June 22, 2012 - Cardinal Seán O’Malley to host live, interactive “town hall meeting” to discuss reli

BRAINTREE, MA (June 22, 2012) – The US Bishops have called for “Fortnight for Freedom” nationwide.  One of the most significant ways Cardinal Seán O’Malley and the Archdiocese of Boston will be marking the Fortnight is through an live, interactive “town hall meeting” to discuss the need to defend religious freedom. 

When: Monday June 25, 2012 from 8pm-9pm.

Where: CatholicTV Network (Verizon 296, Comcast 268, Charter 101, RCN 85), 1060AM WQOM, Relevant Radio Network, and CatholicTV.com.

Cardinal Seán stated, “From June 21 until the Fourth of July, we ask all Americans to intensify their prayers that our God-given right to religious liberty be respected and preserved. This is a special time of prayer, study, and public action to emphasize our Christian and American heritage of liberty.”

In describing the town hall meeting, Cardinal Seán remarked, “I have invited a panel of religious liberty experts to join me in presenting the issues and in answering your questions.  Please join us for that important conversation.  Religious freedom is not a Catholic issue. It is not a Jewish issue. It is not an Orthodox, Mormon, or Muslim issue. It is an American issue. God bless you and, during this Fortnight for Freedom, may God bless America.”

Cardinal Seán recorded a message to launch the Fortnight for Freedom which can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/44474493.

During the town hall meeting, Cardinal Seán and the panelists will make brief presentations and then answer questions from the studio audience and also from those participating via television and radio who will submit their questions via Twitter, Facebook and email.

“This is the first time we’ve held an interactive town meeting leveraging all forms of media in the Archdiocese of Boston and it will be very exciting,” commented Scot Landry, Archdiocesan Secretary for Catholic Media, who assisted Cardinal Seán with many of the logistics for the event.  “With an Archdiocese as large as ours, how do you involve our entire Catholic family in a town hall meeting?  Thankfully, we have the great resources of CatholicTV and WQOM who allow everyone to participate at the same time.” 

Cardinal Seán has invited the following panelists to join him for the town hall meeting.

• John Garvey is the 15th president of the Catholic University of America and is an expert in constitutional law, religious liberty, and the First Amendment.  Prior to CUA, Garvey served as dean of Boston College Law School for 11 years, and as a professor at Notre Dame Law School, University of Michigan Law School, and University of Kentucky College of Law.  He was assistant to the solicitor general in the U.S. Department of Justice from 1981 to 1984.  Garvey earned his J.D. in 1974 at Harvard Law School, where he served as treasurer of the Harvard Law Review, and he earned an A.B. in 1970 from the University of Notre Dame. He and his wife, Jeanne Walter Garvey, have been married for over 35 years and have five children and 12 grandchildren.
• Kim Daniels is coordinator for CatholicVoices USA and an attorney whose practice has focused on religious-liberty issues, particularly rights of conscience in health care.  She has also worked as a policy consultant and as a Catholic high school teacher.  Kim and her husband David have 6 school-age children, and are active members of St. Jane de Chantal parish in Bethesda, Maryland.  She is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Chicago Law School.
• Angela Franks is the Director of Theology Programs for the Theological Institute for the New Evangelization (TINE) at Saint John’s Seminary.  She has written and taught extensively on fertility and contraception and also recently served along with her husband as the coordinator for the Massachusetts Marriage Initiative, The Future Depends on Love.  She holds a doctorate in Systematic Theology from Boston College (2006), a M.A. in Philosophy from Catholic University of America (1997), and her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from the University of Dallas (1995).  She and her husband David raise five young children in suburban Boston and are parishioners at St. Columbkille parish in Brighton.
• Carl A. Anderson is the Supreme Knight and chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic family fraternal service organization with more than 1.6 million members.  He has served on various pontifical councils and commissions. Prior to his service at the Knights of Columbus, Mr. Anderson served as Special Assistant to the President and acting Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, as a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, as a visiting professor of family law at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. He and his wife, Dorian, are the parents of five children.

The town hall meeting will be moderated by the host of CatholicTV’s Clearvoice™, John Monahan.

Learn more about the Fortnight for Freedom from:

• The Archdiocese of Boston: www.BostonCatholic.org/Freedom           
• USCCB: www.Fortnight4Freedom.org.
• CatholicTV: http://www.catholictv.com/Freedom.aspx 
• Cardinal Seán’s video invitation: https://vimeo.com/44474493 

About the Archdiocese of Boston
The Diocese of Boston was founded on April 8, 1808 and was elevated to Archdiocese in 1875. Currently serving the needs of 1.8 million Catholics, the Archdiocese of Boston is an ethnically diverse and spiritually enriching faith community consisting of 288 parishes, across 144 communities, educating approximately 42,000 students in its Catholic schools and 156,000 in religious education classes each year, ministering to the needs of 200,000 individuals through its pastoral and social service outreach.   Mass is celebrated in nearly twenty different languages each week. For more information, please visit  www.BostonCatholic.org.

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