United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty
Our First, Most Cherished Liberty
A Statement on Religious Liberty
We are Catholics. We are Americans. We are proud to be both, grateful for the gift of faith
which is ours as Christian disciples, and grateful for the gift of liberty which is ours as
American citizens. To be Catholic and American should mean not having to choose one over the other.
Our allegiances are distinct, but they need not be contradictory, and should instead be
complementary. That is the teaching of our Catholic faith, which obliges us to work together with
fellow citizens for the common good of all who live in this land. That is the vision of our
founding and our Constitution, which guarantees citizens of all religious faiths the right to
contribute to our common life together.
Freedom is not only for Americans, but we think of it as something of our special inheritance,
fought for at a great price, and a heritage to be guarded now. We are stewards of this gift, not
only for ourselves but for all nations and peoples who yearn to be free. Catholics in America have
discharged this duty of guarding freedom admirably for many generations.
In 1887, when the archbishop of Baltimore, James Gibbons, was made the second American cardinal, he
defended the American heritage of religious liberty during his visit to Rome to receive the red
hat. Speaking of the great progress the Catholic Church had made in the United States, he
attributed it to the “civil liberty we enjoy in our enlightened republic.” Indeed, he made a bolder
claim, namely that “in the genial atmosphere of liberty [the Church] blossoms like a rose.”1
From well before Cardinal Gibbons, Catholics in America have been advocates for religious liberty,
and the landmark teaching of the Second Vatican Council on religious liberty was influenced by the
American experience. It is among the proudest boasts of the Church on
1 Cardinal James Gibbons, Address upon taking possession of Santa Maria in Trastevere, March 25,
1887.
these shores. We have been staunch defenders of religious liberty in the past. We have a solemn
duty to discharge that duty today.
We need, therefore, to speak frankly with each other when our freedoms are threatened. Now is such
a time. As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we address an urgent summons to our fellow
Catholics and fellow Americans to be on guard, for religious liberty is under attack, both at home
and abroad.
This has been noticed both near and far. Pope Benedict XVI recently spoke about his worry that
religious liberty in the United States is being weakened. He called it the “most cherished of
American freedoms”—and indeed it is. All the more reason to heed the warning of the Holy Father, a
friend of America and an ally in the defense of freedom, in his recent address to American bishops:
Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American
freedoms, the freedom of religion. Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been
made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and
institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices. Others have spoken to me
of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of
respect for freedom of conscience.
Here once more we see the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed
with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a
reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about the
issues which are determining the future of American society.2
Religious Liberty Under Attack—Concrete Examples
Is our most cherished freedom truly under threat? Sadly, it is. This is not a theological or legal
dispute without real world consequences. Consider the following:
• HHS mandate for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. The mandate of the
Department of Health and Human Services has received wide attention and has been met with our
vigorous and united opposition. In an unprecedented way, the federal government will both force
religious institutions to facilitate and fund a product contrary to their own moral teaching and
purport to define which religious institutions are “religious enough” to merit protection of their
religious liberty. These features of the “preventive services” mandate amount to an unjust law. As
