George Pell: The meaning of religious freedom and the future of human rights

Photo: Robert Pearce

His Eminence Cardinal George Pell delivered the Annual Lecture on Religious Freedom at the University of Notre Dame (Australia) School of Law on 22 August 2013.

Context is always essential for understanding and so it is with religious freedom. Therefore, before discussing religious freedom in Australia it might be helpful to look briefly outside our own patch, outside our own English-speaking tribes, outside the Anglosphere.

Religious freedom as a matter of life or death

In large parts of the world beyond the West, religious freedom is a life or death issue. Last week, in response to the military crackdown in Egypt which has killed hundreds of people and injured many more, supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood targeted Coptic Christians in a 12 hour rampage, destroying at least 47 churches and attacking Coptic schools, hospitals, monasteries and businesses across the country. Coptic families have been attacked in their homes, and the Coptic leader, His Holiness Pope Tawadros II has been unable to leave his home or to celebrate Mass in his Cathedral because of death threats. The violence has continued this week, and it is now estimated that one thousand people have been killed.

This is just the latest episode in the persecution of Christians in Egypt that predated the fall of the Mubarak regime. This persecution has escalated dramatically since then, and has pursued Coptic communities even outside Egypt. In January 2011, sixty Coptic churches around the world received threats of terror attacks, including four Coptic churches in Sydney. While the Coptic community in Sydney was not attacked, the increased security required in response to these threats cut short the community's celebration of the Orthodox Christmas, which is of course one of the holiest times of the year. Read more