Religious Freedom: Lighting the Path

Hours after Father Jacques Hamel’s throat was slit by Islamic militants in his parish church in Normandy, I was in a packed Irish bar in Krakow’s main square with the archbishop of Baltimore, William E. Lori.

We were there for a previously scheduled “Theology on Tap” event, on religious liberty, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and held in conjunction with Pope Francis’s arrival in Krakow for World Youth Day. We began the conversation with a prayer for the repose of this martyr’s soul.

The military police guarding us were a clear sign of the times.

I told the story of a meeting, quite a few years back now, where Archbishop Lori recounted that he had advised his chancery staff that he likes coconut cake — maybe someone might bring him a slice should he find himself in jail someday. The remark was his light touch on a heavier message: The time is going to come in the United States when believers will find themselves up against coercive laws that violate conscience rights. Lori, among others, is ready to do what standing up for religious freedom may call for.

Even as he reviewed some of the recent history of the narrowing of religious liberty in the United States, we were reminded of the luxury we still have relative to many other places in the world. In Poland, where we were meeting, it is not so long ago that such discussions would have been not guarded by the military police but shut down. These are realities that impress upon you the importance of safeguarding freedom, insisting on it, especially at a time of increased incoherence in our politics and culture.

The situations in Iraq and Syria, and the still-recent history in the former Communist bloc in Eastern Europe, Archbishop Lori said, “help us see what a society without religious freedom is like. It’s not a nice place.”

“Without religious freedom, society becomes a hard place, an unmerciful place, an intolerant place, where no one and nothing stands between the power of the state, on the one hand, and the individual conscience, on the other,” he continued. A loss of religious freedom “damages our dignity.” Religious freedom, after all, is not something that the state “gives us as a gift.” It is “something that God has given us.” Free will is not a mere freedom of choice, he explained: This is not individualism par excellence. When it comes to religious liberty, we’re talking about an invitation “to search for God . . . to fulfill our destiny . . . to be friends with God,” Lori said, offering: “This is what brings us real joy and real freedom.”

I’ve been reminded over the years by non-Americans that we still sound like one of the most Christian nations. Many Americans describe themselves as religious; others, as spiritual. But how much of that is lip service and box checking, and how much is an unyielding commitment to living lives according to the Beatitudes?

Pope Francis often talks about how the Church is not some non-governmental organization or social-service project. The secular world often finds that religious folk do come in handy in charitable ways. But when the Little Sisters of the Poor get in the way of the federal government’s mandating sexual-revolutionary values or a false sense of mercy embodied in assisted suicide, these saints become conventional enemies of “progress.” You don’t have to sing off the same hymnal as the archbishop or a religious sister to see that one side of this scale is life-giving and the other is grave.

The next day, we joined up again, this time for a panel discussion, with 20,000 English speakers assembled here, most of them under 30 (actually, I’d wager most of them were under 23), and most of them Americans. They gave one of the panelists, Archbishop Bashar Warda from Erbil, Iraq, a series of standing ovations. He and his people have been giving refuge to those who fled their homes in Mosul when ISIS came to clear the place of Christians. It was one of the most encouraging experiences of the last year, to be with these young people who seem to see so clearly: who give gratitude for the witness of Christians who are willing to give all for who they say they are. Their witness is crucial in helping us get our act together.

More than an ocean away from the disastrous presidential campaign, Lori emphasized that “the struggle to defend religious freedom is not about the culture wars. It’s not about partisan politics. It’s not about being a Democrat or a Republican. It’s about defending our common humanity and our common good. It’s about a society that is just and peaceful and good.”

Father Hamel reportedly died saying, “Go away, Satan.” While people fight over party loyalties and the power of the Supreme Court, Hamel’s memory prompts a reflection that there is more at work and more at stake than elections and laws. There’s a darkness clouding what could be beautiful times, if we lived out of gratitude more than outrage. We need to remember that the clearest argument is a life lived coherently, with joy. Father Hamel died doing the best he had, celebrating the Mass. His life and death is a reminder that we’re made for more than we often settle for. Religious freedom does light the path, regardless of, and in loving contrast to, any otherwise suffocating cloud cover.