Religious Freedom Report Shows Dangerous Trends in the West

The National Catholic Register ^ | 6/27/23 | Tyler Arnold

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Although some examples of persecution are direct, the report finds that in Western countries, policies that discriminate against religious groups are more subtle.

Although the most severe cases of religious persecution are currently taking place in certain African and Asian countries, the 2023 Religious Freedom in the World report highlighted dangerous trends within Europe and the Western world.

The report, published by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), showed a rising trend in compelled speech, hate speech laws, censorship, the rise of cancel culture, and a growing intolerance toward some faith-based views in the West.

The Catholic organization is also following threats in Ukraine to religious freedom from the Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian governments amid the ongoing war.

In some African and Asian countries, the persecution is often more direct, such as China’s internment of Uyghur Muslims or Nigerian Islamists slaughtering Christians. In Western countries, policies that discriminate against religious groups are more subtle.

“It’s not necessarily that type of persecution here [in the West],” ACN-USA Director of Outreach Edward Clancy told CNA.

Clancy said that Western governments often engage in “polite persecution,” referencing a term used commonly by Pope Francis. He cited examples such as a U.K. doctor who lost his job for refusing to use preferred pronouns, French laws that have restricted religious symbols in certain public places, and COVID-19 restrictions that put harsher rules on religious gatherings than other functions, such as in New York.

On the subject of cancel culture, the report notes that the rejection of new concepts about gender have subjected people to threats of “legal sanction” in some Western countries and that “laws have been introduced, such as hate speech, to legally enforce and entrench these concepts as new [human] rights.”