Some serious work is before us: serious cultural work, serious legal work and serious political work

Religious Liberty and Its Contemporary Enemies

by George Weigel

Independence Day concludes the Fortnight for Freedom mandated by the U.S. bishops, a two-week period of reflection and prayer on the defense of religious liberty that began on the vigil of the liturgical memorial of St. Thomas More. In July 2012, we may be grateful that none of us faces the headsman’s axe, as More did in Tudor England. But neither should we be indifferent to, or flippant about, the 21^st-century threats to religious liberty that surround us. They have yet to bring anyone to today’s equivalent of the scaffold on Tower Hill, but they are already putting severe pressure on both believers and religious institutions.

That pressure is more subtle than it was in More’s day, and it involves a kind of governmental pincer movement. 

• The first arm of the pincer aims to reduce religious liberty to a privacy right: a permission slip from the government to engage in certain recreational activities considered matters of personal taste. 
• The second arm of the pincer—embodied in the Obama administration’s contraceptive/abortifacient mandate (which many Catholic entities are challenging in court)—aims to conscript religious institutions so that they become virtual departments of the government.

Between the two arms of the pincer, religious liberty is being subjected to a slow but steady wasting disease. Recognizing that disease is essential; so is an accurate diagnosis of its causes.

Read more: www.crisismagazine.com