This past Sunday October 14, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore gave the homily at a mass for Life and Liberty at the National Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. Archbishop Lori, the chairman of the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, addressed an overflowing crowd with powerful words about the gift of life and the importance of religious liberty, our first freedom.
In his homily, the Archbishop made the connection between protecting life and defending marriage. Noting that since the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973, “over 50 million unborn children have lost their lives through abortion,” he remarked, “Human life is further undermined by the dismantling of the most fundamental unit of society, the family, by seeking to upend marriage as a God-given institution that is unique for a reason, namely, as a relationship of love between one man and one woman.”
Archbishop Lori also drew connections between religious liberty and marriage. He spoke at length about a current severe threat to religious liberty, the so-called “contraceptive mandate” issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, which the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty has fought tirelessly. He then said, “Indeed, many of the secularist threats to religious liberty seem to hinge on the Church’s teaching with regard to the sanctity of human life – whether it’s the Church’s teaching on the immorality of abortion, or the obligation of couples to be open to the gift of new life, or marriage as between one man and one woman, the unique relationship that begets new human life and is meant to be the matrix in which it is nurtured.”
For more on the connection between marriage and religious liberty, go to the Religious Liberty FAQs for more information.
Read Archbishop Lori’s entire homily.
Watch a recording of the entire mass on EWTN.
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