Archbishop Charles Chaput delivered an address to health care professionals in Houston on Tuesday, inciting them to “have courage” and “speak up” in defending their Catholic faith within the workplace, especially as governments encroach on the rights of religious believers. The Denver archbishop challenged all Catholics to live the faith, saying, “there's no room in American life for tepid and easy faith.”
And, he spoke about Boston's anti-Catholic bigot in the Attorney General's Office, Martha Coakley:
“The question we should ask ourselves is this: What kind of a society would need to coerce religious believers into doing things that undermine their religious convictions -- especially when those same believers provide vital services to the public?” the archbishop said.
The recent statements of Massachusetts senate hopeful Martha Coakley, further underscored the willingness of government officials to force Catholics to sacrifice their beliefs, he noted, recalling a radio interview in Jan. in which Coakley, being asked her views on Catholic health care workers potentially having to administer abortifacients, said “You can have religious freedom, but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.”
“Embedded in that remark is a bias worthy of a 19th century Nativist bigot,” the archbishop charged. “And it captures the situation many Catholics now face across the country. In effect Catholics, because of their backward religious beliefs, should exclude themselves – or should be excluded – from some of society’s important health-care positions.”
Sadly, that is not the biggest problem practicing Catholics face in Boston.
We have a hostile Nativist bigotry emptying faithful Catholics out of every ministry in Massachusetts right in the Chancery.
Archbishop Chaput also spoke about a list of do's and dont's for pro-lifers.
“Our enemy is the Evil One, not other human beings,” he explained. “We need to trust in the power of love; the true power of God.”
As positive advice, he urged his audience to become “martyrs,” that is, witnesses about human dignity in their daily actions.
“But public witness can be costly. We need to be ready to pay a price for our convictions. We may never be asked to bleed for what we believe. But we do see character assassination, contempt and calumny against good people every day in our public media. We need to prepare for that. Nothing, not even our good name, should stop us from doing what we know to be right.”
The Archbishop of Denver likened simplistic political slogans to viruses transmitted so quickly a person cannot respond to them intelligently.
He criticized a common complaint against those who “impose” their morals on others, explaining that all law is the public expression of moral conviction. The central question in public debate is which moral convictions of which people shall guide the laws.
“If you and I as citizens don’t do the shaping, then somebody else will,” he cautioned. “That’s the nature of a democracy.”
Citizens who fail to bring their moral beliefs into the public conversation and work for their advancement help ensure the defeat of those beliefs.
Efforts to wall off religious beliefs from political behavior are illogical and encourage self-deceit, the archbishop warned.
“God sees that our duplicity is really a kind of cowardice; and that our lack of courage does a lot more damage than simply compromising our own integrity. It also undermines the courage of other good people who really do try to publicly witness to what they believe. And that compounds a sin of dishonesty with a sin of injustice.”
“We can’t build a just society, and at the same time legally sanctify the destruction of generations of unborn human life. The rights of the poor and the rights of the unborn child flow from exactly the same human dignity guaranteed by the God who created us.”
No comments:
Post a Comment