Archbishop Chaput on why he signed the Manhattan Declaration

I think the Manhattan Declaration is something every serious Catholic ought to sign.

Here is what Archbishop Charles Chaput - one of the 20 Roman Catholic bishops to publicly sign it - has to say about its importance:

“I was glad to be invited to sign the declaration, and glad to sign because I believe in its content,” Archbishop Chaput told CNA. He described it as a “straightforward” statement defending the sanctity of life, religious liberty and the definition of marriage as a union of husband and wife.

“In a sensible world, none of these things would be in question. But we no longer live in a sensible world,” he commented.

.. Archbishop Chaput commented that the signatories of the Declaration did not create the political environment that “forced it to be written.”

“The signers didn’t create the declaration's urgency or its timing. Others did that for them,” he told CNA.

He said the effort was provoked by those who want to “force” religion out of the public square, to “redefine” marriage and human sexuality, or to “sacrifice” women and unborn children on the “altar of a fraudulent ‘right’” to abortion.

Archbishop Chaput on the stakes:

The Declaration’s signers want people to realize “how difficult” the present moment in U.S. history is, he added.

“Our rights and liberties are never really guaranteed by words on a piece of paper. We guarantee them ourselves, under the sovereignty of God, by struggling for what we believe.”

Real hope has “a cost in sweat and hard work,” Archbishop Chaput said to CNA.

“Now and always, we need to trust in God; and then we also need to act. Right here, right now, in this country, the work of organizing and struggling in the public square for what we believe belongs to us. That means all of us, and each of us.”

[Source: CNA]

Currently the declaration has almost 300,000 signers. I hope to see it pass 1,000,000 soon.

I'm especially pleased that the declaration's website has a robust Q&A.

Please take 30 seconds and take a stand with us, for life, for marriage, and for religious liberty.

SIGN THE DECLARATION HERE.