ETHICS IN THE NEWS - FOCUS
One news story brought into focus through a Q & A session with an expert at the Center for Ethics
Today's Focus is with Dr. Cory Labrecque who talks about the Catholic Church and its religious liberty campaign
The Catholic Church has recently announced a broad reaching international campaign to promote dialogue and activism when it comes to religious liberty. The campaign will be carried out over the next few years. This story was covered in last week’s Ethics in the News. As stated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, religious liberty concerns will now be addressed in church services, printed materials, and in the activities of many Catholic organizations.
Although the Church has recently been embroiled in contentions with President Obama and the U.S. Government over new health care laws, discussions about religious liberty have always been part of Catholic teachings and community life. Below is an excerpt from a conversation with Dr. Cory A. Labrecque, the Raymond F. Schinazi Scholar in Bioethics and Religious Thought at the Center for Ethics. Dr. Labrecque has done extensive research in the fields of religion, ethics, and medicine, with a particular focus on the Roman Catholic Tradition.
Are these types of
campaigns new to the Catholic Church? How is religious liberty rooted in
Catholic tradition?
In 1888, Leo XIII produced an
encyclical, Libertas praestantissimum, in which he identified liberty as the
“highest of natural endowments.” This important concept grounded much of the
discussion (actually it was a rather heated debate) leading up to the Church’s
declaration on religious liberty, called Dignitatis humanae, that was promulgated on the eve of the closing of the
Second Vatican Council in 1965. The text speaks largely to the rights and
responsibilities of the individual, Church, and State regarding the free
practice of religion – and the protection of that practice – in society. In
fact, the Council writ large sought to address a whole host of pressing concerns
that questioned the relationship of the Church to the world around it. I think
the principal motivating inquiry was: “how are we to be the Church in these
times?” And, for today: how are we to be both American (or whatever
nationality) and Catholic in this
country – and in the world – in the twenty-first century?
We live in a culture of paradox. Although
the Church can appreciate this (humans are at once fallen and redeemed, mortal
and immortal, stewards and tenants, etc), there are certain pairings – of
ostensibly contradictory dimensions – that the Church does not admit into its
worldview. To be for freedom, but against the free expression of religious
identity is one example. That said, it is important to note that the Church calls
for religious liberty within due limits
and recognizes that society has a right and duty to protect itself against
abuses committed in the name of this freedom. A crucial question in regard to
the Affordable Care Act, for instance, is: whose
liberty is being threatened?
Tensions arise when a country makes
rulings against a religious tradition or the tradition makes rulings against
the holdings of the country. The Catholic Church confronts these tensions by summoning
its members to seriously engage such matters in conversation.
What does the
Affordable Care Act have to do with the new campaigns for religious liberty?
The Affordable Care Act gives the
debate a new context, although the conversation about the role of the Church in
medicine and public health began two millennia ago when the disciples bore
witness to a Jesus whose ministry – and I am thinking of the healing ministry
in particular here – was peculiar in its inclusivity. The question “whom should we care for?”
translates more generally into “how should we relate to others?” and, in a more
challenging way, “how should we relate to others who have different ideas than
we do?” The conversation is not new and Roman Catholics – in fact, peoples of
every religious tradition or of no religious tradition – have been asking
questions such as these as soon as they found themselves living in community
with other human beings who espoused different convictions.
What is the nature of
the campaign and how does it relate to Catholic theology?
As the name of the conciliar text
suggests, Dignitatis humanae teaches that religious liberty
is primarily rooted in human dignity. For the Church, religious liberty is not
just a right; there is also a duty that flows out of this freedom. In
discussions that are often oriented around the rights of the human person, the concepts
of duty, responsibility, and accountability sometimes become peripheral.
The Church has long proclaimed that
it is an individual’s moral obligation to seek truth in religious matters. This
extends to every human and every group. The right comes down to being able to
seek this truth free of coercion. Within
due limits, no man or woman should be compelled to act against his or her religious
convictions or restrained in acting in accordance with their religious convictions.
I think what we are seeing here – in regard to the Affordable Care Act and
other efforts on part of government – is a State and a Church that disagree on
what these “due limits” constitute.
In terms of duty, the Church
believes that there is a collective responsibility at stake: the individual, the community, the Church, and
the State each have a hand in protecting the Common Good and are, accordingly,
called to safeguard the right of each human person to religious liberty. Not
only do they all share the responsibility to safeguard that right, they also have
a responsibility – the Church says – to cultivate an environment wherein the religious
life will bear the fruits of justice and peace.
How do you see the
tenets of this campaign playing out?
It is, perhaps, not enough that we
can talk about freedom and dignity, rights and duties. The real question is how
to translate these ideas into action.
The Church is attentive when laws,
policies, and/or regulations require citizens to act against their convictions
or to cast aside their religious identities. And, so, ecclesial authorities have begun
engaging pastoral communities, informing parishioners – that is individual
Catholics in the context of their communities – about the state-of-affairs, if
you will, and echoing the teachings of the Church in regard to religious
liberty. Active communities, as such, will come together and mull over what is
happening, how the Church – and we as the Church – read what is happening, what
we believe, and what this requires on part of our living a faith that is to be
living, conscious, and active.
Is there room for
interpretation?
The Church is sometimes looked upon
as being static, of disallowing exchange, and of discouraging constructive,
critical engagement in the issues at hand. I am not sure how I would survive as
a student and teacher of the Catholic tradition if the Church disdained the
very gifts we believe to be from God: intellect and free will are indispensable
for the formation of conscience. My experience in the Church has been
exceedingly stimulating. It has been, for me, all about study, exchange,
debate, and the commitment to social justice. In this case, we do not simply
discuss how the Act might challenge the Church’s teaching on sexual ethics, the
body, or health, but how the conversation has much broader reach. In this way,
religious liberty must also be discussed in light of other important contexts,
like immigration, for instance.
The process is less mechanical,
less robotic than some might imagine. We do not see here an imperative from the
ecclesial authorities commanding Christians to unite and protest against
something of which they may know little; mobilization first requires an
engagement of those gifts – free will and intellect – that the Church believes
to be God-given. Conviction grounds action, I think.
Is it possible to
find common ground?
Religious liberty for all is what the
Church is saying. The human person is a relational being and, so, the Church properly
situates the individual in the context of community when addressing these
issues. The US bishops remind us that this is not simply a Catholic issue, or a
Jewish issue, or a Muslim issue, or the issue of any other religious group. It
is an issue that binds us as a people living in this country in this age.
The crux is whether religious
liberty can be safeguarded while maintaining the integrity of the community itself.
