With what is going on in this country, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and individual bishops as well, are taking many steps to get their flocks to step up and fight back against these unconstitutional demands.

This is all well and good, but in my mind, the most important points are being ignored.  The majority of the people in our pews, it would appear, do not fully understand what exactly the Church teaches. I have heard many Catholics, who do attend Mass weekly, and still obviously do not believe abortion and same-sex marriage are so important; and the Real Presence is not what the Church teaches.  This taken along with the opinion of most Catholics that it is not their duty to contact their elected officials on important matters adds up to disaster.

I would therefore humbly suggest that it is most important to attempt to have ALL priests speak on ALL important Church doctrines several times each year. 

However, since our current problem is most dangerous and must be dealt with quickly, I  feel we have to speak on the subject of contraception and our religious freedoms at least once a month before the November elections, and hold a multi religion petition drive, over a few weeks in late September and early October, to be hand delivered to our Senators and Members of the House of Representatives.

Catholics, in particular, must become pro-active.  If we can not overcome the religious freedom issue now, there will be no stopping them over the next four years.

 – Raymond V. Carlisle| Manalapan