Ruth Institute Blog

Professor Mary Ann Glendon, of Harvard Law School, has drawn attention to one of the major problems surrounding religious freedom, namely “the persistent lack of consensus on its meaning, foundation, and relation to other rights” (1). It might be helpful to offer some brief thoughts on this problem.

The Second Vatican Council’s landmark declaration on religious freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, takes us quickly to the essential meaning of the concept. It means freedom from coercion in matters of religious belief and conscience. Everyone is

“to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to forced to act in a manner contrary to his own belief, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits” (2).

Unless it is tempered by solidarity, freedom can quickly come to be a radical assertion of the self against others. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) did not stop at declaring: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. The very next sentence bound this claim for freedom and legitimate personal autonomy to solidarity, declaring that we “are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood” (3).

What this means for religious freedom is that, like other rights, it is not unlimited. This is acknowledged in the major international human rights instruments, and also in Dignitatis Humanae. We are to exercise our rights — all rights, not just the right to religious freedom — with “respect both for the rights of others and for [our] own duties towards others and for the common welfare of all”. It is also acknowledged (as Dignitatis Humanae puts it) that “society has the right to defend itself against possible abuses committed on the pretext of freedom of religion” (4).

At the same time, as the United Nations Human Rights Council emphasised in 2010, “restrictions on the freedom to manifest one’s religion and belief” must be non-discriminatory and “applied in a manner that does not vitiate the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion” (5).

What religious freedom means in practice

With these principles in mind we can identify four basic points to show what religious freedom means in practice:

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