Liberalism now understands religious freedom almost entirely as the right of individuals, not churches

Religion and the Liberal Society

by James Hitchcock

The secular media have an unending interest in things Catholic. A recent sampling includes a theology teacher allegedly dismissed for favoring the ordination of women to the priesthood, an announced lesbian (and, as it turned out, a Buddhist) refused Communion at her mother’s funeral, a music teacher dismissed from the Catholic schools because he planned to “marry” his male lover, and a priest disciplined by his bishop for refusing to recite the prescribed prayers of the Mass, extemporizing his own instead.

Since “gay rights” are defined as a civil-liberties issue, the rationale for the media’s interest in two of those cases was clear, although it is hardly news that the Catholic Church does not countenance homosexuality. But it is not at all obvious why the general public should be concerned with who receives Communion, who serves as a priest, or how the Catholic liturgy is celebrated, and the fact that these were made the subject of public controversy reveals a great deal about the dominant liberal culture.

Historically, liberalism assumed that the state was the prime threat to religious liberty. But since the 1940s the Supreme Court has tended to act on the assumption that large and well-established churches might themselves actually threaten liberty, while special care must be taken to protect those on the religious margins.
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• Liberal Toleration Not Extended to Religious Belief ...
• Liberal Progressives Can Not Be Cultural Relativists ...
• The Welfare State as the Repository of all Wisdom ...
• Ultimate Questions Distract from Building a Liberal Society ...

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• Yet for the most part liberals will defend to the death the right of any Catholic to defy his or her bishop. 
• They may regard the Mass as a superstitious ritual (“a cannibalistic reverie,” according to a contributor to the Huffington Post)—but a woman demanding to be ordained, or a priest making up his own rite, or the political activism of “Nuns on the Bus” are a different story.
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