Berkley Center

Aleteia, November 7, 2012

For those of us who are in the business of defending and protecting religious freedom I think the demand is going to continue to go up under this president. I think the president and most of the leaders of the Democratic party no longer believe that religious freedom is the first freedom of the human soul and American democracy, that they no longer believe it’s necessary for the flourishing of individuals and societies--this is not new; this has been clear for some time--and that the challenges to religious liberty are going to become even more stark over the next four years than they are now. The fact that this issue did not become a source of national discussion during the campaign is a big disappointment to me. I had thought back during the summer when the bishops were meeting—I had the opportunity to speak to them during their confab in Atlanta in June and then the Fortnight for Freedom—I had hoped that this would become an issue, of discussion, of national debate. But it didn’t.... [...]

We’ve had important Catholic institutions shut their doors already. In Massachusetts, Catholic Charities stopped placing foster care children with families, forced out. I understand there was an outcry there for a while, but it died down and sort of been forgotten except among those of us who try to talk about this. It does seem there is a very very high tolerance for allowing the religious voices and religious expressions of America moved to the sidelines, without anyone being terribly concerned about it. [...] So, what’s it going to take to generate interest in this? I suspect that down the road may lay criminal prosecutions, the closing of doors of certain Catholic institutions. [...]

So to circle back around, religious liberty is a way of limiting the power of government that’s important to all of us. So if you take away these Catholic churches and charities and hospitals and so forth you’re not only losing the service they may have provided, and even if they continue to give this service and they change their name from Catholic, you’re still losing something. [...]

It’s hazardous to predict things these days… but it does seem to me if the First Amendment still says what it used to say, the first 16 words--add to that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, it seems to me the courts will find on the side of religious liberty and overturn the HHS mandate. I think there is a good chance this will happen.

The Becket Fund is taking the lawsuits to court against the federal government on behalf of religious liberty. I think they will prevail. That’s my hope and prediction, based on what the Constitution says and on what the law says.

This article originally appeared in Aleteia, a global Christian network on a digital platform.