Abp Lori: Defend religious freedom to uphold human dignity

(Vatican Radio) Catholics throughout the United States are gearing up for the second annual observance of the Fortnight for Freedom – a two-week period of prayer and action, to address many current challenges to religious liberty.

The Fortnight begins on June 21, the eve of the Feast of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More. It concludes on the Fourth of July, celebrated by Americans as Independence Day.

“The challenges to religious freedom have developed over time. There has been a gradual erosion of religious freedom on many levels,” said Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore.

Archbishop Lori was speaking with Vatican Radio about the need to defend religious freedom:

“Our role in any given culture or any given country is to be what the Gospel says. We are to be salt, we are to be light, we are to be a leaven, and we are to be working from within our culture to create what successive popes have called a civilisation of justice and love and truth. And it just seems to me that defending religious liberty is one of the very, very important ways we defend and uphold human dignity, the first pillar of the Church’s social teaching. “

The Fortnight for Freedom, said Archbishop Lori, is an effort to alert people to the threats to religious liberty. “Many people don’t realize these threats are out there,” he said, “because churches are open, right now our institutions are all functioning. No one’s gone to jail yet. So people might have a hard time seeing that there are threats to religious liberty.”

Defending religious freedom, though, is not easy, the Archbishop said. It will require “long, hard, patient” work. “We are really at the outset of a movement that includes other religious faiths and communities, and a lot of other people of good will, to really make sure that religious freedom does not disappear from this country.” That movement, Archbishop Lori said, may not produce clear, tangible results in the short-term. “But if year by year we are getting people to think about and pray about religious liberty, I think we are succeeding.”

Listen to the full interview of Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore with Christopher Wells: