First of all, I should like to thank John Cavadini, Professor of
Theology and Director of the Institute for Church Life, for this kind
invitation to be with you today to discuss an important set of
interrelated topics: (1) religious freedom; (2) the persecution of
Christians around the world; and, (3) martyrdom. But before I begin this
task, I should also like to thank the University of Notre Dame for its
sponsorship of this important conference, and especially its President,
Father John Jenkins, for his hospitality, and for giving me the
opportunity to get to know this prestigious institution of the Church. I
also extend my fraternal and prayerful best wishes to the Most Reverend
Kevin Rhoades, Bishop of Fort Wayne - South Bend, for his participation
in this event and his warm welcome. As you may know, I am the
representative of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to the United States,
and so, in consideration of this official office I hold and exercise, I
acknowledge to you all my profound gratitude to be with you today in
order to address these important and timely subjects.
In doing
so, it is crucial to see that in the world of the present age,
persecution of the faithful can manifest itself in a variety of forms,
some obvious, but others less so. While it is necessary to remind
ourselves of the obvious, we must also consider the notso-obvious, for
great danger to the future of religious freedom lies with religious
persecution that appears inconsequential or seems benign but in fact is
not. In my service to the Holy See, I have worked in various parts of
the world including Iraq and Kuwait, Great Britain, Strasbourg, Nigeria,
in the Vatican, and now the United States, it has been a part of my
personal makeup and official duties to monitor and register concerns to
my superiors about efforts that harm, intentionally or otherwise, the
Church and God’s people.
I realize that you have scheduled
several prominent speakers who will address the critical questions
dealing with religious freedom, persecution of Christians, and martyrdom
in the present day around the globe. I do not wish to compete with them
nor is in my intention to preempt their incisive and insightful
comments which I am confident will elevate the mindfulness of your
audience and potential readership about religious freedom, religious
persecution, and martyrdom. Countries and regions where these challenges
to the faithful exist are in China and Asia, Africa, Europe, the
sub-Continent, the Middle East, and Latin America. Let me illustrate the
problems in these countries with one example. The circumstances which
our brothers and sisters in faith experience in the Peoples’ Republic of
China are largely well known by many who follow international
developments. The anguish which the Church faces in China has led Pope
Benedict XVI to issue his 2007 letter to the Church in China to let the
faithful of that great country, and of the world, know that the
universal Church has not forgotten them and their faithful witness to
Christ and to Christ’s Vicar on Earth. Similar problems exist elsewhere.
In nearby Pakistan and India, Christians face intimidation, sometimes
with lethal consequences, which the civil authorities of these
respective states seem incapable of arresting. Elsewhere, there are new
pressures placed on religious freedom in Middle East, especially in Iraq
and now in Syria, in parts of Africa including Egypt, Nigeria, the
Sudan, and east Africa. The heavy burdens imposed on Christians in all
of these regions can be, and often are, physical and harsh. In some
instances, the faithful have witnessed their Christian faith at the
expense of their lives which God gave them. In this regard, the heavy
hand of so called “anti-blasphemy” laws has sometimes been the method to
subjugate the Christian faith.
In all of these instances, we see
that the faithful persist in their fidelity to Jesus Christ and his
Holy Church! For throughout her history, the Church has gained strength
when persecuted. We must recall the words of the Preface for Holy
Martyrs from the second edition of the Roman Missal: God chooses the
weak and makes them strong. In short, with God’s help we can prevail,
but without Him, even our greatest human strength is insufficient
because it is frail.
As the papal nuncio to the United States, I
realize that I speak from a distinguished podium at a great university.
It is my intention to propose for your consideration the interrelated
matters of religious freedom, persecution, and martyrdom
that are, or should be, of vital concern to you – for these grave
concerns exist not only abroad, but they also exist within your own
homeland.
In order to establish a framework for my presentation,
several key definitions are in order. I will first address the subject
of martyrdom. What is it, and why is it relevant to you today? I
am sure that most if not all of us are familiar with the martyrs of the
Church – both past and present – who gave of their lives because they
would not compromise on the principles of faith that accompany the call
to discipleship. Theirs is the experience of great suffering that often
includes torture and death. Some of the early martyrs of the Church
experienced this through cruelty, often by slow means, designed to bring
on death. However, the intention underlying the objectives of the
persecutor is important to understand: it was to eradicate the public
witness to Jesus Christ and His Church. An accompanying objective can be
the incapacitation of the faith by enticing people to renounce their
beliefs, or at least their public manifestations, rather than undergo
great hardships that will be, or can be, applied if believers persist in
their resistance to apostasy. The plan is straightforward: if the faith
persists, so will the hardships. In more recent times, martyrdom may
not necessitate torture and death; however, the objective of those who
desire to harm the faith may choose the path of ridiculing the believers
so that they become outcasts from mainstream society and are
marginalized from meaningful participation in public life. This brings
me to the meaning of persecution.
