UPDATED: November 19, 2021
While many turn their attention to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, it is important to keep an eye on the threats to religious liberty as they advance. Joseph Biden and his health secretary Xavier Becerra (both baptized as Catholics) appear to be poised to move against the right of Catholic institutions to run their businesses and apostolates in accord with Catholic teaching, as well as to violate the conscience rights of thousands of Catholic health care workers and others who oppose such evils as the killing of children in the womb and surgery to attempt to change one's "gender" (sex) . You might recall that various federal laws passed over the years, including "Obamacare" give sweeping power to the federal government's department of Health and Human Services to regulate all aspects of healthcare. Under that cover and ironically in the name of "anti-discrimination," new rules appear to be imminent which would not allow conscience exemptions for those workers who believe (as the Church teaches) that certain procedures are not morally acceptable. The realistic fear is that they would have to choose between violating their consciences or losing their jobs.
This current story from the National Catholic Register explains the situation.
Perhaps not coincidentally, in her Scripture cycle for Mass, we are just now finishing the book of Maccabees, the inspiring story of our Jewish ancestors who courageously refused to bow to the state and King Antiochus when he attempted to force them to violate their religious beliefs.
Some of those passages are here, here and here.
Please pray for our bishops, fellow Catholics, and all people of good will that we will not submit to attempts to force us to violate our faith and deny Christ.
