Daily Archives: June 16, 2017

Robotic Testing of Mobile Apps for Truly Black-Box Automation – InfoQ.com

Posted: June 16, 2017 at 3:11 pm

Key Takeaways

This article first appeared inIEEE Softwaremagazine.IEEE Softwareoffers solid, peer-reviewed information about today's strategic technology issues. To meet the challenges of running reliable, flexible enterprises, IT managers and technical leads rely on IT Pro for state-of-the-art solutions.

Robots are widely used for many repetitive tasks. Why not software testing? Robotic testing could give testers a new form of testing thats inherently more black-box than anything witnessed previously. Toward that end, we developed Axiz, a robotic-test generator for mobile apps. Here, we compare our approach with simulation-based test automation, describe scenarios in which robotic testing is bene cial (or even essential), and tell how we applied Axiz to the popular Google Calculator app.

Robotic testing can address the profound shift1,2 from desktop to mobile computation. This trend is projected to gather steam,3 accelerated by a concomitant shift from desktop to mobile-device ownership. Automated software testing is needed more than ever in this emerging mobile world. However, we might need to rethink some of the principles of software testing.

Mobile devices enable rich user interaction inputs such as gestures through touchscreens and various signals through sensors (GPS, accelerometers, barometers, neareld communication, and so on). They serve a wide range of users in heterogeneous and dynamic contexts

such as geographical locations and neworking infrastructures. To adequately explore and uncover bugs, testing must be able to take into account complex interactions with various sensors uder a range of testing contexts. A suvey of mobile-app development indcated that practical mobile-app testing currently relies heavily on manual tesing, with its inherent inef ciencies and biases.4 Frameworks such as Appium (appium.io), Robotium (github.com /RobotiumTech/robotium), and UIAtomator (developer.android.com/topic /libraries/testing-support-library/index .html#UIAutomator) can partly support automatic test execution. However, they rely on human test script design, thereby creating a bottleneck.

Fortunately, many advances in atomated Android testing research have recently occurred.58 However, these techniques use intrusive (partly or fully white-box) approaches to execute the generated test cases. They also assume that testing tools will enjoy developelevel permissions, which isnt always the case.

Many such techniques need to modify the app code or even the mobile OS, while even the most black-box of approaches communicate with the app under test (AUT) through a test harness. This isnt truly black-box because it relies on a machine-to-machine interface between the test harness and AUT.

A truly black-box approach would make no assumptions, relying only on the device-level cyber-physical iterface between the human and app. Testing at this abstraction level also more closely emulates the experience of real users and thus might yield more realistic test cases. Furthemore, such an approach is inherently device independent, a considerable benefit in situations that might ivolve more than 2,000 different dvices under test.9

Handheld devices require rethinking what black-box testing really means. Their user experience is so different from that of desktop applications that existing machine-to-machine black-box test generation lacks the realism, usage context sensitivity, and cross-platform exibility needed to quickly and cheaply generate ationable test cases.

This section sets out a manifesto for robotic testing in which the geerated test cases execute in a truly black-box (entirely nonintrusive) manner. Table 1 compares manual, simulation-based, and robotic testing.

For Android testing, MonkeyLab generates test cases based on app usage data.10 Researchers have also published several approaches to geerating realistic automated test input for web-based systems.11 However, these automated test-input-based systems dont target mobile plaforms, and the overall body of lierature on automated test input geeration has paid comparatively little attention to test case realism.

A developer wont act on a test sequence that reveals a crash if he or she believes that the sequence is unrealistic. Also, all automated test data generation might suffer from unrealistic tests owing to iadequate domain knowledge. Mbile computing introduces an aditional problem: a human simply might not be able to perform the tests. For example, they might require simultaneous clicking with more than five fingers.

In comparison, a robotic test harness can physically simulate hman hand gestures. Although there might be some human gestures a robot cant make (and others that a robot can make but no human can replicate), the robotic gestures will at least be physical gestures. As such, those gestures will be closer to true human interaction than the virtual gestures simulated by current nonrbotic test environments, which siply spit a generated sequence of events at the AUT.

