Religious Liberty at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

The theme for the 8th Annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast this year was “Religious Liberty: Threatened at Home & Abroad.” The breakfast, held just a stone’s throw away from the Blessed John Paul II Shrine in Washington D.C., featured an excellent lineup of speakers—Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United Nations; Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus; and Mother Agnes, Superior General of the Sisters of Life.

Mr. Anderson gave an especially powerful speech in which he encouraged American Catholics to stand together for religious liberty. “If we do so,” Anderson said, “then we will make possible the next great awakening in America that will bring us closer to building that culture of life and that civilization of love about which John Paul II so often spoke.”

Pope Benedict XVI spoke of another response to persecution last week during his Wednesday catechesis:

After the arrest and release of Peter and John, the community joined in prayer and “the place where they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness” (v. 31). This prayer shows the unity of the early community, which asks only to proclaim the word of God fearlessly in the face of persecution. It seeks to discern present events in the light of God’s saving plan and the fulfilment of prophecy in the mystery of Christ. It also begs God to accompany by his power the preaching of the Gospel. May this prayer of the early Church inspire our own prayer.

Let Catholics today unify, then, and pray for the strength and courage to proclaim God’s Word in the public square and truly build a culture of life and love.