Thursday, May 17, 2012

New Archbishop of Baltimore Talks About Fearless Witness

‘We must be loyal Americans by being bold and courageous Catholics,’ he states, as the U.S. bishops formally rejected Obama’s proposed ‘accommodation’ to the HHS mandate.

by JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND 05/17/2012

National Catholic Register

BALTIMORE — During an installation replete with striking pageantry, sounding trumpets and an enthusiastic crowd of 2,000, Archbishop William Lori passionately defended the cause of religious freedom as a defining issue for the American people and the Catholic faithful.

“We do not seek to defend religious liberty for partisan purposes, as some have suggested; we do this because we are lovers of a human dignity that was fashioned and imparted not by the government, but by the Creator,” Archbishop Lori said in a May 16 homily designed to bring the campaign from Capitol Hill to the parishes of Baltimore.

Addressing the congregation from the pulpit at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in north Baltimore, the cathedral church of the oldest Catholic diocese in the nation, the archbishop linked the U.S. bishops’ urgent First Amendment battle to the legacy of the city’s first bishop. He addressed a congregation that included his predecessor, Cardinal Edwin O’Brien; the papal nuncio, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano; a host of Church leaders; family members; local Catholics and a Knights of Columbus honor guard.

Installed at Baltimore’s Cathedral, Archbishop Lori Draws Line in Sand for Courageous Faith

2 comments:

Malleus Haereticorum said...

Nothing short of refreshing to hear an archbishop speak Catholic truth to Christophobic power. Doing so had been the norm prior to the appalling Second Vatican Council, but it has become disgracefully and scandalously rare over the past several dreary decades, as the Church succumbed to self-imposed mediocrity, pusillanimous expediency, and demonic Judaization. (See Kurt Cardinal Koch's recent and most distressing comments regarding the SSPX as indicative of the Church having lost its moorings and bearings.)

Ending on a higher note: Bravo, Your Excellency! But may you be joined in fighting the good fight by more than a mere handful of your brethren.

Bartholomew said...

Please, spare me the praise of Archbishop Lori. When the Connecticut legislature enacted a law which required all victims of rape to be administered a morning-after pill, Lori and the rest of the Connecticut bishops folded like cheap suitcases and went along with the law -- and put the practice in place in Catholic hospitals.

Profile in Catholic courage? Hardly.