Catholic men of the Diocese of Peoria — who gather by the hundreds every spring to take a public stand in defense of faith, family, and the priesthood — have another urgent reason to attend this year’s “A Call to Catholic Men of Faith” on Saturday, April 14:

To defend religious freedom, threatened on both the federal and state levels.

“I hope this year it’s 10 times bigger,” said Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC, in comments about the annual men’s march and Mass made to permanent deacons of the Diocese of Peoria March 3.

“This is an attack on us,” the bishop said of the recent Health and Human Services ruling requiring the church to cooperate in providing insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortifacients. “If we don’t stand up and fight this, I’m afraid the church in the United States will be without public ministries.”

Tim Roder, director of the Office of Family Life and head of a 20-member committee that is planning the 2012 march, called men to “rise up” and “stand with our bishop in defense of religious liberty.”

“This is one of those times to not stay on the couch,” he told The Catholic Post.

“A Call to Catholic Men of Faith” has been an annual gathering since 2004 as a grassroots response to a challenge from Bishop Jenky for Catholics to more publicly defend the Catholic faith.

This year’s event begins at 8:30 a.m. with confessions and concessions at Peoria’s riverfront Liberty Park. The opening prayer is at 9 a.m., followed by inspirational remarks from Father Anthony Co, assistant chaplain at St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois.

The men will silently march through downtown Peoria to St. Mary’s Cathedral at 9:45. Following recitation of the rosary, a Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Jenky at 11 a.m. The day concludes with fellowship and food. While there is no charge to attend the morning’s events, meal tickets will be sold for $7 each.

Always held under the patronage of St. Joseph the Worker, the 2012 march takes place on the eve of the Feast of Divine Mercy. God’s mercy will be a sub-theme of the day, according to Roder.

For more information, including a list of frequently asked questions about the march, click on the “A Call to Catholic Men of Faith” banner at cdop.org, or call (309) 671-1550.