Tim Thomas: “I stand with the Catholics in the fight for religious freedom”

Three weeks after skipping his team’s White House visit and posting an anti-government statement on Facebook, Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas posted another political message on the social media website.

The message, in its entirety, from The Official Tim Thomas Page:

I Stand with the Catholics in the fight for Religious Freedom.

“In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

– by Martin Niemöller, prominent German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor, best known as the author of the poem First they came….

Thomas’ post could be in response to President Barack Obama’s new rule on contraceptives that requires health insurance plans, including those offered by Catholic charities, hospitals and universities, to provide birth control to women.

On Wednesday, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner — who is Catholic — blasted the new rule, saying, “This attack by the federal government on religious freedom in our country cannot stand and will not stand.”

Thomas’s Facebook page was created in Oct. 2011 and has been regularly updated with some of his favorite quotes, including ones from Theodore Roosevelt, George S. Patton and Ronald Reagan, among others.

Some people don’t think this is newsworthy, but it’s up on Deadspin so we thought we’d pass it along.