Category Archives: Freedom

ANTHON, Iowa | The Woodbury County Freedom Rock, in Anthon, contains pieces of a B-17 bomber that crashed three miles southwest of town on May 26, 1944, killing all 10 men aboard.

It was the most significant event at Anthon during World War II. It's now an important piece of the Freedom Rock created by artist Ray "Bubba" Sorensen II.

"To have pieces of the bomber included in the painting of the bomber makes it more special, connecting the rock to local history," said Sorensen, who began his Freedom Rock career 19 years ago by painting the first boulder north of his home at Greenfield, Iowa. Sorensen has since repainted that original Freedom Rock each May. Four years ago he branched out and took on the challenge of painting one Freedom Rock in each of Iowa's 99 counties. The Woodbury County Freedom Rock at Anthon is his 61st in Iowa.

Sorensen has also painted two Freedom Rocks in Missouri and one in Wisconsin as he embarks on a 50-state Freedom Rock Tour. He heads to Seattle, Washington, to paint a Freedom Rock there next summer.

Artist Ray "Bubba" Sorensen II is shown at the Woodbury County Freedom Rock in Anthon, Iowa, on Thursday. Sorensen is nearing completion of the painting of this rock, his 61st county effort in Iowa. The Woodbury County Freedom Rock is located at the Anthon Community Center on the east side of town.

Sorensen's work in Anthon is highlighted by pieces from the B-17 wreckage that were picked up at the crash site 25 years ago by Rick Bohle, a Kingsley, Iowa, resident who was doing terrace work southwest of town.

"I think my dad (the late Dean Bohle) was 4 years old when his grandpa showed him the crash site," Rick Bohle said. "And when I was in that area doing terrace work, my dad was with me and he showed me where the plane crashed."

It was in the spring of the year and the ground hadn't been worked by a local farmer. Rick Bohle picked up pieces of metal, studied each piece, and stored them away in a desk drawer.

One of the most decorated soldiers/airmen in U.S. military history, Col. Bud Day, of Sioux City, is depicted in two paintings on the Woodbury County Freedom Rock at Anthon, Iowa. Day, a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for more than five years, was presented with the Medal of Honor in 1976. He was 88 when he died in July 2013.

Last Sunday, Bohle, the mayor of Kingsley, met Sorensen as he finished work on the Plymouth County Freedom Rock in Kingsley, which was dedicated on Saturday. Bohle told Sorensen about the pieces he had from the old B-17. Sorensen, who had yet to create the Woodbury County Freedom Rock, decided to paint the B-17 on the rock, his way of attaching a local event to the rock in Anthon.

Sorensen asked Bohle if he'd be able to use a grinder to crush the pieces into what amounted to a metal dust for inclusion in the paint. Bohle did that and had his wife, Karla Bohle, deliver the "dust" to Sorensen at Anthon on Wednesday.

"I'll put the date of the crash, May 26, 1944, here near the B-17," said Sorensen.

A B-17 bomber crashed during a training run in May 1944 southwest of Anthon, Iowa, killing all 10 members of the crew. Pieces of the plane were incorporated into the paint used by Freedom Rock artist Ray "Bubba" Sorensen II in painting a depiction of the plane, which decorates the east face of the Woodbury County Freedom Rock at Anthon.

The depiction of the bomber is surrounded by 10 bald eagles to represent the 10 airmen killed when the bomber crashed on its last training run from the Sioux City Army Air Base. Crew members included: 1st Lt. Roger G. Jay, 23, instructor pilot, Los Angeles; Flight Officer John B. Smith, 21, pilot, Mooresville, North Carolina; Flight Officer Lyland R. Petersen, 26, pilot, Madison, Wisconsin; 2nd Lt. Hubert B. Godbee, 23, bombardier, Edgefield, South Carolina; Cpl. James A. Williams, 19, engineer/gunner, Providence, Kentucky; Pvt. Fred T. Littlewolf, 26, radio operator/gunner, Bagley, Minnesota; Cpl. James O. Hawkins, 21, gunner, Swartz Creek, Michigan; Pfc. Ray E. Snider, 22, gunner, Shreveport, Louisiana; Pvt. Joseph A. Calvello, 32, gunner, Brooklyn, New York; and Pfc. Norman Lindjord, 23, gunner, Seattle, Washington.

