Good news, it doesn’t appear that the Catholic church will be backing down from the religious freedom fight any time soon. National Review Online reports on comments made by Baltimore archbishop William E. Lori this week, from the Knights of Columbus annual convention in Anaheim, California ~

“The question (for Catholic voters) to ask is this: Are any of the candidates of either party, or independents, standing for something that is intrinsically evil, evil no matter what the circumstances? If that’s the case, a Catholic, regardless of his party affiliation, shouldn’t be voting for such a person.”

 
A message for the Knights from the Vatican reinforced the Church’s position:

At a time when concerted efforts are being made to redefine and restrict the exercise of the right to religious freedom, the Knights of Columbus have worked tirelessly to help the Catholic community recognize and respond to the unprecedented gravity of these new threats to the Church’s liberty and public moral witness…
 
…The challenges of the present moment are in fact yet another reminder of the decisive importance of the Catholic laity for the advancement of the Church’s mission in today’s rapidly changing social context.

 
Appropriately, the theme for this year’s three-day Knights Convention is religious liberty. Representing Canada was Archbishop Richard Smith of Edmonton who had the following remarks for attendees ~

“Our call at this moment is to affirm the right of religion to be active in the public square . . . to defend the freedom of people of faith and of religious institutions to act in accordance with their beliefs and nature; to maintain healthy church state relations; to understand conscience correctly and to form it according to objective truth; and to protect the right to conscientious objection. Believers are summoned now to stand up for their faith, even if they must suffer for doing so.”

 
Although it’s regrettable that the Catholic Church didn’t recognize the intrinsic evil in then-candidate Obama’s support of partial-birth abortion four years ago, better late than never. Let’s hope the message gets through to the people in the pews in time for November’s election.