Rally National Co-Director Monica Migliorino Miller Reflects on the Rallies
Posted by Monica Migliorino Miller (March 25, 2012 at 1:07 pm)
So What can we learn from what happened March 23? Why were these rallies—in over 140 cities and drawing more than 50,000 participants from a broad cross-section of America—such a tremendous success? And where do we go from here?
As co-director the the nationwide Stand Up for Religious Freedom and a pro-life activist with four decades of grassroots experience, I’d like to share the following observations:
The Church is beginning to wake-up!
Truly, we see that the Church is stepping up to the social and political attacks on faith that seek to send Christians (and all people of faith) back to the catacombs.
Pray for Catholic Bishops, pray for Protestant pastors, pray for all religious leaders that they will have the courage to not waver no matter what the People of God must suffer!
The grassroots faithful are taking a stand!
The only real explanation for the incredible turn-out for these rallies is that rank and file Christians and people of religious faith see that they must make a real, public response to this HHS Mandate and work to rescind it! This opposition must not die out!
Our message on religious freedom is breaking through!
We are beginning to break though the media wall. Many headlines in news reports on the rallies describe what happened on March 23 as protests of the “contraception mandate”—in other words, still making it appear as though the issue is about contraception.
Nonetheless, the content of the stories reported rightly that the real essence of opposition has to do with religious freedom. We need to continue framing the issue our way—and move the media to understand that the HHS Mandate is an attack on religious freedom!
Our protest of the HHS Mandate has just begun!
The goal of Stand Up for Religious Freedom is to raise nationwide awareness that the HHS Mandate is an attack on personal conscience and the right to religious liberty—but even beyond that goal, this movement seeks to strengthen the resolve of American citizens generally and all people of faith more specifically to fight against this illicit and completely unjust intrusion of government into the affairs of religious practice and belief and be ready to stand up for our beliefs in times of persecution!
Please stay tuned—the protests have not ended!
Indeed, they have just begun!
We thank all who made the March 23 Rallies a success
Eric Scheidler, my co-director of these rallies, and I truly thank all the Rally Captains in 140 the cities nationwide that participated in these rallies. The involvement of local leadership is what really made the March 23rd event such a huge national success!
We offer out thanks to all the bishops who participated, to all the Protestant clergy and Jewish leaders who spoke at the rallies, and to all who made presentations at the rallies from so many perspectives and walks of life.
And finally, a thank you to all of you tens of thousands who came out and swelled the plazas and the sidewalks of America!
Let us move forward boldly in the Love and Strength of God!
Thank you for all your support and leadership. Rosemary
March 25th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Thank you so much for organizing this event. I only learned about it on facebook the day before the event. I attended the one in Sterling,Illinois. I will be praying!
March 25th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
The churches across America have been painfully quiet on this orchestrated war on religion and our freedoms. I am glad some have finally decided to come and be more vocal. I hope to hear the roar getting louder and louder. In Jacksonville, Fla. our rally was at the Duval County Court House steps in downtown.
March 25th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Boy, I really appreciate all this information. I am a widow from the liberal state of Washington.
Thank you again. It is great to see and hear people from other states voicing their opinion. Especially when it agrees with mine.
Thank your for everyone responsible for all this publication. We as catholics need to hear this.
Thank you
March 25th, 2012 at 4:11 pm
I’m a Methodist who attended the Independence Hall rally on 3/23. I was impressed by the organization of the rally, selection of music, prayers offered, and the speakers. After the opening prayer, I estimated that 80% of the crowd made the sign of the cross. I wish more Protestants were there. As American Protestants, it is our right of free exercise of religion too. All Christians in this country should “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States ” (see Article 2 of the Constitution).
March 25th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
I was glad to stand up for First Amendment rights at the Detroit rally. I passed out pocket-sized U.S. Constitutions. Thanks to all who attended. Let us not let the media define this issue. They want to make it all about contraception. It is about First Amendment rights and the unprecedented attack by the Federal gvt. on churches and the personal consciences of million of Americans. We are just getting started!
March 25th, 2012 at 7:02 pm
I thank God that we in the USA at least have you Monica who really cares to have courageously spoken up for Religious Freedom in our own country. I agree with ” vcobbs” above who says “The churches across America have been painfully quiet on this orchestrated war on religion and our freedoms”. The Obama Adminstration has occasionally voiced diplomatic warnings to the communist and dictatorial governments in the world for their blatant violations against religious freedom. What an irony and a shame!
March 25th, 2012 at 9:29 pm
Hello Rosemary,
Thank you. I attended Trenton, NJ rally. I am so thankful.
Rally speakers encouraged participants to disseminate information back in our parishes. I would like the speakers wonderful speeches.
Do you know how I can get these speeches to show my priest, the parish members, and the diocese?
Is there or will there be a central point of speech information posted to a website or link from your website page so all speakers can post their speeches and we can pass them around to those who didn’t go to rally?
We are forever grateful to your work and dedication. God Bless you. See you at the next rally.
Heather
March 26th, 2012 at 2:30 am
Bravo, Bravo.Religious Institutions and HC have always complemented each other. Everything, concerning these institutions and HC has always and continues to work fine. WHY DOES THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAVE TO ATTACK Religious Institutions. Everyone NOW criticizing Religious Institutions didn’t write, articles or even talk about religious institutions have a bad affect on our countries HC, It is the Obama Administration that was created this issue. NEVER was an issue. I say continue the Status Quo on our Religious Institutions connections to HC
March 26th, 2012 at 2:35 am
Thank you for all your work! We had about 300 here in Nawlins’. No local media coverage. Lots of priests, religious, seminarians, and Pro-Life folks attended. Our rally was organized and led by dedicated laity of the archdiocese. God bless them!