Existing white-box and (claimed) black-box automated testing rquires modifying the behavior of the AUT, the platform, or both. Even techniques regarded as blacbox communicate with apps though simulated signals rather than signals triggered through real sensors (for example, touchscreens or gravity sensors) on mobile devices.

As we mentioned before, robotic testing uses the same cyber-physical interface as the human user. Its also less vulnerable to changes in the underlying platform, API intefaces, and implementation details. In a world where time to market is critical, the ability to quickly dploy on different platforms is a cosiderable advantage.

Human-based testing is consideably expensive yet enjoys much ralism and device independence. In contrast, current automated test data generation is relatively inexpensive, relying only on computation time, yet it lacks realism and device indpendence. Robotic testing seeks the best costbene t ratio and combines the best aspects of human-based testing and machine-to-machine atomated testing.

Although robotic technology has historically proven expensive, were witnessing a rapid decrease in robotic technologys cost. Crowsourcing, too, is reducing the cost of human-based testing12 but is ulikely to ultimately be cheaper than robotic testing.

Traditional automated testing makes a number of assumptions about the system under test, whereas humabased test data generation makes fewer assumptions. Robotic testing is much closer to human-based tesing in the number of assumptions made, yet its ability to generate large numbers of test cases cheaply is much closer to existing autmated testing.

Figure 1 shows the Axiz architeture, which contains two high-level components: the robotic-test genertor and robotic-test executor.

The robotic-test generator analyzes the AUT and uses the extracted iformation (including app categories, static strings, and APIs) to adjust a realism model. This model uses prviously collected empirical data cotaining known realistic test cases.

Tabel 1:Criteria to consider when choosing manual, simulation-based, or robotic testing

On the basis of observations of human usage, we compute a coprehensive list of properties (for eample, the delay between two adja-cent events, event types, and event patterns) that capture the underlying real-world test cases characteristics and properties. We hope these characteristics capture what it is to be ralistic, so that Axiz can use them to guide and constrain automated test data generation.

Figure1. The architecture of the Axiz robotic-testing system. The robotic-test generator generates realistic tests. The robotic-test executor lters out unexecutable tests and executes the rest.

The robotic-test generator passes the realism model and AUT to the evolutionary-search component, which generates and evolves test cases. These test cases realism derives from two aspects of our approach. First, by reusing and extending ralistic test cases (for example, Rbotium or Appium test scripts), we draw on previous tests manually written by the app testers. Second, by searching a solution space costrained by the realism model, we focus on generating test cases that meet the constraints identi ed ealier from crowdsourced tests.

We evaluate the generated test cases tness on the basis of their performance (such as code coverage and fault revelation) and realism as assessed by the realism model.

We further validate the test case cadidates by executing them on a physcal device so that they interact with itin much the same way users or maual testers might do. The robotitest executor translates the coded test scripts into machine-executable commands for the robot and then eecutes them on a robotic arm.

The arm interacts with the mbile device nonintrusively, just as a human would. This process requires inverse kinematics and calibration components to make the manipultor act accurately. A camera montors the mobile-device states. The robotic-test executor further prcesses image data from a camera through computer vision techniques, which perform object detection and oracle comparison.

Finally, the robotic-test executor sends the overall process data logged during the execution process to the test lter to determine whether the candidate test case is executable in a real-world setting. If not, the executor filters it out. Otherwise, Axiz saves the test for reuse.

We implemented a prototype of Axiz to demonstrate the systems feasibiity (see Figure 2). We built our implementation entirely from commoity hardware components, which are inexpensive, widely available, and interchangeable. We use 3D visiobased self-calibration13 to help calbrate and adjust the robotic maniulator to keep the system working reliably and to serve as input to the oracle comparator.

