Bishops briefed on religious liberty efforts, prepare for 'difficult road'

 I'm pretty impressed with our Bishops for their standing up for religious freedom the way they are.

Speakers at the U.S. bishops’ meeting in Atlanta, Ga. emphasized the importance of continuing efforts to defend religious freedom through various cultural, legal and educational approaches.

Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ religious liberty committee, explained that the U.S. Church is faced with “not just one but a serious of extraordinary challenges” that will require “full and undivided efforts” to address.

The archbishop spoke June 13 as part of a two-hour discussion on domestic and international religious freedom at the spring general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

John Garvey, president of The Catholic University of America, also spoke during the discussion, outlining numerous recent threats to religious liberty in the U.S.

Among the most prominent of these threats is a federal insurance mandate that will require employers to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if it violates their consciences.

Garvey also noted that the bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services was denied a grant to work with human trafficking victims last fall because it would not refer for abortion and contraception, despite being among the top-ranked groups in the field for the past five years.

Nuncio applauds bishops' unified efforts to defend religious freedom

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