SCCR Parish Blog

  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 n...

  In a tale of three baptized Catholics, it is instructive to remember that those who are baptized often turn radically against their own Church and the teachings of Christ. We are seeing that happen under the presidential administration of Joseph Biden (a baptized Catholic) who has appointed Xavier Becerra, a virulently pro-abortion  and anti-conscience-protection director of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, who is also a baptized Catholic.  Roger Severino is a baptized Catholic who holds fast to the Church's teaching on the sacredness of life.  He was the director of the federal Office of Civil Rights under the previous presidential administration.   He recently wrote an instructive piece in a national journal regarding the case of a nurse who worked for the University of Vermont Medical Center.  Their doctors and staff tricked her into assisting in the abortion of a child, which crime against God she was adamantly opposed to....

  As I have written about earlier, the current President and Congress are moving quickly to force taxpayer funding of the terrible evil of abortion. This letter from the U.S. Conference of Bishops (below) encourages all the faithful to act quickly to stop this and to protect innocent lives and our religious liberty.  Please make sure your voice is heard! ================================================ Congress pushes taxpayer-funded abortion Congress is moving forward on paying for abortion with your tax dollars!  Babies and their moms urgently need your help. Congress is advancing appropriations bill this week that would essentially  force taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions  in D.C., through foreign assistance, and in federal employee health plans. And this is just the start. Easily send a quick, pre-written email by clicking the button below.  Your members of Congress need to hear from you  before they go any further . Don't let Congress vote for...

  The U.B. Bishops' Conference has designated this week (July 22-29) as Religious Freedom Week -- a special time to pray and act to preserve our own religious freedom.  It's also a good time to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ who don't enjoy the same measure of freedoms that we do in the U.S.  Check out their resources on their  religious freedom week webpage .

  Today is a solemn feast day remembering the birth of St. John the Baptist, the saint the Lord calls "the greatest man born of woman."  (The only other saint whose birthday we observe on the calendar is the Blessed Virgin herself).  He is the voice announcing  the coming of Christ and our need to prepare our hearts through conversion,  as we remember in the Advent season. Here is a homily on this topic (below) from the great teacher St. Augustine. His feast day fits in nicely into these weeks of observing religious liberty, since he was martyred and beheaded for defending the dignity of marriage in speaking out to a powerful king (cf. Mark 6:14-29 ). Very important to turn to him in our own times when those who defend the dignity of marriage often bring down the wrath of powerful people and institutions -- government agencies, "human rights" commissions, universities, large corporations and employers, and more. St. John the Baptist, pray for us.  From a se...

  Today the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a Catholic adoption agency in Philadelphia did not have to violate its Catholic beliefs by adopting children out to homosexual couples.  (The Church teaches that a child has a right to the love of a mother and father whenever possible).    This is a significant win for religious liberty. 

  The National Catholic Register has a brief story on the narrow Senate   confirmation of Mr. Xavier Becerra as the secretary of Health and Human Services in the Biden/Harris administration. Pro-life groups from both parties are alarmed at this turn of events, because he has a long record of attempting to force participation in abortion at the state level as well as denial of the rights of pro-lifers and of religious liberty.  You might recall that under his direction, the State sued the Little Sisters of the Poor to attempt to force them to provide contraception to their employees, against their conscience and Catholic belief.  Mr. Becerra was baptized Catholic. 

  The Cardinal Newman Society is a lay apostolate that has been active since 1993 whose mission it is to renew Catholic education and ensure that it is faithful to the teaching of the Church.  They have written about serious potential threats to the mission of education posed by the potential passage of current federal legislation misleadingly named the Equality Act.  That dangerous legislation has been passed by the House of Representatives and now goes to the Senate.  As the CNS notes, it could seriously compromise the mission of Catholic schools and other Catholic agencies. Here's their analysis .

