Red Mass at Gesu Church

By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami

Homily preached by Archbishop Thomas Wenski at the annual Red Mass sponsored by the Miami Catholic Lawyers Guild and celebrated June 7 at Gesu Church in downtown Miami.

There was a time when Catholics here in the United States were regarded with great suspicion by their mostly Protestant neighbors. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the numbers of Catholics grew because of immigration, many thought that these immigrants who accepted the religious authority of a Pope could never be successfully integrated into the American experiment of democracy. Fortunately, the civil liberties granted by our Constitution allowed Catholics, in spite of these prejudices, to prosper in America.

The Constitution guaranteed citizens of all religious faiths the right to contribute to the common life together. And, as Catholics and as Americans, we can take some holy pride in pointing out our own contributions. We built schools, orphanages, hospitals, universities; we served in our nation's wars, we founded businesses, we served in public office and continue to do so today. In fact, today, five of the nine members of the United States Supreme Court are Catholics. As Catholics in America, we have come a long way since the early 1960s when Senator John F. Kennedy, when he was a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, had to appear before a group of Baptist ministers, to argue that he was no less of an American for being a Catholic.

Yes, we have come a long way. Or, have we really? In this the second decade of the 21st century, Americans seem to be more conflicted than ever about the role of religion in public life. The so-called Separation of Church and State - a phrase that never appears in our Constitution - is increasingly invoked to silence the voices of faith in the public policy debates of our time. You cannot impose your views on others, we are told by people who forget that the civil rights movement of the 1960s was in its inspiration and its leadership an essentially religious movement. Of course, Dr. Martin Luther King and the thousands who braved fire hoses and police dogs as they marched were in no position to impose their views but through non-violent resistance to unjust laws they made their proposal of racial justice and they touched the conscience of America.

Yet today in America faith is reduced being no more than just a subjective opinion and one is told to keep his or her religion private (as if practicing one's faith is something that consenting adults should do in secret.) The Englishman, G.K. Chesterton, once described America as a nation with the soul of a church. In America, one's religion might be personal but never private. People of religious faith have always staked out a claim in the public square to make their proposals about the conditions necessary for human flourishing in society. And they have done so unapologetically because it was their right to do so, our right to do so, as guaranteed by the First Amendment.

However, today, America's first freedom, the freedom of religion, is under great stress if not under outright assault and not just for Catholics. Alabama's draconian anti-immigrant legislation criminalizes Bible classes for irregular (undocumented) immigrants. The federal government recently attempted to redefine for churches the definition of religious minister or religious employee (EEOC vs. Hosanna-Tabor). In several states, Catholic Charities have had their licenses revoked to provide foster care and adoption services. A radical rereading of the First Amendment protections has resulted in concerted efforts to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices (ACLU vs. Sebelius). The State Department in its analysis of the state of religious liberty in the world also seems to have reduced freedom of religion to mean merely freedom to worship. And even more ominous is the HHS mandate for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. The HHS Mandate represents an unprecedented intrusion by the federal government to force religious institutions to facilitate and fund a product contrary to their own moral teaching. The mandate purports to define which religious institutions are religious enough to merit the protection of their religious liberty.

The Church cannot not oppose this unjust (and we believe unconstitutional) mandate. It is not a matter of whether contraception may be prohibited by the government. This is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government. Instead, it is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization, even if that violates their religious beliefs.

A little over two weeks ago, on May 21st, 43 Catholic entities across the nation, including archdioceses such as New York and Washington, DC, and universities such as Notre-Dame filed 12 lawsuits in various jurisdictions suing the U.S. government for violation of their religious freedom because of this mandate. This is the biggest religious freedom lawsuit in the history of our country. Now you would think that this would be breaking news. You would think wrong. ABC World News, NBC Nightly News did not cover it. CBS Evening News gave it 19 seconds of coverage that Monday evening. The next day, the New York Times covered it on page 17. On page 1, that day, they devoted more than 4,000 words to slamming private Catholic and Protestant schools that qualified for a publically financed scholarship program.

The eminent historian, Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. called anti-Catholicism the deepest-held bias in the history of the American people. In a culture in which tolerance is the supreme virtue and all sorts of prejudice is condemned, prejudice towards Catholics - at least towards Catholics who adhere to the tenets of their faith - is still acceptable.

These efforts to restrict religious liberty are seemingly founded in a reductive secularism that has more in common with the French Revolution than with America's founding. They seek to delegitimize the Church's participation in public debate about issues that will determine the future of American society.

But, as the Pope told Castro in Cuba, in upholding the basic human right to religious freedom the Church is not seeking any privileges for herself. As Blessed John Paul II said many times, the Church does not seek to impose but to propose. The Church doesn't impose her views but seeks the freedom to propose them in the public square and, in the give and take of the democratic process, to convince others of their reasonableness; and, the Church demands the freedom to witness to them coherently in her parishes, schools and charitable institutions, so as to contribute to human flourishing in society.

Rather than facing the shuttering of our schools, universities and hospitals by the federal government, we will seek remedies from both the Congress and the courts. In any case, the HHS mandate must be rescinded. Here in Florida, we also have the opportunity in November to vote to approve the Freedom of Religion Amendment 8. This amendment will protect faith-based agencies and organizations from further erosions of religious freedom at the state level by removing the Blaine Amendment language from our state constitution, which is the vestiges of a 19th century brand of anti-Catholicism.

America's first freedom, the freedom of religion, has honored America's diversity by permitting the inclusion of all its citizens in contributing to the common good of all. The stakes are high. Separation of Church and State does not require the exclusion of religion from society. To exclude people of faith from making their contributions and their proposals in the public square would impoverish us all.

In today's Gospel, one of the scribes asks Jesus a question. The scribes were the lawyers, at least the lawyers of religious law, of Jesus' time. Jesus answers with the Schema Israel, the biblical passage from the Old Testament that observant Jews still recite daily. Love is the supreme law of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yet, love, or that highest form of love that the Greeks called agape and the Romans charity, must be based on truth. Without truth, charity becomes merely sentimentality. Without the truth about man and his relationship to his Creator man neither knows the way to go, nor even understands who he is.

We count on the prayerful intercession of St. Thomas More, patron saint of politicians and those in the legal profession. He was guided in both his personal life and his public life by a Christian vision of the human person, made in the image and likeness of God, destined for communion with God. St. Thomas More was the King's good servant but he was God's servant first. As Americans we do well to recall his example and to seek his prayers.

For this reason, the U.S. bishops have asked that the 14 days from June 21, the vigil of the feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, to July 4, be dedicated to a fortnight for freedom, a great hymn of prayer for our country. St. John Fisher was the English bishop who refused King Henry VIII's usurpation of religious freedom of the Church in England; St. Thomas More was a lawyer and the King's chancellor: Fisher was drawn and quartered; More was beheaded. Thomas More described himself as the King's good servant but he was God's servant first. As Americans we do well to recall his example and to seek his prayers. After all, we are no less Americans for being Catholics; and no less Catholic for being Americans.