WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- A Washington Roman Catholic archbishop stressed the connection between faith and morality during a mass attended by four U.S. Supreme Court justices.
Archbishop Donald Wuerl said at Sunday's "Red Mass," an annual service for worshippers seeking to bless and guide those who administer justice, that morality and ethics "cannot be divorced from their religious antecedents," The Washington Post reported Monday.
Wuerl, leading his first Red Mass since taking over the Archdiocese of Washington in June, said during the service, which was attended by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas, that religion is a "cornerstone" of life in the United States.
"The assertion by some that the secular voice should alone speak to the ordering of society and its public policy, that it alone can speak to the needs of the human condition, is being increasingly challenged," Wuerl said in the Post report.
"In spite of all the options and challenges from the secular world competing for the allegiance of human hearts, the quiet, soft and gentle voice of the spirit has not been stilled," he said.
