Controversial Cardinal speaks at BYU

A Catholic Cardinal accused of protecting child-molesting priests from exposure and arrest spoke at BYU.  SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) has called for the Cardinal's resignation.  Below are Excerpts of the Salt Lake Tribune article by regarding his speech at BYU by Kristen Mounton Cardinal tells BYU: We must work together for religious liberty.

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A Roman Catholic cardinal told a huge audience Tuesday at Brigham Young University that Mormons and Catholics must strive together to proclaim truth even as pressures mount to exclude religion from the public square.

George -- with LDS apostles M. Russell Ballard and Quentin L. Cook on the dais -- noted the two faiths have worked together to alleviate world poverty, combat pornography, defend the unborn and push for traditional marriage.

"I'm personally grateful," George said, "that, after 180 years of living mostly apart from one another, Catholics and Latter-day Saints have come to see one another as trustworthy partners in the defense of shared moral principles."

Marriage, the union of one man and one woman, must be defended, he added, "against various efforts to redefine in civil law that foundational element of God's natural plan for creation."

George said Mormons and Catholics are called to respect and love all people, including those who are gay, because they are children of God.

"That doesn't mean we must approve of everything everyone does," said George, who later noted that his family, like many others, includes gays.

He decried the "quasi-fascist tactics" and "thuggery" engaged in by some after California voters approved Proposition 8 in 2008, banning gay marriage in the Golden State. Churches, particularly LDS meetinghouses, were vandalized after the election.

Freedom of religion, George said, is a fundamental right that cannot be reduced merely to a freedom to worship or freedom of conscience, as some in this country now advocate.

Such a limited notion of religious freedom is not the American tradition, he said. "It was the tradition of the Soviet Union."

True religious freedom, he said, includes "the right to exercise influence in the public square."