Jay, Godbee and Snider were married. The others were single, according to a Journal story written by Judy Hayworth, an Anthon native. Their remains were returned to their families, who were told little about the crash. Officials at the time could not determine a cause for the crash, which shattered an otherwise picture-perfect late-May morning in Woodbury County. The plane was said to be carrying 1,475 gallons of fuel, 20 practice bombs and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Tony Mireless, of Calumet City, Illinois, noted in a study that some 6,350 U.S. Army Air Corps airplane crashes took place in the U.S. during World War II, resulting in 15,531 fatalities.

The event, which was memorialized on June 24, 2006, will now have another memorial site, so to speak, in the Freedom Rock that stands near the Anthon Community Center on the east side of town.

Sorensen also included images of Sgt. Charles Floyd on this Freedom Rock, as well as two depictions of the most decorated veterans in U.S. history, Col. Bud Day, a Sioux City native.

Floyd was the only member of the Corps of Discovery to die on the Lewis & Clark Expedition, having succumbed to what many believe was peritonitis on Aug. 20, 1804.

Day, who died in July 2013, was shot down over North Vietnam 50 years ago this summer. He was taken prisoner, beaten and hung upside down by his captors before escaping and fleeing to South Vietnam. Before reaching a U.S. Marine Corps outpost, Day was shot twice by Communist patrols and taken prisoner again, this time for more than five years.

Day survived repeated torture and once stood to sing "The Star Spangled Banner" as his North Vietnamese captors, who had interrupted a forbidden worship service, shoved the muzzle of a gun in Day's face.

President Gerald Ford presented Day with the Medal of Honor in 1976.

"You can't have the Freedom Rock without Bud Day," Sorensen said.

Following his completion of the Woodbury County Freedom Rock at Anthon, Sorensen moves on to the Ida County Freedom Rock in Holstein, a project he aims to complete by July 4. After that, he said, he'll start work on the Cherokee County Freedom Rock, which stands outside the Cherokee County Courthouse in Cherokee.

Sorensen said there are only three counties he has yet to book on his 99-county Freedom Rock project in Iowa.

Continue reading here:

B-17 bomber pieces link history to Freedom Rock at Anthon - Sioux City Journal

Legislation to protect California workers from discrimination based on their reproductive choices faces a key test in the state Senate on Wednesday.

AB569, by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego, would assure that workers could not be disciplined or fired if they became pregnant, had an abortion or attempted in-vitro fertilization.

This is not an abstract debate. A single woman teaching at a Christian college in San Diego was fired when she became pregnant in 2012. San Franciscans will recall a 2015 attempt by the archdiocese to impose a morality clause that called on faculty members to follow the churchs teachings on matters ranging from contraception to same-sex marriage.

Under AB569, such codes of conduct could not intrude on an employees ability to make her or his own reproductive health care decisions, including the use of a particular drug, device or medical service.

The proposal, which cleared the Assembly on a 54-17 vote, has encountered resistance from some religious groups that regard it as a violation of the First Amendment. However, it is important to note that the church opposition is not universal. The California Council of Churches, which represents certain Protestant and Orthodox denominations, supports AB569. Its view is that restrictions on an individuals ability to make his or her own moral judgment is a greater threat to religious freedom.

Next stop for the legislation is the Senates Labor and Industrial Relations Committee.

While the battle between religious liberty and LGBT and reproductive rights has been more pervasive in other states, California lawmakers should seize the opportunity to protect its citizenry from discrimination. They should send AB569 to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature.