The manipulator is a four-axis Arduino-based robotic arm. Its driven by stepper motors with a psition repeatability of 0.2 mm. The maximum speed of movement for each axis ranges from 115 to 210 dgrees per second (when loaded with a 200-g load, a sufficient maximum for most mobile devices). At the arms end is a stylus pen that simlates nger-based gestures.

An external CMOS 1,080-pixel camera monitors the test execution. We run the test generator and robot controller on a MacBook Pro laptop with a 2.3-GHz CPU and 16 Gbytes of RAM.

We employ inverse kinematics (in Python) for robotic-arm control. The object detector and oracle compartor are implemented on top of the OpenCV library. The robotic-test generator employs NSGA-II (Nodominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II), a widely used multi-objective gnetic algorithm, for multi-objective search-based software testing, uing our (currently state-of-the-art) tool Sapienz.8 This tool generates sequences of test events that achieve high coverage and fault revelation with minimized test sequence length.

The Google Calculator app has had5 to 10 million installs.14 Although its simple, its a nontrivial real-world app and thus illustrates the potential for truly black-box robotic testing.

We used the robotic-test genertor to generate realistic tests, which we executed using the robotic mnipulator. The device under test was a Nexus 7 tablet, with normal user pemissions and the of cial Android OS (without modi cation). For comparson, we introduced another Nexus 7 on which we allowed more tradtional intrusive testing. The second Nexus 7 was directly connected to the robot controller on the MacBook. The test tool for it had developer-level privileges and could modify the OS.

Figure 3 illustrates this process. The MacBooks interpreter compnent translated the event instructions into motion speci cations for the robotic-arm controller. That cotroller then transformed the specifications into joint angle instructions on the basis of inverse kinematics. As Figure 3 shows, the robotic arm touched the buttons on the rst Nexus 7 to perform testing. The oacle comparator witnessed each test event. After each step of the test eecution, it captured images through the external camera and validated the mobile-GUI states.

Axiz accurately executed each test event speci ed in the generated robotic-test cases and passed the rquired oracle checkpoints, faithfully maximizing Sapienzs abilities.

Figure2. Testing mobile apps with a four-axis robotic arm. We built our implementation entirely from commodity hardware components, which are inexpensive, widely available, and interchangeable.

Avideo of Axiz perforing this testing is here.In it, we demostrate Axiz side by side with a trditional automated-testing tool that doesnt use a robot arm but simply produces a sequence of events. Thevideo demonstrates that the robotic arm, built from cheap commodity hardware, can physically produce the same set of events, but more ralistically, thereby achieving greater device independence and realism.

We thank Andreas Zeller for his invited talk at the 36th CREST (Centre for Rsearch on Evolution, Search and Testing) Open Workshop,15 during which he prsented a playful video of a disembodied synthetic human hand automatically iteracting with a mobile device. This was one of the inspirations for our research.

KeMaois a research student at the Centre for Research on Evolution, Search and Testing (CREST) at University College London. Contact him at k.mao@cs.ucl.ac.uk.

MarkHarmanis the director of the Centre for Research on Evolution, Search and Testing (CREST) at University College London. Contact him at mark.harman@ucl.ac.uk.

YueJiais a lecturer of software engineering at the Centre for Research on Evolution, Search and Testing (CREST) at University College London. Contact him at yue.jia@ucl.ac.uk.

This article first appeared inIEEE Softwaremagazine.IEEE Softwareoffers solid, peer-reviewed information about today's strategic technology issues. To meet the challenges of running reliable, flexible enterprises, IT managers and technical leads rely on IT Pro for state-of-the-art solutions.

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No time to work – The Hindu

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No time to work
The Hindu
Nonetheless, the scepticism aroused by the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016 over the government's commitment towards complete abolition of child labour will persist. The ILO treaties are about the minimum age at which a ...

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Poroshenko instructs Cabinet to verify work of simplified registration of medicines – Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news

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President Petro Poroshenko has instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to verify the efficiency of abolition of additional registration for the foreign drugs registered in the countries of the EU and G7.

