Canadian Bishops: Religious Freedom is no More

[From CCCB Statement] Unfortunately, religious freedom is far from being effectively guaranteed everywhere. Sometimes it is denied for religious or ideological reasons. At other times, although it may be recognized in law, it is hindered in practice by a legal system or social order which enforces strict control, if not a monopoly, over society.

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, more than 70 percent of the world’s countries impose legal or administrative restrictions which in practice annul the rights of individual believers and religious groups. Among these restraints are the forced registration of religious groups, prohibition of conversions, restrictions on foreign missionaries, favouring one religious group over another, fines, and harassment.
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More subtle threats to religious freedom arise from the cultural predominance of radical secularism and “a subliminal relativism that penetrates every area of life. Sometimes this relativism becomes aggressive when it opposes those who say they know where the truth or meaning of life is to be found.”
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Paradoxically, this relativism often posits the absolute relativity of all knowledge and meaning and then seeks to impose this absolutism on others, often in violation of conscience and religious belief. Whenever and wherever the right of freedom
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