What Kind of Catholics Do They Think We Are?

Influential Roman Catholics gathered at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. April 19 to participate in the 8th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. The event attracted hundreds of priests, monks, nuns, other clergy, and committed laymen. Speakers offered a resounding call for the preservation of religious freedom and Christian witness in the public square. Most prominent in everyone’s concerns was the Obama administration’s HHS mandates for religious organizations to provide insurance for contraceptives and controversial abortifacients, both of which transgress Catholic church teaching and have forced a showdown between Roman bishops and the executive branch.

Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus Carl Anderson offered commentary on the state of religious liberty in the United States. He recalled that the Knights of Columbus “publicly offer thanks for the blessing of American liberty” and hope to “preserve that liberty and pray for the Lord’s guidance and preservation.” He worried that American freedom has “never been as threatened as it has been today” in light of government encroachments. “We must remember that religious liberty has been key to the founding, preservation, and improvement of the American Republic,” he warned. Anderson observed how great religious awakenings preceded American independence, the crusade against slavery, and the reform of national manners. He recounted how political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville claimed that “[religion] singularly directs Americans’ use of [liberty].”