WASHINGTON - Defending religious liberty is part of the bigger struggle to "convert our own hearts" and "live for God completely," Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said July 4 in Washington at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

He delivered the homily at the Mass that brought the U.S. bishops' "fortnight for freedom" to a close.

"The political and legal effort to defend religious liberty -- as vital as it is -- belongs to a much greater struggle to master and convert our own hearts, and to live for God completely, without alibis or self-delusion," the archbishop said.