By Bishop Guillory, Diocese of Beaumont, for the East Texas Catholic

When you go to your place of worship, you do not worry that your worship might be interrupted or that someone is spying on you. In fact, you do not even think about your worship being interrupted. This is because we have guaranteed religious freedom in our country.

As you know so well, this is not the case in many countries. The most recent high profile case happened in Nigeria where a group of Catholic Christians were at Church worshipping and a bomb exploded, killing a large number of worshippers. In this case, the perpetrators were from a religious extremist group. In many places in the Middle East, Christians are being forced to hide or leave their country because the government will not allow them to practice their faith. Some are dying for their faith.

Being able to worship as we choose is a freedom that that we take for granted in our country. Our founding fathers guaranteed religious freedom in the United States Constitution and in the Bill of Rights. This means that every person has a right to practice his/her faith and is free to practice it without coercion on the part of others or the government. No one is forced to act against one’s conviction in private or publicly.

The teaching on religious freedom is based on the dignity of the human person. God created man in his image and likeness and imprinted on the soul the freedom to worship and honor God. Furthermore, religious freedom means that one’s faith both forms and informs one’s values. Those values serve as a GPS for one’s life journey.

Many are of the opinion that religious values must be kept to oneself and in one’s place of worship, but not in the public arena. We can see on the part of many people a reluctance to express their religious views on certain topics because they might be criticized or isolated. The old saying comes into play: if you want peace in the family and with friends and co-workers, then do not bring up religion or politics. So much is lost if one has to fear expressing one’s opinion on a subject from a religious perspective.

Religious freedom is a right given by God, not by the State. On its part, the State has the obligation to protect religious freedom and to help provide an environment in which one can worship and express religious opinions. The government also has the right to get involved if those who are exercising religious freedom become abusive or engage in criminal behavior. Recent examples would be the sexual scandals in the Catholic Church and other religious denominations and the FLDS cult in Texas and other States.

In recent years it would seem that our government is trying to diminish religious freedom by narrowing the "freedom of conscience" understanding. For many years the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops operated a successful program to help victims of human trafficking with government assistance. This program was given high marks by the government. Then the Department of Health and Human Services mandated that the program make available contraception, sterilization, and abortion to the victims, which is contrary to Catholic teaching. This is a case where religious conscience is violated. Some Catholic Charities in other states had to close their successful adoption programs because they were being forced to violate the Church’s teaching (that marriage is between a man and a woman) by providing adoptions to same-sex couples. This was a requirement if Catholic Charities were to continue to receive federal or state funding. As a result, the painful decision had to be made to close down the adoption programs.

While the attempts to narrow religious freedom in this country may seem small, compared to other countries, we have to be alert and diligent that we don’t become passive by-standers. There are attempts to mandate coverage of sterilization and contraception in all private health care plans, and conscience protections are slowly eroding. Refusal to take innocent life or to redefine marriage is being seen as discriminatory. The freedom of religious entities to provide services according to their own moral principles, to defend publicly their teachings, and even to choose and manage their own personnel is coming under increased attack.

We thank God for inspiring our founding fathers to provide for the God-given gift of religious freedom in the Constitution of the United States. It is important that we discuss these matters and study the roots of religious freedom, especially from the perspective of the teachings of our Church. A careful reading of the Vatican II document on Religious Freedom (DignitatisHumanae) will give you the foundational principles that guide our Church today.