Religious freedom for all
Forty years ago, the Second Vatican Council decreed that everyone has an inviolable right to religious freedom. In the declaration Dignitatis humanae, the council fathers finally repudiated instances in the Church’s history when Catholics impeded religious freedom, just as Catholics were oppressed elsewhere.
The declaration on religious freedom was widely welcome. Not only did the Church demand such freedom for Catholics; it insisted that other faiths be accorded the same right. In this, the Church echoed a basic tenet in both Judaism and Islam, which calls for tolerance towards those of other beliefs.
Dignitatis humanae went a far way towards entrenching religious tolerance in countries where the Church has influence. Indeed, religious tolerance in some Western countries has grown to assume the absurd proposition that members of minority faiths might take reasonable offence at the intrinsic religious symbolism in the feast of Christmas.
While most traditionally Christian countries have largely embraced religious freedom for minority faiths, Christians in some mainly Muslim countries remain subjected to persecution. In Saudi Arabia, a Christian saying a prayer in public commits a punishable criminal offence. Priests, if they are allowed to enter the country, may not wear their clerical collar. (Imagine a Western country applying a similar stricture on a Saudi cleric!)
In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, the government is either powerless or averse to stopping intimidatory attacks, some of them sadistic, on Christians by extremist Muslims.
In Iraq, Christians enjoyed a measure of freedom under Saddam Hussein. Ironically it was the military intervention led by US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, both self-professed Christians, that has placed the survival of Iraq’s Christian community at peril as it becomes increasingly alienated by a version of hardline Islam that demands religious assimilation, not diversity.
Reports that some Muslims are intimidating their Christian neighbours to expedite their emigration so as to snap up homes at cut-rate prices, are worrying.
Even more disturbing are reports from Pakistan where government agencies are, with judicial backing, evicting Christian families in Joharabad, near Karachi, to house displaced Muslims.
Indeed, Pakistan’s treatment of Christians is lamentable. The notorious blasphemy law sanctions capital punishment for dishonouring the prophet Mohammed or defiling the Quaran. Churches claim that often baseless allegations of blasphemy are levelled against their members in disputes, especially over property.
Whatever the merits of such a law, when it is being misused against minorities, it becomes an unjust law that must be repealed.
Christian history is saturated with instances of extreme religious intolerance. Many devastating wars of faith were fought among the followers of Jesus Christ. In their relation with other faiths, the Christian churches have frequently been guilty of what we might today call crimes against humanity. Documents such as Dignitatis humanae have changed that.
Just as Muslims are entitled to live peacefully and productively in countries of a Christian tradition, so should Christians enjoy the same rights, without prejudice, in predominantly Muslim countries.
This is a human right that must be promoted not only by the churches. Governments and even Muslim organisations must insist that religious minorities in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere be protected by law, with the courts and police committed to defending their basic human right to religious freedom.
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