Celebrating ‘In God We Trust’
by Father John J. Geaney, CSP
July 1, 2014

Even when he isn’t making headlines, Pope Francis gives wings to important views in our lives as Christians. For example he has said, “Religious freedom is not simply freedom of thought or private worship. It is the freedom to live according to ethical principles, both privately and publicly, consequent to the truth one has found.”

As we celebrate July 4 at the end of this week, the Pope’s take on freedom is enormously important. Here in the United States we tend to think that freedom of worship is something to be taken for granted and basically follows the words of the First Amendment of our Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”

The First Amendment goes on to posit the importance of the freedom of speech and of the press, the right to gather peacefully, and to redress the government when the people have grievances. The latter parts of the First Amendment are clearly important, but today I want to dwell on the importance of government making no laws regarding the establishment of religion, or prohibiting in any way a person’s right to practice a religion freely.

We treasure religious freedom in the United States, sometimes not as much as we should or could – but treasure it we do. That freedom from government intervention in the affairs of a religion are reflections about the people who first came to America looking for the freedom that was being denied them in the countries from which they came. Governments in Europe did establish laws about religion for their people. And the Puritans who came to America and began this country? Their descendants never forgot the lessons of not being free to worship God as they chose.

Pope Francis takes freedom of religion to another level, though, when he reminds us that religious freedom is also the freedom to live according to ethical principles both privately and publicly. We know that many people do not exercise their freedom to live according to what they know is right; they have no ethical principles as such. I expect such lack of exercise of a basic freedom is what caused the pope to say that the mafia in Calibria in Italy are so far from God. “They worship evil…” the Pope said in calling them to account for their actions.

We are not the mafia. But we still need to exercise our freedom of religion by relying on the importance of behaving ethically both privately and publicly. We need to be able to say that people who cannot see the need to have just immigration laws are not living out the freedom of religion that the Constitution of the United States affords every one of us in this country whose birth we celebrate on July 4. Those who believe that state and government treasuries are for their plunder are not exercising their religious freedom properly. Those who traffic in women fall into the trap, too.

We are an extraordinarily fortunate people that we live in the United States. But to celebrate our freedom properly we need to recognize the importance of living out the reality that “In God we Trust.”