This has been reported by the press service of the Head of State.

"I instruct the Government to thoroughly verify the efficiency of abolition of additional registration for the best foreign drugs and their prices," Petro Poroshenko said. He added that the government officials must explain the difference in prices in case there is one.

The Head of State noted that the medical system requires urgent reform. However, several important steps in this issue have already been made: registration of drugs registered in the EU and G7 countries has been abolished. "This is a resolute step to overcome corruption and bureaucracy," the President emphasized.

ish

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EU abolishes roaming charges across Europe – Myjoyonline.com

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Huge telephone bills ruining your holiday budget, an Internet connection not delivering on its promises: these experiences will be soon old memories.The EU has reached an agreement to abolish roaming charges across Europe from June 2017.

The announcement follows a statement from the European Council earlier this year in which it was indicated that the charges would remain in some form until 2018, but Wednesday's agreement brings that date forward by more than a year.

Welcoming the agreement, The EU Commission Vice-President for the Digital Single Market AndrusAnsip, said, "Europeans have been calling and waiting for the end of roaming charges as well as for net neutrality rules. They have been heard. We still have a lot of work ahead of us to create a Digital Single Market. Our plans to make it happen were fully endorsed by Heads of State and Government last week, and we should move faster than ever on this."

The EU Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, Gnther H.Oettinger, said: "I welcome today's crucial agreement to finally end roaming charges and establish pragmatic net neutrality rules throughout the EU. Both are essential for consumers and businesses in todays European digital economy and society. We will build on these important foundations in our forthcoming review of the EU's telecoms legislation."

The EU has worked steadily over the past number of years to tackle roaming charges on behalf of consumers.

Since the 2007 introduction of the Eurotariff, charges have been consistently reduced as caps were placed on the maximum permissible amount operators could impose on consumers. Themost recent reduction came into effect in July 2014.

These caps have seen fees for roaming drop by 80% since 2007, with data roaming charges in particular falling by up to 91%. For context, the data roaming market has grown by 630% in that time period.

As part of its Connected Continent drive, the EU is working to develop a telecoms single market.

Ending roaming charges has been a priority for some time, as it seeks to remove barriers to mobile phone use abroad. It is hoped that not only will this alleviate a burden on consumers, but also provide greater accessibility for businesses and start-ups to sell online to consumers travelling abroad.

The agreement will see roaming charges cease to exist in the EU from 15thJune 2017. In order to achieve this, a number of technical conditions must be fulfilled.

Most particularly, the institutions are seeking a thorough review of the wholesale roaming market so as to ensure that the abolition of roaming fees is sustainable throughout the Member States.

The agreement also proposes a fair use safeguard. This is with a view to preventing permanent roaming, i.e. situations where a consumer buys a SIM card in another Member State in order to avail of favourable domestic tariffs in their country of residence, or a consumer continuing to use a domestic subscription while based abroad.

Under the fair use safeguard, a usage limit will be put in place and once this is reached, operators may then charge a small basic fee. The Commission stressed that this fee will be much lower than current caps and will likely be further decreased over time.

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The Power of Personal Connections in the Dark Age of Trump – Common Dreams

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The Power of Personal Connections in the Dark Age of Trump
Common Dreams
... of life to communicate in empowering ways. In my experience, I have to thank Facebook live and all of the activists who facilitate this communication platform, for helping me to find that outlet for personal empowerment through communicative ...

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Use Vocational Skills To Generate Personal Income And Employ Others Aisha Buhari Tells Women – NTA News

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Wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Muhammadu Buhari has called on women to use vocational skills to generate income for themselves and employ other women. She was speaking at the graduation ceremony of the Women Empowerment Programme of Future Assured in Lagos state on Thursday 16th June, 2017.

Mrs. Buhari said the beneficiaries of the training should look beyond generating income to creating employment.

The empowerment training for Lagos women, which graduated 2200 women in various skills is the second in the series organized to hold around the country. Kano has concluded its own training recently.

