Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., discusses in this video how Connecticut Catholics can work against passage of the radical anti-Church bill now before the state Legislature.

Tom Hoopes has reported on the bill — formally called Raised Bill 1098 — in several recent Daily Blog posts. If passed, the bill would remove the authority of Connecticut’s bishops to govern their parishes.

The bill is currently before the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly. It is scheduled to be discussed by the committee tomorrow.

“This bill violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the diocese of Bridgeport comments in an official statement posted here on its website. “It forces a radical reorganization of the legal, financial and administrative structure of our parishes. This is contrary to the apostolic nature of the Catholic Church because it disconnects parishes from their pastors and their bishop. Parishes would be run by boards from which pastors and the bishop would be effectively excluded.”

The statement warns, “This bill, moreover, is a thinly-veiled attempt to silence the Catholic Church on the important issues of the day, such as same-sex ‘marriage.’”

What Anthony Picarello, general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said to the Register about Bill 1098 on Friday bears repeating: “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a bill that’s so blatantly unconstitutional,” he said. “It targets the Catholic Church explicitly and exclusively and attempts to use the civil law to alter Church governance, particularly to divest the bishop of authority.”

And Bishop Lori does not mince words either in discussing how forcefully Catholics must respond to this political attack on the Church, launched by Sen. Andrew J. McDonald, D-Stamford, and Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, the chairmen of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee.

“We have to turn out numbers — big numbers,” Bishop Lori says in the video regarding the need for Catholics to attend tomorrow’s hearing at the state capitol in Hartford to express their opposition to Bill 1098.

“We have to turn out something like 1,500 to 2,000 people so that they recognize that their political future is on the line,” the bishop says. “They know no other language — the language of reason evades them.”

Take note and take action, Connecticut Catholics. Contact your state legislators and tell them to kill this anti-Catholic bill!