A question about religious liberty

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To the Editor:

When we Catholics celebrate and promote religious liberty we might want to consider whose religious liberty we are promoting. Our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters have a different view of the permissibility of abortion depending on stage and situation. This is derived from their faith. Do we impose our theological view on them? Perhaps we should emulate our Quaker brethren, who oppose killing even in warfare, live it out themselves, advocate for non-violence but do not impose their belief on those who differ. Do we truly believe in religious liberty?

Mary Lu Callahan
Iowa City


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2 thoughts on “A question about religious liberty

  1. We do impose our faith-informed moral view on other practices found in non-Christian religions, including child marriage, withholding medical care to seriously ill minors, polygamy, honor killing, FGM, beating a disobedient wife, stoning adulterers, amputating the hand of a thief, and more. I invite the writer of this letter, and everyone reading, to join me on Thursdays (abortion day) at the Emma Goldman Clinic to pray for an end to abortion and for the conversion of all hearts and minds to a culture of life. I also invite the writer, and everyone reading, to actively support the women who choose life for their children through the many, many local services and organizations available in Iowa City and Johnson County.
    Saint Gianna Beretta Molla, ora pro nobis.

    1. Please don’t conflate what are often tribal/cultural practices with the actual dictates of a religion. Otherwise you need to account for Christian people who practiced slavery, abuse, torture, burning at the stake with actual Christianity. (amputation of hands? See Catholic King Leopold of Belgium’s practices in the Congo.) And Jewish people would find your inference that our faith-informed moral view is superior to theirs veering dangerously close to anti-Semitism.

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