The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has released a 12 page Pastoral Letter on Freedom of Conscience and Religion. While addressed to all people of good will, the bishops particularly addressed themselves to “those members of the faithful who find themselves in difficult situations where they may be pressured to act against their religious faith or their conscience.” The document emphasizes that freedom of conscience may be acknowledged by state authority, but state authority does not create it. Among the examples of violations of freedom of conscience, the document cites rules requiring referral for abortion by objecting physicians and the demand that objecting pharmacists dispense contraceptives or the ‘morning after pill.’ It recommends four strategies: affirmation of the role of religion in the public square, upholding a healthy relationship between Church and stated, forming conscience according to truth, and protecting the right to conscientious objection
Tag: religious belief
New Guinea bishops object to compulsory condom distribution
Catholic Bishops in Papua New Guinea state that their schools will not comply with a government policy requiring the distribution of condoms to students. The Episcopal Conference is prepared to defend its decision in court should the government try to enforce the policy. [Zenit]
Seventh Day Adventist president stresses importance of freedom of conscience
Seventh-day Adventist world church President Ted N. C. Wilson, speaking at the 7th World Congress for Religious Freedom in the Dominican Republic, distinguished between “radical” or anti-religious secularism—that would exclude religion from public life—and “secular governance,” which accommodates religious belief, protects the religious freedom rights of minorities but does not favour a particular religious tradition. Radical secularism, he said, must be opposed. At the same time, religious believers must not attempt to establish a “religious state” as an alternative to secular regimes. [Adventist News Network]
Cardinal warns Europe about developments in the US
In a speech to the law school at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, Giovanni Cardinal Lajolo, former president of the commission governing Vatican City State, warned that the current controversy in the United States about freedom of conscience indicates the need to seek greater protection for freedom of conscience in Europe. Speaking at length on the subject, he insisted that individual religious believers as well as religious institutions should always be able to live live and act in conformity with their conscientious convictions. [CNS]
Catholics and Evangelicals issue statement defending religious freedom
Evangelicals and Catholics Together, an ecumenical fellowship established almost twenty years ago, has published “In Defense of Religious Freedom” in the March issue of First Things, a journal of religion and public affairs. [National Catholic Register] The document responds to growing concerns about the security of freedom of conscience and religion in the United States and elsewhere. The document was co-written by 11 prominent Evangelical Christians and nine well-known Catholics and is substantially supported by over 45 others from both denominations.