Time to pray.
Time to fast.
Roll up your sleeves and get to work.
Finally (again finally) some bishops are speaking out against the newly proposed health care legislation
It's a mess, a slippery slope and the demonic is manifesting itself.
Time to get spiritually busy.
First, clean your own spiritual house--get to confession--get on your knees--eat some bread and drink some water.
And this isn't some nice little--gettin' prepared for Lent--invitation. This goes to the heart of religious freedom.
Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan wasn’t feeling the love. He rightly fumed: “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.” Dolan said that “to force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable. . . Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty.”
Folks, I’ve been warning for more than a year now that the Administration is constricting religious liberty bit by bit. It has abandoned any defense of traditional marriage. It is promoting gay rights abroad at the expense of religious rights. And I’ve documented that the Administration, beginning with Secretary of State Clinton, has intentionally used the phrase “freedom of worship” instead of “freedom of religion,” implying that one’s faith is a private matter — and that exercising that faith in public is not a protected right.
Well, if the Administration’s latest move isn’t proof of that, I don’t know what will be.
Now, to all my evangelical brethren who may be wondering why I’m making so much of this — after all, the vast majority of evangelicals don’t have a problem with contraception — I will say this: Which of our religious convictions will we be forced to abandon one day? Will our religiously affiliated groups be forced to hire people who oppose our faith? Will the government force a curriculum upon our schools and homeschoolers? Just a few years ago these possibilities seemed crazy. Now, they seem very real.
I’m reminded of the famous saying of German pastor Martin Niemoeller, referring to the horrors of Nazi Germany:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I
did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did
not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was
no one left to speak for me.”
