As we continue to celebrate our nation’s semiquincentennial, I would like to offer some more reflections on the tremendous freedom we enjoy in our country. One of these freedoms is freedom to worship God according to our consciences. Our nation’s Constitution declares in its very first amendment that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Constitution regulates Congress which, according to its first amendment, should not make any laws that would prohibit the free exercise of our religion.
In 2012, the Bishops of the United States issued a statement on religious liberty, entitled Our First, Most Cherished Liberty. It is such an important document that I would like to review it again for your reflection.
The statement begins with this bold declaration:
We are Catholics. We are Americans. We are proud to be both, grateful for the gift of faith which is ours as Christian disciples and grateful for the gift of liberty which is ours as American citizens. To be Catholic and American should mean not having to choose one over the other. Our allegiances are distinct, but they need not be contradictory, and should instead be complementary. That is the teaching of our Catholic faith, which obliges us to work together with fellow citizens for the common good of all who live in this land. That is the vision of our founding and our Constitution, which guarantees citizens of all religious faiths the right to contribute to our common life together.
We live in a time when religious liberty continues to be under attack not just here in America but in many parts of the world. Here, in our country, we have recently experienced secular forces bringing lawsuits against bakeries that refuse to make cakes for gay marriages, communities of religious sisters to force them to provide health coverage for their employees that pay for abortions and contraceptives, and Catholic Social Service agencies for not placing foster children with gay couples. Fortunately, all of these lawsuits have ended with the rights of those exercising their religious freedom upheld but anti-religious groups and misguided individuals keep trying new tactics to undermine our religious freedom. Then, in April, Vice President J. D. Vance admonished Pope Leo XIV, declaring that the pope should be careful when he talks about matters of theology. Fortunately, our Holy Father, guided by the Holy Spirit, continues to speak clearly and forcefully, shining the light of God’s truth on such important matters as war, immigration, climate change and artificial intelligence. We Catholics need to be sure to read and reflect on his statements; they speak a truth that so many in the secular world do not want to hear.
We celebrated our nation’s freedom from oppression last week but this freedom continues to be threatened. This is not new, however. As I’m sure you realize, many of our first European ancestors fled here to escape such oppressive practices. A good example of this is related in the bishop’s statement, Our First, Most Cherished Liberty:
In 1634, a mix of Catholic and Protestant settlers arrived at St. Clement’s Island in Southern Maryland from England aboard the Ark and the Dove. They had come at the invitation of the Catholic Lord Baltimore, who had been granted Maryland by the Protestant King Charles I of England. While Catholics and Protestants were killing each other in Europe, Lord Baltimore imagined Maryland as a society where people of different faiths could live together peacefully. This vision was soon codified in Maryland’s 1649 Act Concerning Religion (also called the “Toleration Act”), which was the first law in our nation’s history to protect an individual’s right to freedom of conscience.
Unfortunately, as the Bishop’s document retells, this vision of religious tolerance was short lived. Our First, Most Cherished Liberty goes on to relate:
Maryland’s early history teaches us that, like any freedom, religious liberty requires constant vigilance and protection, or it will disappear. Maryland’s experiment in religious toleration ended within a few decades. The colony was placed under royal control, and the Church of England became the established religion. Discriminatory laws, including the loss of political rights, were enacted against those who refused to conform. Catholic chapels were closed, and Catholics were restricted to practicing their faith in their homes. The Catholic community lived under these conditions until the American Revolution.
But, the importance of religious freedom was not lost on our Founding Fathers. Our First, Most Cherished Liberty goes on to explain:
By the end of the 18th century, our nation’s founders embraced freedom of religion as an essential condition of a free and democratic society. James Madison, often called the Father of the Constitution, described conscience as “the most sacred of all property.” He wrote that “the Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.” George Washington wrote that “the establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the motive that induced me to the field of battle.” Thomas Jefferson assured the Ursuline Sisters – who had been serving a mostly non-Catholic population by running a hospital, an orphanage, and schools in Louisiana since 1727 – that the principles of the Constitution were a “sure guarantee” that their ministry would be free “to govern itself according to its own voluntary rules, without interference from the civil authority.”
It is therefore fitting that when the Bill of Rights was ratified, religious freedom had the distinction of being the First Amendment. Religious liberty is indeed the first liberty. The First Amendment guarantees that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That is our American heritage, our most cherished freedom. It is the first freedom because if we are not free in our conscience and our practice of religion, all other freedoms are fragile. If citizens are not free in their own consciences, how can they be free in relation to others, or to the state? If our obligations and duties to God are impeded, or even worse, contradicted by the government, then we can no longer claim to be a land of the free, and a beacon of hope for the world.
We see the need for religious freedom in the civil rights movement that is still fresh in our minds; many of us lived through those turbulent times. Our First, Most Cherished Liberty recalls the important role that religion played in resolving this dark chapter of our nation:
During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Americans shone the light of the Gospel on a dark history of slavery, segregation, and racial bigotry. The civil rights movement was an essentially religious movement, a call to awaken consciences, not only an appeal to the Constitution for America to honor its heritage of liberty. In his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. boldly said, “The goal of America is freedom.” As a Christian pastor, he argued that to call America to the full measure of that freedom was the specific contribution Christians are obliged to make. He rooted his legal and constitutional arguments about justice in the long Christian tradition:
I would agree with Saint Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all.” Now what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.
Our First, Most Cherished Liberty goes on to reflect on Martin Luther King’s letter:
It is a sobering thing to contemplate our government enacting an unjust law. An unjust law cannot be obeyed. In the face of an unjust law, an accommodation is not to be sought, especially by resorting to equivocal words and deceptive practices. If we face today the prospect of unjust laws, then Catholics in America, in solidarity with our fellow citizens, must have the courage not to obey them. No American desires this. No Catholic welcomes it. But if it should fall upon us, we must discharge it as a duty of citizenship and an obligation of faith.
As Catholics, we are obliged to defend the right to religious liberty for ourselves and for others. …A theologically rich and politically prudent declaration from Evangelicals and Catholics Together made a powerful case for greater vigilance in defense of religious freedom, precisely as a united witness animated by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their declaration makes it clear that as Christians of various traditions we object to a “naked public square,” stripped of religious arguments and religious believers. We do not seek a “sacred public square” either, which gives special privileges and benefits to religious citizens. Rather, we seek a civil public square, where all citizens can make their contribution to the common good. At our best, we might call this an American public square.
The Lord Jesus came to liberate us from the dominion of sin. Political liberties are one part of that liberation, and religious liberty is the first of those liberties. Together with our fellow Christians, joined by our Jewish brethren, and in partnership with Americans of other religious traditions, we affirm that our faith requires us to defend the religious liberty granted us by God, and protected in our Constitution.
We need, therefore, to speak frankly with each other when our freedoms are threatened. Now is such a time. 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.
As we continue to face challenges to religious freedom, I encourage you to reflect on the importance of maintaining religious freedom as one of our most essential freedoms. One of our efforts, and perhaps the most effective, at defending this freedom is prayer. The United States Bishops propose this prayer and I encourage you join me in praying it daily:
Prayer for Religious Liberty
Almighty God, Father of all nations, for freedom you have set us free in Christ Jesus (Gal 5:1). We praise and bless you for the gift of religious liberty, the foundation of human rights, justice and the common good. Grant to our leaders the wisdom to protect and promote our liberties. By your grace may we have the courage to defend them, for ourselves and for all those who live in this blessed land.
We ask this through the intercession of Mary Immaculate, our patroness, and in the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, with whom you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.