 UPDATED: 9 March  I recommend that you read this analysis of the so-called "Equality Act" which Congress may vote on as early as this week. This is from the National Catholic Register newspaper and is written by the pastorally wise priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, Monsignor Charles Pope. The heads of the committees of the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference have recently written an open letter to Congress expressing their opposition. It has not gotten much publicity, but is an important potential turning point in the relationship between Church and state.  If it passes, it could pose a serious threat to the religious liberty of many citizens, especially Catholics and other Christians.  How does opposition to religious liberty work?  In practice, through redefining actions and beliefs Christians have held for two millennia as "hate speech" or illegal "discrimination," especially regarding our beliefs about God creating men and women as complementary ...

  St. Jose Sanchez del Rio Today is the feast of St. Scholastica.  Perhaps more about her later. It is also the feast day of a heroic Mexican teenager named Jose del Rio. About 100 years ago, the government there turned severely against the Church and the faithful Catholic men rose up in resistance to their attempt to destroy her.  Courageous young Jose (only 14 years old) was part of that movement.  He wanted desperately to fight in the resistance with his older brothers, but was too young. But he did engage in the ultimate spiritual warfare.  When the Mexican government tried to force him to renounce Christ, he refused and withstood threats and torture, staying faithful to Christ to the last. You can read more about him here and here . In our own times, sharing a common heritage with our neighbors to the South and a common border, our government is becoming more like early 20th-century Mexico's than we might like to admit.  It is worth studying the life a...

  A while back, I wrote on the scandal of the likelihood of a baptized Catholic President contradicting the teaching of the Church in his policies and political agenda.  The always prayerful and thoughtful Archbishop Charles Chaput, former Archbishop of Philadelphia, has written a good short article about this in a fine journal on religion and public life entitled First Things .  He is a very clear and cogent writer.  As an aside, I recommend his book on the interaction of Christians and the government entitled, Render Unto Caesar . Here are a few excerpts from his article. The implications [of the Vatican's teaching on Communion to public figures who oppose the Church] for the present moment are clear. Public figures who identify as “Catholic” give scandal to the faithful when receiving Communion by creating the impression that the moral laws of the Church are optional. And bishops give similar scandal by not speaking up publicly about the issue and dange...

   While the nation is still fixed on news of settling the presidential election, we may be missing the beginning of a very important story.  The Supreme Court will hear a case on religious liberty with potentially sweeping implications.  The City of Philadelphia is attempting to prevent Catholic Social Services there from participating in fostering and adoption programs, because of their unwillingness according to Catholic belief of placing children with a same-sex couple.  Other government entities (such as the State of Illinois) have already succeeded in shutting down Catholic adoption agencies for this reason, and the City of Philadelphia, showing a real contempt for Catholic teaching, are currently depriving many children of foster homes.   Rulings can be issued broadly or narrowly.  Let's pray for a broad ruling that prevents any governmental agency from blocking the access of Catholic agencies to serve those in need because of their religio...

  Since 1983, a group called Citizens for Community Values which has been doing good work advocating for Christian values in the public sphere (pro-life, pro-religious-liberty, anti-pornography and so on).  They were recently instrumental in passing a state law here in Ohio to insure that our churches would not be unjustly closed by government decree.  As the article below shows, that is not the case in all states.  Some governors have deemed worship "non-essential" and shut it down, or enacted restrictions much more stringent than for comparable secular activities.  As the Covid-19 pandemic has emboldened many politicians to deprive Christians of their religious liberty under the guise of "public safety,"  this is one of the many fronts on which we Christians will have to remain vigilant and work doggedly to defend our most basic rights.   CCV-Backed Religious Freedom Bill to Prohibit Government from Closing Churches Signe...

UPDATED: June 27th.  To include the letter of St. Thomas to his daughter, Margaret. Our U.S. Bishops have asked us to reserve Religious Freedom Week from June 22nd through June 29th.  We have to be aware that our most precious freedom -- the freedom to worship God publicly according to our conscience -- is under attack.  Each year seems to bring new challenges.  This year proves no different.  The recent Supreme Court ruling declaring that Title VII requires recognition of transgender and homosexual "rights" will almost certainly cause lawsuits against Catholic organizations because of their belief in the nature of the human person, and likely result in attempts to suppress their religious freedom. Here's some background reading on some topics in religious freedom from the U.S. Bishops' conference website. I also recommend reading about two of the patron saints of religious freedom, St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher. Well worth the read also is the letter from...