Archbishop-designate
2 Benedict XVI, Ad limina address to bishops of the United States, January 19, 2012.
William Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, testified to
Congress: “This 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.”3
• State immigration laws. Several states have recently passed laws that forbid what the
government deems “harboring” of undocumented immigrants—and what the Church deems Christian charity
and pastoral care to those immigrants. Perhaps the most egregious of these is in Alabama, where the
Catholic bishops, in cooperation with the Episcopal and Methodist bishops of Alabama, filed suit
against the law:
It is with sadness that we brought this legal action but with a deep sense that we, as people of
faith, have no choice but to defend the right to the free exercise of religion granted to us as
citizens of Alabama. . . . The law makes illegal the exercise of our Christian religion which we,
as citizens of Alabama, have a right to follow. The law prohibits almost everything which would
assist an undocumented immigrant or encourage an undocumented immigrant to live in Alabama. This
new Alabama law makes it illegal for a Catholic priest to baptize,
hear the confession of, celebrate the anointing of the sick with, or preach the word of God to, an
undocumented immigrant. Nor can we encourage them to attend Mass or give them a ride to Mass. It is
illegal to allow them to attend adult scripture study groups, or attend CCD or Sunday school
classes. It is illegal for
the clergy to counsel them in times of difficulty or in preparation for marriage. It is illegal for
them to come to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings or other recovery groups at our churches.4
• Altering Church structure and governance. In 2009, the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut
Legislature proposed a bill that would have forced Catholic parishes to be restructured according
to a congregational model, recalling the trusteeism controversy of the early nineteenth century,
and prefiguring the federal government’s attempts to redefine for the Church “religious minister”
and “religious employer” in the years since.
• Christian students on campus. In its over-100-year history, the University of California
Hastings College of Law has denied student organization status to only one group, the
3 Most Rev. William E. Lori, Chairman, USCCB Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, Oral Testimony
Before the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives, February 28, 2012.
4 Most Rev. Thomas J. Rodi, Archbishop of Mobile, August 1, 2011.
Christian Legal Society, because it required its leaders to be Christian and to abstain from sexual
activity outside of marriage.
• Catholic foster care and adoption services. Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia,
and the state of Illinois have driven local Catholic Charities out of the business of providing
adoption or foster care services—by revoking their licenses, by ending their government contracts,
or both—because those Charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried
opposite-sex couples who cohabit.
• Discrimination against small church congregations. New York City enacted a rule that barred the
Bronx Household of Faith and sixty other churches from renting public schools on weekends for
worship services even though non-religious groups could rent
the same schools for scores of other uses. While this would not frequently affect Catholic
parishes, which generally own their own buildings, it would be devastating to many smaller
congregations. It is a simple case of discrimination against religious believers.
• Discrimination against Catholic humanitarian services. Notwithstanding years of excellent
performance by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services in
administering contract services for victims of human trafficking, the federal government changed
its contract specifications to require us to provide or
refer for contraceptive and abortion services in violation of Catholic teaching. Religious
institutions should not be disqualified from a government contract based on religious belief, and
they do not somehow lose their religious identity or liberty upon entering such contracts. And yet
a federal court in Massachusetts, turning religious liberty on its head, has since declared that
such a disqualification is required by the First Amendment—that the government somehow violates
religious liberty by allowing Catholic organizations to participate in contracts in a manner
consistent with their beliefs on contraception and abortion.
Religious Liberty Is More Than Freedom of Worship
Religious liberty is not only about our ability to go to Mass on Sunday or pray the Rosary at home.
It is about whether we can make our contribution to the common good of all Americans. Can we do the
good works our faith calls us to do, without having to compromise that very same faith? Without
religious liberty properly understood, all Americans suffer, deprived of the essential contribution
in education, health care, feeding the hungry, civil rights, and social services that religious
Americans make every day, both here at home and overseas.
What is at stake is whether America will continue to have a free, creative, and robust civil
society—or whether the state alone will determine who gets to contribute to the common good,
and how they get to do it. Religious believers are part of American civil society, which includes
neighbors helping each other, community associations, fraternal service clubs, sports leagues, and
youth groups. All these Americans make their contribution to our common life, and they do
not need the permission of the government to do so. Restrictions on religious liberty are an attack
on civil society and the American genius for voluntary associations.
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America issued a statement about the administration’s
contraception and sterilization mandate that captured exactly the danger that we face:
Most troubling, is the Administration’s underlying rationale for its decision, which appears to be
a view that if a religious entity is not insular, but engaged with broader society, it loses its
“religious” character and liberties. Many faiths firmly believe in being open to and engaged with
broader society and fellow citizens of other faiths. The Administration’s ruling makes the price of
such an outward approach the violation of an
organization’s religious principles. This is deeply disappointing.5
This is not a Catholic issue. This is not a Jewish issue. This is not an Orthodox, Mormon, or
Muslim issue. It is an American issue.