Persecution
is typically associated with the deeds preceding those necessary to make
martyrs for the faith. While acts of persecution can mirror those
associated with martyrdom, other elements can be directed to sustaining
difficulty, annoyance, and harassment that are designed to frustrate the
beliefs of the targeted person or persons rather than to eliminate
these persons. It would seem, then, that the objective of persecution is
to remove from the public square the beliefs themselves and the public
manifestations without necessarily eliminating the persons who hold the
beliefs. The victimization may not be designed to destroy the believer
but only the belief and its open manifestations. From the public
viewpoint, the believer remains but the faith eventually disappears.
In the context of martyrdom and persecution, the law enforcement
branches of the state can be relied upon to achieve the desired goal.
The state’s enforcement mechanisms were surely employed in the campaigns
that brought the deaths of the early Roman martyrs. The legal
mechanisms of new legislation and its enforcement in Tudor England were
relied upon in the persecution and martyrdom of Thomas More and John
Fisher. As one thinks about these two heroic individuals, you can see
the multiple objectives of the state. The first, in their sequential
order, were words and then deeds designed to encourage through pressure
More and Fisher to accept the King’s and Parliament’s wills to agree
with the divorce of King Henry from Queen Catherine.
However, when
Fisher and More remained resolved in their fidelity to the Church’s
teachings about the validity of the marriage but discreet in how they
did so, the state mechanisms designed to bring them and their views
around were ratcheted up so as to increase the pressure on them. When
they resisted the increased pressure, statutes were enacted and amended
to make non-compliance a treasonable and, therefore, a capital offence.
It was understood by Fisher, More, and the King’s agents that a hideous
death rather than a lesser punishment was the inevitable penalty. It is
said that while torture was recommended by some to hasten the compliance
of Fisher and More, the King’s conscience would not permit it.
Nevertheless, when increased levels of persecution did not achieve the
desired result of modifying the views of Fisher and More, martyrdom by
beheading – rather than hanging, drawing, and quartering – was the
inevitable solution. In the cases of Fisher and More, persecution came
first, and then it was followed by martyrdom. In both cases, religious
freedom was the target. I now turn to religious freedom. What is it?
Religious freedom
is the exercise of fidelity to God and His Holy Church without
compromise. Human action that reflects this fidelity is what has
hastened martyrdom and persecution for many believers of the past, and
of today. At the core of this fidelity is the desire to be a good
citizen of the two cities where we all live: the City of Man and the
City of God. This kind of dual citizenship necessitates libertas Ecclesiae,
i.e., the freedom of the Church. This freedom is essential to the
religious freedom which properly belongs to the human person. And this
freedom that belongs to the human person is simultaneously a human,
civil, and natural right which is not conferred by the state because it
subsists in the human person’s nature. As the papal representative of
the Holy See to the United States, the subject of religious liberty
frequently surfaces in the international discussions that constitute a
major part of my priestly service to our Church, to the Holy Father, and
to you, my dear friends.
It is evident that there is a pressing
need to protect religious freedom around the world. However, this
freedom is not something that can or should be imposed for it subsists
on the Truth of God – “Truth can impose itself on the human mind by the
force of its own truth, which wins over the mind with both gentleness
and power”!1 That there is recognition by many people of good
will about this truth is reassuring given the fact that religious
persecution and martyrdom are still present in the world today. This
recognition, however, is often challenged by alarms registered by
skeptics who question whether it is proper for there to be a public role
for religion in civic life.
We live in an age where most, but
not all, of your fellow countrymen still share in the conviction that
Americans are essentially a religious people. While current data
suggests a progressive decline in religious belief across the western
world including the United States, there still appears to be deference
given to the importance of religion. But as I have just indicated, there
are those who question whether religion or religious belief should have
a role in public life and civic affairs. The problem of persecution
begins with this reluctance to accept the public role of religion in
these affairs, especially but not always when the protection of
religious freedom involves beliefs that the powerful of the political
society do not share. Thus we are presented with the pressing question
about whether the devoted religious believer, let us say the Catholic,
can have a right to exercise citizenship in the most robust fashion when
his or her views on civic concerns are informed by the faith. The First
Amendment of the United States Constitution more than suggests an
affirmative answer to this question. But we should not be satisfied with
this recognition. After all, important figures, some of whom hold high
public office, are speaking today about the right of freedom of worship,
but their discourse fails to acknowledge that there is also a
complementary right about the unencumbered ability to exercise religious
faith in a responsible and at the same time public manner.
In
the remaining time that is allotted to me, I shall focus on these
concerns and the emerging deleterious impact on the authentic and
legitimate exercise of religious freedom within your great country. Let
me address the concerns that I see about this fundamental and
non-derogable right, on your home front.
Let me begin by briefly
stating that as a man of God and therefore a man of hope, it is
essential to pray for a just resolution to the issues which face the
faithful and their fidelity. As you may know, the Bishops of the United
States conducted earlier this year the Fortnight for Freedom, and more
recently in October a Novena for Life and Liberty, in order to elevate
prayerful consciousness and other responsibilities of the faithful to
ensure protection of the “First Freedom” cherished by your nation. One
compelling catalyst for these initiatives is found in the legitimate
concerns about religious liberty posed by the uncertainties surrounding
the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; however, this is by no
means the only source of concern. When Catholic Charities and businesses
owned by faithful Catholics experience pressure to alter their
cherished beliefs, the problem is experienced in other venues. In short,
the menace to religious liberty is concrete on many fronts. Evidence is
emerging which demonstrates that the threat to religious freedom is not
solely a concern for non-democratic and totalitarian regimes.
Unfortunately it is surfacing with greater regularity in what many
consider the great democracies of the world. This is a tragedy for not
only the believer but also for democratic society. Here we must consider
the important point that religious freedom is not an end in itself,
because it has as its highest purpose protection of the ultimate dignity
of the human person.2 This argument was acknowledged by Pope
Paul VI at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council in his address
to the rulers of nations when he rhetorically asked the question “What
does the Church seek from you?”
She asks of you only
liberty, the liberty to believe and to preach her faith, the freedom to
love God and serve Him, the freedom to live and to bring to men her
message of life. Do not fear her. She is made in the image of her
Master, whose mysterious action does not interfere with your
prerogatives but heals everything human of its fatal weakness,
transfigures it, and fills it with hope, truth, and beauty.
Allow
Christ to exercise his purifying action on society!... And we, His
humble ministers, allow us to spread everywhere without hindrance the
Gospel of peace... Of it, your peoples will be the
first beneficiaries, since the Church forms for you loyal citizens,
friends of social peace and progress.3
One
illustration of interference with religious freedom, as outlined by Pope
Paul, recently surfaced in England which has a Christian past and for
centuries was one place where Christianity flourished. The 2010 decision
of an English court in the case of Johns vs. Darby City Council, Queens
Bench division, has essentially declared that an evangelical Christian
couple is unfit to be legal guardians of foster children because of
their faith which informs them that certain sexual expressions by
consenting adults are sin. Mr. and Mrs. Johns, a devout evangelical
couple, had successfully and lovingly served as foster parents for needy
children in the past. In spite of their previous exemplary service
caring for children who needed love and protection, the civil
authorities of the United Kingdom expressed grave reservations about the
continuing suitability of Christians who firmly pursue their Christian
faith. As a result of the court’s decision, the exercise of religious
faith which is protected in theory by juridical texts is, in fact,
subject to forfeit. As the judges noted in their decision, the belief of
Mr. and Mrs. Johns is based on “religious precepts” which can be
“divisive, capricious, and arbitrary.”
Paradoxically, Mr. and
Mrs. Johns were doing what is clearly protected by the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights – texts which your nation claims to adhere to, and, in
the case of the Covenant, is a party. The Johns’ religious freedom was
sacrificed to practices which are today considered “rights” by many well
educated persons but which are not mentioned in the applicable
juridical texts as is religious freedom. If George Orwell were still
alive today, he would certainly have material to write a sequel to his
famous novel 1984 in which the totalitarian state, amongst
other things, found effective means from distancing children from their
parents and monopolizing the control of educational processes especially
on moral issues.
I am sure the Johns case will be discussed
much more in the future. But we must take stock of the fact that the
challenges to authentic religious freedom are not relegated to distant
places such as England. My concerns about religious liberty and my
efforts to protect them have a bearing on what is presently going on in
the United States. Over the past months, we have heard much about the
legitimate reservations raised by the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops that pertain to authentic religious freedom and the
proper exercise of faith in public. The issues and reservations
identified by the Conference’s president, Cardinal Dolan, about the
health care mandate dealing with artificial contraception,
abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization are very real, and they pose
grave threats to the vitality of Catholicism in the United States. But
we must not forget the other perils to religious liberty that your great
country has experienced in recent years. Once again, we see that the
rule of law, in the context of your First Amendment and important
international protections for religious freedom, has been pushed aside.
