Carl Anderson on Religious Freedom
- Tue, Aug 10, 2021 7:51 PM
"We have to understand why free exercise of religion exercise is so important to America's constitutional framework," he said. "It is after all the first right in the Bill of Rights -- they (the Founding Fathers) had a lot of other choices but they put it in first because they believed it involved the most important issue human beings deal with.”
"Many secularists are trying to reduce that right of worship -- free exercise (of religion) goes far beyond that," he said. It's about living "your life according to your religious convictions -- that always has been the Catholic understanding.”
To "defend what we value, we have to demonstrate the values we bring to society particularly as Catholics ... that hold society together" when there is so much "violence, discord, alienation" today, he said.
For the Knights, those values are the four core principles that drive all they do in church and society: "charity, unity, fraternity, patriotism.”
For Anderson, the high point of his tenure as the top Knight was the Oct. 31, 2020, beatification of the organization's founder -- Blessed Michael McGivney.
But he also said that what was "most edifying" to him over the years was "the tremendous expansion of the Knights charitable work in so many countries, not only U.S., Canada, Philippines, Mexico, Korea, France, Poland but in Africa, in Latin America and Asia.”
You may read the entire article from Detroit Catholic Daily Digest HERE.