RFI President Emeritus Tom Farr published an essay this week at The Catholic Thing on the importance of religious freedom for America since its founding and the threats arrayed against that freedom today. The essay is based on remarks Farr delivered at the 2024 RFI Annual Dinner held last month in Washington, D.C.

Here is how the essay opens:

God created all of us in His image and likeness. Each of us, therefore, has a dignity that no one, and especially no government, may violate.  God wants us to follow Him, but He endows us with free will. He does not coerce. He beckons. No just government, may coerce anyone in matters of religion.

Fortunately, the Founders of America agreed. They believed in a God who not only creates us equal, but endows all of us with certain natural rights that must be protected by government. And for them, the first of those rights was religious freedom. They guaranteed this right in the First Amendment and called it the “free exercise of religion.” For two centuries it was known as America’s “first freedom.”

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of the first freedom for our nation, and the world. The Founders’ way of dealing with religion and religious freedom was not only unprecedented, but a turning point in the recognition of human dignity for all mankind.

No other nation, before or since, has ever protected the right of religious liberty for all of its citizens. No other nation has justified its commitment to religious freedom in a way that applies to every human being – an inalienable right given by God, not the state. No other society has ever revered religious freedom as the first freedom, the one on whose shoulders all other freedoms stand.

Unfortunately, in today’s America, religious freedom is no longer taught in our schools or valued in our cultural institutions. It’s often scorned and repudiated. The vile scourge of anti-Semitism is rampant on American campuses. We are in trouble.

Read the full article: “The Founders’ Gift: Free Exercise of Religion.”

Watch a video of Tom Farr’s remarks on which this essay is based: