In current climate, religious tolerance is being redefined

As Catholics look ahead to the 50th anniversary of the documents of Vatican II on religious liberty and on the ecumenical and interreligious relationships of the Catholic Church, there has been certainly no better time than the recent Fortnight for Freedom for the church in the U.S. to enter into the dialogue about religious liberty.

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The current danger is the possibility that we confuse the right of religious liberty with the principle of religious toleration.

By keeping this clear distinction in our minds and hearts, people of various religious traditions and of no religious faith at all can co-exist in a multifaith society marked by religious liberty and religious toleration for each.

Only where there is no confusion between the two is the true dignity of the human being and the rights of each individual respected and defended.

Religious liberty falls under the virtue of justice. It limits the authority of the government over religious worship, doctrine and practice.

It is the right, recognized by the United States in the First Amendment and by Vatican II in the document on religious liberty, to the free exercise of religion without fearing governmental retribution.

It is a basic human right that human beings, acting alone or with others, are to be free from coercion from any political authority in matters of religion. It forbids any civil government to force anyone or any religious institution to act in a way contrary to conscience.

A clear example of this is seen in the “ministerial exemption” from laws regarding employment. Every religious institution can define for itself who is or is not qualified for employment as a minister or teacher of its faith.

Those faith traditions, such as that of the Catholic Church, with an all-male clergy are free to make such determinations without governmental interference.

In the past, religious exemptions have been broadly interpreted. With the federal Health and Human Services mandate, we see a narrowing of the interpretation as to what qualifies as a religious institution and what institutions would qualify for the exemption.

It is this narrowing of the religious exemption with the requirement to pay for services contrary to the church’s moral principles which the Catholic bishops oppose as a narrowing of religious liberty.

Religious toleration, on the other hand, is required by the virtue of charity.

This is the mutual recognition of the dignity of others who do not share a particular faith tradition by individuals and religious institutions. The key to understanding true toleration is that it is mutual.

In employment practices of religious institutions, this mutual religious toleration has been the general way we relate to one another, and it has worked for mutual benefit.

Religious employers hire and serve people of all religious traditions while at the same time employees from different traditions respect the values and teaching of the institution by not demanding that the institution provide them benefits and services which violate its principles.

In the current social debates, however, this sense of religious toleration is being redefined to keep religion from entering into the discussion.

Toleration of religious doctrines and practices that differ from one’s own, however, does not impose restrictions on religious institutions or believers of one faith tradition from engaging in dialogue and debate with people of differing religious traditions or of none.

Neither does it prohibit people or institutions from opposing the adoption as public policy those things which in their understanding of objective natural and moral laws violate, not merely a religious precept, but the ultimate dignity of human beings and the general welfare.

A person of faith does not contradict the principle of religious tolerance by opposing legal abortion or same-sex civil marriage.

In fact, the good of society requires such debate, because social dialogue can never be a search for mere consensus, but must flow from a desire to conform to objective truth.

People only remain truly free in a nation where there is no confusion between religious freedom and religious tolerance.

Only then can people from various belief systems be free to, as the Apostle Paul counseled, “speak the truth in charity” to one another.

The Rev. Paul R. Fisher is ecumenical officer of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg.

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