Section II: What is Religious Liberty?

The work of the Committee for Religious Liberty is guided by Catholic social teaching, particularly the Second Vatican Council and the teaching of its declaration on religious liberty, Dignitatis humanae (DH).[2] 

Religious liberty means immunity from coercion in religious matters. The Church teaches that human persons should not be forced to act contrary to their religious convictions, “whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits” (DH, 2). This right to religious freedom “has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself” (DH, 2).

In Catholic teaching, rights and duties are reciprocal. So, while people have a right not to be coerced on religious issues, this right carries with it the responsibility to seek the truth about God and to live in accordance with that truth.

The root reason for human dignity lies in man’s call to communion with God.
-Gaudium et spes, 19

The human person—created in the image of God with intellect and free will— naturally desires to know the truth about matters pertaining to religion, such as: How did everything that exists come to be? What is the Creator like? What happens when I die? How ought I to live in light of the answers to these questions? Religious freedom fosters the space in which both individuals and groups can ask these questions honestly. As law professor and religious liberty scholar Richard Garnett puts it, “The appropriately secular and limited state will not prescribe the path this search [for truth and for God] should take, but it will take steps—positive steps—to make sure that ‘freedom for’ religion, and the conditions necessary for the exercise of religious freedom, are nurtured.” 

This point about necessary conditions indicates the importance of religious freedom for the common good. One definition of the common good is that it is the set of conditions necessary for a society to flourish. Religious freedom is one of those necessary conditions.

Since human persons naturally desire to know and adhere to religious truth, their flourishing goes hand in hand with religion and religious institutions. Thus, Dignitatis humanae teaches: 

Government is also to help create conditions favorable to the fostering of religious life, in order that the people may be truly enabled to exercise their religious rights and to fulfill their religious duties, and also in order that society itself may profit by the moral qualities of justice and peace which have their origin in men’s faithfulness to God and to His holy will (6). 

A government that promotes the common good will recognize that religious individuals, communities, and institutions need space to flourish, and such flourishing ultimately redounds to the benefit of the broader political community. This means that the government does not force its citizens to conform to one particular religion, but neither does it treat religion as a purely private matter or religious institutions as mere voluntary associations. Religious institutions contribute to the good of the political community, and so the civil authority has a rightful interest in policies that help to support the health of religious institutions.

The Committee for Religious Liberty works to protect religious individuals and institutions from coercion in matters of religion and seeks to promote policies that contribute to the flourishing of religious groups.

[2] See Pope Paul VI, Dignitatis humanae, 7 December 1965: www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html.