I am particularly glad to address this assembly on the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. My committee, especially, shares the Helsinki principles, according to which security and human rights are strictly connected. Religious freedom is, of course, one of the basic rights. In fact, I would say that religious freedom has been one of the greatest achievements of the central and eastern European countries in the last 10 years.
Believers were denied the right of freedom of religion and conscience during the period of communist regimes. As we know, there still are problems there for those called the nontraditional denominations, but big steps have been made since the rule was silence and the shadow for believers. That was one of the main fields of activity of the Helsinki movements in general, and of the Italian Helsinki committee in particular.
The main problem in regard to this issue is that the world has a tradition of intolerance rather than a tradition of religious freedom. Nevertheless, I believe that we can outline a history of freedom in the midst of the overwhelming history of violent imposition and gross discriminations.
Along with several bad ideas, Italy has also contributed several good ideas to the history of Europe and the world. The development of humanism, especially to the end of the 15th century, resulted in new ideas, and these ideas were spread through the extremely powerful new medium of the press. The number of publications increased, the study of classical literature and classical languages was revived, and old forgotten manuscripts were discovered anew. These developments in combination helped bring about a proliferation of new ideas and new approaches to religion.
In that period, there was a magic moment when Erasmus, one of the greatest spirits, had the feeling that a golden age was going to come. The pope founded the College of Knowledge in Rome. The approach was accepted to study ancient text manuscripts in religion, theology, and philosophy without discrimination. This golden era only lasted a few years. Erasmus had a very positive attitude and very optimistic attitude at the beginning of the period. Within a few years, however, reform was confronted by the Catholic Church in such a way as to dramatically change the attitude of Erasmus and many other leaders of that period. The appeal of Erasmus to totally erase the text, because he said it would be much better than a religious war, was not listened to. He bitterly prophesied the end with these words: “ruin and misery everywhere and destruction under the false pretext of religion.”
Perhaps the secret of peace and tolerance, then like now, was all in the sentence that Erasmus wrote to Luther in 1518: “More is accomplished by a civil modesty than by immodesty.” We know that in his entire life he attacked persecution, the Inquisition, and the violence of the period and advocated tolerance and peaceful coexistence. This is the basic root of my speech.
The principle that the ruler of each state determines the religion of his subjects produced millions of victims. To escape persecution, millions of believers began to immigrate. Here the importance of such moments in history as the Pilgrim’s journey to America on board the Mayflower in 1620 can be seen. Paradoxically, persecution was at the root of a new sort of freedom, the freedom to immigrate and to profess one’s religion abroad—in another country or, perhaps, a new country.
In the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the Catholic reform movement outlined several principles that made possible some important achievements, even for those who had not been exposed to the reform movements, for instance, the right to read the Scriptures directly. Even though limited to the official and commented version this was an improvement for freedom of conscience.
During this period, there were many religious wars. Remember the bloodshed in France, for example. The Union of Utrecht was extremely important The northern Dutch province experimented with a new sort of democratic state, even before the English system of Parliament emerged. For almost two centuries after Henry VIII, no special sign of tolerance or religious freedom was shown in England. However, as a more favorable climate was established, such a great intellectual as John Locke was able to give a theoretical structure for the peaceful settlement and government of a civil society. His treatise began with a disciplined system of freedoms. That is another main point in our history of religious freedom.
Later, Voltaire made the famous statement, “I don’t share any of your ideas, but I would be ready to die to defend your right to express them.” This is possibly the best sentence that we have received as a heritage from his ideas. This statement is a monument to the modern concept of freedom.
What was happening in other parts of Europe? Even in civilized Florence, I have documents showing how that enlightened government exerted strong control over the press, especially relating to religion. Books on religion were strictly controlled up to the end of the 18th century, even in very civilized towns and countries.
Europeans had to cross the Atlantic Ocean to realize the declaration of rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, of which fundamental freedoms were the cornerstone. If the modern history of America began with forced Christianization, later the United States was born on the principles of tolerance and freedom of conscience. Let us return for a moment to the history of Europe. A few more dates need to be taken into consideration. The French Revolution brought a lot of ideas as well as continental bloodshed. The Napoleonic period was not only the occasion to update many states and constitutions but also to dictate rules on religious affairs to the pope and institutionalize the clergy. These attitudes entered into the affairs of the church. These events were completely different from the approach that would come in the next century, yet they laid the groundwork for the separation between church and state.
In Italy, for instance, in the same period—just before and after the French Revolution—the shining splendor of Venice and Rome and other Italian cities didn’t avoid having Jewish ghettos. Jews could not even open the gates of the ghettos and practice a normal life. Not until the latter part of the 19th century were those gates opened. In Rome, in the United Kingdom of Italy, for instance, it was not until the power of the pope was finished that Jews were allowed to leave the ghettos, enjoy complete freedom, and practice their religion openly.
My perception of the history of the modern tradition of freedom is mainly a perception of a history of discrimination and violence. Occasionally, freedom and tolerance had the upper hand. In this century, we have seen the violence and intolerance of totalitarian regimes, claiming the right to impose the state’s view on religion as well as on race and other issues. We had to wait until the end of the Second World War to have the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For the first time we have a clear standard on an international level, not only in one country like the United States.
During this time constitutions have changed. Several states have become democratic. This is true of my own country. The Italian constitution, approved at the end of 1947, has an important part about all kinds of freedom, including freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. It is not perfect yet. The Catholic Church still has a dominant position, with privileges guaranteed on a constitutional level, and there are bilateral courts between the Italian states and the Catholic Church. But there is the possibility to have agreements with other religious denominations, and this can quickly be achieved. There is a draft constitutional law in Italy designed to change this situation and to give a more equal basis to other religious denominations. The same has happened in many other countries. What happened in Italy after the Second World War was the same as what happened in other democratic countries.
In Central Europe and the Soviet bloc, the situation was much different. There was a generic constitutional provision about freedom of conscience, but the official ideology of atheistic materialism was stressed very clearly and religious groups were severely persecuted. As noted earlier, this situation has now changed and we hope that the situation will continue to improve.
We in Western Europe, the United States, and other democratic countries have a moral responsibility. Wherever religious freedom is on a higher level, we should try to ensure for everybody more rights and greater freedom. We should work for the freedom of people to believe, to have their cults, their churches, and so on. I am very glad that just a few years ago in Rome the first mosque was built. Now they are operating in Italy, since immigration from Muslim countries is growing more and more all over Europe.
In conclusion, we live in a world where the new powerful media of communication make possible
the circulation of all kinds of ideas and a worldwide debate on every issue. We can easily meet here in Washington,
as well as many other places. We literally can meet everywhere using Internet connections. In my opinion, this
is similar to the spread of information and ideas through the press at the end of the 15th century. The proliferation
of new ideas will necessarily bring a new range of religious approaches, both organized and individual. That is
the point I raised earlier. What we have to do is try to answer this new spread of ideas and religious approaches
in a different way than was done at that time. We now have some very important instruments. One of them is the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There are also regional agreements that can be considered within the embrace
of the United Nations. We must use all these possibilities to fulfill our commitment to achieving complete freedom
of religion.
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