The Most Cherished of American Freedoms
In 1634, a mix of Catholic and Protestant settlers arrived at St. Clement’s Island in Southern
Maryland from England aboard the Ark and the Dove. They had come at the invitation of the Catholic
Lord Baltimore, who had been granted Maryland by the Protestant King Charles I of England. While
Catholics and Protestants were killing each other in Europe, Lord Baltimore imagined Maryland as a
society where people of different faiths could live together peacefully. This vision was soon
codified in Maryland’s 1649 Act Concerning Religion (also called the “Toleration Act”), which was
the first law in our nation’s history to protect an individual’s right to freedom of conscience.
Maryland’s early history teaches us that, like any freedom, religious liberty requires constant
vigilance and protection, or it will disappear. Maryland’s experiment in religious toleration ended
within a few decades. The colony was placed under royal control, and the Church of England became
the established religion. Discriminatory laws, including the loss of political rights, were enacted
against those who refused to conform. Catholic chapels were closed, and Catholics were restricted
to practicing their faith in their homes. The Catholic community lived under these conditions until
the American Revolution.
5 Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, Statement, January 24, 2012.
By the end of the 18th century, our nation’s founders embraced freedom of religion as an essential
condition of a free and democratic society. James Madison, often called the Father of the
Constitution, described conscience as “the most sacred of all property.”6 He wrote that “the
Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is
the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.”7 George Washington wrote that “the
establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive that induced me to the field of
battle.”8 Thomas Jefferson assured the Ursuline Sisters—who had been serving a mostly non- Catholic
population by running a hospital, an orphanage, and schools in Louisiana since 1727— that the
principles of the Constitution were a “sure guarantee” that their ministry would be free “to govern
itself according to its own voluntary rules, without interference from the civil authority.”9
It is therefore fitting that when the Bill of Rights was ratified, religious freedom had the
distinction of being the First Amendment. Religious liberty is indeed the first liberty. The First
Amendment guarantees that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Recently, in a unanimous Supreme Court judgment affirming the importance of that first freedom, the
Chief Justice of the United States explained that religious liberty is not just the first freedom
for Americans; rather it is the first in the history of democratic freedom, tracing its origins
back the first clauses of the Magna Carta of 1215 and beyond. In a telling example, Chief Justice
Roberts illustrated our history of religious liberty in light of a Catholic issue decided
upon by James Madison, who guided the Bill of Rights through Congress and is known as the architect
of the First Amendment:
[In 1806] John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States, solicited the Executive’s
opinion on who should be appointed to direct the affairs of the Catholic Church in the territory
newly acquired by the Louisiana Purchase. After consulting with President Jefferson, then-Secretary
of State James Madison responded that the selection of church “functionaries” was an “entirely
ecclesiastical” matter left to the Church’s own judgment. The “scrupulous policy of the
Constitution in guarding against a political interference with religious affairs,” Madison
explained, prevented the Government from
rendering an opinion on the “selection of ecclesiastical individuals.”10
6 James Madison, “Property,” March 29, 1792, in The Founding Fathers, eds. Philip B. Kurland and
Ralph Lerner (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), accessed March 27, 2012.
http://press- pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s23.html.
7 James Madison, “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessment,” June 20, 1785, in The
Founding
Fathers, accessed March 27, 2012.
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions43.html.
8 Michael Novak and Jana Novak, Washington’s God, 2006.
9 Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States (Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1950),
678.
10 Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U.S. _, 132 S. Ct. 694,
703 (2012).
That is our American heritage, our most cherished freedom. It is the first freedom because if we
are not free in our conscience and our practice of religion, all other freedoms are fragile. If
citizens are not free in their own consciences, how can they be free in relation to others, or to
the state? If our obligations and duties to God are impeded, or even worse, contradicted by the
government, then we can no longer claim to be a land of the free, and a beacon of hope for the
world.
