Posts - Talk About: Law and Religion

The Great Divorce: The Western Disagreement About Constitutionalism

Post published: November 9, 2026

Andrea Pin is a full professor of comparative public law at University of Padova (Italy).

“Well, that is a plan. I am perfectly ready to consider it. Of course . . . . I should want a guarantee that you are taking me to a place where I shall find . . . an atmosphere of free inquiry . . . .”

“No,” said the other. . . . “No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God.”

“Ah, but we must all interpret those beautiful words in our own way! For me there is no such thing as a final answer. The free wind of inquiry must always continue to blow through the mind, must it not? . . . [T]o travel hopefully is better than to arrive.”

—C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

Introduction

The wave of narratives that are increasingly questioning, challenging, or even dismantling some of the fundamentals of liberal democracies in the West has many names, including illiberalism, populism, and authoritarianism, among others. The growing body of scholarship aimed at vindicating liberalism—from Cass Sunstein to Michael Walzer to Francis Fukuyama, just to name a few—confirms its impact. Interestingly, this wave has often found purchase among Christians and especially Catholics, who reject liberal constitutionalism for various, and sometimes varying, reasons. However, one charge purports to strike at the core of liberalism: its individual-centered, freedom-based approach.

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Who Decides What a Baptismal Register Is For? Church Autonomy and EU Data Protection Law

Post published: November 9, 2026

Francisca Pérez-Madrid is Professor of Law and Religion at the University of Barcelona.

On 1 October 2026, Advocate General (AG) Laila Medina of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered her opinion in the Diocese of Ghent (Bisdom Ghent) (C-12/25). The opinion addresses whether individuals who leave the Catholic Church can rely on the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in requesting removal of their names from a baptismal register. In keeping with CJEU procedure, the opinion precedes and can inform the Court’s final judgment on the matter. The AG opinion does not recognize an automatic right to erasure, and it discusses respect for church autonomy. Nevertheless, in my view, the opinion is concerning because it leaves to the discretion of each national court a decision that rightly belongs to the religious community itself.

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The Case for Tolerance as a European Value

Post published: October 18, 2026

Renáta Uitz is professor of law and government at the Royal Holloway Law School, University of London, and senior research fellow at the Democracy Institute of Central European University (CEU), Budapest. This post formed part of a keynote address a conference on “FORB and the European Union” sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Freedom of Religion or Belief (ISFORB) at the Evangelical Theological Faculty (ETF Leuven), 7–8 May 2026. It is also based on a presentation at the “Religious Freedom, Flourishing Societies, and the Role of Law” workshop sponsored by the ICLRS at Christ Church, University of Oxford, 27–28 July 2026. Research for this post was supported by the Volkswagen Foundation though the CEU project Towards Illiberal Constitutionalism in East-Central Europe.

The minimum conditions of belonging to the European Union (EU) were recently spelled out by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the values judgment (Case C-769/22, European Commission v. Hungary (21 April 2026)). Responding to the rule of law crisis, CJEU case law to date has focused on values set out expressly in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) such as the rule of law and respect for fundamental rights. Other contenders for EU values emerging on the heels of the migration crisis include solidarity in the face of religious diversity (based on TEU Article 2) and animal welfare as a rationale for limitations on ritual slaughter (based on Article 13 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) and Article 37 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EUCFR)). Christianity (as the defining feature of European culture) is also a prominent contender, with discussions focusing on the EU’s role in protecting Christianity, Christian values, and Christian civilization.

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