by Barbara Samuells, 912 Super Seniors
This was Barbara’s proposal to her Long Island, NY group and so far they have met with tremendous success. She highly recommends that groups across the US tackle a similar project. If you are interested in taking a lead on this in our area, please email pam@palmbeachcountyteaparty.org
“I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, disciplines or exercises.”
Thomas Jefferson
Hello fellow Patriots,
This is a proposal that we work as a group of patriot Long Islanders to initiate in each parish a free standing group working to preserve freedom of religion.
We can start from Tom Hackert’s spreadsheets of parishes in CD 1 and 3. They give us a wonderful tool to begin by listing those Long Island parishes. More to follow.
The end goal is to have every faith community working toward restoring our 1st amendment rights by voting for the candidates who will do that.
However, if we come to the churches with a political party or candidate…or as a tea party or 912 we will lose some or all of the support immediately. If churches develop their own freedom of religion groups they will end up concluding whom they should vote for. I expect we should be able to find our members already involved in every church.
But we who are trying to initiate this must have in our minds and in our hearts that our goal in these inter parish groups is not party nor candidate driven. Our goals, our speech and our actions must be true to the preservation of our Freedom of Religion rights under attack. In that way our experience and determination can set these groups on their own path to informing others and acting to preserve the 1st amendment. We are not there to push even our patriot groups. People who want that will know who we are and will come to us.
How active we may be in these groups is up to each situation. However, initiating the groups NOW and IN GREAT NUMBER is imperative to bring many more Americans to the defense of our Constitution.
This is the process:
#1 Identify leaders from our patriot groups who are already active in each parish. If we can only find members who are not active but willing to work, so be it.
#2 Encourage them to approach their pastor about having an exploratory meeting to form a parish group, as per Cardinal Dolan’s suggestion. The purpose of the group would be the preservation of our religious freedoms.
#3 Facilitate the group’s formation and functioning as needed.
Once a parish group is established that group will decide:
How to educate and inform themselves and their parish.
Whether and how to reach out for support to other faith groups in their communities.
Whether and how to work with parishes in and outside the diocese.
What actions will accomplish their goals.
Which public figures will or will not preserve religious freedom.
We can then add your name to the master spreadsheet so we can know which parishes will be contacted. If you would like to discuss how to approach your pastor we would be happy to help.
Cardinal Dolan said it is unwise to yield to the temptation to be frustrated by politics and leave it to others, because that leaves a vacuum that will be filled by “the religion called secularism.” Secularism has a creed, dogma, adherents and a strong belief that “our religion should not be involved in the public square,” he said. “They’ll be happy to take over for us and we can’t let that happen.”
He said the bishops’ role is to preach principles, but the laity’s charism is to be involved in politics and bring a religiously informed conscience to the public square.
“We can be political without being partisan. We ought to bring values and convictions to politics. We will not be misled by people who say we shouldn’t be involved,” he said.
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1200904.htm
Barbara Samuells
Co Founder www.912SuperSeniors.org
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Ronald Reagan