Religious freedom should light the way

Hours after Father Jacques Hamel’s throat was slit by Islamic militants in his parish church in Normandy, France, on July 26, I was in a packed Irish bar in Krakow’s main square with the archbishop of Baltimore, William E. Lori. We began with a prayer for the repose of this martyr’s soul as we commenced with a scheduled conversation about religious liberty sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, in conjunction with the pope’s arrival in Krakow for World Youth Day.

The military police guarding us was a clear sign of the times.

As we discussed the recent narrowing of religious liberty in America, we were reminded of the luxury we still have, relative to some other places in the world. We sat in Poland, where not too many decades ago, such discussions would not have been guarded by the military police, but shut down. These ideas stress the importance of safeguarding freedom and insisting on it, especially at a time of increased incoherence in our politics and culture.

The situations in Iraq and Syria, as well as the still lingering example of the former communist bloc in Eastern Europe, Archbishop Lori said, “help us see what a society without religious freedom is like.”

“Without religious freedom, society becomes a hard place, an unmerciful place, an intolerant place, where no one and nothing stands between the power of the state on the one hand, and the individual conscience on the other,” he continued. When it comes to religious liberty, we’re talking