Read this article:

Bill would assure California workers of reproductive freedom - San Francisco Chronicle

Miami Herald

OAS chief: I'll resign in exchange for Venezuela's 'freedom' | Miami ... Miami Herald The head of the Organization of American States on Saturday said he would step down from his post in exchange for a laundry list of reforms in Venezuela that ... and more »

Visit link:

OAS chief: I'll resign in exchange for Venezuela's 'freedom' | Miami ... - Miami Herald

KING 5 photojournalist Andy Wallace

KING Staff , KING 7:10 PM. PDT June 23, 2017

The Wings of Freedom Tour shows off World War II-era planes to pay tribute to the crews that flew and maintained them. (Photo: KING)

The Wings of Freedom Tour flew into Seattle Friday. The tour shows off World War II-era planes to pay tribute to the crews that flew and maintained them.

"You know, we've got four WWII aircraft that come out here. We travel the whole country, but what's really awesome is that they're all flying, they're all authentic, and you can actually walk through them, touch them, and go for a flight on them if you'd like to," said a Wings of Freedom Tour spokesperson. "It's really epic. We've been throughout the country, seen a lot of different reactions, but it's particularly the kids that are the biggest interest to me right now, because without them this is gone."

There are four planes the public can check out at the Museum of Flight this weekend, including a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. You can even take a flight on board one of them.

WHERE: The Wings of Freedom Tour will be on display at Boeing Field in Seattle located at the Museum of Flight, 9404 East Marginal Way South.

WHEN: The Wings of Freedom Tour will be on display at the Museum of Flight until the aircraft departs Sunday, June 25 after 5:00 p.m. Hours of ground tours and display are 10:00 a.m. through 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 24th and Sunday, June 25th. The 30-minute flight experiences are normally scheduled before and after the ground tour times above.

2017 KING-TV

See the original post:

WWII Wings of Freedom Tour flies into Seattle - KING5.com

After a quiet month on Portland's streets, far-right protesters are returning to this city at the end of the monthwith an march that could bump up against the opening night of the Waterfront Blues Festival.

The June 30 "Freedom March" is billed as a rally to "promote freedom and courage." It marks the first appearance of right-wing provocateurswho seek to "trigger" and brawl with left-wing foilssince a June 4 event where they squared off with antifascist groups and riot police.

The prospect of that event caused anxiety on Portland, since it came in the wake of a MAX train double slaying allegedly committed by a white supremacist who tagged along at the right-wing protests. But it proved largely uneventful. More than 2,000 liberal protesters did surround the group of about 250 "alt-right" supporters to call them "Nazis", but the groups remained separated by police.

Since then, the organizers of the Vancouver, Wash.-based "Patriot Prayer" movement have gone on something of a traveling roadshow, getting in fights with antifa in Seattle and getting their car tires slashed on the campus of Evergreen State College in Olympia. (Several right-wing "free speech" protesters affliated with this movement yelled insults at people attending Portland Pride last weekend, though they didn't conduct any organized counter-protest.)

The Seattle "March Against Sharia" was marked by several street donnybrooks that have become the best known feature of these political confrontations:

Joey Gibson, a 33-year-old Vancouver man who leads the Patriot Prayer group, tells WW he always expects violence at his eventsbecause antifa won't let him and his allies speak in peace. But he says the group will not stop marching in Portland despite the risk of skirmishes with counter-protesters.

"It's to silence us," he said. "That's not my fault. They do that to stop us."

Gibson says the group's plan is to "march in peace like Americans are supposed to."

The June 30 event appears far smaller in scope than the June 4 rally, which attracted celebrated figures from the extremist movement known as the "alt-right."

Joey Gibson speaks at a right-wing free speech rally in Terry Schrunk Plaza on June 4, 2017. (Tom Berridge)

But the march, scheduled for 6 pm near Portland City Hall, is likely to overlap with the first weekend of the Waterfront Blues Festival four blocks away in Tom McCall Waterfront Park. That could be a racially charged combination, since some of the people who march in the "free speech" events are known to wear the emblems of white supremacist and militia groups.

