UNITED STATES
Winona Daily News

Leslie Hittner

I am appalled! Employees of the Catholic Church all over this country are being told that if they express their beliefs with respect to same-sex marriage, artificial birth control, abortion and other politically sensitive issues that the Catholic Church has a position on — and if those statements are not in accordance with the beliefs and teachings of the Catholic Church — they will be fired.

So much for free speech in the United States. Are similar threats being made elsewhere in the world — Rome, for instance?

One has to wonder when one of the Church’s worldwide leaders, Raymond Cardinal Burke, former bishop of La Crosse and former Archbishop of St. Louis, can make preposterous and outrageous statements about Catholic men and women and still retain his position as patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta — itself a demotion…