Government cannot take away true freedom, Archbishop Chaput teaches
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Government cannot give or take away the ultimate freedom found in obedience to God, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said at the closing Mass of the U.S. bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom.”
“True freedom knows no attachments other than Jesus Christ,” Archbishop Chaput said in his July 4 homily at Washington, D.C.’s National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
“True freedom can walk away from anything – wealth, honor, fame, pleasure … It fears neither the state, nor death itself.”
“We’re free only to the extent that we unburden ourselves of our own willfulness and practice the art of living according to God’s plan,” Philadelphia’s archbishop said. “When we do this, when we choose to live according to God’s intention for us, we are then – and only then – truly free.”
“This is the kind of freedom that can transform the world. And it should animate all of our talk about liberty – religious or otherwise.”
The Archbishop of Philadelphia preached at the last Mass of the U.S. bishops’ two-week religious freedom campaign, which was spurred by the federal mandate requiring religious employers to provide contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing drugs.
The Fortnight for Freedom began June 21 – the vigil of the Feast of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More – and ended on the U.S. celebration of Independence Day. Its closing Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, D.C., with a homily delivered by Archbishop Chaput.
He began his homily by greeting the congregation on behalf of the Church in Philadelphia, “the cradle of our country’s liberty and the city of our nation’s founding.” It was there, he recalled, that “both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were written.”
In his sermon, the Philadelphia archbishop taught that the human right to religious freedom is needed “to create the context” for the “true freedom” offered by Jesus Christ, which involves liberation from sin and the gift of eternal life.
While religious liberty “is a foundational right” and “necessary for a good society,” it is not “an end in itself.” Rather, it must be used to find and live out the truth in order to attain to holiness, the highest form of freedom.
This higher form of freedom, found through God’s grace, “isn’t something Caesar can give or take away,” Archbishop Chaput taught. [More]
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11 Comments
As usual, Archbishop Chaput does not disappoint. He understands, an communicates to all of us, that we are made in the image of God and we belong to Him and to Him alone. Thus, we owe our allegiance to God’s laws and not man’s. We can only be the best we were intended to be by following God and not man.
And what are the bishops themselves, if not men?
Men who lead us to God, who are chosen by the Holy Spirit to be the successors of the Apostles.
Whoever acts to limit the (religious) freedom of another limits or destroys whoever’s own. Bishops are no way exempt from this general principle.
What’s your point, Florian? You’re not asserting that the Bishops are limiting the religious freedom of others, are you? If so, here’s the next question: do you hear voices no one else hears?
This higher form of freedom, found through God’s grace, “isn’t something Caesar can give or take away,” Archbishop Chaput taught … nor can the all male hierarchical church!
“Higher form of freedom”? Nonsense! A cute phrase with no meaning.
Sienna — don’t you like God’s choice of all men to lead the Church? That is not man’s choice, it is God’s choice. If you don’t like it, go try the Episcopalian Church — not only do they ordain women, but they also promote to bishop actively practicing homosexuals. I think you’d fit right in there. Leave my Church if you don’t like it, and join another or start your own. Quit attacking my Church.
Chaput shows a typical confusion. True Freedom (as he requires) is no freedom at all. It is instead a command from the hierarchs to live in a way the Church understands and teaches, and not in a way that honors an individual’s own understanding. The Church has no doubt about how it understands these matters, and so the only course left open is…obedience. Not freedom, true or otherwise.
Where there is no doubt, there is no truth.
So Carl, what on Earth are you doing on a Catholic website? You’re not Catholic — so leave us Catholics alone. I won’t come to your website, but please stay off the Catholic websites. Also, tip two: get into therapy — you are bitter, and you yourself would feel better when you work through your pride and anger.