By CatholicVote | Created at 2025-01-17 16:13:12 | Updated at 2025-01-30 18:56:02
1 week ago
CV NEWS FEED // In their 2025 Annual Religious Liberty Report, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)’s Committee for Religious Liberty outlined various political issues concerning religious liberty and cited instances in 2024 where Catholics were mocked in secular culture on large media platforms.
“As we look to 2025, we anticipate that long-standing concerns will continue to require our vigilance, while new concerns, and perhaps opportunities, will also present themselves,” Bishop Kevin Rhoades, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee for Religious Liberty, wrote in the foreword for the report published Jan. 16.
“Political leaders of countries may change, and public policy priorities may shift amidst various contemporary circumstances, but our patient and steadfast commitment to Jesus Christ and the gospel must not change,” he added. “I pray that this report will serve as a resource to Christians, and all people of goodwill, who seek to promote and defend religious freedom.”
In the the 84-page report, the USCCB Committee outlined five areas that are of critical importance for religious liberty:
- the targeting of faith-based immigration services
- the persistence of elevated levels of antisemitic incidents
- IVF mandates, which represent a significant threat to religious freedom, while the national discussion of IVF represents an opportunity for Catholics to share Church teaching and advocate for human dignity
- the scaling back of gender ideology in law
- parental choice in education, one of the longest-running areas of concern for American Catholics
In the report, they cited concerns related to sweeping pro-abortion and pro-IVF legislation, including the Women’s Health Protection Act, Access to Family Building Act, and Right to IVF Act.
The USCCB Committee also stated that 2024 saw several notable developments both in politics and culture. In the realm of politics, the issues of gender identity and immigration, which both have ramifications on religious liberty, were especially prevalent amid the 2024 election.
In the realm of significant cultural issues in 2024, the USCCB Committee wrote, “The opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics included a display that mocked Catholics, while the governor of Michigan appeared in a social media video in which she gave a tortilla chip to a podcast host in a manner that lewdly imitated a priest giving communion at Mass.”
Later in the document, under a section titled “Blasphemy and Sacrilege,” the USCCB expanded on the offensive nature of the Olympics display that the world witnessed when people, dressed in drag, appeared to mock the Last Supper.
“The ideal of the modern Olympics is that people can come together for friendly competition in a spirit of mutual respect. The 2024 Paris Olympics failed to live up to that ideal when the opening ceremony featured a display that mocked Catholic Christians,” the USCCB Committee stated. “The French bishops noted the contradiction between claiming to celebrate inclusivity while at the same time mocking people of faith.”
At the time, the artist who designed the blasphemous display claimed it had no relation to the Last Supper. Experts in the fields of religion and art noted that the display plainly resembled the famous painting, beloved especially by Catholic Christians and created by Leonardo Da Vinci.
Regarding the offensive video featuring Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the USCCB Committee pointed out that though she apologized and said the video was “misconstrued,” the Michigan Catholic Bishops Conference had stated that it was a clear example of mockery against religious persons.
“The skit goes further than the viral online trend that inspired it, specifically imitating the posture and gestures of Catholics receiving the Holy Eucharist, in which we believe that Jesus Christ is truly present… It is not just distasteful or ‘strange,’” the Michigan bishops had stated, “it is an all-too-familiar example of an elected official mocking religious persons and their practices.”
The full report can be read here.
