July 23, 2010

EDITORIAL

Threat to religious freedom of one is threat to all

A fault line of division in our country was exposed recently when more than 1,000 people crowded into the Murfreesboro city square as part of competing protests surrounding the decision by the Rutherford County Planning Commission to approve a site plan for a new Islamic mosque south of the city.
Many of the people marched to the city square on July 14 to deliver petitions with the names of a reported 20,000 people opposed to the mosque. The others, some of whom were carrying signs that said, “I love my Muslim neighbors” and “Freedom of religion,” were there to protest the protestors.
Some of the opponents of the planned Islamic Center, which includes space for a mosque, offices, classrooms, a gym, a pool, a sports field, a pavilion, a playground and a home for the imam or religious leader, are concerned about the traffic such a facility will bring to the area.

But others, citing the deaths of thousands in the 9/11 attacks, are simply afraid of all Muslims, convinced they are determined to kill Americans and America. Their answer is to deny the Muslims in their community, who have not posed a threat to their neighbors or their way of life up to this point, their right to build a place of worship of their choosing.

That opposition, driven as it is by fear, contradicts one of the most hallowed of American values – the right to worship as one believes without interference from the government or the community. The First Amendment reads in part: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” It is the free exercise of religion that is at stake in the Murfreesboro case.

The opposition to the Islamic Center on the grounds that all Muslims are jihadists also contradicts Catholic teaching.

Pope Benedict XVI, in defense of Catholic and Christian minorities around the world that have been threatened and denied the right to practice their faith freely, has spoken often and eloquently about the importance of the freedom of religion. In his address to the U.N. General Assembly in 2008, the pope said it was “inconceivable that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves – their faith – in order to be active citizens” and to enjoy their human rights.

He also said, “The rights associated with religion are all the more in need of protection if they are considered to clash with a prevailing secular ideology or with majority religious positions of an exclusive nature.”

It’s the lack of respect for religious freedom exhibited by the Islamic fundamentalists who have attacked and threatened the United States and the rest of the Western world that the pope has confronted so forcefully. It is sad and counterproductive to see people in this country answer others’ intolerance with intolerance of their own.

The Catholic belief in the dignity of every human being includes every person’s right to express their belief in God as they wish, just as Catholics protect that right for themselves.

In the history of the Church in the United States, Catholics have been stung by the same kind of prejudice as that on display in Rutherford County. There was a time when Catholics were seen as alien to the culture, somehow not truly American, their patriotism questioned, all because of their faith.  
In Middle Tennessee, even though the number of Catholics has more than doubled in the past few decades and we have etched out a larger profile in the community by establishing new parishes and schools to meet the needs of a vibrant faith community, we are still a minority. Catholics make up only about 4 percent of the population in the state. While tales of anti-Catholic bigotry are mostly relegated to history, the risk always remains that a misguided majority might focus its fear and animosity on a vulnerable minority.

Do we want to live in a country where people who don’t know or understand our faith can use their fear to justify limiting our right to pray and worship how we want and where we want? Is that the kind of America where our faith can grow and flourish?

The threat to the religious freedom of one is a threat to the religious freedom of all. America reaches closest to its highest ideals when it is strong enough to welcome people of all faiths without fear and without prejudice. When she does that, we all benefit.