Our Christian Teaching
During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Americans shone the light of the Gospel on
a dark history of slavery, segregation, and racial bigotry. The civil rights movement was an
essentially religious movement, a call to awaken consciences, not only an appeal to the
Constitution for America to honor its heritage of liberty.
In his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. boldly said, “The
goal of America is freedom.” As a Christian pastor, he argued that to call America to the full
measure of that freedom was the specific contribution Christians are obliged to make. He rooted his
legal and constitutional arguments about justice in the long Christian tradition:
I would agree with Saint Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all.” Now what is the
difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a
man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is
out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint
Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.11
It is a sobering thing to contemplate our government enacting an unjust law. An unjust law cannot
be obeyed. In the face of an unjust law, an accommodation is not to be sought, especially by
resorting to equivocal words and deceptive practices. If we face today the prospect of unjust laws,
then Catholics in America, in solidarity with our fellow citizens, must have the courage not to
obey them. No American desires this. No Catholic welcomes it. But if it should fall upon us, we
must discharge it as a duty of citizenship and an obligation of faith.
It is essential to understand the distinction between conscientious objection and an unjust law.
Conscientious objection permits some relief to those who object to a just law for reasons of
conscience—conscription being the most well-known example. An unjust law is “no law at all.” It
cannot be obeyed, and therefore one does not seek relief from it, but rather its repeal.
11 Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963.
The Christian church does not ask for special treatment, simply the rights of religious freedom for
all citizens. Rev. King also explained that the church is neither the master nor the servant of the
state, but its conscience, guide, and critic.
As Catholics, we know that our history has shadows too in terms of religious liberty, when we did
not extend to others the proper respect for this first freedom. But the teaching of the Church is
absolutely clear about religious liberty:
The human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune
from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise
that in matters religious no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs …
whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits. . .
. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law
whereby society is governed. Thus it
is to become a civil right.12
As Catholics, we are obliged to defend the right to religious liberty for ourselves and for others.
We are happily joined in this by our fellow Christians and believers of other faiths.
A recent letter to President Obama from some sixty religious leaders, including Christians of many
denominations and Jews, argued that “it is emphatically not only Catholics who deeply object to the
requirement that health plans they purchase must provide coverage of contraceptives that include
some that are abortifacients.”13
More comprehensively, a theologically rich and politically prudent declaration from Evangelicals
and Catholics Together made a powerful case for greater vigilance in defense of religious freedom,
precisely as a united witness animated by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.14 Their declaration makes it
clear that as Christians of various traditions we object to a “naked public square,” stripped of
religious arguments and religious believers. We do not seek a “sacred public square” either, which
gives special privileges and benefits to religious citizens. Rather, we seek a civil public square,
where all citizens can make their contribution to the common good. At our
best, we might call this an American public square.
The Lord Jesus came to liberate us from the dominion of sin. Political liberties are one part of
that liberation, and religious liberty is the first of those liberties. Together with our fellow
Christians, joined by our Jewish brethren, and in partnership with Americans of other religious
12 Second Vatican Council, Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae), no. 2, in The
Documents of
Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott (New York: Guild Press, 1966).
13 Letter from Leith Anderson et al. to President Obama, December 21, 2011 (available at
www.becketfund.org/wp- content/uploads/2011/12/To-President-NonCatholics-RelExemptionSigned.pdf).
14 Evangelicals and Catholics Together, “In Defense of Religious Freedom,” First Things, March
2012.
traditions, we affirm that our faith requires us to defend the religious liberty granted us by God,
and protected in our Constitution.
