Archbishop Lori's homily at his Solemn Mass of Installation

Michael Sean Winters calls it "neo-con constitutional theory" but I (or, maybe some would say "therefore"!) thought it was excellent.  Here's the text; decide for yourself.  Here's a bit:

We do not seek to defend religious liberty for partisan or political purposes, as some have suggested.  No, we do this because we are lovers of a human dignity
that was fashioned and imparted not by the government but by the Creator. We defend religious liberty because we are lovers of every human person, seeing in the face of every man and woman also the face of Christ, who loved us to the very end and who calls on us to love and serve our neighbor with the same love he has bestowed on us.  We uphold religious liberty because we seek to continue serving those in need while contributing to the common good in accord with the Church’s social teaching and to do so with compassion and effectiveness through Catholic Charities, the largest private provider of human services in the State of Maryland.  We do this because Archbishop John Carroll’s generation of believers and patriots bequeathed to us a precious legacy that has enabled the Church to worship in freedom, to bear witness to Christ publicly,and to do massive and amazing works of pastoral love, education, and charity in ways that are true to the faith that inspired them in the first place.

Winters' suggestion that statements like these sound too much in "constitutional law and political practice" and so are "better suited to a blog post than a sermon" seems wrong to me.  To be sure, Winters is entirely right that any homilists' focus should always be on "preaching Christi crucified and risen," but I am afraid I cannot agree that there was anything at all bizarre, or even unwelcome, about the new Archbishop of Baltimore's eloquent instruction on the foundations, implications, and importance of religious freedom.