It’s an “ugly scene” when the church’s teaching collides with the new sexual orthodoxy, but religious freedom is still possible, said visiting US Catholic legal scholar, Professor Helen Alvaré.
But as Catholic hospitals and schools are increasingly “squeezed” on their ability to express the faith and provide services, creative partnerships and solutions must emerge.
Professor Alvaré, who teaches at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, addressed an audience of around 100 for the latest instalment of Scholarship at the Cathedral, held at St Mary’s Cathedral Chapter Hall on 12 August.
The author of several books, including Religious Freedom After the Sexual Revolution (2022), Alvaré has advised the Vatican, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the United Nations on issues concerning religious freedom, women and the family.
She is visiting Sydney on a national tour, which included the 2024 Tim Fischer oration at Parliament House, Canberra.
Alvaré delivered a hopeful message in her conversation with Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP, moderated by director of the Australian Catholic University’s PM Glynn Institute, Dr Michael Casey.
She explained that in the “highly divided” US, some states are very protective of religious institutions, while others place increasing pressure on them—forcing Catholic hospitals, for example, to perform abortions and transgender surgeries.
But there are plenty of signs of hope, including increasing Supreme Court support for religious freedom, growing numbers of law firms dedicated to the issue, a “beautiful” classical school and homeschooling movement, and innovative solutions in Catholic health care provision
“What we have in common with you in Australia today is how much of the religious freedom debate is driven by the new sexual orthodoxy, which I would describe as a cultural ‘orthodoxy’ in favour of abortion, transgender surgery, contraception and so on,” she said.
“If you boil it down, it is hostile to marriage, it’s in favour of people being able to get rid of family members who are at a vulnerable time in their life, it’s serving adult interests and conceives of sex as completely unrelated to tomorrow.
“To argue for religious freedom in one of these sexual expression issues becomes a very ugly scene, that the church is accused of being unkind, retrograde and against vulnerable people.
“So we are in the same situation as you are in Australia—these are the same issues that are driving the clash over religious freedom, but we have 50 states that are hotly divided on all of this.
“While the president is hotly opposed to religious freedom on sexual issues the Supreme Court is the opposite. It’s choppy waters but it’s not a defeat for either side yet.”
In response to the main question posed for the event, whether religious freedom is still possible in secular societies, Alvaré said from her experience she “does not see” religious freedom being left behind yet.
“The US is still very Christian in many ways, and this may be controversial, but I think it’s the Evangelical Protestants who are leading the charge in this,” she said.
“They are large in numbers and they feel very empowered, and the political, cultural and spiritual links between them and Roman Catholics are now very strong.
“We are very much working together on religious freedom and also coming to our senses on the good of our shared theology.”
Both Alvaré and Archbishop Fisher expressed their shared conviction that when churches are given the freedom to worship and perform their good works, the whole of society benefits.
“There is a task for us to make a positive case for religious freedom, not just to always push back on infringements on our work, which has been our posture a lot of the time in recent years,” Archbishop Fisher said.
“We might not have had to make the case in the past in civil society, but now I think we have to show the real benefits.”
Alvaré agreed, saying that several cases in the US had shown that government interference into religious communities and institutions had been counterproductive, while millions of dollars of welfare to address the consequences of family breakdown could be saved if better partnerships were promoted with the faith sector.
“We would all love it if people stayed married, had kids and avoided adultery and divorce,” she said.
“When there is family disruption people vote less, they give less to charity, and do less volunteering.
“So I would like a positive statement in cases regarding religious freedom, especially in the sexual orthodoxy of the prevailing government, to say the norms we have actually promote the kind of families that your government programs are attempting to promote.”
Asked how best to respond to increasing pressures on religious freedom in schools, hospitals, aged care and other environments, Alvaré advised against a “Goulburn strike” or “Benedict Option” approach, and said a lot of the work needs to be done inside the institutions themselves.
Drawing on arguments in her book, she said that religious institutions in Australia, as in the US, may take better advantage of existing protections if they are “thoroughly committed to the Catholic norms.”
“A lot of the work before us isn’t strictly between us and the government. A lot of the work is inside the institutions themselves,” she said.
“The second thing is we have a classical schools movement, some Catholic health care systems doing a beautiful revival of the mission of the Catholic sisters who founded them, and some social services are doing the same thing.
“There are religious freedom law firms and religious liberty clinics in places such as Stanford University.
“When you squeeze things out of one spot you can give them somewhere else to go. There isn’t a one size fits all in religious freedom.
“There is all this creativity and newness that arises when you squeeze big existing models, ridicule them, and try to legislate or regulate them out of existence.”