Pope: religious freedom, a right both individual and collective
In receiving the President of the Italian Republic, Benedict XVI affirms that the "Church is not and does not intend to be a political agent", but "has a profound interest in the good of the political community" and it is up to Catholic laypeople to affirm in society the values that inspire them.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) Religious freedom is not only the individual right of each person to profess and display one's faith, but it is also the collective right of families, groups and the Church itself, and engages civil power to "create conditions favourable to the fostering of religious life, so that citizens are truly able to exercise their religious rights and fulfil their respective duties." The cordial meeting between the Pope and the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, gave occasion to Benedict XVI to reinforce the concept of religious freedom and to reaffirm the respect due to it by States, as occurs in Italy and other countries.
In his speech, the Pope also affirmed that the Church "is not and does not intend to be a political agent", but "has a profound interest in the good of the political community" and that it is up to Catholic laypeople to affirm in society the principles that inspire them.
Benedict XVI started with the consideration that "Church and State, though fully distinct, are both called, according to there respective mission and with the ends and means proper to each, to serve Man, who is at the same time recipient and participant in the salvific mission of the Church and citizen of the State. It is in Man that these two societies meet and collaborate to better promote integral good. The civil community's concern with regard to the good of citizens he added cannot be limited to certain dimensions of the person, such as physical health, economic well-being, intellectual formation or social relations. Man appears before the State also with his religious dimension, which 'consists before all else in those internal, voluntary and free acts whereby man sets the course of his life directly toward God.'(Dignitatis humanae, 3). Such acts 'can be neither commanded nor prohibited' by human authority, which, on the contrary, must respect and promote this dimension."
"It would however be reductive," the Pope went on to say, "to consider that the right of religious freedom is sufficiently guaranteed based on the absence of violence against or interference in personal convictions or when it is limited to respecting manifestations of faith that occur in the ambit of places of worship. Not to be forgotten in fact is that 'the social nature of man itself requires that he should give external expression to his internal acts of religion: that he should share with others in matters religious; that he should profess his religion in community' (ibid). Thus religious freedom is not only a right of the individual but also of the family, of religious groups and of the Church herself (cf Dignitatis humanae, 4-5.13) and the exercise of this right has an influence on the multiple ambits and situations in which the believer finds himself and operates. An adequate respect for the right to religious freedom implicates, therefore, the engagement of civil power to "create conditions favourable to the fostering of religious life, in order that the people may be truly enabled to exercise their religious rights and to fulfill their religious duties, and also in order that society itself may profit by the moral qualities of justice and peace which have their origin in men's faithfulness to God and to His holy will' (Dignitatis humanae, 6)."
The freedom which the Church and Christians claim, furthermore, "is not prejudicial to the interests of the State or to other social groups and does not aim towards an authoritarian supremacy" but is rather the condition by which "that precious service which the Church offers, to Italy and to every country where she exists, can be carried out." Such service consists mainly in "giving positive and convincing answers to the expectations and the questions of our people" offering "the light of faith, the force of hope and the warmth of charity." This is expressed also with regard to the civil and political sphere. "In fact, if it is true that by her nature and mission 'the Church is not and does not intend to be a political agent," she nevertheless 'has a profound interest in the good of the political community.'" This contribution comes mainly from laypeople who, "acting with full responsibility and making use of the right to participate in public life which they have like all other citizens, undertake with other members of society to build a just order in society. In their actions, furthermore, they base themselves on the values and anthropological and ethical principles rooted in the nature of the human being, recognizable through the right use of reason. Thus, when they commit themselves with their words and actions to tackling today's great challenges, such as war and terrorism, hunger and thirst, the extreme poverty of so many human beings, certain terrible epidemics, but also the safeguarding of human life in all its phases, from conception to natural death, as well as the promotion of the family, founded on marriage and the first place of education, they do not act in favour of a peculiar interest or in the name of principles perceptible solely to those who profess an certain religious creed: they do so, instead, in the context and according to the rules of democratic coexistence, for the good of society as a whole and in the name of values that every right-minded person can share."
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