Speaking through Wife of the Governor of Lagos state, Mrs. Bolanle Ambode, Mrs. Buhari said the empowerment of women helps them to be more self-confident and puts them in a position to assist their spouses in family upkeep, thereby making them more relevant in their respective homes.

The skills acquired by the women include hair braiding, manicure, pedicure and weaving, tie and dye, soap and pomade making, as well as catering and sewing. Others include hat making, bead stringing and cap making.

Also speaking at the event, Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs, Princess Adejoke Adefulire, commended Mrs. Buhari for using her personal resources for the public good. She said an empowered woman has enough muscle to do more for her home by assisting with family upkeep. She also believes that women empowerment reduces cases of domestic violence.

Mrs. Adefulire called on the women to imbibe the culture of putting their hands to work, rather than expect handouts.

Some of the beneficiaries who spoke at the event thanked Mrs. Buhari for her kind gesture. Kenny St. Brown, a popular artist said she joined the catering class and learnt local and international cuisine, such that today she can organize group feeding even at short notice. She called on women to have a skill-based pastime even when they are well-to-do. Mrs. Florence Otu, another beneficiary who learnt fashion design, called on other influential Nigerians to toe the line of the Wife of the President by empowering women both with skills training and start up packs or fund.

Highlight of the occasion included the presentation of certificates to beneficiaries and inspection of their finished products.

Suleiman Haruna

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MetroWest Business Briefs for June 16, 2017 – MetroWest Daily News

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RTN Federal holds Walk Home for the Homeless

Nearly 200 walkers, volunteers and staff participated in RTN Federal Credit Unions seventh annual Walk Home for the Homeless. The 5K walk events took place simultaneously in three locations Danvers Rail Trail, Dorchester Park and Waltham Common. Each walk began with an opening program featuring remarks from local officials, and senior executives from the credit union and the coalition. Walk Home funds are collected through the RTN GoodWorks Foundation and donated to help homeless teens and families in Danvers, Dorchester and Waltham, and support the work of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless. RTN has raised more $140,000 since the inception of Walk Home in 2011. With these funds, 367 children have received a new bed of their own through A Bed for Every Child, 15,568 articles of clothing have been distributed to homeless youth through the Teen Closet and 720 new t-shirts, sweatshirts and weather outerwear has filled the Teen Closet.

Legislative Breakfast announced

The Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce will hold the Legislative Breakfast from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. June 21 at the Charles F. Minney VFW Post 3329, 16 S. Main St., Millbury. Cost: $25 for members, $35 for nonmembers. To register: administrator@blackstonevalley.org 508-234-9090.

Womens Empowerment Luncheon announced

The Womens Empowerment Luncheon featuring Carol Ann Morse will take place from 11:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Aug. 4 at 110 Grill, 171 Commonwealth Road, Wayland. Cost: $25 for members, $35 for nonmembters. Morses journey to creating the Jarfette Jacket Scarf began when she was just 4, learning how to sew on a single treadle machine. Frustrated to find something to cover her arms whilst wearing a sleeveless dress, she designed a jacket scarf so she would have sleeves. On a whim, she inserted one sleeve into the other and realized that the jacket scarf could convert into 9 styles. When she added magnetic buttons to keep it in place, the 9 style, patent pending, Jarfette jacket scarf was born. Morse will share her personal story of entrepreneurship with the MetroWest Chamber Women's Empowerment group.

Northborough Crossing to host Cinema Under the Stars

Those interested can enjoy free family-friendly features at Northborough Crossing, 9012 Shops Way, with the centers Summertime Cinema Under the Stars on June 16, July 14 and Aug. 25, with interactive activities starting at 6 p.m. and feature films at sunset (8:15 p.m. on June 16 and July 14; and 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 25). Recent releases will include everything superheros to animation. For information: http://northboroughcrossing.com.

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Pope Honors Religious Freedom Champion – The Cardinal Newman Society

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Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) founder Alan Sears and his wife, Paula, have been chosen by Pope Francis for the highest possible honor the Catholic Church bestows on laypeople. The couple will be knighted into the Order of St. Gregory the Great.

