Tag Archives: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington

The Fight For Religious Freedom

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The fight for religious freedom is not something that is only happening in the Middle East–it is alive and well in America. The current attack in America seems to be on the Catholic Church and its charities and educational facilities, but the attack is actually on any Bible-believing Christian.

Two stories recently in CNS News illustrate the point. The first, posted yesterday, is entitled, “Archbishop Questions Pelosi’s Logic in Opposing Provision to Protect Military Chaplains from Being Ordered to Act Against Faith.” The second, also posted yesterday, is entitled, “BREAKING: Cardinal Dolan of NY, Cardinal Wuerl of D.C., Notre Dame–And 40 Other Catholic Dioceses and Organizations–Sue Obama Administration.”

Both stories involve the Catholic Church, but their implications reach far beyond that. The article on the military chaplains is summed up as follows:

The House Democratic Leader further said the idea that military chaplains would be forced to perform same-sex marriages against their will is “a manufactured crisis.”

“Nobody is ordering them to do that,” Pelosi said. “I’ve never seen any suggestion that we’re ordering chaplains to perform same-sex—where is that? I haven’t seen it and I’ve been around this issue for a long time.”

But Broglio, the head of the Archdiocese of the Military Services, respectfully but firmly took issue with Pelosi.

“I would suggest that perhaps she’s not very familiar with how the military works,” Broglio said. “While no one might be constrained to act against his or her conscience, you can also have a situation where someone in command makes it very, very difficult for that person, if the command wants him or her to act in a certain way. And I think that the law, the provision in the draft, the provision in the bill, would protect the chaplain from that kind of situation.

Broglio agreed that Catholic chaplains have not yet been asked to perform same-sex marriages.

I am not sure how much contact Ms. Pelosi has actually had with military command structure, but I think she is wrong to assume that the problem of forcing Catholic chaplains to perform gay marriages would not come up.

The second article deals with the freedom of a church charitable or educational facility to practice their beliefs.

The article explains:

The Archdiocese of New York, headed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., headed by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the University of Notre Dame, and 40 other Catholic dioceses and organizations around the country announced on Monday that they are suing the Obama administration for violating their freedom of religion, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The article also reports that the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. has established a special website–preservereligiousfreedom.org–to explain its lawsuit and present news and developments concerning it. Since the media will not honestly cover the church’s side of the story, the church will use the Internet to get out their story. That is a very smart move.

The article reports:

“This morning, the Archdiocese of Washington filed a lawsuit to challenge the mandate, recently issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, that fundamentally redefines the nation’s long-standing definition of religious ministry and requires our religious organizations to provide their employees with coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization, even if doing so violates their religious beliefs,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington said in an open letter posted online this morning. “Just as our faith compels us to uphold the liberty and dignity of others, so too, we must defend our own.”

“The lawsuit in no way challenges either women’s established legal right to obtain and use contraception or the right of employers to provide coverage for it if they so choose,” said Cardinal Wuerl. “This lawsuit is about religious freedom.”

“The First Amendment enshrines in our nation’s Constitution the principle that religious organizations must be able to practice their faith free from government interference,” Cardinal Wuerl said.

All of us, regardless of religious affiliation, need to stand with the Catholic Church in both these matters. This is an attack on anyone who believes that the First Amendment allows the free exercise of religion.

 
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Doing The Right Thing And Then Paying The Price

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I am not Roman Catholic, so I didn’t want to say too much about this incident, but DaTechGuy, who is Roman Catholic and understands these things wrote a terrific article about it. Recently, at a funeral Mass at St. John Neumann Parish in Gaithersburg, Md., a Priest very quietly refused communion to someone requesting it.

The incident involved Fr. Guarnizo, a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Moscow, Russia—not of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., where he has been practicing his vocation in recent years. On March 9, the Archdiocese of Washington withdrew his “faculties” to administer the sacraments within its borders.

Fr. Guarnizo refused communion to a woman who minutes before the service had introduced him to another woman she described as her lover. His side of the story can be found at CNS News.

DaTechGuy reports:

So what did Fr. Guarnizo know and when did he know it concerning the lady in question? Funny you should ask…

A few minutes before the Mass began, Ms. Johnson came into the sacristy with another woman whom she announced as her “lover”. Her revelation was completely unsolicited.

and was not all that polite about it either:

As I attempted to follow Ms.Johnson, her lover stood in our narrow sacristy physically blocking my pathway to the door. I politely asked her to move and she refused.

It sounds to me like we have another Sandra Fluke, a person who was looking for confrontation and even worse, was using the occasion of a death of her mother to do so.

Fr. Guarnizo nails it here:

Ms. Johnson was a guest in our parish, not the arbitrer of how sacraments are dispensed in the Catholic Church.

Fr. Z in charity to the diocese says this:

Fr. G was subsequently put on administrative leave in that Archdiocese for reasons, so it seems, other than the lesbian/Communion event. More information is forthcoming and in justice I need to post it.

It seems as if there is a group of people who have taken upon themselves to target the Catholic Church. It matters how the Church handles this. I believe the Priest was Biblically correct in the way he handled the situation. It is a shame that the Church is not upholding its own rules.

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