Starting with the inaugural Fortnight for Freedom, this year’s Religious Freedom Week from June 22-29 marks the 10th year in a row that the Catholic Church in the United States has given special prominence to the protection of religious belief and practice. During his visit to Washington in 2015, Pope Francis’ first public words likewise called for the preservation and defense of religious liberty. Why? What is so important about religious freedom?
During the coronavirus crisis, governments across the country restricted houses of worship, deeming religion to be a “non-essential” practice when, in fact, it is the most essential of all activities. Again, why is religious liberty so important – so essential – not only for some people, for believers who want to live their faith without undue constraint, but for all people, nonbelievers as well?
First, it should be understood that religious liberty is not granted to us by government, but is intrinsic to our human nature, as recognized in the Declaration of Independence. The Second Vatican Council similarly affirmed that “the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person” (Dignitatis Humanae, 2).
Moreover, notwithstanding political and cultural attempts to reduce it to worship alone, religious freedom also involves the right of individuals, groups and institutions to be respected in their religious identity and live out their faith and conscience in the community, including doing good and not being obliged to do wrong. It includes the independence of the church from the state, with ministerial freedom in charitable service, education, healthcare, and proposing a better way of life: the way of justice and the good of the human person, human dignity, and the transcendent natural order, without which society would suffer.
Even more fundamentally, religious liberty can be said to be the first and most essential of all freedoms for believers and nonbelievers alike because, as the Council affirmed, it is concerned with seeking and living in the truth (Dignitatis Humanae, 2-3). Indeed, the patron saints of religious liberty, Thomas More and John Fisher, were executed when they refused the king’s demand that they publicly proclaim what they knew to be untrue – that his marriage to Queen Catherine was invalid.
It may seem such a minor thing, but it is only in truth that we are genuinely free (John 8:32). Furthermore, Pope Francis asks, “In the absence of objective truths or sound principles other than the satisfaction of our own desires and immediate needs, what limits can be placed on human trafficking, organized crime, the drug trade, commerce in blood diamonds and the fur of endangered species?” (Laudato Si’, 123).
In our time of challenge to religion in the public square, there is need for all people to come together in solidarity in defense of religious freedom against a multitude of violations and threats, including at least 78 incidents of vandalism and destruction at Catholic churches in 25 states since May 2020. However, there are also lights of hope.
The past year of COVID saw governments imposing severe restrictions on churches, synagogues and mosques that were not imposed on some secular sectors of society. Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against this unequal and unjust treatment, and the Archdiocese of Washington itself received judicial relief to ensure the faithful’s access to the sacraments.
Another set of major challenges are moves around the country to give special privileges for favored groups while discriminating against entities and people who have a different worldview, demanding that they act against their beliefs, identities and missions in order to fully participate in society or to avoid some penalty. In particular, the so-called “Equality Act” introduced in Congress and other proposals in Maryland, D.C. and elsewhere would force institutions from the Archdiocese to everyday businesses to conform their practices to the government’s ideas of gender and sexuality. These measures would also essentially erase existing legal protections for women and girls, unfairly require women and girls to compete in sports against people who are objectively male, violate sexual privacy, and control what people say, among other things. The Equality Act would even go so far as to expressly repeal federal statutory protections for religious liberty. To learn more about what you can do to stand up for freedom in opposition to this harmful legislation, go to: www.usccb.org/equality-act.
In our pluralistic society, we must be free to protect our religious mission and identity. Religious freedom is part of our American heritage and we rejoice in the constitutional protection of our liberties, but we cannot take those safeguards for granted. We must work to preserve freedom against these threats. Many are joining together to do just that, and it is important that we do our part, not only for Religious Freedom Week, but always. This is part of the mission entrusted to us. There can be no free and just society without our making it so.
(Mark Rothe is an analyst with the Archdiocese of Washington Office of Public Policy and the D.C. Catholic Conference.)
