An insidious evil

“An abstract application of the principle of non-discrimination ends up paradoxically by causing an objective limitation of the right of believers to express their own faith in public. An insidious evil, in short, is afflicting Europe, causing a slow, subterranean sidelining of Christianity, with sometimes visible forms of discrimination but also with a silent suffocation of fundamental liberties”. That’s a passage from the keynote address that Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CCE), pronounced on the opening of the permanent Council of the Italian episcopate at Ancona (24-27 January). Citing the denunciation made during a recent conference held by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Vienna, the cardinal explained that “the case on which emphasis needs to be placed is that of conscientious objection on issues of high ethical relevance and the fact that attempts are now being made in various nations to curb this principle”; all this “would mark a regression in the concept of freedom”, because “marginalizing symbols, isolating contents, and denigrating persons are weapons by which conformism is induced, inconvenient positions are suppressed, and those who testify in favour of values in which they freely believe are discredited”.Elementary guarantees. Given that “citizens of other religions are already in our midst”, observed Cardinal Bagnasco, “we must learn to live with the diversity we find alongside us; we must give consideration to others, and help them to exist in a climate of care and respect”. For in this way, “we can become almost informal ambassadors who, in the forms of our everyday life, make a significant contribution to shape in a positive way the relations between ethnic groups and help to determine the character of relations between peoples”. At the same time, Cardinal Bagnasco continued, “we must interpret to the full the dictates of our religion, without suffering creeping forms of inhibition. We must believe in turn that living our faith to the full, far from being a state of minority, is an excellent way to make the world better”. The President of the CEI made a point of underlining that Christians “have long become the religious group targeted by the highest number of persecutions on grounds of their own faith”: “A crescendo of bloody episodes that has in recent months affected India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sudan, Nigeria, Eritrea and Somalia. But the gravest incidents are those that occurred in Iraq and most recently in Egypt; in both situations – pointed out the cardinal -, previous episodes of bloodshed that had been ignored or remained unclarified were followed by others, increasingly more savage. One cannot help being struck by the fact that the preferred moment for mounting these attacks against Christians is that of a holiday, a religious festivity, during the liturgical celebration itself, or as the faithful are leaving the church. And this cannot but add horror to horror”. In Cardinal Bagnasco’s view, “no State willingly accepts today conditions of inequality in economic, political and cultural relations: if this is true, and is a principle asserted in international organizations, it is essential that the problem of the most elementary guarantees denied to religious minorities – in not a few national situations – be posed with the necessary lucidity and energy”.International observations. Faced with the challenge before us, “we can and must urgently pose the question of religious freedom in the international organizations – European Union, UNO… – with the aim of opening people’s eyes and keeping them open, insisting that there be a minimum system of real guarantees for the freedom of all religious confessions in individual states”. In this sense, “the possibility exists of instituting international observers able to monitor what is actually happening in the individual territories”. Moreover, “it is reasonable to presume that there exist, in each country, sectors of public opinion sufficiently mature to understand that the suppression of internal minorities cannot but mark a maximalist, if not totalitarian, regression”. “Convinced as we are that religious freedom is an essential and at the same time extremely delicate linchpin and that, if this be compromised, it is the whole social mechanism that feels its repercussions”, Cardinal Bagnasco recalled that the question of a “fundamental religious freedom” must be raised “appropriately in the multilateral institutions, as in bilateral relations, and in the informal relations between representatives of different countries”. At the same time, – the cardinal added – due care must be taken to ensure that the close interest we take in the problem does not unleash reprisals on those who are already suffering too much.