On the group's Facebook page, the march organizers have said they're aware of the potential conflict with a huge crowd.

"I understand about the Blues Festival," an event host wrote Wednesday. "After I meet with the right people I might change the meet up spot, no worries. Date and time will be still be the same. Meet up might be a block or two away."

Gibson says his group is expecting violence and planning for itthough he wouldn't say what the plan is. "We have to make sure we control ourselves and be good people," he says. "If we misbehave, we're driving people to the other side."

Here is the original post:

Far-Right Protesters Will Return to Portland for "Freedom March" During Waterfront Blues Festival - Willamette Week

A freshman member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus is calling for special counsel Robert Mueller to recuse himself from the Russia investigation because he has brought on "highly partisan" lawyers to help with the probe.

"Special Counsel Robert Mueller should recuse himself because the integrity of his appointment is in question due to former FBI Director James Comey's manipulative leaks and the relationship between Mr. Comey and Mr. Mueller," Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said in a statement Friday. "His ability to be impartial is doubtful because he has surrounded himself with highly partisan lawyers who make a special practice to line the coffers of Democrats."

News outlets have reported at least three lawyers Mueller has hired to help conduct his investigation have donated almost exclusively to Democrats. Also, Mueller and Comey are friends and former colleagues.

Biggs is at least the second House Republican to call for Mueller's recusal.

Earlier this month, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, told the Blaze that Mueller should step aside from the probe because of his "cozy relationship" with Comey.

As part of his investigation into Russia's election interference, Mueller will probe for possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The Washington Post reported Mueller will also investigate whether Trump obstructed justice by allegedly telling Comey that he hoped the bureau would end its probe of Michael Flynn, Trump's first national security adviser. Another report Sunday said Mueller hasn't decided yet whether to investigate Trump.

Most Democrats and Republicans in Congress have defended Mueller, the former FBI director whose leadership of the bureau lasted longer than anyone after J. Edgar Hoover.

Excerpt from:

Freedom Caucus member calls for Robert Mueller to recuse himself from Russia probe - Washington Examiner

Four conservative senators hoped Thursday to do what the Freedom Caucus did in the House: push a Republican healthcare bill to the right and save it from near-certain defeat.

Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Mike Lee, R-Utah and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., announced they would not be able to vote for the recently unveiled Senate healthcare bill, which was designed to at least partially repeal and replace Obamacare, in its present form.

"Senator Paul believes that conservatives need to be included at the negotiation table," said Paul's communications director, Sergio Gor. "Staying united will be important, similar to the Freedom Caucus."

In the House, conservatives managed to establish themselves as the main faction the president dealt with in healthcare negotiations. After the first version of the American Health Care Act proved unacceptable to conservatives, they forced through another version that passed the House.

When Obamacare originally passed Congress, liberal Democrats were forced to negotiate with centrists. They discarded the public option and other liberal priorities to pass a bill that included insurance market exchanges and Medicaid expansion.

"Freedom Caucus members are still reviewing the bill but have a number of concerns that they hope to see addressed in the amendment process" said a caucus source. "Sen. Ted Cruz, in particular, has a market-based consumer choice measure he's been working on that would garner broad support from the group."

"This is basically an amendment to Obamacare, not repeal of it. So much for campaign promises, right?" said FreedomWorks' public policy and legislative director Jason Pye. "I recall [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell saying he would repeal ObamaCare 'root and branch.' Yeah, this bill doesn't do that. We hope that Sens. Lee, Cruz, and Paul can guide the bill in a direction that lowers health insurance premiums."

Paul, who represents Kentucky in the U.S. Senate alongside McConnell, said much the same thing in his own remarks.

"It's gotta look like what we promised," Paul said Thursday afternoon. "I mean we promised I heard people, I traveled the country. I heard other Republicans say we are going to rip it out root and branch' thousands of times."

