Why

The decision by the Supreme Court on Thursday surprised many faithful Catholics.  One of my colleagues at a client came in saying, “God help America.”   My initial reaction was one of dismay, and then I said to a friend, “Well, we haven’t geared up for nothing.” 

While the Bishops and our priests have been distributing good messages of religious freedom, I don’t believe it has even begun to resonate in the pews.  Evidence of that is the showing of the rather paltry 2,000 people for the rally for Religious Freedom in DC last weekend.  The space would have held 4,000 and the Archdiocese communications department was almost pleading for people to come.  If the message of religious freedom was resonating in the pews, the tickets should have been long gone before June 24^th. 

It is my thought that if the Supreme Court decision had nullified the Health Care Bill, we would have gone back to our regular life, not being pressed to defend our religious freedom.  The second reading in today’s Office of Readings is from a homily by Pope Paul IV.  For me, the entire portion of the letter rings true to what we, as American Catholic’s, are being asked to do.   The first paragraph of the text is as follows:

“Not to preach the Gospel would be my undoing, for Christ himself sent me as his apostle and witness. The more remote, the more difficult the assignment, the more my love of God spurs me on.  I am bound to proclaim that Jesus is Christ, the Son of the living God.  Because of him we come to know the God we cannot see.  He is the firstborn of all creation; in him all things find their being.  Man’s teacher and redeemer, he was born for us, died for us and for us he rose from the dead.”

“The more remote, the more difficult the assignment, the more my love of God spurs me on,” is the phrase that got my attention.  So we have a more difficult assignment that we originally thought.  Perhaps this gives us the time to help our friends and neighbors in the pews truly understand the need for defending our freedom as we are spurred on by the love of God!