Fortnight for Freedom

Dolan letter to Obama On September 20, 2011, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York wrote a letter to US President Barack Obama about the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA had been passed by Congress during the presidency of George W. Bush, a Republican. Dolan criticized the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for refusing to defend from DOMA from legal challenges. Dolan told Obama that the DOJ was "...actively attacking DOMA's constitutionality", which would "...precipitate a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions." In a speech to the American bishops in Rome on January 19, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI stated that the Obama Administration needed to respect "freedom of worship" and "freedom of conscience" amidst so-called "radical secularism". The Ad Hoc Committee immediately started planning a mass action campaign on religious liberty for the summer of 2012. Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, proposed the name Fortnight for Freedom. He also suggested starting the campaign on June 21, the feast days of the English lawyer Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher, both executed by King Henry VII of England Start of campaign The Ad Hoc Committee on April 12, 2012, issued a declaration calling for a nationwide Fortnight for Freedom campaign to defend religious liberty. The proclamation claimed that government was attacking religious freedom. It cited state statutes that allegedly prevented Catholic charities from serving the immigrant population and denied funding to Catholic adoption agencies that refused to allow the adoption of children by same-sex couples. The Fortnight for Freedom campaign began on June 21, 2012, with the celebration of a mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore. The organizers chose that venue because the Archdiocese of Baltimore because Baltimore was the first diocese opened in the new United States in 1789. The campaign ended with a mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., on July 4. Over 70 American dioceses participated in the first in Fortnight for Freedom. End of campaign The USCCB sponsored Fortnight for Freedom yearly until 2018. Over the years, opening and closing masses were celebrated in Boston, St. Louis, and Kansas City, as well as in Baltimore and Washington D.C. The archbishops celebrating the masses included Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Cardinal Seán O'Malley and Archbishop Joseph Kurtz. In 2018, the USCCB replaced Fortnight for Freedom with Religious Freedom Week, which runs each year from June 22 to June 29. ==Press coverage==

According to the New York Times on April 12, 2012, the Fortnight For Freedom campaign was part of an extended effort by the USCCB to make religious freedom an issue of public debate, an effort that the Times said "has not yet galvanized the Catholic laity and has even further polarized the church's liberal and conservative flanks."In a June 13, 2012 interview with the New York Times, Lori acknowledged that many people viewed Fortnight for Freedom as a partisan attack against Democrats. He also admitted that some Catholics had criticized the campaign. Lori commented: "It is not about parties, candidates or elections, as some others have suggested.... In the face of this resistance, it may be tempting to get discouraged, to second-guess the effort, to soft-pedal our message. But instead, these things should prompt us to do exactly the opposite, for they show us how very great is the need for our teaching, both in our culture and even in our own church." ==Criticism and debate==

Phil Attey, the head of Catholics for Equality, an LGBTQ rights group, called the campaign in June 2012 an "election-year political posturing.... It all has to do with their bigger push to be politically powerful again." The head of Catholics United, a social service advocacy organization, protested outside the National Shrine during the June 21st mass in 2012. He commented: "We love the church, but we hate the politics. We think that the decision to have a 'Fortnight for Freedom' really is a political attack on President Obama, and it doesn't reflect the moral priorities of Catholics sitting in the pews, who are really more concerned about bread-and-butter issues." A leader of a liberal Catholic group, Faith in Public Life, said in June 2012: "I think some of the alarmist rhetoric that some church leaders are using gives the impression that some bishops are quite happy making this part of a Republican campaign." He feared the bishops would be seen as "the Republican Party at prayer". ==References==