There were some interesting speakers at many of the Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rallies on March 23, but I’ve just received audio of the guy who might take the prize for Most Unique Speaker.
Many people have accused the Stand Up Rally effort of really just being about Catholicism—despite the panoply of different religions and denominations represented at the over 140 Rallies across the country.
But the Scranton Pennsylvania Rally, organized by Mary Ann Haas, featured Pagan High Priest Vincent Gaglione at their Rally, proving once and for all that this effort is about freedom for all religions. Vincent is a former Army officer in addition to his religious affiliation, and he is a very funny, affable and engaging speaker.
As Vincent says, “I’m a Pagan. You don’t have to agree with my religion, I don’t have to agree with your religion. What we have to do is respect each other’s right to practice our religions.”
Cardinal Timothy Dolan gave a lengthy and candid interview this weekend with James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal in which he reiterated the Catholic Church’s opposition to the “radical, unprecedented, and dramatically intrusive” HHS Mandate.
Early on, Dolan recounts his conversation with President Barack Obama following their 45-minute discussion at an Oval Office meeting last November:
“I said, ‘I’ve heard you say, first of all, that you have immense regard for the work of the Catholic Church in the United States in health care, education and charity. . . . I have heard you say that you are not going to let the administration do anything to impede that work and . . . that you take the protection of the rights of conscience with the utmost seriousness. . . . Does that accurately sum up our conversation?’ [Mr. Obama] said, ‘You bet it does.'”
The archbishop asked for permission to relay the message to the other bishops. “You don’t have my permission, you’ve got my request,” the president replied.
But as we all know from the way subsequent events played out, this “request” was soon forgotten. [Continue reading …]
As the Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare law that brought us the HHS Mandate, Rally reports are still rolling into National HQ.
The Rallies took place literally from coast to coast. In Anchorage, Alaska, over 100 gathered, including the entire K-12 student body, faculty and administrators from Holy Rosary Academy.
Posted by Eric Scheidler (March 30, 2012 at 5:41 pm)
Now that last week’s enormously successful Rally for Religious Freedom is behind us—with over 63,000 Americans taking part in 145 cities from Maine to Hawaii, and literally hundreds of news stories reporting that our fight against the HHS Mandate is about religious freedom—it’s time to look to the future.
We still have a long road ahead to stop the HHS Mandate, but the March 23 Rally creates a strong grassroots foundation to build upon.
My Stand Up Rally co-director Monica Miller and I are carefully planning our next major action in this fight, but in the meantime I want to offer four steps you can take right now to continue your efforts to reverse the HHS Mandate. [Continue reading …]
It was great to see Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, appear on The O’Reilly Factor last night.
Bill had some great questions and the Cardinal was able to speak out about the place of religion in public life. O’Reilly asked if the bishops wanted to be a force in political life, to which Dolan deftly answered, “No, I want my people to be a force in public life!”, rightly placing the locus of activity with the laity.
Here at National Rally Headquarters we’ve been receiving reports from last Friday’s Rally for Religious Freedom from all across the country.
The sheer amount of reporting, both from the press and the local Rally Captains and attendees has been so huge it couldn’t possibly be cataloged in a blog post. So we’re going to bring you a selection of reports to give you a glimpse of the scope of this historic event.
Today we’ll look at San Francisco, California; Owensboro, Kentucky; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Goshen, New York.
One of the larger of the over 140 Rallies took place in San Francisco, California where over 1,000 came to Rally outside the HHS building.
You can see video of all their featured speakers here, but don’t miss the moving speech below from Fr. Joseph Fessio: [Continue reading …]
The March 23 Nationwide Rally for Religious Freedom was such a stunning success due in no small part to the tremendous outpouring of support from dozens of Catholic bishops—led by no less than Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York and the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Cardinal Dolan himself issued a letter of support that was read at the Rally for Religious Freedom held on Wall Street, in the heart of his Archdiocese.
Posted by Eric Scheidler (March 26, 2012 at 7:26 am)
Update: More Rally Captains have reported their head counts. See revised numbers below.
When my Rally co-director Monica Miller and I originally conceived the Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally, I was hoping for 50 cities to sign on. Monica, more optimistically, hoped for 100.
We launched the project with 30 cities, which quickly grew to 50, then 80, then 100. In the final week before the Rally, we topped 140, with cities coming on board up to the last minute. The final tally was 143 cities from Portland, Maine to Honolulu, Hawaii.
By that time the buzz surrounding the Rally was so great that I began to speculate that we just might top 10,000 participants across the country.
How little did I know what God had in store for this historic day!
With 106118122134143 145 cities tallied (most from Rally Captains on the ground, some from press reports) the count so far is 54,03957,10358,45561,23763,00563,945!
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! [Continue reading …]
There were some interesting speakers at many of the Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rallies on March 23, but I’ve just received audio of the guy who might take the prize for Most Unique Speaker.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan gave a lengthy and candid 
As the Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare law that brought us the HHS Mandate, Rally reports are still rolling into National HQ.
Now that last week’s enormously successful Rally for Religious Freedom is behind us—with over 63,000 Americans taking part in 145 cities from Maine to Hawaii, and literally hundreds of news stories reporting that our fight against the HHS Mandate is about religious freedom—it’s time to look to the future.
Here at National Rally Headquarters we’ve been receiving reports from last Friday’s Rally for Religious Freedom from all across the country.
Update: More Rally Captains have reported their head counts. See revised numbers below.
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?