PAGE 12 FREETHOUGHT TODAY MADISON WISCONSIN MARCH 2009 20 Years of Freethought Activism This photo ran on the front of the San Antonio Express- News Sunday Magazine, March 26, 1991, to accompany the cover story about her by Craig Phelon, “Portrait of an Atheist.” That article is reprinted in FFRF’s anthology, Women Without Superstition. Photo: Robert McLeroy Catherine wore her educational FFRF T-shirts everywhere, including to protest voting in a Catholic Church! Catherine produced the award-winning TV show, “Freethought Forum,” from 1987-2002. She is with guest and friend Ed Ligget. The program cover for her memorial, produced by friend Sally Chizek Cat’s banner welcoming the ’92 FFRF convention to San Antonio. That’s FFRF’s Anne & Annie Laurie Gaylor next to Catherine. Catherine Fahringer promoted freethought at every opportunity. Here she is at one of many rallies in San Antonio. Cat mugging her dismay over ubiquitous religious graffiti. With FFRFers and friends Ruth Lett and Sally Chizek, wearing “The Great Atheist Invasion” shirts commemorating a 1999 monument to freethought history in Comfort, Texas. Catherine gifted Jefferson’s famed “wall of separation” quotation, via framed calligraphy, to the City of San Antonio. That’s then-Mayor Celso Martinez, Cat, Jane Olm and Al Scharf. Catherine not only got the city to issue a Freethought Week proclamation, but persuaded Texas Govs. Jane W. Richards and George W. Bush to issue “Freethought Week” letters!
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PAGE 12 FREETHOUGHT TODAY MADISON WISCONSIN MARCH 2009
20 Years of Freethought Activism
This photo ran on the front of the San Antonio Express-News Sunday Magazine, March 26, 1991, to accompany thecover story about her by Craig Phelon, “Portrait of anAtheist.” That article is reprinted in FFRF’s anthology,Women Without Superstition.
Photo: R
obert McLeroy
Catherine wore her educational FFRFT-shirts everywhere, including toprotest voting in a Catholic Church!
Catherine produced the award-winning TV show,“Freethought Forum,” from 1987-2002. She is with guestand friend Ed Ligget.
The program cover for her memorial, produced byfriend Sally Chizek
Cat’s bannerwelcoming the ’92FFRF convention
to San Antonio.That’s FFRF’sAnne & AnnieLaurie Gaylor
next to Catherine.
Catherine Fahringer promoted freethought at every opportunity. Here she is at one of many rallies inSan Antonio.
With FFRFers and friends Ruth Lett and Sally Chizek,wearing “The Great Atheist Invasion” shirts commemoratinga 1999 monument to freethought history in Comfort, Texas.
Catherine giftedJefferson’s famed “wall
of separation”quotation, via framed
calligraphy, to the Cityof San Antonio. That’s
then-Mayor CelsoMartinez, Cat, Jane Olm
and Al Scharf.Catherine not only got
the city to issue aFreethought Weekproclamation, but
persuaded Texas Govs.Jane W. Richards and
George W. Bush to issue“Freethought Week”
letters!
MARCH 2009 FREETHOUGHT TODAY MADISON WISCONSIN PAGE 13
By Annie Laurie Gaylor
Catherine Fahringer (1922-2008),Foundation activist, officer and SanAntonio FFRF chapter founder, waspassionate about promoting free-thought and halting the religious dom-ination of government. Radiatingwarmth and determination, she stirredthings up in Catholic-dominated SanAntonio for 20 years, founding a 13-year cable TV show, FreethoughtForum, and monitoring local mediaand government.
A state/church supersleuth, sheinvestigated, exposed and protestedmany Establishment Clause violationsin San Antonio: city funds going to aCatholic youth group, the Mayor’sprayer breakfasts, a hideous praying-hands public artwork, manger sceneson military grounds, and the use ofchurches as polling places: “Those ofyou who vote in churches withoutprotest are aiding the enemies ofdemocracy,” she warned.
In countless masterful letters ofprotest, she employed humor, pith,plainspokenness, indignation andcharm. Catherine once got letters pub-lished in the same week in both TIMEand on “60 Minutes”! Catherine knewyou could catch more flies with honey,but she also recognized the purifyingvalue of vinegar.
Appearing with Dan Barker on a1990 “Sally Jessy Raphael” show beforea very hostile audience, Catherine kepther composure, making a memorablecomment about not believing in “thebig spook in the sky.” She debunkedthe “no atheists in foxholes” myth byrecounting how she was threatenedwith murder by a break-in intruderwith a gun in San Antonio, yet neverappealed to a supernatural deity.
Long before the Foundation’s bill-board campaign, Catherine hit upon a“banner idea”—placing a FreedomFrom Religion Foundation bannerover a major intersection to protest 27Catholic banners on city lampposts.That activism resulted in journalistCraig Phelon’s exceptional “Portrait ofan Atheist” cover story in the SanAntonio Express-News Magazine in1991, the cover of which is framed atFreethought Hall.
Among the quotable quotes in thatarticle was Catherine’s revelation, afterpreviewing The Golden Book of BibleStories, that she couldn’t read thisbook to her children: “I’m nicer thanGod!”
“We would be 1,500 years ahead if ithadn’t been for the church draggingscience back by its coattails and burn-ing our best minds at the stake.”
Catherine’s 1993 coup was theplacement in City Hall of a beautifullyframed plaque quoting Thomas Jeffer-son and honoring the separation ofchurch and state. She managed to getboth Govs. George W. Bush and AnnRichards to issue “Freethought Week”proclamations. Now that’s an activist!
When the Gulf War was launched,Catherine wrote a moving tribute topeace for Freethought Today. Shedescribed how her military father waskilled on a prison ship during World
War II by “friendly fire,”—after surviv-ing the Bataan Death March and threeyears in a Japanese prison camp.“Fighting for peace is oxymoronic,”Catherine wrote. “We need to plan forpeace, and live for peace and teachpeace.”
She was a lung cancer survivor, los-ing one lung and part of another in1992, the year we were scheduled tohave FFRF’s convention in SanAntonio. Posting a letter against the“Virgin Mary-itis” striking San Antoniowas the last thing she attended tobefore her major surgery. Despite herillness, she arranged to erect a “Wel-come Freedom From Religion Found-ation” banner where you couldn’t missit. I have long said I don’t believe inGod, but I do believe in the power ofCatherine!
Her father’s death was one of sever-al tragedies to befall Catherine. Shespoke to me only fleetingly of the lossof her beloved daughter, Devon, whodied in her 20s trying to rescue an ani-mal on a highway.
Catherine made friends for free-thought wherever she went, and hadso much to share. We were so lucky sheshared herself with us—her intelli-gence, her drive to keep religion fromruining America, her friendship.
One of her last pieces for Free-thought Today decried the Christiani-zation of obituaries, the wretched eu-phemisms that even secular folk oftenunwittingly pick up, such as “passingon.” Catherine phoned me theevening she received her pancreaticcancer diagnosis last October, and didnot mince words: “I’m going to die.”
While she was an atheist in a fox-hole, fully accepting of her mortality,she did so long to have time to put heraffairs in order. Tragically, this wasdenied her. The intense, unnecessarysuffering Catherine went throughuntil her death on Dec. 13 should be awake up call: we must embrace com-passionate death with dignity. Hospicecare works for some; it didn’t forCatherine.
Catherine especially wanted herbooks to go to the Foundation, andshe died knowing that had happened,thanks to Sally Chizek and JoeLaBonte. The Foundation received 18boxes of Catherine’s wonderful library,the library of a thinker, including anintact collection of Ingersoll.
In writing of one of her manystate/church adventures for our news-paper, Catherine ended with thisencouragement: “If we hang in withsweet determination, we will probablyend up as a respectable segment ofsociety. And wouldn’t that be loverly?”
Catherine’s sweet determination,her desire to “bond with people whoare emotional about ideas,” her senseof fun, made a huge difference to ourfreethought movement.
Catherine was forward-thinking andknew how important it is to nurturethe next generation of freethinkers.The Foundation is creating theCatherine Fahringer Memorial YouthActivist Award of $1,000, to be be-stowed annually upon a worthy youngactivist who hangs in there with sweetdetermination.
Annie Laurie Gaylor is co-president,with Dan Barker, of the Foundation.
Catherine’s SweetDetermination
Pretty baby
Teenaged Catherine (left)
Catherine lived abroad during much of her youth and early marriage