But it is not going to be easy. Centrist Republicans in the House were mostly able to vote against their chamber's Obamacare replacement, the American Health Care Act, once most Freedom Caucus members voted for it.

Republicans have a 24-seat majority in the House. There is only a 52-48 Republican Senate majority in the Senate. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, are as important as any of the conservatives. These centrists want to fix Obamacare, not necessarily replace it.

Conservatives like Cruz are hoping for changes in the opposite direction. House conservatives insisted months ago that they wanted to get to yes on the House-passed bill, and it was centrists like the Tuesday Group, as opposed to conservatives, who were making it impossible.

"Ideally, we would like to vote for a bill that repeals Obamacare, yes," said Lee's communications director Conn Carroll.

This is similar to what Freedom Caucus members said before their bill finally passed the House. "The only thing we will be judged by is Do premiums come down?" Rep. Mark Meadows said in a meeting with the Washington Examiner.

The version of the bill that is being floated in the Senate jeopardizes centrist votes by allowing state-level waivers from major Obamacare coverage mandates, defunding Planned Parenthood and other well-known abortion providers and tweaking tax credits for consumers who need new health insurances.

Deleting any of these provisions carries the risk of losing conservative votes, after a number of them were won after major changes to the bill.

That hasn't stopped conservatives from either chamber of Congress from making demands.

"In general, the bill's going to have to look more like a repeal bill and less like we're keeping Obamacare" said Paul. "It has to look less like Obamacare lite."

President Trump, on the other hand, seems to be strengthening the centrists' position.

"I hope we are going to surprise you with a really good plan," he told a rally Wednesday evening. "I've been talking about a plan with heart. I said, Add some money to it!'"

That's not exactly music to conservatives' ears.

Read the original post:

Senate conservatives hope to have Obamacare impact similar to ... - Washington Examiner

BALTIMORE, Maryland Speaking at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Fortnight for Freedom, the archbishop of Baltimore decried the ongoing persecution of Christians in the world, not only in the developing world but also in the polite persecution of the West.

When Henry VIII, as Englands reigning monarch, was declared a defender of the faith, the future must have seemed so bright to Thomas More and John Fisher, Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori said in a homily June 21.

He described an England which seemed to have been spared the painful divisions that racked the Catholic Church on the continent of Europe. Under Henry, he said, monastic life and learning were flourishing while ordinary Catholics showed their love and loyalty to the church.

Who could have imagined the severe test More, Fisher and English Catholicism would face in so short a time? Lori asked.

He was the homilist at the opening Mass of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Fortnight for Freedom, an annual observance highlighting the importance of religious liberty.

The Mass was celebrated on the vigil of the English martyrs shared feast day at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore.

The aforementioned saints of the 1500s were, respectively, the lord high chancellor and the bishop of Rochester, both of whom had enjoyed peace and security as they faithfully lived their vocations. They lost their heads for refusing their assent to Henry as the defender of the faith when he declared himself head of the church.

While the West has not recently executed anyone for refusing to give up their beliefs, the archbishop borrowed Pope Franciss phrase polite persecution to describe the burdens placed on schools, hospitals, employees, employers and other individuals and institutions that live and act according to their faith while navigating civil society.

Such fines, firings and threatened denials of accreditation indicate kinship, solidarity with those suffering overt persecution round the world, Lori said.

St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher fulfilled their mission of bearing witness to Christ in their time, their place, their circumstances, he said. Dear friends, weve gathered in prayer tonight asking to acquire in the power of the Holy Spirit, a greater measure of holiness, so that we too can use our freedom, not for ourselves and our own desires, but rather for Christ and the mission of spreading the Gospel far and wide.

In far too many parts of the world, Lori said the Catholic Churchs mission is conducted amid raging persecution. He cited a 2016 report from the University of Notre Dame, titled Under Caesars Sword, that chronicled the persecution of Christians in 25 countries around the world.

