Cathleen Kaveny, a professor at Boston College’s theology department and law school, delivered the keynote address at a conference hosted by Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs on Oct. 21-22.
The conference, titled “Religion and Human Rights from the UDHR to Dignitatis Humanae,” commemorated the 75th anniversary of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a United Nations document that lists rights and freedoms, as well as the 60th anniversary of the Patrick F. Healy conference “Freedom and Man,” which influenced discussions on religious freedom at the Second Vatican Council. The Healy conference discussions resulted in the Council’s creation of Dignitatis Humanae, a declaration in support of religious freedom.
In her keynote address for the Berkley Center conference, Kaveny suggested that Catholic ethics can be a useful framework for discussions about how to balance individual and religious rights by recognizing the need for social respect and moral agreement.
“First, we need to show social respect for those with moral and religious views that are different from ours,” Kaveny said at the event. “Second, we need to understand that social respect does not mean that we morally agree with others. But third, we need to recognize — this is the key — that it is good that we are all here.”
Kaveny said that by the mid-20th century, religion was no longer central to the lives of most people in the United States, but it was still widely valued by the legal system as a source of unity.
“What are the presuppositions of the mid-20th century view?” Kaveny asked. “First, it presupposed that there was a well-defined secular sphere. Second, it presupposed that there was sufficient common morality that all people of goodwill share, whether or not they belong to a particular religion.”
“Third, it presupposed that a strong divide exists between public identities and private identities. And fourth, it presupposed that the job of the court was to protect underrepresented and vulnerable religious minorities,” Kaveny added.
Kaveny said that these assumptions no longer hold true because of a broader shift toward individualism in various aspects of life, adding that people now expect both their public and private identities to be accommodated by the law and society.
“Our era prioritizes bringing one’s whole self into every context, including racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation and religion,” Kaveny said. “We now live in an age of identity. I think there’s a broad sense of grievance on the part of mainstream religious traditions, particularly those with conservative religious beliefs.”
Kaveny added that the diminishing role of religion in the United States has led to growing fear among those who identify as religious.
“They look at the disappearance of religious affinity and things like Pew Research Center study after study. And they begin to feel afraid,” Kaveny said.
Kaveny also said Supreme Court cases have somewhat eased this fear among religious people, an example being the 2014 case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that private corporations could object to certain government regulations, such as requiring employee health insurance to cover certain contraceptives, on religious grounds.
Kaveny added that acceptance of complicity in acts that do not align with one’s religious beliefs, like the sale of contraceptives, is crucial to understanding religious liberty.
“I think we can think about cooperation with evil as a doctrine that both helps and challenges involvement in religious liberty,” Kaveny said. “We can know that the cooperation with the use of contraception by offering insurance plans covering birth control would be categorized as remote material cooperation with evil.”
Kaveny said that this doctrine of cooperation with evil must be updated to avoid justifying religiously bad actions, such as murder.
“If we support living in a pluralistic society, we will inevitably be facilitating what we consider to be objectively and sometimes seriously defective choices, just as others will inevitably be facilitating our choices, which they may view as defective,” Kaveny said.
Kaveny added that how we define our relationships to other people can help simplify when to cooperate with evil, in reference to Dignitatis Humanae.
“Dignitatis Humanae asks us to rise above our litigious society and ask not only what are we owed with respect to religious liberty, but what do we owe others with respect to their religion,” Kaveny said.
Kaveny also added that although moral responsibility is critical to one’s existence, it does not necessarily require individuals to do everything in their power to dissuade social wrongdoing.
“What we owe other people in society is in large part related to the role we play with respect to them,” Kaveny said. “We do not expect a pilot to refuse to fly people to Las Vegas, despite the knowledge that many people will gamble if they go there and gambling is a big social problem.”
Kaveny said that balancing obligation with social respect is easiest when pluralism is embraced rather than tolerated.
“There is this ethical phase in which diversity and pluralism is gradually internally accepted as something not only inevitable but also right and meaningful and good,” Kaveny said.
“The change is from, ‘You are there and we are here,’ to ‘It is good for all of us to be here,’” Kaveny said. “And that is the task for Catholics in the United States and for other religious believers in the United States today. We need to make the case that it is good for all of us to be here.”