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
March 26th, 2012 at 6:06 am
Dear friends and brothers- and sisters-in-Christ,
I attended the rally at Independence Hall in Philly Friday and was delighted to take part with so many others who are so greatly opposed to this affront to our constitution by the HSS Mandate.
However, I was concerned by some comments I heard, posters I saw, and even some of what was written in some of the downloadable stuff on your website. …but I was thankful that there were only a few such posters at the rally.
5 or 6 people had posters with statements that I believe could have been taken as attacking President Obama. At best, I believe the posters were quite inappropriate.
Also, when I was about to print out the hand-out from your web site, I stopped when I saw President Obama referred to there less than respectfully. So rather than print it out as it was, I copied-and-pasted it to my word-processor, and after removing all such references, I rewrote those sections of the hand-out. The argument was not weakened at all by those omissions.
As I said to those who had similar comments on their poster at the rally, I believe some who might be in support of our position on the HSS Mandate might be turned away, without even considering our reasons, by the anti-President-Obama comments.
I understand and share your deep concerns about and even anger at much of what President Obama has done. Many are extremely offensive to me AND WRONG, but attacking him does nothing to convince anyone, but only to close their ears to us.
I believe that too many who call themselves Christians only seem to want to “win” rather than seek the truth that will set us (all) free.
One more thing, as I said when I distributed the hand-outs at our men’s fellowship group Friday morning, that when things happen in the public arena that concern us, most of us do nothing more than pray and whine. I offered the (re-written) hand-outs to them as a third option on to how to react to this.
“Faith withou works is dead” to borrow a phrase!
Thank you, and praise God!
…looking to Jesus…
. . . Dan Homan
March 26th, 2012 at 9:18 am
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March 26th, 2012 at 7:52 pm
I want submit my response to an apparent speech given at the Denver rally by Ann Barnhardt. I was not in Denver, but someone forwarded the text of her speech to me, which she has posted on her website. Thankfully, her speech has not been given too much attention in internet coverage of the rallies. It has shown up in a few blogs, and that’s all I could find.
The part that I am criticizing and responding to is as follows.
Barnhardt refers to Obama in her speech as “Caesar Tyrannus Obama”, and at one point she said: “With all of the Christian Charity I can muster, I say this to Caesar Tyrannus Obama: Go to hell. Antichrists like you are owed nothing but the scathing contempt of decent human beings.”
No true follower of Christ would say “Go to hell!”, -not even to one’s worst archenemy. Not even to the devil himself. Even the Archangel Michael did not curse Satan but instead said, “The Lord rebuke you!”. (The Epistle of St Jude, vs 9.)
To say “Go to hell” to anyone, with the full meaning, is actually satanic. Satanists believe in only being good to people who are good to them. And in treating those who are not good to them with malice and hatred. This is actually in the Satanic Bible!
What did Our Blessed Lord say? (Not, “What would Jesus do?”, because that oft-used phrase can be construed to mean anything one wants to try to interpret our Lord as supposedly doing in a given situation.)
Rather, we have the Gospels that give us the first hand accounts of what Christ actually did do: He forgave those who persecuted and crucified him, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” -Luke 23:34 )Jesus said in the sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and shalt hate thy enemy.’. But I say to you love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute and calumniate you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, who makes his sun to rise on the good and the evil, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans do that? And if you salute your brethren only, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do that?”. – Matthew 5:44-47.
Maybe Ms Barnhardt was using the phrase “go to hell” as a turn of speech for emphasis, but I don’t think that was her intention, however I am not judging her intentions, but her speech. The rally for religious freedom is not the place to curse to eternal damnation anyone, even a president as bad as Obama. It’s one thing to hate his policies and malicious attempts to undermine our freedoms, and quite another to damn him to hell. This is not the Christian response.
I don’t think hell is something we ought to be joking about, and we certainly shouldn’t wish that anyone go there. Even the worst tyrant and mass-murderer in history can be forgiven by our Lord Jesus Christ. We may hate what someone is doing to us or to others, but we shouldn’t hate them and wish eternal damnation on them! We are commanded by our Lord to love and pray for them. This is a commandment, not an option.
It’s humanly impossible to love one’s enemies. So how can we do this? By God’s grace, and by his grace alone. We must cooperate with his grace and be willing to love our enemies. It is the intention of the will that is important. The will is a blind faculty and therefore needs the light of Faith and reason to guide it. This does not mean we have to like our enemies or their deeds. But we must pray for their conversion.
We are all sinners. As Catholics, as Christians, we ought to have the mind of Christ, “…who though He was by nature God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to be clung to, but emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave and being made like unto men. And appearing in the form of man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even to death on a cross. Therefore God also has exalted him and has bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the Name of Jesus, every knee should bend, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.”. -Philippians 2: 5-11.
In closing, I would like to say to my fellow Catholics that the Catholic bishops need to call for a continuous, nationwide Rosary Crusade to preserve our freedoms and to stop Obama and the Marxists and Socialists from taking over our country. This same thing happened in Brazil in 1960. The Brazilian bishops called on the people to pray the Rosary to stop Communism from taking over their country. Our Lady of Fatima intervened, Communism failed to take over and the Brazilian people were spared that awful fate.
What we need in the USA today are bishops who will stand up and lead us all in nationwide prayer for our country. The bishops ought to stay out of politics except when it involves the most serious moral issues, like abortion, euthanasia, and leave politics up to the laity. The bishops are supposed to be our spiritual and moral leaders, not our lobbyists.
A blessed Holy Week and feast of our Lord’s Resurrection to all.
April 3rd, 2012 at 7:30 am
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May 27th, 2012 at 4:12 pm