Heroes of Religious
Liberty
The following are quotes from
important American leaders and Saints about religious liberty, put out this
fall as part of the informational campaign the Catholic bishops launched
against the HHS mandate. The full text
of this statement can be found at the USCCB Web site. Click here to be linked to it.
What did our early American leaders say about religious freedom?
George Washington: "If
I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution
framed in the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger
the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never
have placed my signature to it; and if I could now conceive that the general
government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience
insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than
myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual
tyranny, and every species of religious persecution." (Letter to the
United Baptist Churches in Virginia, 1789.)
George Washington:
“[T]he conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy
and tenderness; and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be
extensively accommodated to them…” (Letter to the Annual Meeting of Quakers,
1789.)
Thomas Jefferson: “No
provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects
the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority.”
(Letter to New London Methodist, 1809.)
James Madison: “[T]he
equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his Religion according to
the dictates of conscience is held by the same tenure with all our other rights.
If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature; if we weigh its
importance, it cannot be less dear to us; if we consult the Declaration of
Rights which pertain to the good people of Virginia, as the basis and
foundation of Government, it is enumerated with equal solemnity, or rather
studied emphasis.” (Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious
Assessment, 1785.)
(Internal quotation marks omitted.)
James Madison: “[W]e hold it
for a fundamental and undeniable truth that religion, or the duty which we owe
our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason
and conviction, not by force or violence. The Religion then of every man must
be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of
every man to exercise it as these may dictate.” (Memorial
and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessment,
1785.) (Internal citation and quotations omitted.)
Who have been heroes of religious liberty in the church?
Saint Thomas More:
Thomas More was an English Catholic lawyer who served as Lord Chancellor and a
close advisor to King Henry VIII. More opposed the king’s separation from the Catholic
Church and his naming himself as Supreme Head of the Church of England. More
was imprisoned for his refusal to take the oath required by a law that
disparaged papal power and required acknowledging the children of Henry and
Anne Boleyn (the king’s second wife after his divorce from Catherine of Aragon)
as legitimate heirs to the throne. In 1535, More was tried for treason,
convicted on perjured testimony, and beheaded. He is the patron saint of
religious freedom.
Saint John Fisher:
John Fisher was an English Catholic cardinal, academic, and martyr. Fisher was executed
by order of King Henry VIII during the English Reformation for refusing to
accept the king as Supreme Head of the Church of England and for upholding the
Catholic Church’s doctrine of papal primacy.
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton:
Elizabeth Ann Seton was the first native‐born U.S. citizen to be canonized by
the Catholic Church. In 1809, Seton founded the first American congregation of Religious
Sisters, the Sisters of Charity. She also established the first parochial
school for girls in the U.S. in Emmitsburg, Maryland in 1810. Seton’s efforts
initiated the parochial school system in America and opened the first free
Catholic schools for the poor.
Saint Katharine Drexel:
Katharine Drexel was a religious sister, heiress, philanthropist, and educator.
She dedicated herself and her inheritance to the needs of oppressed Native Americans
and African‐Americans in the western and southwestern United States. She was a vocal
advocate of racial tolerance and established a religious congregation, the
Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, whose mission was to teach African‐Americans
and later American Indians. She also financed more than sixty missions and
schools around the United States, in addition to founding Xavier University of
Louisiana—the only historically African‐American Catholic university in the
United States to date.
John Courtney Murray, SJ:
Father Murray was an American Jesuit priest and theologian, who was known for
his efforts to reconcile Catholicism and religious pluralism, particularly
focusing on the relationship between religious freedom and the institutions of
a democratically structured modern state. During the Second Vatican Council, he
played a key role in the Council’s ground‐breaking Declaration on Religious
Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae.
