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"Students of Faith" Video

LEARN & SHARE THIS WEEK'S LESSON

The most effective propaganda ever spread through the USA is that students’ rights to private prayer and religious expression in public schools was removed by the Supreme Court. The second part of that extremely effective but false propaganda is that separation of church and state blocks individual prayer in public schools.

When a knowledgeable student or parent points out the truth…that the applicable opinion, Engel v. Vitale in 1962, prevented a government defined prayer as part of the school day routine, but in no way denied students’ rights to personal prayer and religious expression in public school, this propaganda is used to block them.

This propaganda was first highlighted in 1988 when Pres. Clinton directed the Dept. of Education to issue guidelines about students rights to prayer and religious expression in public schools.  Pres. Clinton included these points:        

Religious Expression In Public Schools
“I share the concern and frustration that many Americans feel about situations where the protections accorded by the First Amendment are not recognized or understood. This problem has manifested itself in our Nation’s public schools. It appears that some school officials, teachers and parents have assumed that religious expression of any type is either inappropriate, or forbidden altogether, in public schools.


As our courts have reaffirmed, however, nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones, or requires all religious expression to be left behind at the schoolhouse door. While the government may not use schools to coerce the consciences of our students, or to convey official endorsement of religion, the government’s schools also may not discriminate against private religious expression during the school day.”

 

Unfortunately most Americans have never heard Clinton’s words nor the recently updated guidelines issued under Pres. Trump on Feb. 5, 2026.  These guidelines now include the latest protections for students by reflecting recent Supreme Court opinions confirming the rights of students and teachers to live their faith in public schools.  They also include the opinions protecting students from LGBQT and transgender indoctrination and assert parents’ rights to educate their children on faith and morals.

 

https://tinyurl.com/yzd8rrwx    https://tinyurl.com/5ak83uej

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O God, Our Creator, we pray for President Donald J Trump. 

 

We beseech you to bless, protect and guide President Trump, his family and his administration to the good of our nation and of the whole world.

 

We ask this in Jesus' name.

 

Amen

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

12 RULES FOR CHRISTMAS
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:

  • To educate and inspire for Freedom of Religion

  • To remain non-partisan, advocating for no candidate or party

  • To invite and include other faith communities

  • 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.

  • 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

© 2026 by Catholics for Freedom of Religion. All rights reserved.

Seminary of the Immaculate Conception,

440 West Neck Rd., Huntington, NY  11743   

631-896-8331

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