IMAGE: CNS photo/Bob Roller
By Carol Zimmermann
ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) — In the
July 3 closing Mass for the Fortnight for Freedom, Baltimore Archbishop William
E. Lori called on Catholics to thank God for the gift of freedom and to pray
that they “use this gift well and wisely.”
“It’s too easy to let this
gift lie dormant or be neglected,” he said in his homily at the Mass
celebrated during the “Convocation of Catholic Leaders: The Joy of the
Gospel in America” in Orlando.
Archbishop Lori, chairman of the
U.S. bishops’ Committee for Religious Liberty, had celebrated the fortnight’s
opening Mass June 21 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption
of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore.
This is the sixth year of the
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Fortnight for Freedom — a two-week period
of prayer, advocacy and education on religious freedom. It starts on the vigil
of the shared feast day of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More — martyrs who
fought religious persecution — and ends on Independence Day.
In his homily, the archbishop urged
convocation delegates to advocate for those whose freedoms have been denied and
to seek better laws and engage political leaders but he also stressed that
nothing is more important that bearing witness to Catholic teaching and
“fulfilling our mission to love.”
He did not list current
challenges to religious freedom but he noted that before “religious
liberty is a political or legal issue it is first and foremost a matter of
human dignity.”
He said for Catholics to fully embrace
this understanding of religious freedom they might need to “undergo a
process of conversion” not unlike St. Thomas, whose feast was celebrated
July 3. The apostle would not believe Christ had risen until he touched his wounds
and saw it was true.
The archbishop urged Catholic
leaders attending Mass in the hotel ballroom to go back to their dioceses and
parish settings with a renewed sense of mission and a deeper understanding of
religious freedom which he said is “entangled in the DNA of responsive faith.”
When Catholics understand how
they are spiritually set free, he said, they are able to “witness to those
alienated from their faith or those who are lukewarm or on the cusp of vocation
or mission.”
Isn’t that why we came here and
what we are praying for, he asked the convocation delegates.
At the start of his homily he
told the congregation delegates of his own “doubting Thomas” experience.
When he was about 10 years old, the family TV set in their house broke down and
was “pronounced unfixable.”
During this time, he was
visiting a friend, “allegedly doing homework” but he confessed to the
congregation he was watching “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.” While
he was there, his parents got a call from the parish that they had won a raffle
prize of a portable Zenith TV.
“When I got back my parents
told me but I didn’t believe it. I thought it was terrible they would make up
such a story knowing how I felt,” he said.
Only later, when the TV was
delivered, did he believe it.
The archbishop then spoke of the
experience of disbelief on the grander scale of Thomas, whose lack of faith was
described by St. Gregory the Great as doing more than the other apostles to
rekindle faith. Tradition holds that he spread the Gospel message to present-day
India.
His encounter with the risen
Lord “changed him forever” and prompted him to “go far beyond
his comfort zone” the archbishop said, echoing a theme of the four-day
convocation that all Catholics are called to be missionary disciples.
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