Corpus Christi Bishop Wm. Michael Mulvey explains how the Obama Administration's forcing of religious employers to provide contraceptive and abortifacient coverage is an assault on religious liberty in the most recent episode of the Texas Catholic Podcast.

The podcast, available via iTunes or on the Texas Catholic Conference Audio Archive, was recorded during Bishop Mulvey's homily at the Corpus Christi Cathedral on January 29, 2012.  In it, Bishop Mulvey stressed that his objections to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate were not political in nature, but were instead, "a matter of conscience. This is a matter of religious freedom.”

“The Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty," Mulvey told parishioners.  "This is a dangerous path for our government to follow, as it violates one of the core values upon which our country was founded.”

Bishop Mulvey called upon the faithful to pray for the protection of religious liberty and contact their Congressmen to reverse the HHS ruling. He also used the opportunity to elaborate on the Church’s teaching on conscience and why its protection is intrinsically tied to the free practice of religion, emphasizing that conscience is being present to one’s self so that one “can hear the truth revealed by God in Jesus Christ and live and act by it.“