Human Dignity Initiative
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Now more than ever, we are confronted with internal divisions and heightened tensions, calling for a timely and necessary conversation on the protection of religious freedom. The tragic attack on 28 September on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, Michigan, serves as a devastating reminder of the urgent need to persist in promoting religious freedom for all—a responsibility that we must not only address in theory but that requires our collective action on community, judicial, and legislative fronts. Religious freedom is critical in forging a future of peace, inclusivity, and shared sacred well-being. It is the heart of civic and spiritual flourishing and is the foundation of dignity, community, and harmony across faiths. Enshrined in law and religious teachings, the right to believe is a fundamental right that we must uphold.
… In recent years, alternative theories of human rights—and of FoRB in particular—have emerged outside Europe to increasingly question the individual-centered approach of Western law, including the ECtHR’s judicial practice. Notably, in 2022, under the banner of “Catholic post-liberalism,” Harvard Law School professor Adrian Vermeule articulated a theory of constitutional interpretation that Western courts should understand human rights not merely as expressions of individual preferences but rather as tools directed to the promotion of the whole good of societies. While Vermeule’s formulation left unresolved how a “common good” reading of FoRB might concretely unfold, Sydney Law School professor Joel Harrison appeared to address this lacuna in his book Post-Liberal Religious Freedom: Forming Communities of Charity.
Deaton, Deenen, and Integrity and Role of Catholic Social Teaching
by Ingeborg G. Gabriel
The debate in the United States and beyond on liberalism has taken a rather disconcerting turn, in which concepts from Catholic Social Teaching (CST) are invoked. The following post is an attempt to sketch this phenomenon drawing on ideas of economist Angus Deaton and philosopher Patrick Deneen. Can CST, which is also high on the agenda of the present pontiff Leo XIV, cut a trail through the jungle of these ideas?
In The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality (2015), Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel Prize winner in Economics, shows that liberal economics in the tradition of Adam Smith have, during the past 250 years, been the theoretical basis for the way out of poverty for the largest part of a world population growing at great speed. Deaton sketches a path for the future to increase the “wealth of nations” through concerted action and solidarity to reduce inequalities.
Several recent unpublished U.S. federal court opinions have responded to claims under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause by incarcerated Native American practitioners. The RLUIPA, enacted by Congress in 2000, provides that governments may not impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise of persons confined to institutions unless the government can demonstrate that the burden is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is narrowly tailored to further that interest. Incarcerated practitioners of Native American religion have been able to get access to sweat lodges and other aspects of Native religious practice and to have certain religious practices accommodated under the law.
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