Hobby Lobby Decision is Also a Mandate

By Bishop James D. Conley, STL

Crisis Magazine

On June 28, 1776, the first draft of our nation’s Declaration of Independence was introduced to the general session of the Second Continental Congress.  The 28th was a Friday, and so the founding fathers tabled the draft until the following Monday, July 1st, when they took it up again for debate.  A resolution for independence was approved on July 2nd and, on July 4th, the text of the Declaration of Independence was approved.

Sunday, June 30, 1776, was an important day in our nation’s history.  On that day, the Founding Fathers would have been in Philadelphia’s churches, praying for the will of God in the founding of our nation.  They might have prayed for us, the beneficiaries of their courage.  They might have prayed for the prosperity, the morality, and the liberty of our nation.  They might have remembered the Continental Day of Prayer, which Congress had declared on March 16, 1776, on which they prayed that, “this continent be speedily restored to the blessings of peace and liberty.”

This year, on June 30th—that day of prayer and contemplation which might have spurred the inception of our liberty—the United States Supreme Court restored some portion of the liberty, particularly religious liberty, on which our nation was founded.  The Hobby Lobby decision is an affirmation that believers have a place in the public square—that all of us should be free to conduct our business without compromising our basic moral beliefs.  In addition, Wheaton College, a small evangelical college, received last-minute relief from the Supreme Court, protecting the College’s right to carry out its religious mission, free from crippling IRS fines.

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Most Reverend James D. Conley, STL, is the bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska. Before his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI to the see of Lincoln in September 2012, he served as auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Denver under Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. He earned his Master's of Divinity from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., in 1985 and a licentiate in moral theology from the Accademia Alfonsiana, part of the Faculty of Theology at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.