Traces of the New York accent remain, but don’t be deceived. Father Thomas P. Ferguson, pastor of Good Shepherd Church in Alexandria, is a true Arlington diocese man.
“If you’re looking for somebody to talk about World Mission Sunday, I am not your man,” joked Father Ferguson, whose family moved from Queens, N.Y., to Mount Vernon when he was 12. “Goodness, I’m the pastor of the parish 10 minutes from the house I grew up in, so I didn’t get too far.”
Father Ferguson made national news when the White House announced his appointment to the advisory board of the Religious Liberty Commission May 16, along with Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind. and San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone. They will serve with seven other advisors including four Rabbis, a Greek Orthodox Archbishop and two Protestant pastors.
“This whole thing is a work in progress,” said Father Ferguson. Three advisory committees, made up of lay leaders, lawyers and clergy, will bring issues to the Religious Liberty Commission, which includes New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan and Bishop Robert E. Barron of Rochester, Minn.
Serious matters await the commission and for Catholics. The recently passed law in the state of Washington that would require priests to break the seal of confession, for example, is an egregious attack on religious liberty according to Father Ferguson.
“Any priest that I know who takes our sacramental responsibilities seriously would look at the choice between violating their conscience or going to jail as a choice that could only lead to going to jail,” said Father Ferguson. “You’re setting up a conflict of values between what the state considers necessary for the common good and what the church considers essential to our practice of our faith, our free exercise of religion.”
Father Ferguson, who earned a doctorate in government from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, is concerned that Americans have a fundamental misunderstanding of religious freedom. “It’s also a responsibility to seek out what’s good and true and to put that into practice,” he said. “Now, freedom simply means freedom from any kind of authority outside of yourself, where everybody is free to choose what they believe is true and good. As a result, you really have a value-free society, which is a kind of a civil religion at this point.”
Another aspect of religious liberty under attack is parental rights, said Father Ferguson. “When you think of what’s being taught in schools in terms of family life education programs — sometimes the state has a curriculum that parents aren’t even aware of,” he said. “Meanwhile, their children are being taught things about marriage, sexuality and gender ideology that are completely contrary to our beliefs.”
Father Ferguson, who is the author of “Catholic and American: The Political Theology of John Courtney Murray,” said that Murray did not want Catholicism imposed on society. “The church is just asking for the freedom to practice our religion in our life of worship, but also to make its contribution to society,” he said. “All the church is really asking for is the same freedom as anyone else to propose the Gospel, to propose our teaching, which we believe is true.”