RELATED:Landmark study examines responses of Christians to religious persecution

He said the reality behind such statistics is seen in the suffering of Christians and other religious minorities including some Muslims, including Chaldean Christians beheaded in Iraq simply for professing their faith and Coptic Christians killed while praying in church on Palm Sunday.

To be sure, we Christians in the West do not experience severe repression, Lori said, but in recent years there have been serious curtailments of religious freedom with regard to sexuality, marriage, and the sanctity of life.

Lori noted that some have advised that Christians withdraw from the fray.

While he acknowledged the importance of rest and spiritual renewal, he once again turned to St. More and St. John Fisher, and urged Catholics to develop in their hearts the holiness of freedom and freedom for holiness an irrepressible spirit of freedom, courage and mission that no earthly power can take away from us.

Then we shall be truly free, the archbishop said. Then we shall be true missionary disciples.

Those gathered for the Mass included members of the Catholic Business Association, Legatus, the St. Thomas More Society and the Catholic Medical Association. Their presence illustrated their solidarity and involvement with the Fortnight for Freedom.

This kind of shows, to everybody, that we have to act on what we believe, said Dr. Okan Akay, who recently completed his residency in internal medicine and had his hands blessed by Lori following the Mass.

It strengthens us in our ability to provide healing for people without having to go against what we believe in, he told the Catholic Review, Baltimores archdiocesan news outlet.

Akay said there is increasing pressure in his line of work for those who would opt out of prescribing contraception or performing an abortion, for example. He was lightly mocked, he added with a shrug, for attending the annual March for Life in Washington.

Interestingly, it was an overt display of faith ashes on foreheads that initially drew Akay, a former Muslim, now a basilica parishioner, toward the Catholic Church.

The Fortnight for Freedom ends July 4. Lori will celebrate another Fortnight Mass July 3 in Orlando, Florida, for the Convocation of Catholic Leaders.

Read the rest here:

Catholics urged to work for 'holiness of freedom, freedom for holiness' - Crux: Covering all things Catholic

Gun makers have boosted production in recent years, focusing on more high-caliber pistols and rifles designed for self-defense and shifting away from recreational firearms used for hunting and target shooting, the authors of a new study said.

Gun violence kills more than 36,000 Americans each year, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Authors of the study, published Thursday in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, said research has focused on victims of gun violence and government policies, while their study is one of the first to focus on gun industry practices.

Looking at data compiled by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the researchers noted a significant increase in gun manufacturing overall from 2005 to 2013, in contrast to a slight downward trend before 2005.

They also found that driving this growth was higher production of pistols and rifles, and the pistols tended to be higher-caliber models, or ones that fire larger bullets. The authors said that five major gun manufacturers control nearly 60 percent of the market, so changes in production of one manufacturer could significantly affect the others'.

"It seems clear to us that the trend is for self-defense," lead study author Dr. Michael Siegel told ABC News.

Siegel, a professor of community health sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health, further suggested that the findings provide evidence of a change in consumer demand.

"[Manufacturers] have reinvented guns not as a recreational sport or tool but as a symbol of freedom and security," he said.

The study authors further suggested that the issue of gun violence should shift from the criminal justice perspective to the public health arena a point that has been opposed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a major industry organization for gun manufacturers.

"Guns are not a disease," Lawrence G. Keane, the foundation's senior vice president and general counsel, told ABC News in a statement. "There is no vaccine or health intervention for the criminal misuse of firearms."

Siegel, however, said the study is important because it points to the industry's responsibility in preventing gun violence.

He added that the goal of the research was not to deprive gun owners of their weapons.

"They are not the enemy in public health," he said. "There are ways to reduce gun violence while valuing gun owners' values It has been painted too long as mutually exclusive."

Siegel said that the group's next research steps are to identify the most effective methods and policies for isolating the small number of people who are most likely to commit acts of violence using guns.

"The solution lies in not taking guns away from people who are law-abiding but by being more effective at keeping guns out of the hands of the people who are at highest risk of gun violence."

Hong-An Nguyen, M.D., is a third-year resident physician in pediatrics at New YorkPresbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center.