ADF has been an extraordinary help to Catholic educators and The Cardinal Newman Society over the past decade, as Catholic schools and colleges faced serious threats to their mission and religious freedom, said Newman Society President Patrick Reilly. What the Sears have accomplished by their hard work, generosity and deep faith in Christ is a testament to Gods grace and mercy. The honor is much-deserved.

The pope is the only person who can bestow the honor upon those who have shown, by their sustained service, extraordinary love for Jesus Christ and His Church in their communities and countries.

Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix will formally convey the honor on behalf of Pope Francis at St. Bernadette Parish in Scottsdale, Az., on June 29.

The Cardinal Newman Society regularly consults ADF on legal issues regarding religious freedom. ADF was instrumental in helping the Newman Society oppose the U.S. Education Departments transgender bathroom mandate which was withdrawn earlier this year. Under the Obama administration, ADF and the Newman Society encouraged Catholic colleges to obtain advance religious exemption letters from the Education Department to ensure protection before legal disputes arose.

The Newman Society has also been a vocal supporter of ADFs case challenging a discriminatory Blaine Amendment in Missouris state constitution. The case will go before the U.S. Supreme Court this year to decide if the state can rely on the historically anti-Catholic constitutional provision in its denial of a grant to a Christian preschool. The case has great importance to Catholic schools and colleges across the country.

By investing Sears in the Order of St. Gregory the Great, Pope Francis highlights the importance of those who defend religious freedom.

Paula and I are more than humbled by this honor, Alan Sears said in a press release. Christians and people of goodwill everywhere should have the freedom to live what they believe and to follow their conscience.

We have counted it a privilege, with Gods grace, to do our part to protect these freedoms, Sears said. Pope Francis repeatedly has spoken strongly about religious liberty, marriage and family, and the sanctity of life, so it is a distinct honor to be recognized by him for our work in those areas.

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The North Korea detainee’s final moments of freedom – New York Post

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Newly released images show former North Korea detainee Otto Warmbier smiling with his tour group and throwing snowballs, before he was taken prisoner by the hermit nation.

A short video clip, released Thursday by Warmbiers brother, shows the 22-year-old University of Virginia student playing in the snow with friends in North Korea sometime in January 2016.

I wanted to share one final thing today before we take time to be alone as a family. This is the last video we have of Otto enjoying life before his imprisonment.

It was taken in North Korea with members of his tour group, Warmbiers younger brother Austin said as he released the video, according to The Daily Mail.

This is the Otto I know and love. This is my brother.

The video is believed to be the last clip of the Wyoming native before he was jailed for removing a propaganda poster from a hotel in 2016 and left comatose after 18 months in a North Korean prison.

Warmbier was released from the rogue country on Tuesday.

His father, Fred Warmbier, said his son had been brutalized and terrorized by Kim Jong Uns regime.

Doctors at a Cincinnati hospital where Warmbier is being treated said the young man is suffering from severe brain injuries.

He is in a state of unresponsive wakefulness, his doctors said.

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US bishops vote to make religious freedom committee permanent – Crux: Covering all things Catholic

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INDIANAPOLIS The U.S. bishops voted on Thursday to make their Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty a permanent committee of the national bishops conference.

The very idea of religious freedom and its root in human nature is challenged today, said Archbishop Lori, chair of the ad hoc committee, at a meeting of the U.S. bishops Thursday.

He added, how important it is that we remain in the public square through advocacy for the freedom of religious institutions to fight poverty, provide health care and education, serve immigrants, and protect human life.

In 2011, the ad hoc committee was formed for a period of three years, as the bishops were deeply concerned about a broad trend of threats to religious freedom on the local and national level, Lori noted, speaking at the annual spring general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Indianapolis.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his address to U.S. bishops in January of 2012 during their ad limina visit, warned of grave threats to the Churchs public moral witness presented by a radical secularism where there were certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion.

Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices, the pope said. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

The U.S. bishops voted in 2014 to extend the committee for another three-year period. Then on Thursday, they voted to make the committee permanent by a vote of 132-53, with five bishops abstaining.

Most notably, the committee established the annual Fortnight for Freedom, a two-week campaign of prayer, penance, and advocacy for the Churchs continued freedom to serve in the public square, starting on June 21, the eve of the feasts of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher, and ending on July 4, Independence Day.

One of the most notable threats the ad hoc committee warned of was the contraceptive mandate. The Department of Health and Human Services, interpreting the Affordable Care Act, had issued rules under the Obama administration that employer health plans had to cover sterilizations, contraceptives, and drugs that can cause abortions.

While churches and their immediate auxiliaries were exempt from the mandate, many religious institutions, including hospitals, universities, and charities, were not. Changes to the regulation offered by the Obama administration still violated the religious beliefs of the Catholic organizations, bishops and Church leaders contended.

In May, President Donald Trump promised regulatory relief from the mandate for religious non-profits like the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The struggle against the HHS mandate is not over, Lori warned on Thursday. Victory is not assured.

The promised relief could change with another presidential administration who could again enforce the mandate against religious groups, the archbishop said.

And other threats to religious freedom persist, he said, like the legalization of same-sex marriage, which could pose problems for religious institutions that uphold the Churchs teaching on marriage.

The archbishop cited then-Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who admitted during oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, that there could be an issue with the tax-exempt status of religious universities teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman, if same-sex marriage were the law of the land.

Some bishops voiced their strong support for the committee on Thursday, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who chaired the USCCB when the committee was formed, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. The most recent president of the USCCB, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, also supported making the committee permanent.

The bishops of the world look to us, Dolan told his fellow bishops, to be the real quarterbacks in defense of religious freedom.

A few bishops voiced objections to making the committee permanent in the discussions before the vote on Thursday.

Several were concerned about how it would appear to make the religious liberty committee permanent at the same time that the bishops working group on immigration, begun in November, finished its formal work.

However, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, vice president of the conference, clarified later on Thursday at an afternoon press conference that the working group will continue, although Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Houston-Galveston, president of the conference who had begun the working group last November, had not specified a timeline for how long it would continue.

Furthermore, Lori stressed, the conference already has a standing Committee on Migration. The important thing is that as the sun sets, theres a permanent committee in place, because we understand the questions of migration are permanent, he said.

Bishop Christopher Coyne of Burlington, Vermont also voiced concerns that funding for the religious freedom committee could eventually dry up, while Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark said that domestic religious freedom concerns can be handled by the domestic policy committee, referring to the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

I am not convinced that there is a need at this time for it, he said of the religious freedom committee.

Bishop Francis Kalabat of the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle in Detroit strongly supported extending the committee, however.

There are currently 60 million refugees in the world, he said. What percentage of them came as a result of a lack of religious freedom?

Who you back up, or who backs you up, is who gives you the strength in the Middle East, he said, noting that if the U.S. shows strong support for religious freedom, it also shows support for persecuted Christians elsewhere.

Religious freedom, Lori stressed, covers a wide spectrum of ministries, a wide spectrum of advocacy, and there is need for some consistency for a clearing house and a clear voice.

Religious liberty is a concept that really relates to ones fundamental stance towards God, he said, that first and primal relationship towards God. As Dignitatis Humanae states, he noted, religious freedom is rooted in human nature and granted by God as a fundamental human endowment.

On Thursday, the bishops also voted to approve new guidelines for the celebration of the sacraments of persons with disabilities.

The new guidelines were said to pay deeper attention to allergy problems, for example the gluten intolerance or alcohol intolerance of a communicant. They encouraged parishes to be more aware and accommodating of persons with disabilities in the distribution of the sacraments.

Kurtz tweeted on Thursday that the National Catholic Partners on Disability were excited about the revised guidelines.

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