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A family member of victims cries while praying during the reopening ceremony of St. Anthony's Shrine in Colombo, Sri Lanka, June 12, 2019, months after it was closed because of an Easter bombing. Aid to the Church in Need raised over 111 million euros ($125 million) in 2018 to help support persecuted Christians, particularly in the Middle East. (CNS photo/Dinuka Liyanawatte, Reuters)
June 24, 2019
Nicholas Wolfram Smith
Catholic San Francisco
Religious Freedom Week, an annual campaign by the U.S. bishops to encourage support for religious liberty, comes as Catholics in California and across the country face challenges to their religious liberty. “Strength in Hope” is the theme of this year’s Religious Freedom Week, which takes place June 22-29.
"Christian child welfare institutions and Catholics in public life are encountering significant obstacles to their work, while our brothers and sisters in places like Nigeria suffer violent persecution," Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ committee on religious liberty. "We want to build solidarity and to encourage Catholics to persist in the struggle to advance the kingdom of God by finding hope in Jesus Christ.”
In addition to highlighting the persecution of religious minorities globally and the pressure on faith in public life, the USCCB has published short daily reflections and prayer on its website.
Valerie Schmalz, director of the archdiocesan Office of Human Life &Dignity, said Religious Freedom Week “is a way for us to formally pray, reflect, and act in our capacity as Catholics who are citizens of the United States.”
Schmalz said the First Amendment “protects our right to be religious and be religious in the way we choose” but Catholics and other religious groups have been under increasing political pressure.
“The fact that a bill has passed the state Senate that would require priests to disclose aspects of someone’s confession to them, something no priest can ever do, is a sign of how out of wack our worldview is at times in this state when it comes to respecting religious freedom,” she said.
Schmalz’s office is sponsoring two events during Religious Freedom Week. On June 21, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone led an ecumenical vespers at Star of the Sea Parish in San Francisco, where Armenian Orthodox priest Father Barouyr Shernezian gave the homily.
On June 29 at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in San Francisco, Catholic filmmakers will discuss faith in Hollywood and the recent success of religious films.
While Schmalz said Catholic doctrine on matters like the sanctity of life and the nature of marriage are increasingly seen “as a form of discrimination against others, we have to remember not to be discouraged. Saul persecuted Christians. He was the one holding the cloaks when St. Stephen was stoned to death and yet he became St. Paul, the great apostle and evangelizer who is remembered on June 29, along with St. Peter, the first pope to whom Jesus entrusted his church.”
For more information, visit https://sfarch.org/freedom or the USCCB website here.