The campaign for religious liberty has defined the bishops' disposition to political power during the past decade. Now there are signs that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has ushered in a new phase of its fight for religious liberty. Not only did it recently submit a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court declaring that President Trump's ban on migration from five Muslim countries was “blatant religious discrimination”; a few days later it announced that its annual “Fortnight for Freedom,” launched in 2012, will become “Religious Freedom Week”—lasting half as long as before.
It will be interesting to see if and how the U.S. bishops' interpretation of the conciliar declaration on religious liberty, Dignitatis humanae (1965), will develop. The foundational statement of the USCCB's religious-liberty mobilization—Our First, Most Cherished Liberty (2012)—proudly claimed that “the landmark teaching of the Second Vatican Council on religious liberty was influenced by the American experience. It is among the proudest boasts of the Church on these shores. We have been staunch defenders of religious liberty in the past. We have a solemn duty to discharge that duty today.”
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