The vice-president of the Italian Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies has called on Christian politicians to “make sacrifices” and value their conscience more than their position. In an interview with Catholic News Agency published in August 2011, Professor Rocco Buttiglione, a member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, said that Christian people must enter politics to play an active role forming “the future of the land.”
With regard to the registration of civil Partnerships in religious premises, William Fittall, Secretary General of the Archbishops Council and General Synod, warned that religious groups must continue to enjoy religious liberty.
Christians who wear crosses at work or discuss their beliefs with colleagues must have legal protection from persecution, demanded the Church of England.
Lord Sacks said he shared with the church leaders a “real concern that the attempt to impose the current prevailing template of equality and anti-discrimination on religious organisations is an erosion of religious liberty”. The Chief Rabbi also raised concerns that the UK was “beginning to move back” to the time of the Mayflower when many left to “find religious liberty elsewhere”.
Jean-Pierre Denis, editor in chief of 'La Vie', says: "Christianity isn’t being violently rejected from the public sphere, but quietly banned from all areas of the collective memory, of all our cultural unconscious references. We are living through a denial process which is lead in a peaceful way, insidiously, and with politically correct manners."
"The quality of social and civil life and the quality of democracy depend in large measure on this 'critical' point - conscience, on the way it is understood and the way it is informed," he said to representatives of key sectors of Croatian society and the Diplomatic Corps during his two-day visit to Croatia.
A sociologist representing a European security organization says that the number of Christians killed each year for their faith is so high that it calculates to one martyr's life being taken every five minutes.
Spain is currently experiencing a "crisis of religious freedom by the development of an aggressive form of secularism which seeks to condemn Christians to a marginalization in public life." Spain is also a place of "a hostile attitude towards Christianity as shown by the desecrations... the contempt attitude displayed by officials... the development of a culture, through some media, through education and through legislations which aims to bring religion in Spain to a marginalized situation."
The Duchess of Cornwall said: “in our right to speak freely, please let us not become too politically correct, because surely political correctness is as severe a form of censorship as any”.
David Cameron believes Britain is a Christian country and says he cannot understand why there is any debate over Christian political involvement. Addressing church leaders at a Downing Street reception, the Prime Minister said that because “so many political questions are moral questions”, Christianity is already involved in politics.
Benedict XVI is calling for fresh insights on the topic of religious freedom, noting how this fundamental human right was enshrined after the downfall of 20th-century totalitarianisms, but now again faces threats. The Pope made his appeal in an April 29 message to Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, on the occasion of the academy's 17th plenary session.
Prof. Mary Ann Glendon (Harvard) at the 17th plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in Rome:
After a group of Catholics named “fundamentalists” by the media has smashed the controversial image of the Christ in urine called ‘Piss Christ’ shown at the Avignon Modern Art Exhibit, the French journalist Eric Zemmour takes stand to defend the reaction of Catholics on French radio RTL.
The head of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland has criticised what he calls 'aggressive secularism' in Britain. In his Easter sermon, Cardinal Keith O'Brien warned that enemies of Christianity are attempting to remove God from the public sphere.
After accusations of bias against Christianity at the BBC, the BBC Trust Chairman Christopher Patten has underlined atheists' lack of tolerance towards Christians. Lord Patten, chancellor of the University of Oxford, former Governor of Hong Kong and former Cabinet minister said: «It is curious that atheists have proved to be so intolerant of those who have a faith».
There are sectors of society that might consider religion insignificant or even annoying, but that does not justify violating the fundamental right of religious liberty, Benedict XVI is affirming.
In an ironical essay, the French web journal 'Causeur' puts into light how the European Court, under the pretext of defending rights, really legalizes intolerance towards Christians and their religious opinions.
The Vatican representative Archbishop Silvano Tomas told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday that many who oppose homosexuality are being unjustly attacked for their views.
Joseph Weiler, a Jewish law professor at the New York University School of Law, represented the governments of Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, the Russian Federation and San Marino in the case.