Archbishop Chaput to all, 'Wake up!' religious freedom is under attack!

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput has called on Americans to recognize that religious freedom, as the Founding Fathers intended it, is now being dangerously imperiled by the federal government.

PHILADELPHIA, PA (Catholic Online) - Archbishop Chaput is calling on the faithful to recognize that religious liberty in America is dangerously imperiled. "The day when Americans could take the Founders' understanding of religious freedom as a given is over," he said. "We need to wake up."

Archbishop Chaput is the leader of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and has been an outspoken opponent of Obamacare's mandate that sterilization, contraception, and abortifacients be paid for by employers and employees, regardless of whether or not it offends their personal religious convictions.

Forcing a person to violate their personal religious convictions, by government order, is a direct infringement upon individual religious freedom as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Currently, under Obamacare, and the edict of the Department of Health and Human Services, everyone must pay, even if indirectly, for these dangerous, and immoral "services, " or face legal punishment brought by the government.

"The HHS mandate can only be understood as a form of coercion," the Archbishop recently wrote on the archdiocese website.

Last year the bishops of the U.S. church unanimously passed a statement expressing disapproval at the HHS mandate as both "unjust and illegal."

They correctly pointed out that the regulation violates both the religious freedom of churches and religious institutions, and individual civil rights. It will now no longer matter if you are the most faithful and religious employer or employee -- your funds will now be used to pay for these services no matter how much you disagree. In effect, we are all being compelled to participate in the culture of death that our current government insists on entrenching.

The Catholic Church does support basic and universal healthcare as a right, however as the archbishop explained, " But health care has now morphed into a religious liberty issue provoked entirely--and needlessly--by the current White House. Despite a few small concessions under pressure, the administration refuses to withdraw or reasonably modify a Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive mandate that violates the moral and religious convictions of many individuals, private employers and religiously affiliated and inspired organizations."

The archbishop has also pointed out that this goes beyond the HHS edict, but also extends to the administration's treatment of marriage, and it's interference in the Hosanna-Tabor case.

The Obama administration has come out against marriage and is working to undermine the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The administration has said it now wants to change the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples.

In the Hosanna-Tabor case, the administration attempted to tell a Lutheran school that it was required to restore a minister who violated the teachings of the faith. The Supreme Court sided with the Lutheran school in that case, upholding religious freedom.

However, the administration continues its all out assault on the First Amendment rights of all Americans by insisting that they cooperate with and participate in practices that are offensive to the faithful.

The warning of Archbishop Chaput then is a clarion call to action not just for Catholics, but for all who value the First Amendment.

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