Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Rising Intolerance For Christians In Europe
Rising Intolerance For Christians In Europe
Jun 6, 2025 5:53 AM

Catholic Bishop Mario Toso, the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace says “intolerance and discrimination against Christians have not diminished” but increased, despite more attention to the problem.

There are many areas where intolerance against Christians can clearly be seen, but two stand out as being particularly relevant at present.

The first is intolerance against Christian speech. In recent years there has been a significant increase in incidents involving Christians who have been arrested and even prosecuted, for speaking on Christian issues. Religious leaders are threatened with police action after preaching about sinful behavior and some are even sentenced to prison for preaching on the biblical teaching against sexual immorality. Even private conversations between citizens, including expression of opinions on social network, can e the grounds of a plaint, or at least intolerance, in many European countries.

The second area where intolerance against Christians can clearly be seen is in regard to Christian conscience, particularly in the workplace. Throughout Europe there have been numerous instances of Christians being removed from the workplace simply for seeking to act according to their conscience. Some of them are well known since they e even before the European Court of Human Rights.

Massimo Introvigne, coordinator of the Observatory on Religious Liberty of the Italian foreign affairs ministry, concurs. He cited 169 rulings in EU courts that had to do with freedom of religion issues for Christians.

The most dangerous areas, are those which limit the conscientious objection of Christians who do not want to cooperate in abortion, the sale of abortifacient pills, or the celebration of same-sex marriage; those which limit the freedom to preach through the misuse of laws against so-called ‘hate speech’; those which restrict the freedom of religious education and parents’ rights to educate their children, and those which place restrictions on the use of religious symbols…

Introvigne noted that while one cannot draw parallels between the bloodshed and torture experienced by many Christians around the world, he did say that “in terms of religious liberty, the logic of the inclined plane applies. Where discrimination es normal, the transition to violence is never far away.”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
NYC Council to Walmart: Stop Giving Money to Our Local Charities!
Last week, Walmart announced that it distributed $3 million last year to charities in New York City. The giving included $1 million to the New York Women’s Foundation, which offers job training, and $30,000 to Bailey House, which distributes groceries to e residents. Naturally, there was one group that was appalled by the charitable giving: local politicians. More than half the members of the New York City Council sent a letter to Walmart demanding that it stop giving millions in...
Right-to-Work and Human Dignity
Public policy wonks and economists frequently warn us to consider the unintended consequences of any given initiative. That would be good exercise when considering campaigns to raise the minimum wage and also calls to roll back “right-to-work” (RTW) legislation. The former presumably helps those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, while the latter is castigated as an attack on unions’ right to collective bargaining and, therefore, harmful to middle-class workers. It follows then, that if one prioritizes economic...
Loving the Hunt: Kuyper on Scholarship and Stewardship
In “Scholastica II,” a convocation address delivered to Amsterdam’s Free University in 1900 (now translated under the title,Scholarship), Abraham Kuyper explores the ultimate goal of “genuine study,” asking, “Is it to seek or find?” Alluding to academics who search for the sake of searching, Kuyperconcludes that “seeking should be in the service of finding” and that “the ultimate purpose of seeking is finding.” “The shepherd who had lost his sheep did not rejoice in searching for it but in finding...
Proxy Resolutions Aim to Stifle Corporate Speech
On Friday, June 6, shareholders of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., will gather at the Bud Walton Auditorium on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville, Ark. Among them will be As You Sow member Zevin Asset Management, which is pushing a resolution demanding the retailer issue annual reports on its policy, lobbying and membership expenditures. All of this, of course, is intended to embarrass Walmart in the same-ol’ name-and-shame game employed so often by shareholder activists advancing a progressive agenda. What...
A Market for Disability: Down Syndrome and the Economic Imagination
In a powerful profile of his son Jamie, a young man with Down syndrome, Michael Bérubé explores some of the key challenges that those with disabilities face when trying to enter the workforce: The first time I talked to Jamie about getting a job, he was only 13. But I thought it was a good idea to prepare him, gradually, for the world that would await him after he left school. My wife, Janet, and I had long been warned...
Richard Baxter on Private Meditation
Richard Baxter, profiled in the latest issue of Religion & Liberty, penned The Saints Everlasting Rest in 1647. In the book’s dedication, Baxter wrote that he had no intention of serving God other than preaching. But he recalled, “sentenced to death by the physicians, I began to contemplate more seriously on the everlasting rest which I apprehended myself to be just on the border of.” Baxter noted that because he was so near death that it quickened his “sluggish heart...
Big Government at the Bilderberg Summit
In this week’s Acton Commentary, Jonathan Witt asks “Why do entrepreneurs who don’t want government intimately involved in the economy want to hob nob?” Think about it. Why do even some entrepreneurs who do not want government intimately involved in the economy pelled to hob nob with all of those European and American politicians at this year’s Bilderberg summit? Maybe what happened to Bill Gates has something to do with it. By most accounts, Gates went about building up Microsoft,...
The Paradoxes of Religious Liberty and Economic Freedom
The role of economic liberty in contributing to human flourishing and mon good remains deeply underappreciated, says Samuel Gregg, even by those who are dedicated to religious liberty: The relationship between economic and religious liberty can, however, work the other way: subtle corrosion of economic freedom can undermine religious liberty. A good example is the modern welfare state. Today, government spending, according to the OECD, consumes a minimum of 40 percent of annual GDP in virtually all Western European nations....
Generosity From The Heart: Fighting Human Trafficking One Photo At A Time
Tanner Stewart did not intend to e an abolitionist. His passion is photography. But his gift for taking amazing photos led him to fight human trafficking. In 2012, Stewart was on a trip to Bulgaria, volunteering for A21, an organization that educates about trafficking and provides care for trafficking survivors. Stewart was bluntly confronted by trafficking in a chance encounter: Stewart, a Seattle-based photographer, had spotted a man holding a baby. Wanting to capture the beautiful moment, he asked the...
Faith and Flat Economics
The latest edition of Econ Journal Watch has a symposium, co-sponsored by the Acton Institute, on the question, “Does Economics Need an Infusion of Religious or Quasi-Religious Formulations?” In his essay “On the Usefulness of a Flat Economics to the World of Faith“, Andrew P. Morriss considers the role of faith in correcting how economics flattens the perception of human nature and human existence: To what extent is economics unduly flat? Compared to the Christian conception of human nature, what...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved