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