Click here to watch Barbara on TeleCare TV.
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
