Religious Freedom Daily

Last updated on: June 6, 2012 at 9:21 am By Kathryn Jean Lopez

An important and clarifying piece from Ilya Shapiro: As the world awaits the Supreme Court’s ruling on ObamaCare, there’s a larger story that the pundits are missing: the court’s rejection of the Obama administration’s increasingly extreme claims on behalf of unlimited federal power. This term alone, the high court has ruled unanimously against the government on religious liberty, criminal procedure and property rights. When the administration can’t get even a single one of the liberal justices to agree with it... Read more

Religious Freedom Daily

Last updated on: June 6, 2012 at 1:39 am By Kathryn Jean Lopez

The invaluable Gerry Bradley writes: Religious liberty is, from this point of view, an afterthought, a residue which is unfortunately too vaporous to protect Catholic institutions from existential crises. I urge you to read his Public Discourse piece here. More on Mark Rienzi’s New York Times corrective from Ed Whelan, a legal-analysis machine. Please share a link today. Read more

Religious Freedom Daily

Last updated on: June 4, 2012 at 9:04 am By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Encourage me to actually make this feature daily if it is of use to you. We should be highlighting clarifying items to family and friends throughout the day. It’s only our first freedom and all. Did you read Mark Rienzi, Catholic U professor and Becket Fund lawyer on the Catholic lawsuits yet? You can read him here. It is an important corrective to a lot of ridiculously inaccurate reporting. Speaking of: Credit to the Times for at least publishing Baltimore... Read more

‘Our Firm Faith in God’s Word & Our Hope in His Promises’

Last updated on: May 30, 2012 at 12:58 pm By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Understandably, the “sadness” in the pope’s heart in the wake of betrayal is in the headlines today, but the nourishment from today’s audience is worth reading, too. In our continuing reflection on prayer in the letters of Saint Paul, we now consider the Apostle’s striking affirmation that Jesus Christ is God’s “Yes” to mankind and the fulfilment of all his promises, and that through Jesus we say our “Amen”, to the glory of God (cf. 2 Cor 1:19-20). For Paul, prayer... Read more

Religious Freedom Daily

Last updated on: May 30, 2012 at 9:37 am By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Everyday if everyone reading here sent one article on religious freedom to one person, shared one article on a social media site … just one small educational act, everyone here would be participating in protecting a fundamental freedom that we’re otherwise on the brink of surrendering. Here’s a brief roundup of some items around the web: A simple, clear letter in the Washington Post today: The Catholic Church, like other religious entities, attempts to convince people of the validity of... Read more

A Living Icon of Holiness

Last updated on: May 28, 2012 at 11:14 am By Kathryn Jean Lopez

From a bulletin this past Sunday: Pentecost, Come, Holy Spirit! — Today we celebrate the birth of the Church, when the Holy Spirit filled the apostles with himself and transformed them from apostates into apostles and from cowards into courageous preachers and livers of the Gospel. We pray in a special way that our nation, our parish, and each of us experience a “new Pentecost,” a total spiritual rebirth, so that the same dramatic transformation worked in Jesus’ first disciples may likewise help us to metamorphose into real... Read more

Memorial Day

Last updated on: May 28, 2012 at 1:00 pm By Kathryn Jean Lopez

It was the sweetest thing. A group of young children of my acquaintance went into the woods of a Virginia suburb yesterday, to pay tribute to fallen soldiers. Their “ceremony” included a backdrop of a cross they had constructed from backyardy debris, American flags, and flowers they had picked. It was very traditional in that the girls picked the flowers and the boys were the Marines and one a supervisor (!). There was a procession, the singing of the national... Read more

‘Sober Determination’ in Defense of Religious Freedom

Last updated on: May 21, 2012 at 2:32 pm By Kathryn Jean Lopez

I am particularly delighted that the University of Notre Dame is a party in the lawsuits being filed today in response to the Department of Health and Human Services coercive mandate. I certainly wish the federal government would not be eroding religious liberty in America, but I am tremendously grateful that Notre Dame is taking the lead in pushing back. ND president Father John Jenkins writes: Today the University of Notre Dame filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for... Read more

Taste and See a Media Apostolate

Last updated on: May 21, 2012 at 10:29 am By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Tomorrow (Tuesday) night at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C., I will be chatting with Austen Ivereigh, co-founder of Catholic Voices, an apostolic media effort to facilitate more Catholic voices in the media — that, is Catholics who want to make the case for the Church in the public square. I have actually spent the weekend with Austen, and his co-founder, Jack Valero, at the first training of Catholic Voices USA, with young people from the New York, Washington, D.C.,... Read more

re: Saying Yes on God’s Time

Last updated on: May 14, 2012 at 1:49 pm By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Or, as Archbishop Gomez puts it: As our mothers taught us how to walk, Mary teaches us how to follow Jesus. She shows us how to listen for the voice of God and to trust in his plan for our lives. Mary teaches us to always look to Jesus, and to conform our lives to his Word and his example. Her last words in the Gospels, at the wedding at Cana, should be the first words that define how we... Read more