Let me cite some examples of these other hazards.
A few years ago, the Federal courts of the United States considered the case of Parker v. Hurley in
which a number of families were alarmed over the curriculum of the
public schools in Lexington, Massachusetts (ironically one of your
cradles of liberty!) where young children were obliged to learn about
family diversity as presented in a children’s book that elevated as
natural and wholesome same-sex relations in marriage. The Parker family
and other families, who are Judeo-Christian believers, wished to pursue
an “opt-out” for their children from this instruction. While they may
not have been aware of it, their sensible plan reflected sound and
reasonable rights that are addressed and protected by international
human rights standards which are echoed in the Declaration on Religious
Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae, of the Second Vatican Council.4
However, the civil authorities and the Federal courts disagreed with,
and thereby denied, the lawful claims of these parents who were trying
to protect their children from the morally unacceptable. If these
children were to remain in public schools, they had to participate in
the indoctrination of what the public schools thought was proper for
young children. Put simply, religious freedom was forcefully pushed
aside once again.
More recently, we recall the federal court
review of Proposition 8 in California. In the legal proceedings
surrounding this initiative dealing with the meaning of marriage, Judge
Vaughan Walker said this about religious exercise – a freedom enshrined
in your Constitution: “Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian
relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm
gays and lesbians.”5 This “harm” cited by the judge became
the basis for devising a mechanism used to minimize if not eradicate the
free exercise of religion which includes the vigorous participation of
the religious believer in public and political life.
On other
fronts, we have witnessed Catholic Charities across the United States
being removed from vital social services that advance the common good
because the upright people administering these programs would not adopt
policies or engage in procedures that violate fundamental moral
principles of the Catholic faith. Furthermore, we have observed
influential members of the national American community – especially
public officials and university faculty members – who profess to be
Catholic, allying with those forces that are pitted against the Church
in fundamental moral teachings dealing with critical issues such as
abortion, population control, the redefinition of marriage, embryonic
stem cell commodification, and problematic adoptions, to name but a few.
In regard to teachers, especially university and college professors, we
have witnessed that some instructors who claim the moniker “Catholic”
are often the sources of teachings that conflict with, rather than
explain and defend, Catholic teachings in the important public policy
issues of the day. While some of these faculty members are affiliated
with non-Catholic institutions of higher learning, others teach at
institutions that hold themselves out to be Catholic. This, my brothers
and sisters, is a grave and major problem that challenges the first
freedom of religious liberty and the higher purpose of the human person.
History
can help us understand what is happening in the present moment to this
first freedom. Catholics have, in the past, experienced and weathered
the storms that have threatened religious freedom. In this context, we
recall that Pope Pius XI took steps to address these grave problems in
his 1931 encyclical letter Non Abbiamo Bisogno dealing with religious persecution of the faithful by the fascists in Italy, and in his 1937 letter Mit Brennender Sorge addressing
parallel threats initiated by the National Socialists in Germany. In
the context of Germany during the reign of National Socialism, we recall
that the Oxford Professor Nathanial Micklem examined and discussed the
persecution of the Catholic Church is Germany in his 1939 book entitled National Socialism and the Roman Catholic Church. The
problems identified by Micklem over six decades ago that deal with the
heavy grip of the state’s hand in authentic religious liberty are still
with us today.
An Englishman who found his way to the United
States, Christopher Dawson (who became a Catholic in his early
adulthood) still reminds us that the modern state, even the democratic
one, can exert all kinds of pressure on authentic religious freedom.
Dawson insightfully explained that the modern democratic state can join
the totalitarian one in not being satisfied with “passive obedience”
when “it demands full cooperation from the cradle to the grave.” He
identified the challenges that secularism and secular societies can
impose on Christians which surface on the cultural and the political
levels. Dawson thus warned that “if Christians cannot assert their right
to exist” then “they will eventually be pushed not only out of modern
culture, but out of physical existence.” He acknowledged that this was
not only a problem in the totalitarian and non-democratic states, but
“it will also become the issue in England and America if we do not use
our opportunities while we still have them.”6
While
Dawson made his observations in the 1950’s, we need to recall that
Blessed John Paul II recognized the durability of the problems noticed
by Dawson during the era that saw the collapse of the modern Soviet
totalitarian state. In his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus,
John Paul reminds us that “totalitarianism attempts to destroy the
Church, or at least to reduce her to submission, making her an
instrument if its own ideological apparatus.”7But he further
noted that this threat is not solely expressed by the state established
on dictatorship, for it can also be exercised by a democracy, for “a
democracy without values easily turns into openly or thinly disguised
totalitarianism.”8 Since the conclusion of the Second World
War and the formation of the United Nations, democracies around the
world have periodically exhibited traits of this new totalitarianism
that emerges from a democracy-without-values, values that must be based
on the timeless and universal moral principles adhered to and taught by
our Church because these principles are founded on the Truth of Christ
which came to set us free!
