U.S. Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca)
ROME, March 20, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – President Obama’s policies “have become progressively more hostile toward Christian civilization,” said American Cardinal Raymond Burke in an interview published in English exclusively by LifeSiteNews today.
Burke did not mince words in responding to a question about the Catholic reaction to President Obama’s attack on religious freedom, especially through policies such as the controversial HHS mandate.
“He appears to be a totally secularized man who aggressively promotes anti-life and anti-family policies,” said Burke.
“Now he wants to restrict the exercise of the freedom of religion to freedom of worship, that is, he holds that one is free to act according to his conscience within the confines of his place of worship but that, once the person leaves the place of worship, the government can constrain him to act against his rightly-formed conscience, even in the most serious of moral questions.”
The wide-ranging interview, published originally by Polonia Christiana magazine, covers everything from sex-education, in vitro fertilization, abortion, and euthanasia to annulments, politicians who are Catholic in name only, gender ideology, and same-sex “marriage.”
Obama ran his 2008 presidential election campaign on a promise to transform America by what he called “change we can believe in.” Since taking office in 2009, he has done more than any other president to promote contraception, abortion, and homosexuality, what critics say amounts to an outright assault on life, marriage, and family.
Obama declared the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional in 2011, setting the stage for its demise at the Supreme Court in 2013. Now with the HHS mandate in place, American business owners must pay for the contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs of their employees or face crippling fines.
Burke lamented the slide into what he called a “loss of freedom.”
“Such policies would have been unimaginable in the United States even 40 years ago. It is true that many faithful Catholics, with strong and clear leadership from their Bishops and priests, are reacting against the ever-growing religious persecution in the U.S.”
“Sadly, one has the impression that a large part of the population is not fully aware of what is taking place. In a democracy, such a lack of awareness is deadly. It leads to the loss of the freedom which a democratic government exists to protect,” he said.
“It is my hope that more and more of my fellow citizens, as they realize what is happening, will insist on electing leaders who respect the truth of the moral law as it is respected in the founding principles of our nation,” he added.
Find the full interview with Cardinal Burke here.
VOICE OF THE PERSECUTED 