Sometime ago, we learned that there was a move to put in a science only ethic here in the United States. This would remove any influence by faith and would make science the end all and be all of ethics and research. There are different tools used to enforce this and the big target in this movement is of course the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.

The latest part of this movement is two-fold:

First: the approval of embryonic stem cell research by President Obama, yesterday. Understand that we as Catholics approve stem cell research, but not embryonic stem cell research. The reason is simple. We do not want to go down the road of harvesting embryos and sex for abortion for industry. We are, however, well our way to do this.

Second: The State of Connecticut is in process to make it illegal for the Roman Catholic Church (and only the Roman Catholic Church) to operate freely in this country. (This is something the Hartford Courant calls as a showdown between the Catholic Church and the State of Connecticut.) Legislators are working to make the Catholic Church function like the Congregational Church where the pastor will have to answer to a board of directors as to how the Church would function financially. This clearly goes against the Constitution of both the State of Connecticut and the United States of America. This is also done in the form of a response to a case of embezzlement that several years ago in Darien Connecticut.

Tomorrow in the Connecticut Capital, Hartford, there will be a hearing on this bill which is on the fast track to approval. The bill was proposed last week and already there is a hearing. Many Catholics have called the State Legislature protesting this move to silence the Church and Catholics are planning to attend a hearing on the Bill at the State House in Hartford.

We can see, however, that this is also a call for us to note how important it is for us to live our faith and to be Catholics of faith who are lights in darkness. Remember, what led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (the subject of today’s first reading from Isaiah) was not so much the sin of the people, but the lack of righteousness of the people. Where did the righteous go? Did they leave or did they remain silent.

What about you, are you living your faith under a rock or on a mountain top?