Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, dear fellow
citizens of this country, dear people of good will:
I am speaking here today because the government of the United
States is trying to take something from us that the government did not give to
us. And not only is it something that
the government did not give to us, but it is something that our government, or
any other government, could not give to us.
It is not theirs to give.
Because, dear friends, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all
men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. I am speaking today about the
right to liberty, and in particular religious liberty. And this right was not given to me, and it
wasn’t given to you, by the government.
The right to religious liberty and the freedom of our conscience was
given to us by the Creator. Religious
freedom is the gift of the Creator. It
is one of our most fundamental rights.
And now the government is trying to take it from us.
Well, good luck, but we’ve seen this before.
Nearly eight years ago I was in Mexico City visiting the Shrine
of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In the
basilica, there is a cross on display.
It is no longer so much an object of devotion as it is a reminder of a
terrorist act. In 1921, a bomb was
placed near the Altar in the Basilica by the anti-clerical and anti-Catholic
forces that were gaining power in Mexico.
When the bomb exploded, the crucifix was bent and the windows in nearby
homes were destroyed. The image of the
Virgin Mary, however, was not harmed at all.
Her image, the great sign in the heavens of the freedom of the children
of God, remained even as the government of Mexico persecuted the Church. Among the several thousand priests who were
executed during that time is a Father, now Saint, Toribio Romo. I keep a small statue of him in my
office. Father Toribio was executed
simply because he was a priest. He
preached the Gospel. He cared for his
people, and they killed him for it. He
wasn’t leading a revolution, at least not a political or military one. He wasn’t even speaking in the town
square. He was in his rectory at 5am on
the 25th of February 1928 when soldiers broke into his home and shot
him. It is said that the last words that
he heard were spoken to him by his sister: “Courage, Father Toribio...merciful
Christ, receive him! Viva Cristo Rey!”
Father Toribio was killed not only for what he believed, but because he
lived what he believed. His faith formed
his conscience and his conscience guided his life.
About eight months ago, President Obama began his second term
as president of the United States. The
Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, contains within it a mandate
that employers provide insurance coverage for contraceptives. It removes many of the conscience protections
that protected health care workers from being required to participate in
procedures that violated their conscience.
This would require Catholic Health Care institutions to participate in
actions that we believe to be morally reprehensible. This is a violation of Religious
Freedom. It is a violation of our conscience. The government will let us believe what we
want, but now they want to forbid us from acting on our beliefs. They will let us have, for now, our
Christianity within our churches, but not outside of them. Our faith can be private, but not public. That, it seems, is what they want. But dear brothers and sisters, that’s just
never been our way. Christianity is a
life lived in the midst of the world and not simply a philosophy locked away in
a classroom. In our faith and our
worship we personally and sacramentally encounter the love of Christ. And the love of Christ impels us . . . the
love of Christ commands us . . . the love of Christ gives us our only true
mandate . . . to walk in love as Christ loved us: to care for the poor and the sick, to
reverence life in all its stages, to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless,
and to see the face of Christ in the face of every person.
About eight weeks ago, I was in Catacombs of St. Callixtus
outside the walls of the city of Rome.
Nearly ninety feet underground, I celebrated Mass, which is both the
source and summit of the Catholic Faith, in the Orantes Chapel. Amidst the tombs, long since emptied by the
barbarian invasions, the great cloud of witnesses who were killed simply for
their faith and for living their faith surrounded me. Their freedom to believe and their conviction
that their faith was a lived reality were more precious than earthly life. They did not surrender to a government. They did not flee the persecution. They have given us an example and they give
us encouragement. They were killed for
their faith and our faith. And we owe a
debt to these martyrs, both those of ancient times and recent times, to stand
firm against every assault on our religious freedom and any coercion of our
conscience. This is our debt. This is our mandate. This is our right given to us by the Creator,
and the government cannot take it from us.
About eight minutes ago, I began speaking. And eight minutes from now we will be
marching and praying. We will be in this
place and in this time witnesses for the right of religious liberty and the
freedom of conscience. We will be what
the love of Christ impels us to be, signs of His love and His presence.
And eight weeks from now, from you dear brothers and sisters,
should flow a flood of communication to the halls of Congress, demanding that
our freedoms be recognized and our consciences be protected. It is your responsibility to sanctify the
world. It is your responsibility to bring
the love of Christ to the political sphere.
You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. It is your sacred task to purify the culture,
to make it better, and to preserve the best of our nation for the next
generation.
And eight months from now you should support candidates for
office who support religious freedom.
And eight years from now some of you should be candidates for
Congress and the Legislature who support religious freedom and the sanctity of
life. Take courage brothers and sisters.
Take action brothers and sisters. And take your place in the battle for
religious freedom!
God Bless you. God
bless America. Viva Cristo Rey!
Delivered at the Corner of Trade and
Tryon, Charlotte, NC