Read the rest here:

Study: Gunmakers ramping up production, focusing on 'freedom and security' message - ABC News

WASHINGTON, D.C. The U.S. bishops have launched a website and video to mark the beginning of this years Fortnight for Freedom, focusing on religious freedom issues both at home and abroad.

The video, about ten minutes long and viewable on the Fortnight for Freedom website, features a number of legal, religious, and other personalities discussing the importance of religious liberty. The Fortnight for Freedom takes place June 21 July 4.

Religious freedom is one of the basic freedoms of the human person because without religious freedom, the freedom of conscience, all other freedoms are without foundation, Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami says at the beginning of the video.

A government that doesnt acknowledge limits on its own power to regulate religious institutions is probably going to come after other institutions as well, said Professor Rick Garnett of the Notre Dame Law School.

The video chronicles the struggle between the Little Sisters of the Poor and the HHS mandate of the Affordable Care Act.

Its over three years now that this issue has been pursuing us, says Sr. Constance, L.S.P.

Testimonies from beneficiaries of the Sisters work are showcased in the video.

There is a spiritual component in the way that they live their lives that adds to not only enrichment of the residents lives but to those who are in contact with them, who work with them, who just hear about them, says Carmel Kang.

When religious freedom goes away, and there is no transcendent authority, then the law is the only norm, and the people in power now are always the only power, says Professor Helen Alvare of George Mason University Law School.

The video emphasizes the United Statess historical connection to freedom of religion.

The United States is the greatest country in the history of the world precisely because of the exceptional character of its relationship to faith which permeates every dimension of its evolution, says Eugene Rivers II, an activist and Pentecostal pastor.

The video also highlighted the struggle of religious peoples in other parts of the world.

Tragically, we see the killings, the martyrdom of Christians in Iraq, and Libya, and Egypt, Syria, says Wenski. The video then showed clips from the video of 21 Coptic Christians being martyred by the Islamic State in early 2015.

Professor Thomas Farr of Georgetown University noted the increased threat since the Obergefell vs. Hodges Supreme Court decision in June 2015, and also observed that viewpoints motivated by religion are being silenced.

The video also summarized Dignitatis humanae, the Second Vatican Councils declaration on religious freedom, as well as noting Pope Franciss concern for persecuted Christians around the world.

We have to bring not just optimism, but genuine Christian hope, says Archbishop Lori of Baltimore, head of the USCCBs Committee on Religious Liberty, which was made a permanent structure of the conference at their annual spring meeting last week.

The video closed with a montage of scenes and figures including the Selma to Montgomery March, St. John Paul II, and the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

The USCCBs Fortnight for Freedom website provides a host of prayer and practical resources on the topic of religious freedom.

The prayer resources are based in Scripture as well as the examples of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, and are available in both English and Spanish.

Among the practical resources is a brief guide to the issue, which seeks to defend and clarify the bishops views, responding to concerns that defense of liberty is an affront to treating people with equal dignity.

Also included are summaries of religious liberty concerns in the United States and internationally. Domestically, issues listed include the HHS mandate, the right to practice faith in business, and religious institutes right to aid undocumented immigrants. Internationally, concerns are presented from the Central African Republic, Myanmar, and Mexico.

On May 4, the National Day of Prayer, President Trump signed an executive order on religious liberty while surrounded by faith leaders, including Cardinal Donald Wuerl of D.C. and the Little Sisters of the Poor.

RELATED:Bishops point man on religious freedom gives mixed verdict on Trump order

The order called for agencies to consider different enforcement of the mandate and looser enforcement of the Johnson Amendment. It was modified from an earlier, leaked version which critics claimed would have allowed for unjust discrimination of LGBT people.

On May 31, a draft rule providing blanket protection from the mandate was leaked.

The bishops website does not include the Johnson Amendment among its concerns.

Excerpt from:

US bishops launch 2017 Fortnight for Freedom with new video - Crux: Covering all things Catholic