is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious. The reason is that the exercise of religion, of its very nature, 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.)
Thank God, for us Americans this right is enshrined within our Constitution, in the most prominent place in the First Amendment. Among those who argued most forcefully for the state’s public recognition of this right were Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, George Mason, and John Adams. Suffice it here simply to quote from James Madison, whose hand and political leadership were most responsible for achieving the final wording of the First Amendment, and then its ratification by the Congress and still later by the people:
Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, “that religion or the duty which we owe to 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.1
From the beginning, then, Christianity has been a religion marked by its adherence to an inner life of conscience, in which God must be recognized in spirit and in truth, in a way no others of that time except Jews felt bound to act. When a Roman philosopher was asked to bow or burn incense before the gods, he felt no special inner conflict. All that was required of him was to go through the external motions; he did not have to believe a word of it. That option is not open to a Jew or a Christian, however. For a Jew or a Christian, what his body does, his soul must do likewise. He cannot in good conscience bow or burn incense before a false god. The First Commandment itself forbids that: “I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt not place false gods before me.” And so it has been from that time to this. Deuteronomy tells us: “Worship your God in spirit and in truth.”
Thus, the worship of God takes place in the spirit. But it is not confined to the spirit. It must be expressed in actions in the world where they will be seen, and it must at times be expressed in public. Religion is not solely a private affair, an affair of the heart. It is the inner and outward life, in the world at large, and in the eyes of other humans. Anything less would be hypocrisy. Some say, “My religion is my own private affair.” Yes and no. More than that, religion is the inner and outward life of an entire people—a people larger and more universally placed than in any one state. For Jews and for Christians, true religion is both a conviction of heart and mind, and also a transformative inspirer of public practices, whole cultures, and a distinctive (but in principle universal, freely chosen) civilization.
The whole principle of freedom of conscience and worship is a child of Judaism and Christianity as it is of no other religion or secular community. As the historian of liberty Lord Acton (1834–1902) observed, moreover, the record shows that the history of liberty is coincident with the history of Judaism and Christianity. One need not be a Jew or Christian to benefit by this liberty, to live by it, and to adopt it as one’s own. But Judaism and Christianity were the first and most enduring intellectual forces to recognize its necessity, to elucidate its grounds philosophically, and to think through the practical principles that would institutionalize it, not only in minds but also in polities.
While the principles of religious liberty are ancient, their institutionalization in the political world of the West is relatively recent. The practice of religious liberty is not yet universal. But the aspiration for it is universal, and will increasingly become acute, if only because the immense sufferings now being inflicted upon humans for the choices of their religious conscience are unbearable. Religions that countenance such barbarity disgrace themselves. By the via negativa of unbearable suffering, the cause of freedom of conscience is being written indelibly in worldwide human experience.
3. The Right of Association
In all social matters, the companionship of others is of great advantage. “A brother that is helped by his brother is like a strong city,” says Solomon (Prov. xviii. 19). “It is better, therefore, that two should be together than one: for they have the advantage of their society” (Eccles. iv. 9). . . . Again, any person who is competent to perform some special function has a right to be admitted to the society of those who are selected for the exercise of that function. For, an association means the union of men, gathered together for the accomplishment of some specific work.
(Aquinas, Liber Contra Impugnantes Dei Cultum et Religionem, ch. 2.)
Private societies, then, although they exist within the body politic, and are severally part of the commonwealth, cannot nevertheless be absolutely, and as such, prohibited by public authority. For, to enter into a “society” of this kind is the natural right of man; and the State has for its office to protect natural rights, not to destroy them.
(Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, §51.)
In the middle of the thirteenth century, some of the faculties at the University of Paris became aware of the unusual brilliance and growing fame of the new bright lights of the orders of Franciscans and Dominicans who were flocking to teach there. The University of Paris was only then emerging on the world stage, becoming competitive with universities in Bologna (founded 1088), Oxford (1096), Cambridge (1209), and elsewhere. Alas, the secular faculties jealous of their new eminence tried to ban the Franciscans and Dominicans from the university. Naturally, these religious orders appealed their case to the pope. They thought it unjust that persons of talent could be barred from the university simply because they belonged to a religious association. Their protest, written by Thomas Aquinas, is one of the first known defenses of the natural right of association.
The argument was, as usual for Saint Thomas, brief, commonsensical, and logically set out. Human beings are not only rational animals but also social animals. For human flourishing, many associations are necessary and highly useful. For this reason, the law of association is deep in our nature. Even more praiseworthy are free associations which individuals join for common purposes. If individuals have rights, then for even better reasons do their free associations have rights, which well serve the common good. For evidence, examine the growing number of schools, clinics, and other service organizations staffed by the Franciscans, Dominicans, and others. Free associations of individuals are natural to humans; it is a natural right to form them and to work through them. Free associations are well fitted to contribute substantially to the common good. Q.E.D.
To put this in more contemporary terms: No man is an island unto himself. For human survival, prospering, and progress, we depend on others with whom we associate. This is true for progress in knowledge and beauty, in truth and goodness. But it is also clearly true in economic development and the building of cities and republics. Most important, the primary communities in which we associate are not states. Communities such as the family are much more deeply rooted in our nature than are states. Others of these primordial associations are our communities of worship, community building, and work. There are also our political associations, and our associations for mirth and play and cultural expression. Human life has always been thick with associations, but never with as many associations as in the days following the birth of democratic societies with free economies, bursting with new opportunities for social initiatives.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Leo XIII dreaded the rise of the omnipotent total state. He saw the first threat of it in the materialism promoted by Engels and Marx, which left no room for the life of the human spirit or for human transcendence and personal liberty. He could think of only one opposing force to throw against the gigantic state: the thicket of free associations of every sort, and in every department of human life. Social life in associations is prior to social life in states. It is prior in time and prior in right. Thus, Leo and later popes began to stress the creative and associative powers of free adults, their capacity for initiative and for responsibility, and their ability to better human life from the ground up. The free labor unions were just one group of these associations that were dear to Leo.
A century later, Pope John Paul II called the peoples of the world, beginning in Europe, to become subjects