It Depends on the Lay Faithful

Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia recently spoke to the National Catholic Register about the role of the laity in defending Religious Liberty. Here are a few of the Archbishops comments in that article:

Religious liberty as an ideal sounds lovely. But in the abstract, it has very little power. It has political force only to the degree that ordinary people believe and practice their faith — and refuse to tolerate anyone or anything interfering with their faith. The current White House has a clear track record of ignoring the traditional American understanding of religious freedom and interfering with the activity of religiously inspired organizations.

If lay Catholics accept that sort of government behavior without inflicting a political cost on the officials responsible for it, then they have no one to blame but themselves when they find that their liberties have gone thin.

In the wake of the abuse scandal, bishops are too easily caricatured and marginalized by the mass media. The religious-freedom fight needs to be owned and led by laypeople.

Laypeople have the freedom and the obligation to actively witness their faith, alone and together with other believers. Obviously, zeal should be accompanied by common sense. That means keeping your local bishop informed and seeking his blessing for any major apostolate.

But the missionary vocation belongs to all of us — clergy, religious and lay — and we should commit ourselves to pursuing it as our circumstances in life permit.