So, what can be done? Cardinal Dolan
has recently exhorted the Catholic faithful to confront the challenges
which the faith faces today. His brother bishops in this country and
around the world have taken similar action. It is a desperate day when
well-educated persons label these efforts as attempts by the hierarchy
to control the activities of Catholics in public life. Some have even
criticized publicly Cardinal Dolan’s call to the faithful to defend the
Catholic contribution to political debate in this fashion: “Dolan to Lay
Catholics: Be Our ‘Attractive, Articulate’, (and Unpaid) Flacks.”9
I pray that the authors meant well in saying this, in spite of the
statement’s disparaging tone, but these persons fail to recall the
nature of the Church as explained by the Second Vatican Council and
reiterated by Blessed John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (1988).
In this exhortation, the Pope urged the lay faithful to be mindful of
their crucial role in temporal affairs as disciples of Christ rather
than as elements of some political or secular ideology that bases its
platform on an indecipherable formula established on the ambiguous
foundation that unsuccessfully relies on the cure of “social justice.”
It is the proper function of bishops to be teachers of the faith, but it
is also true that the laity exercise a major role in implementing this
same faith in the affairs of the world. This is why John Paul repeatedly
encouraged the faithful with the words of Jesus: “You go into my
vineyard, too” (Mt 20:4).10 In order to respond affirmatively to this call, religious freedom is essential.
We are still a far cry from fully embracing the Holy Father’s
encouraging exhortation when we witness in an unprecedented way a
platform being assumed by a major political party, having intrinsic
evils among its basic principles, and Catholic faithful publicly
supporting it. There is a divisive strategy at work here, an intentional
dividing of the Church; through this strategy, the body of the Church
is weakened, and thus the Church can be more easily persecuted.
We must all be mindful that our Lord noted, time and again, that each
member of the Church – clerical, religious, and lay – is a branch on the
vine of Christ. In our unity with Him, we are a part of something
universal – one faith, one belief displayed through a variety of
talents, in a multiplicity of places. This is what our Lord asks us to
do, and, therefore, this is what we must do: to preach and live the Good
News and to do so in communion with our Lord, with the successors of
His apostles, and with His Vicar. It is our faith, and it is our duty to
live and proclaim the Gospel through the Church’s teachings so that by
reasoned proposition, not imposition, God’s will and our discipleship
can advance the common good for every member of the human family. This,
my friends, is essential to authentic religious freedom because it is
the means by which we fulfill the destiny of the human person.
And so, let us go into the Lord’s vineyard together, with love, hope,
freedom, the firmness of the convictions of our faith, and the help that
God so willingly extends to us. We have been appointed by God and His
holy Church to go forth and bear much fruit. Let us do so with the
freedom and its necessary complement, responsibility, which God has
given us. We further know that Christ is the way, the truth, and the
life. What God has given, the servant state does not have the competence
to remove. And God has given us the truth of His Son, the truth who
gives us the most precious freedom of all, which is the desire to be
with God forever! This is our destiny, and this is why religious freedom
as I have explained it is of paramount importance. It is essential to
the exercise of our other rights and responsibilities as citizens of the
Two Cities.
Thank you very much.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
Apostolic Nuncio to the United States
Endnotes
1 Second Vatican Council, Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae, N.1.
2
This point was made by Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., who was a
major contributor to the drafting of the Declaration on Religious
Liberty; fn 23, The Documents of Vatican II, Declaration on Religious
Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, Angelus Publication, 1966, p. 688.
4 The Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae,
in N. 5, asserts, as do the UDHR and the ICCPR, that parents have
rights concerning the moral education of their children which reflect
their religious beliefs. The courts deciding the Parker case did not even mention these obligations in their decision.
5 Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker, Perry vs. Schwarzenegger, Findings of Fact N. 77 (August 2010).
6 Christopher Dawson, “The Challenge of Secularism”, Catholic World (1956).
7 John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus on the 100th Anniversary of Rerum Novarum, 45, (1991); cf, Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Word of Today, Gaudium et Spes, 76.
8 Centesimus Annus, 46
9 Eduardo Peñalver “Dolan to Lay Catholics: Be Our ‘Attractive, Articulate’ (and Unpaid) Flacks,” Commonweal Magazine, dotCommonweal blog (5 March 2012).
10
John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Vocation and
Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and the World, Christifideles Laici, 2 (1988).
