Western nations asked to protect religious freedom amid growing intolerance.
(Photo: Getty/iStock)Western countries are being asked to protect religious freedom, including for people of faith who hold traditional views on marriage and sexuality.
Meeting in Berlin recently, religious freedom experts from around the world raised concerns about "increasing intolerance" towards people of faith in Europe and North America.
The hostile climate is causing many believers to hide their beliefs, warned Anja Hoffmann, executive director of the Observatory on Intolerance Against Christians in Europe, one of the co-organisers of the event.
"This is a serious threat to religious freedom and leads to widespread self-censorship among traditional believers in the West."
The fringe meeting was co-organised by the Commission of the Catholic Bishops' Conferences of the European Union, the Hungarian State Secretariat for the Aid to Persecuted Christians, and the Religious Freedom Institute in Washington DC.
The Religious Freedom Institute said, "The institutions that monitor and advance religious freedom in the EU and around the world have come together in response to a common concern: religious believers in the West are increasingly being targeted, marginalised, and sometimes even prosecuted for peacefully expressing their traditional religious convictions about family, marriage, and human nature.
"This problem must be addressed to safeguard the pluralistic societies of Western democracies."
Dr José Luis Bazán, of the Catholic Bishops' Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), said, "This phenomenon, which Pope Francis has aptly described as 'polite persecution,' can be understood as compelling policies and legislation, as well as social pressure, that undermine and curtail Christians' possibility to express and live according to their moral and religious principles in contemporary liberal societies."
The meeting also heard how Western nations are attempting to impose liberal ideologies abroad. Marcela Szymanski, of Aid to the Church in Need and a member of the IRFBA Council of Experts, described how Global South countries can be punished materially if they adopt local measures that are contrary to prevailing beliefs in Western nations, or do not agree to ideological conditionality clauses.
Organisers submitted a declaration to IRFBA member states asking that they affirm religious freedom for all, including those with traditional views on marriage, the family and human nature.
Todd Huizinga, Senior Fellow for Europe at the Religious Freedom Institute, said, "We believe this statement could have a real effect not only in safeguarding religious freedom for all, but also in increasing mutual understanding, tolerance and peace in our pluralistic societies."
David Trimble, president of the Religious Freedom Institute, expressed concern about pervasive efforts in the West to marginalise and even eradicate fundamental truths about God, the family, and human sexuality that are core to the Abrahamic faith traditions.