In 1620 the Pilgrims set sail on the Mayflower and would eventually settle in Plymouth. They left England to practice their religion freely and escape the oppression of the Church of England.
Surviving a harsh winter, the Pilgrims gathered after the fall harvest to give thanks for their freedom with a special meal. Today millions of Americans celebrate their freedom with a similar meal we now call Thanksgiving.
A decade after the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, a small group of influential Puritans left England under the leadership of John Winthrop to establish a safe location in America where they could freely practice their religion. They founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, with its seat of government in Boston. These Puritans began to carefully integrate their law and their faith. This included not allowing Catholics to freely practice their faith in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It would be 180 years after the arrival of the Mayflower before Catholics could build their first church – the first Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston.
History teaches us that the right to religious liberty is fragile and must be vigilantly guarded if it is not to be lost. The first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims seems as distant a memory as the Puritan laws that excluded Catholics from public life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. However, in recent years, secularists have sought to restrict the ideals of religious liberty to Sunday morning worship and the right to exercise our faith and follow our conscience in all aspects of our lives is a right that is increasingly viewed with hostility. Sadly, there has also been an increasing trend of government intrusion into the institutional and administrative life of the church.
Earlier this month the Catholic bishops of Maryland issued a statement urging Catholics and all people of goodwill to safeguard and defend religious freedom in the state regarded as the birthplace of religious liberty in the United States. Their clarion call was followed by the establishment of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In announcing the committee, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, president of the USCCB, informed the bishops of the United States: “Never before have we faced this kind of challenge to our ability to engage in the public square as people of faith and as a service provider. If we do not act now, the consequence will be grave.”
In 2011 this grave threat to the religious liberty of Catholics and the religious freedom of the Catholic Church in America does not stem from Pilgrims or even the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony. The threat comes from the Obama Administration and their allies in the American Civil Liberties Union as well as the other advocates of homosexual marriage and abortion on demand. Their continued attempts through lawsuits and public policies that limit the freedom of individuals and restrict religious institutions which follow church teaching on the sacredness of human life and the sanctity of marriage seemingly has no end in sight.
The U.S. bishops have issued a call to action but their effort can never bear fruit if not joined by individual Catholics willing to bear witness to their faith and resist the efforts to muzzle church teaching and remove our Catholic Church from the public square. Unless we act now, in the future we might find ourselves with little thanks to give for our religious liberty on Thanksgiving Day.
