Coming to a Church Near You: "Fortnight of Freedom"

St Thomas More was named "the patron saint of politicians and statesmen", by pope John Paul II.

By Hos

The reach calendar of the Holy Catholic Church marks a wonderful event, in just a few days: the Feast of St Thomas More and St John Fisher. Thomas More, in case anyone forgot, was the man close to king Henry VIII who lost his head for refusing to switch his allegiance from Rome to the newly founded Church of England. More got it easy by his own standards, though. His punishments (when he has power) for "heretics" (the term used at the time for protestants) often included burning at the stake. This policy was avidly followed at the time by the Holy Mother Church, in which John Fisher, who also lost his head for reasons similar to More, was a bishop.

Quite appropriately, the catholic church in the DC area is commemorating this feast with a campaign of two weeks, called Fortnight of Freedom. This series of events, with follow ups around the country (we are told), is supposedly meant to protect our religious freedoms. (From the likes of Thomas More?)

According to the "most reverend" William Lori, Archbishop of Baltimore, "religious liberty is an inherent right, endowed by the Creator and based in our dignity as human persons, created in God's image". (Given His age, I guess, the Creator must be completely bald by now and in need of prostate examinations.) Anyways, this doesn't seem to apply if you are female employee of any kind of organization run by the church. Because, as you have guessed already, the campaign has nothing to do with religious freedom, and everything to do with the birth control controversy. It smacks so awfully of election year politics, that it makes me wonder how thinly veiled the church's politicizing has to be before it loses it tax exempt status.