Lucky indeed! The American tradition of religious liberty has been a safeguard for believers from the start. But will that always be the case? Even now there are troubling signs here and there that a new form of religious persecution — aimed first of all at the Catholic Church, but in time, it's safe to suppose, at other churches as well — may lie somewhere ahead in this supposedly tolerant nation of ours.
It is important to avoid scare talk about this potentially inflammatory topic. The victimhood syndrome is enough of a problem already without contributing to its spread. Lions aren't waiting in the Colosseum eager to make a meal of Christians nor is that a guillotine out on the front lawn. When and if a new persecution comes, it won't be like that.
But it will be real persecution just the same. It will take the form of legal coercion undertaken with the aim of either forcing religious institutions to conform to secularist morals or else go out of business.
This isn't fantasy. A blood-chilling overview of what's happening was presented at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting last fall by the organization's general counsel. Just a couple of weeks ago, the California Supreme Court ruled that Catholic Charities of Sacramento had to include contraception as a benefit if its employee health plan covered prescription drugs. Similar efforts are under way in New York. Expect abortion to be added to the secularist wish list in due course.
Granted, Sacramento Catholic Charities apparently invited trouble by largely secularizing its services and staffing, thus setting itself up for a finding that it wasn't a religious organization entitled to religious exemption. But state intervention to define what is and isn't an arm of the Church is alarming in itself.
In such cases, the violation of Catholic consciences is shrugged off. After all, the Church can always shut down its charities and schools and hospitals — something that wouldn't in the least trouble aggressive secularists pressing these issues.
Homosexual rights and gay marriage represent a potential golden opportunity for them. A bishop who issued a pastoral letter noting that the Church regards homosexual sex as a sin would be opening himself to charges of hate speech. A priest who refused to officiate at the “marriage” of two gays could be accused of violating anti-discrimination laws. The bottom line is withdrawal of the Church's tax-exempt status and its social marginalization.
Secularist aggression against religion in the 19th and 20th centuries in countries like France, Germany, and Spain provides a ready model. Nor is it truly new in the United States, where secular liberals clashed with the Church over contraception in the '40s and '50s and returned to the attack in the '60s over abortion.
A Wall Street Journal editorial correctly describes the emerging new persecution as “an effort by liberal activists and their judiciary enablers to turn one set of personal mores into a public orthodoxy from which there can be no dissent, even if that means trampling the First Amendment.”
Think it can't happen here? American traditions just wouldn't allow it? Don't be too sure. Catholics and other believers already have a fight on their hands. It's going to get worse.
Russell Shaw is a freelance writer from Washington, D.C. You can email him at RShaw10290@aol.com.
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