Catholic Institutions Follow their Conscience
If there is one freedom our country has consistently cherished, it is the right to freedom of conscience: the right to act or not to act as conscience dictates. Thomas Jefferson wrote that “no provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of civil authority.”
Indeed, even before the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, the Continental Congress passed a resolution in 1775 exempting pacifists from military enlistment:
As there are some people, who, from religious principles, cannot bear arms in any case, this Congress intend no violence to their consciences, but earnestly recommend it to them, to contribute liberally in this time of universal calamity, to the relief of their distressed brethren in the several colonies, and to do all other services to their oppressed Country, which they can consistently with their religious principles.
Our forefathers understood that, even in times of great need and hardship, conscience must be preserved and protected. . . .