Religious Freedom and Catholicism in the American Political Order: In Defense of Truth

This article argues that although Catholics are experiencing restrictions on their religious freedom, they should not couch their response primarily in terms of religious freedom because that tends to frame the issue as a conflict between unreasonable religious beliefs, on the one hand, and reasonable and scientifically based laws and policies, on the other. Rather, Catholics should focus more on demonstrating that the specific laws and policies that restrict religious freedom are not rooted in objective reality and so are unjust. In this vein, this paper explores how the meanings of words such as “rights” are abused and used in such a way as to establish unjust laws, and encourages Catholics to demonstrate how their objections to unjust laws are rooted in reason and the best scientific inquiry, not mere religious belief.