The profound, unapologetic and timely reflections of Archbishop Chaput | Michael J. Miller | Catholic World Report
Almost fifty years ago, the writings on religious pluralism of an American Jesuit, John Courtney Murray, helped the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council to draft a Declaration on Religious Liberty in a world where millions of Christians were being ruled by officially atheistic regimes.
On March 23, 2012, hundreds of citizens gathered in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia to participate in a Rally for Religious Freedom, in protest of the U.S. Government’s Health and Human Services Department mandate that compels institutions and individuals to pay for insurance coverage of contraception and abortion despite their conscientious objections.
The United States used to be such a staunch defender and beacon of religious freedom. What happened?!
Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., who now serves as Archbishop of Philadelphia, incisively explains many of the reasons for this paradox in a new e-book entitled A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America, published by Image Books (a division of Random House, Inc.).
The author neatly captures the fundamental tension in the American religious scene by contrasting the courage and pioneering spirit of the Christians who first came to these shores and the skepticism of their materialistic descendants just a few generations later (symbolized respectively by Bunyan’s perennial classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress, and satirical portrayals of Protestantism in short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne).
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