On today’s Register Radio, National Catholic Register correspondent Gerald Russello talks about his recent article “Would Obama’s Mandate Fly With the Founding Fathers?” Russello provided a fascinating historical perspective on our nation’s founding.

“Governments cannot create civil rights like healthcare while at the same time failing to secure the pre-existing natural right to exercise your faith,” said Russello. “We’re beginning to lose the distinction between rights that cannot be infringed upon, and other rights. The founders wouldn’t have found healthcare to be a right at all, or for the government to coerce and force people to act contrary to their faith. This is not an appropriate use of the power of government.”

governments cannot create civil rights like healthcare while at the same time failing to secure the pre-existing natural right to exercise your faith.

“The larger government gets, the smaller people become in their circles of action,” said Russello, explaining that these actions by the government are an expression of the state’s hostility to any institution other than itself. “We’re seeing an erosion of the small ‘r’ – republican model in favor of a big government model.”

In our second half, National Catholic Register executive director Dan Burke interviewed me about my recent blog post “Vatican Attacked,” examining the hacktivist group “Anonymous” and their repeated efforts to attack the Vatican web site. I provided an overview of the cyber terrorist group’s three attacks thus far. We spoke about the stated motives for the attacks on the Church, and I pointed out an important observation regarding the group’s slogan. To learn more, listen to the show.

As always, Register Radio airs today on EWTN’s affiliates at 2 p.m. EASTERN, and re-airs on Saturday at 7:00 a.m. EASTERN or Sunday at 11:00 a.m. EASTERN. You can also listen to the show after it airs on the Register Radio page or download the podcast for later listening.