Religious Freedom

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM WEEK 2021: SOLIDARITY IN FREEDOM
- “Solidarity means much more than engaging in sporadic acts of generosity. It means thinking and acting in terms of community” (Fratelli tutti, 116).
  
  Religious freedom allows the Church, and all religious communities, to live out their faith in public and to serve the good of all. Beginning June 22, the feast of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher, the USCCB invites Catholics to pray, reflect, and act to promote religious freedom.
- Reason recognizes in religious freedom a fundamental human right
  
  -Pope Francis, June 20, 2014, Address to the International Conference on Religious Freedom and the Global Clash of Values
- Our First, Most Cherished, Liberty
  
  "What is at stake is whether America will continue to have a free, creative, and robust civil society—or whether the state alone will determine who gets to contribute to the common good, and how they get to do it."
  -- Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty", U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, 2012.
  
  American Catholics have been powerful advocates for principles of religious liberty for all religions. We have brought that committment to the debates within the Catholic Church and in fighting for religious liberty in the United States and internationally. The American bishops said that eloquently in the 2012 document, "Our First, Most Cherished Liberty," stating:
  
  "Freedom is not only for Americans, but we think of it as something of our special inheritance, fought for at a great price, and a heritage to be guarded now. We are stewards of this gift, not only for ourselves but for all nations and peoples who yearn to be free.... As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we address an urgent summons to our fellow Catholics and fellow Americans to be on guard, for religious liberty is under attack, both at home and abroad." Read more
News and Action Alerts
- Up-to-date news from the U.S. bishops can be found at this resource page.
  Sign up for First Freedom News, a monthly newsletter from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,addressing issues of religious liberty: Register here
  First Freedom podcast can be found here
- California and St. Junipero Serra
  
  California was first settled by the Spaniards, then governed by Mexico, before the Gold Rush and California's entrance into the union as a free, nonslavery state by the Missouri Compromise of 1850. California became the 31st state on September 9, 1850.
  
  St. Junipero Serra (1713 - 1784) was canonized by Pope Francis in 2015 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Father Serra is founder of the California Missions (1769-1784) and has been the subject of attacks and controversy since then, attacks that some feel are motivated by religious hatred.
  
  On June 19, 2020, St. Junipero Serra's statue in Golden Gate Park was toppled by a crowd of vandals, followed by a similar vandalism in Los Angeles of another Serra statue.
  
  Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone's statement about Father Serra and the toppling of the statue is here.
  The Archbishop also led a Rosary and prayed exorcism prayers at the site on June 27, 2020 (see below).
  
  Resources from the California Catholic Conference are here:
  USCCB President and Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez column on Father Serra's legacy is here.
  A letter defending St. Junipero on his July 1, 2020 feast day is here.
  An interview with Andrew Galvan, curator of Mission San Francisco de Asís, or Mission Dolores, founded by Father Serra, is also below.
- Significant Vatican Documents on Religious Liberty
  
  In the course of over 2,000 years, the Catholic Church has developed a significant body of teaching on human rights, conscience protection, the relationship between Church and state, and religious freedom.
  
  As St. John Paul said in the March 4, 1979 encyclical Redemptor Hominis:
  "Certainly the curtailment of the religious freedom of individuals and communities is not only a painful experience but it is above all an attack on man's very dignity, independently of the religion professed or of the concept of the world which these individuals and communities have. The curtailment and violation of religious freedom are in contrast with man's dignity and his objective rights."
  
  One of the most significant documents in recent memory was the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Liberty
  
  On December 7, 1965, the Second Vatican Council approved Dignitatis humanae, the Declaration on Religious Liberty. The document bases religious freedom in the perennial teaching of the Church on human dignity. It teaches that religious freedom is the cornerstone of a society that promotes human dignity; it is a fundamental human right, which follows on the duty of all people to seek the truth about God.
  Text of Dignitatis humanae
  
  The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has developed extensive resources on Dignitatis humanae that explain the Church's teaching here.
  
  More papal encyclicals related to religious liberty are linked here.