• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe

How to promote religious liberty

June 20, 2018
By Sister Constance Veit, L.S.P.
Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Commentary, Religious Freedom

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

The Fortnight for Freedom, which we’ve been celebrating each year at the end of June and beginning of July has recently been reconfigured. Beginning this year, Religious Freedom Week is to be held annually June 22–29. The observance is a bit shorter, but no less important. This year’s theme is Serving Others in God’s Love.

With our Supreme Court lawsuit over the HHS Contraceptive Mandate, we Little Sisters of the Poor have been at the center of this issue. I’ve always suspected that at the root of the religious liberty controversies of the last few years is an inherent distrust or even disrespect for traditional religious beliefs.

My suspicion was confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in the case of a Colorado baker who declined to create a cake for the wedding of two gay men. The baker prevailed before the Supreme Court because the Justices felt that the State’s treatment of his case demonstrated “elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated his rejection.”

The Court’s majority opinion called for the resolution of such cases with tolerance and due respect to sincere religious beliefs, but they also indicated that this must be done without subjecting gay persons to public humiliation.

The Supreme Court Justices got it right – in a pluralistic society like ours all parties should be treated respectfully and with dignity. It seems so simple. ‘Why can’t we just all get along?’ I sometimes wonder.

Why is religious liberty so fragile today? I believe it is indeed because of the hostility toward sincere religious beliefs that hides just below the surface in so much of our public discourse. But ours is not the first generation in our nation’s history where religion – or specific faiths – has been held in contempt.

This year my religious congregation of Little Sisters of the Poor is celebrating the 150th anniversary of our arrival in the United States. In the years before our Sisters came to America, our country had seen a violent wave of anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic rhetoric. The Know-Nothing Party launched a frenzy that led to mob violence, the burning of Catholic property – including a convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts – and the killing of Catholics. This violence was fed by claims that Catholics were destroying the culture of the United States.

The influence of the Know-Nothings eventually waned … due to the Civil War and the difficult period of Reconstruction — probably the ugliest period of our nation’s history. This is the environment into which seven Little Sisters of the Poor, none of whom spoke English, set foot in Brooklyn, NY on September 13, 1868.

Incredibly, despite their strange black mantles and foreign ways, our Little Sisters never faced discrimination. Quite the contrary – they were embraced and supported by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. An excerpt from a letter written by a priest who was assisting them to the superiors back in France attests to this: “The public appeared delighted to see that the Little Sisters of the Poor are willing to work for the poor; that they ask no endowment; that they desire to trust in Providence and in the generosity of the public.”

Several years later one of the most popular secular newspapers in the country published a feature story on the Little Sisters that included this endorsement: “This charity is entitled to the heartfelt support of a benevolent public. It asks but the simplest assistance and guarantees the largest good. The Order is founded upon a very broad sentiment, and the ministrations of the Petites Soeurs (Little Sisters) invest their lives with a beauty that can arise only from unswerving devotion to a Christian duty.”

Within four years the Congregation had established 13 homes for the elderly – and that was only the beginning. What was the secret of their success?

Baltimore’s Archbishop Martin Spalding hit the nail on the head: “The Little Sisters of the Poor are called to do a great deal of good in America,” he said, “not only among the poor, but also among the rich; for words no longer suffice – works are necessary.”

Our first Little Sisters in America opened hearts and doors not with words, but through the eloquent witness of their charitable works. Our Sisters have made a lasting difference in America by Serving Others in God’s Love, and I believe that this is how we too can make a difference. This is how we will bridge the gap that exists today between people of faith and our secularized society. It is our acts of love that will overcome the obvious hostility toward sincere religious beliefs that threatens peace and unity in our pluralistic society.

So, let’s get busy Serving Others in God’s Love!

Click here for more stories and commentary on religious liberty. 

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Sister Constance Veit, L.S.P.

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

The virtue of patriotism

Sculpture of St. Rita and St. Therese with a cross and holy water font at the center sits on a table

A Gift and a Connection to the Past

Expert discusses serious harms of smartphones for children and how to limit their use

Cupcakes with 2025 graduation toothpicks in them and a bowl of cookies

Our 31-hour Road Trip

St. Paul and discovering that sin is ‘missing the mark’

| Recent Local News |

Deacon Gary Elliott Dumer Jr., active in men’s ministry, dies

Radio Interview: The music and ministry of Seph Schlueter

Hunt Valley parishioner recalls her former student – a future pope

Father Herman Benedict Czaster, former Curley teacher, dies at 86

Loyola University Maryland graduate ordained Jesuit priest

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • 80 years after ‘Trinity,’ Catholic-hosted gathering calls to abolish nuclear weapons
  • Gaza’s Christian community persevering amid hardship and hope
  • Nearly one in three conceptions in England and Wales end in abortion, government figures reveal
  • The virtue of patriotism
  • Caring for others, serving life is the ‘supreme law,’ pope says
  • Deacon Gary Elliott Dumer Jr., active in men’s ministry, dies
  • Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors’ new president ‘pioneer in his field,’ French lawyer says
  • Radio Interview: The music and ministry of Seph Schlueter
  • Jesus did not ignore those in need, and neither should Christians, pope says

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en