Martyrs Around the World
In this statement, as bishops of the United States, we are addressing ourselves to the situation we
find here at home. At the same time, we are sadly aware that religious liberty in many other parts
of the world is in much greater peril. Our obligation at home is to defend religious liberty
robustly, but we cannot overlook the much graver plight that religious believers, most of them
Christian, face around the world. The age of martyrdom has not passed. Assassinations, bombings of
churches, torching of orphanages—these are only the most violent attacks
Christians have suffered because of their faith in Jesus Christ. More systematic denials of basic
human rights are found in the laws of several countries, and also in acts of persecution by
adherents of other faiths.
If religious liberty is eroded here at home, American defense of religious liberty abroad is less
credible. And one common threat, spanning both the international and domestic arenas, is
the tendency to reduce the freedom of religion to the mere freedom of worship. Therefore, it is
our task to strengthen religious liberty at home, in this and other respects, so that we might
defend it more vigorously abroad. To that end, American foreign policy, as well as the vast
international network of Catholic agencies, should make the promotion of religious liberty an
ongoing and urgent priority.
“All the Energies the Catholic Community Can Muster”
What we ask is nothing more than that our God-given right to religious liberty be respected. We ask
nothing less than that the Constitution and laws of the United States, which recognize that right,
be respected.
In insisting that our liberties as Americans be respected, we know as bishops that what our Holy
Father said is true. This work belongs to “an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity
endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture.”
As bishops we seek to bring the light of the Gospel to our public life, but the work of politics is
properly that of committed and courageous lay Catholics. We exhort them to be both engaged and
articulate in insisting that as Catholics and as Americans we do not have to choose between the
two. There is an urgent need for the lay faithful, in cooperation with Christians, Jews, and
others, to impress upon our elected representatives the importance of continued protection of
religious liberty in a free society.
We address a particular word to those holding public office. It is your noble task to govern for
the common good. It does not serve the common good to treat the good works of religious believers
as a threat to our common life; to the contrary, they are essential to its proper functioning. It
is also your task to protect and defend those fundamental liberties guaranteed by the Bill of
Rights. This ought not to be a partisan issue. The Constitution is not for Democrats or Republicans
or Independents. It is for all of us, and a great nonpartisan effort should be led by our elected
representatives to ensure that it remains so.
We recognize that a special responsibility belongs to those Catholics who are responsible for our
impressive array of hospitals, clinics, universities, colleges, schools, adoption agencies,
overseas development projects, and social service agencies that provide assistance to the poor, the
hungry, immigrants, and those faced with crisis pregnancies. You do the work that the
Gospel mandates that we do. It is you who may be forced to choose between the good works we do by
faith, and fidelity to that faith itself. We encourage you to hold firm, to stand fast, and to
insist upon what belongs to you by right as Catholics and Americans. Our country deserves the best
we have to offer, including our resistance to violations of our first freedom.
To our priests, especially those who have responsibility for parishes, university chaplaincies, and
high schools, we ask for a catechesis on religious liberty suited to the souls in your care. As
bishops we can provide guidance to assist you, but the courage and zeal for this task cannot be
obtained from another—it must be rooted in your own concern for your flock and nourished by the
graces you received at your ordination.
Catechesis on religious liberty is not the work of priests alone. The Catholic Church in America is
blessed with an immense number of writers, producers, artists, publishers, filmmakers, and bloggers
employing all the means of communications—both old and new media—to expound and teach the faith.
They too have a critical role in this great struggle for religious liberty. We call upon them to
use their skills and talents in defense of our first freedom.
Finally to our brother bishops, let us exhort each other with fraternal charity to be bold, clear,
and insistent in warning against threats to the rights of our people. Let us attempt to be the
“conscience of the state,” to use Rev. King’s words. In the aftermath of the decision on
contraceptive and sterilization mandates, many spoke out forcefully. As one example, the words of
one of our most senior brothers, Cardinal Roger Mahony, thirty-five years a bishop and recently
retired after twenty-five years as archbishop of Los Angeles, provide a model for us here: “I
cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience than this ruling today.
