On the Square Today

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput on launching the Fortnight for Freedom :

First, religious freedom is a cornerstone of the American experience. This is so obvious that once upon a time, nobody needed to say it. But times have changed. So it’s worth recalling that Madison, Adams, Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, Jefferson–in fact, nearly all the American founders–saw religious faith as vital to the life of a free people. Liberty and happiness grow organically out of virtue. And virtue needs grounding in religious faith.

Also today, Archbishop José H. Gomez on why the Fortnight for Freedom is happening now :

In recent years, many have observed that our American consensus on religious liberty, conscience protection, and religion’s public role has been eroding. There are many causes for this. The first is the reality of religious indifferentism or “practical atheism”—the fact that growing numbers of people in our society are living as if God doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter. There’s no reason to care about religious freedom if you don’t care about being religious.

And in our third feature, Russell E. Saltzman looks at the trend of “entertainment Bibles” :

The effect of an entertainment paraphrase, whatever the intention, is to titillate by novelty. When the novelty is gone, we go looking for new entertainment. That’s how it rolls. What promoters have said of The Voice has been said of other “dynamic equivalent” versions as they appeared and in some cases reappeared on the scene. There’s a half-life to these things, and it isn’t long at all.