01-10-2012 - Traces, n. 9 inside america The Open Door American Christians decry threats to religious liberty, but do we really know what it means? A prominent Jewish professor points the way: "Christianity is on the side of reason, guarantor of our freedom." Before fighting coercion, we need to acknowledge that which resides within our very selves. by lorenzo albacete Responding to the struggle with the Obama Administration about the obligations of Catholic institutions not engaged in the promotion and celebration of the Catholic faith (especially in the areas of healthcare and education), the American bishops seem to be concentrating on the topic of religious liberty as the point of departure of their new catechesis on the political implications of the New Evangelization. Any human experience–any experience of our humanity–is a good starting point and basis for that ecclesial recognition of the Presence and the effects of Christ within our humanity which is the goal of evangelization, new or old. Religious liberty is indeed a good point of departure for the necessary reflection on the faith–world relation from the perspective of the New Evangelization, because the experience of religious liberty is so central to the American narrative. This offers an open door to the Catholic experience of faith. Now, I'd simply like to introduce the question: What do we mean by religious liberty? My thoughts on this subject were provoked by the address given by the brilliant Jewish American professor, Dr. Joseph H.H. Weiler, printed in the February 2012 issue (#26) of Atlantide, entitled, "From Regensburg to the Bundestag: Rethinking Caesar and God." Weiler's first observation will be amazing to many. We think of religious liberty as the liberty of religious persons to practice, proclaim, and celebrate their religion without discrimination. In short, according to this view, religious liberty is the liberty of religion. However, for the Pope, religious liberty is liberty from religion, a liberty not granted by the society, but one engraved in our human reality as created by God. I remember the stunning Patristic's conviction that God created Man so He would have someone to forgive. This means that the capacity to sin, to deny or reject God, is part of what it means to be human. In the Jewish tradition, Weiler observes, there is the saying: "Everything is in the hands of God, except belief in God." In any case, the State has no right to impose religious belief on its citizens, not because of the needs of a democratic, diverse, pluralistic society, but above all because he–the citizen–was created with this liberty from religion engraved in his heart by the Creator Himself. Actually, this is also the reason why the right to religious liberty is the most fundamental of all human rights, since it affirms the moral dimension of all human acts and suggests the possibility of reaching agreement on a basis for a global ethics. However, there are some necessary questions to be addressed before confronting global ethics (see future columns). Religious liberty understood as originating in the human liberty to choose to deny or reject God must avoid the impression that all religions are fundamentally the same. Religions are the expressions of the search for a "mystical" experience of transcendence over the limitations of space and time. The Pope insists on the difference between Judaism and Islam on one side, and Christianity on the other. Weiler illustrates this difference in terms of a young boy asking his father why he cannot eat ham. Both the Jewish and Muslim fathers have no other answer but this: "Because it is His will." The boy can then ask why eating ham is against the will of God, and the Jewish and Muslim fathers can only say, "You will have to ask Him when you die." The Christian father would say, "Because it is unreasonable to do it." Christianity is on the side of reason, on the side of the capacity to discern the will of God in the very structure of our humanity. Religious liberty understood in this context points all in the direction of reason as the guarantor of our freedom from moral coercion imposed, let us say, by the State.