I am pleased to share an op-ed of mine that The New York Daily News published this morning, “A Catholic Model for Muslim Awakening.” The Paris massacres have brought still another round of debate on what sort of religion Islam is. Predictably, there are renewed calls for an Islamic Reformation. Others have called for an Islamic Enlightenment. Both are bad analogies, I argue. A far better model is the Catholic Church’s long road to religious freedom, culminating in Dignitatis Humanae — the Church’s declaration on religious freedom — at the Second Vatican Council. The Church’s historical trajectory shows how a religious community that once did not embrace religious freedom found a way to endorse it on grounds consistent with its traditional core commitments rather than on the basis of secularism or otherwise a departure from these commitments. Arguments welcome!
By Daniel Philpott