A Fortnight for Freedom, the bishops declare,
Will show liberty under attack;
For too many years now, the church has lost ground
And it’s time to start taking it back…

We’ll fight for our freedom to muzzle our nuns
When they sinfully speak for themselves
We’ll fight for our freedom to limit the drugs
That you find on the pharmacy shelves
We’ll fight for our freedom to monitor priests
And protect them from judges or cops
We’ll fight for our freedom to hide them away
Till the public hysteria stops
We’ll fight for our freedom to speak as we will,
With the bishops providing our voice
We’ll fight for our freedom to speak for you, too
Because that is true freedom of choice.

Yup, it’s the F4F–the Fortnight for Freedom:

The fourteen days from June 21—the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More—to July 4, Independence Day, are dedicated to this “fortnight for freedom”—a great hymn of prayer for our country. Our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power—St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, St. John the Baptist, SS. Peter and Paul, and the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome. Culminating on Independence Day, this special period of prayer, study, catechesis, and public action will emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty. Dioceses and parishes around the country have scheduled special events that support a great national campaign of teaching and witness for religious liberty.

It all sounds so… non-threatening. But of course, the presence of all the “conscience clause” ads on religious (and atheist!) websites hints at the real agenda–the freedom the bishops are after is their freedom to control the lives of women. Religious liberties belong to individuals, not churches. The majority of Catholics support the birth control mandate, but the bishops want the freedom to overrule their members’ choice.

Time for the flock to stand up against their shepherds. The Fortnight for Freedom should be (but won’t be) a time when individual Catholics stand up for their own–as individual citizens–civil rights, and tell the bishops they will not cede their freedom.