US holding day of prayer and fasting for religious freedom

The U.S. bishops have urged Catholics and "all people of faith" across the nation to observe today as a day of prayer and fasting for religious freedom and conscience protection. The bishops said that among current threats to religious liberty is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate that forces employers, including religious ones, to provide coverage of abortifacients, contraception, and sterilization in their health plans.

The Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, was recently on The O'Reilly Factor," on Fox News.

“Our opponents are very shrewd because they've chosen an issue that they know we don't -- we're not very popular on,” he told host Bill O’Reilly. “And that is why... we have to be very vigorous in insisting that this is not about contraception. It's about religion freedom.”

“And I don't want to judge people but I think there would be a drift in the administration that this is a good issue and if we can divide the Catholic community because it's already divided and if one can caricature the bishops as being hopelessly out of touch these bullies who are trying to achieve judicially and legislatively what they've been -- been unable to achieve because their moral integrity has been compromised recently there is that force out there trying to caricature us,” he said.

“All right. But we can't back down from this fight because it's about religious freedom; it's close to the very heart of what the -- of what the democratic enterprise that we know and love as the United States of America is all about.”

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