A reciprocal liberty

While Pakistani Christians are allowed to exercise their faith more or less freely (unlike their counterparts in, say, Saudi Arabia), unjust laws reduce them to second-class citizens who are easily accused of offences they did not commit.

Many Christians have faced severe punishment, even the death penalty, for allegedly blaspheming against Mohammed or the Quran. Often such charges are trumped up to settle an inter-personal dispute.

Earlier this year, the world was outraged by the story of a Pakistani who faced capital punishment for the crime of converting from Islam to Christianity. He eventually found asylum in Italy.

Reports from Iraq, meanwhile, suggest that in some areas Christians who even under the noxious regime of Saddam Hussein could exercise their faith openly now tend to hide their religious affiliation lest they come to harm because of it.

Christians experience limits on the exercise of their faith in most Muslim societies.

There have been instances in modern times where Muslims living in Europe have also experienced a measure of discrimination. Such restraints have included bans on wearing headscarves in school or the denial of building permission for mosques but not the threat of execution for exercising one’s basic human right to religious freedom in choosing one’s faith.

Christians in Muslim countries almost invariably have long traditions there. Their roots are in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran or Indonesia often the Christian communities there predate the advent of Islam. In Europe, however, the growth of Islam is a fairly recent phenomenon, brought about by immigration.

This reality, however, is not a reason to deny Muslims their religious rights.

Indeed, the Church under Pope John Paul II and now under Pope Benedict has strenuously defended Muslims rights to religious freedom, wherever they are.

John Paul’s relationship with Islam was based largely on a quest to find mutual understanding. Benedict is taking a different approach, pointing out that just as Muslims enjoy substantial or full religious freedom in traditionally Christian countries, so should Christians enjoy corresponding religious freedom in Muslim countries (as they already do in some).

The Holy See has attached the somewhat misleading term reciprocity to this philosophy. Such terminology, in the language of international diplomacy, suggests a conditional quid pro quo arrangement: we will do this, if you do that. This is not what Pope Benedict means.

In the pope’s vision, reciprocity means that people of different religions should collaborate in ensuring religious freedom. In his words, the concept should aim at building a relationship founded on mutual respect.

According to the 2004 document Erga migrantes caritas Christi (The Love of Christ Towards Migrants), healthy reciprocity will urge each [believer] to become an advocate for the rights of minorities when his or her own religious community is in the majority.

In ideal terms then, Catholics in Italy would support Muslims in building mosques, while Muslims in Saudi Arabia would support the building of churches in their country. But even if this model is unattainable, the Church argues, religious freedom is not negotiable. So even if our brothers and sisters in Muslim countries are being intimidated, persecuted and even killed, Catholics must regardless take a stand for religious liberty for all and thereby lead by good example.