This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic community
can muster.”15
15 Cardinal Roger Mahony, “Federal Government Mandate for Contraceptive/Sterilization Coverage,”
Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs L.A. (blog), January 20, 2012,
cardinalrogermahonyblogsla.blogspot.com/2012/01/federal- government-mandate-for.html.
A Fortnight for Freedom
In particular, we recommend to our brother bishops that we focus “all the energies the Catholic
community can muster” in a special way this coming summer. As pastors of the flock, our privileged
task is to lead the Christian faithful in prayer.
Both our civil year and liturgical year point us on various occasions to our heritage of freedom.
This year, we propose a special “fortnight for freedom,” in which bishops in their own dioceses
might arrange special events to highlight the importance of defending our first freedom. Our
Catholic institutions also could be encouraged to do the same, especially in cooperation with other
Christians, Jews, people of other faiths, and indeed, all who wish to defend our most cherished
freedom.
We suggest that the fourteen days from June 21—the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St.
Thomas More—to July 4, Independence Day, be dedicated to this “fortnight for freedom”—a great hymn
of prayer for our country. Our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who
remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power—St. John
Fisher and St. Thomas More, St. John the Baptist, SS. Peter and Paul, and the First Martyrs of the
Church of Rome. Culminating on Independence Day, this special period of prayer, study, catechesis,
and public action would emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty. Dioceses and
parishes around the country could choose a date in that period for special events that would
constitute a great national campaign of teaching and witness for religious liberty.
In addition to this summer’s observance, we also urge that the Solemnity of Christ the King—a feast
born out of resistance to totalitarian incursions against religious liberty—be a day specifically
employed by bishops and priests to preach about religious liberty, both here and abroad.
To all our fellow Catholics, we urge an intensification of your prayers and fasting for a new birth
of freedom in our beloved country. We invite you to join us in an urgent prayer for religious
liberty.
Almighty God, Father of all nations,
For freedom you have set us free in Christ Jesus (Gal 5:1). We praise and bless you for the gift of
religious liberty,
the foundation of human rights, justice, and the common good.
Grant to our leaders the wisdom to protect and promote our liberties;
By your grace may we have the courage to defend them, for ourselves and for all those who live in
this blessed land.
We ask this through the intercession of Mary Immaculate, our patroness,
and in the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, with whom you
live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Acknowledgments
Excerpts from The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, SJ, General Editor, copyright © 1966
by
America Press, Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from Pope Benedict XVI, Ad limina address to bishops of the United States, January 19,
2012, copyright © 2012, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City. Used with permission. All rights
reserved.
Copyright © 2012, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC. All rights
reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder.
The document Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty, was developed by
the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
(USCCB). It was approved by the Administrative Committee of the USCCB at its March 2012 meeting as
a statement of the Committee and has been authorized for publication by the undersigned.
Msgr. Ronny E. Jenkins, JCD General Secretary, USCCB
Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty
Chairman
Most Rev. William E. Lori, Archbishop-designate of Baltimore
Bishop Members
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington
Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap, Archbishop of Philadelphia
Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory, Archbishop of Atlanta
Most Rev. John C. Nienstedt, Archbishop of St. Paul–Minneapolis
Most Rev. Thomas J. Rodi, Archbishop of Mobile
Most Rev. J. Peter Sartain, Archbishop of Seattle
Most Rev. John O. Barres, Bishop of Allentown Most Rev. Daniel E. Flores, Bishop of Brownsville
Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix
Most Rev. Thomas J. Paprocki, Bishop of Springfield, IL
Bishop Consultants
Most Rev. José H. Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles
Most Rev. Stephen E. Blaire, Bishop of Stockton
Most Rev. Joseph P. McFadden, Bishop of Harrisburg
Most Rev. Richard E. Pates, Bishop of Des Moines
Most Rev. Kevin C. Rhoades, Bishop of Fort Wayne–South Bend
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