The intensifying assault on religious freedom in America and the Western world in general, which is prosecuted by the cultural left in the name of moral autonomy, is surely the gravest threat American Christians have ever known. A considerable part of the American academic, legal, and entertainment worlds, now supported by corporate America as well, spearheads and sustains the assault. These enemies of religious liberty believe that God’s lordship over his creatures and his commands to his people are cruel and a barrier to progress, and must be excluded from society, eventually to be stamped out even in private belief. This means the assault will be long-term, and – as Archbishop William E. Lori, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty has said – the struggle to preserve and recover religious freedom is for neither “the faint-hearted nor the impatient.”
A persevering and organized response is crucially important in this severe situation. Part of the answer is the legal service organizations that have emerged to defend Christians and others whose religious liberty is legally attacked as a threat to the public good, alternative news sources that present a fair picture of the erosion of traditional freedoms which the mainstream media present as social progress, and advocacy agencies for religious liberty such as those that exist in the Catholic Church and Southern Baptist Convention. But another is recurring events advocating and celebrating religious liberty.
The Fortnight for Freedom, a series of masses, prayer services, lectures and special prayers which is now being held annually in the Catholic Church, bounded by the feasts of the martyrdom of St. John Fisher (June 22), and St. Thomas More (July 6), is such an event. It has been held under the sponsorship of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops each year since the Obama Administration announced its requirements that religious organizations other than churches provide free contraceptives and abortifacients (abortion inducing drugs) in their medical plans.
Opening mass for the Fortnight this year was held on June 21 at the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore, and was celebrated by Archbishop Lori. Lori focused on the two martyrs especially associated with the Fortnight, Fisher and More, both of whom were executed by King Henry VIII of England because they refused to take an oath recognizing the king as supreme head of the church in England, thus displacing the pope, and establishing the state as the final authority in the church and in all religious matters. Lori emphasized that with both saints, it was not sufficient to remain silent and not oppose the Act of Supremacy. Rather it was necessary for them to take positive action in violation of their consciences in order to comply with the law. This is an obvious parallel to today, when Catholic agencies are required to take positive action to contribute to what Catholic teaching holds to be sinful. As with the sixteenth century saints, compliance, at least initial compliance, is made easy. Then one needed only take an oath, while today “all one has to do is sign a paper, we are told, and all will be well, a so-called accommodation that makes religious health care plans the vehicle for the delivery of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraceptives.”
But as Lori suggested, compliance with a state requirement to disobey God cannot be expected to end with a simple, easy act violating God’s commands (although this would still be absolutely wrong). It might be noted as well that for the early Christians, no extensive involvement in pagan religion was required of them, nor were the Roman imperial authorities intent on prohibiting Christian religious practices. What was incomprehensible and intolerable to the Roman Empire was refusal to pay homage to the emperor, which was a short and simple act of worship. But in acknowledging Caesar as lord, ancient people were acknowledging him as the final authority in all things – something Christians can never do for the state or anything else, as Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia pointed out in his homily in the first Fortnight for Freedom in 2012.
The secularist assertion of state authority over Christian faith today involves much more than a single, simple act of sinful compliance. Today there is, as Archbishop Lori said, “the plight of medical professionals whose rights of conscience are increasingly violated; or individuals whose businesses suffer because they uphold traditional marriage; or the exclusion of Catholic adoption services because they too uphold the Church’s teaching on marriage; or an increasing tendency to label Christian doctrine as ‘hate speech’ – something that in fact happens in our neighbor to the north, in Canada.”
A difference and a problem for Christians today might seem to be that while earlier persecutions focused on required involvement in non-Christian religions, today’s persecution is presented as an extension of freedom, as giving others freedom to live in ways Biblical Christianity declares to be sinful. Conscientious refusal to contribute to this is then held to be “imposing” one’s views on others. But even this is not new. Lori noted that the early Christians “led lives of deep charity yet found themselves accused by the Roman Empire of ‘hating humanity’”. Like the early Christians, Christians today find that it is not sufficient to live peaceably with the pagan world, they are required to affirm it as well, or the world feels injured. Our only harm to the world, like that of the early Christians, is our ultimate allegiance to God and our condemnation of sin. Freedom from condemnation and assistance in what others find morally objectionable is a freedom that no one should have.
Archbishop Lori also noted the hard, violent, bloody persecution against Christians and other religious believers in ancient times, in the twentieth century by the totalitarian Nazi and communist ideologies, and in the contemporary non-Western world, especially in the Middle East. He point out what advocates of religious freedom, and Pope Francis in particular, have noted, that “there are more martyrs for the faith in our times than there were during the first centuries of the Church.” What happened in the last century, and what we see today, is so horrific that it is not uncommon to wonder whether we do the victims of these terrible persecutions injustice by referring to infringements on religious liberty in the West as persecution. Lori acknowledged that denials of religious liberty in this country “pale in comparison to those faced by our brothers and sisters in many parts of the world.” Yet there are “ominous signs” both of the substantial erosion of religious liberty in the West and a decline in public sympathy for religious belief and practice. This is not only a threat to believers in the West, but also to the victims of violent persecution, since much of their hope of relief rests in the freedom of Western Christians to act in their behalf. As Lori very helpfully pointed out, perhaps the best way of characterizing the loss of religious freedom in the West to secularism and the liberationist ideologies of the Left was provided by Pope Francis, who has called what Western Christians are experiencing a “polite persecution.”
In response to the current crisis of religious freedom, Lori said that our first answer must be to “pray earnestly for those who are persecuted abroad and for the preservation of religious freedom at home.” Additionally, there must be advocacy for religious freedom by all legal means both at home, against the “polite persecution,” and abroad, against the hard, violent persecution of the non-Western world. And, if necessary, we must suffer the penalty of noncompliance with sinful laws and policies rather than disobey God. But this is only an ordinary part in our first duty as disciples of Christ, which is to seek God’s Kingdom and his righteousness.
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