each case, the church refuses to allow an authoritarian regime the right to subordinate the human person to its purposes. In Poland, the church opposes the government because it suppresses the rights of workers. In Brazil, the church stands with workers in their struggle to form unions under a labor law which resembles fascist corporatism. The examples of the church in Brazil in the 1960's and Chile in the 1970's provide illustrations of the linkage of religious freedom and the protection and promotion of human rights. In both cases, Brazil and Chile, the Catholic Church found itself as perhaps the single social institution capable of withstanding the power of the state. As those two governments closed down political parties, restricted the freedom of the press, suppressed unions, interdicted universities, often the church was left as the one institution with power capable of standing against the state. As the church addressed violations of human rights, as it spoke about human rights other than religious liberty, about the right of freedom of expession, freedom of speech, freedom of association, as it spoke in those terms, it came under suppression from the government. It came under what the church in Chile called presecution, and has called persecution. I would like to submit for the record, Mr. Chairman, a letter received only in the past week at the U.S. Catholic Conference from a number of missionaries in Chile who are very alarmed at the present time about the Government's efforts to place restrictions upon the entry of missionaries into the country and their ability to stay in the country. This is the most recent request we received after a decade of them, and I would like to submit that for the record with your permission. Mr. BONKER. Without objection, so ordered. [The information follows:] The enclosed documentation was prepared by a committee representing more than 70 foreign missioners from various nations (United States, England, Ireland, Spain, Italy, France, Canada, Germany, Australia, New Zealand), as well as their Chilean confreres. All are currently working in the poor marginated areas of Santiago, Chile. We decided as a group to send this documentation to our respective Episcopal Conference. The documentation focuses on the actions of the Chilean government to expel or to threaten the expulsion of priests, religious, and lay persons who are referred to as foreign missioners. Their permanent residency status has been revoked and they have been issued a temporary visa of three months duration or they have been refused the petition of permanent residency following the prescribed period of temporary residency. The documentation includes: -a summary of individual cases to date. -correspondence between the superiors of religious congregations -a letter of the parish community of Renca to Cardinal Silva -a letter of the group of foreign missioners to the Episcopal -an article entitled Religion and the National Security State We wish to inform the United States Episcopal Conference of this emerging pattern of persecution of the Chilean Church and to ask your support in combating these totalitarian measures which threaten the life and liberty of the local Church. Our esteemed Cardinal Archbishop of Santiago, Raúl Silve Henríquez met with us on December 21, 1981 to inform us of the protests that he has personally presented to the Minister of the Interior, the liaison for ChurchState relations, and to the President of the Republic and all has been an exercise in futility. In our reflection with the Cardinal it was acknowledged that the division within the local Episcopal Conference often stymies public Church response to the totalitarian acts of the current regime. We are also aware that the public support of the United States government enhances the unjust position of the regime. We have been encouraged by the recent and clear solidarity of the United States Bishops with the Latin American Church and with the United States missionaries working here. This has been evident since the assassination of the four women missionaries in El Salvador. The recent visit to Chile by Archbishop Ignatius Strecker, Bishop Mark Hurley, Bishop Joseph Sullivan, and Mr. Thomas Quigley was another indication of the support and interest that we have felt from the United States Episcopal Conference. In light of the above we again turn to you for your support. We ask that you recognize this persistent harrassment of missionaries as a calculated effort of the Chilean government to undermine the pastoral efforts in behalf of the poor and the marginated of Chile. Recently in his presidential statement to the United States Bishops, Archbishop John Roach reiterated the thought of John Paul II when he stated: "In the language of the Council (Vatican II) the task of the Church in the political order is to stand as the sign and safeguard of the dignity of the person. To fulfill this role in a political context requires that the Church not only teach moral truths about the person, it must also join in the public debate where policies are shaped, programs developed and decisions taken which directly touch the rights of the person lccally, nationally, internationally." In Chile we are deprived of a participative role by the policies and procedures of a totalitarian regime. Therefore, we ask you as the Secretary of the United States Episcopal Conference to present our concern to the appropriate body. We are confident that you will discern the best means to defend the right to evangelize the poor and marginated of Chile. Reverend HEHIR. Finally, Lebanon. The tragedy in Lebanon over the last 7 years highlights a different but equally important dimension of religious liberty. The Lebanese conflict is often and too glibly described as a "religious conflict." The reality is more complex. The Lebanese civil war has internal roots and the religious factor is one of them, but no interpretation of the Lebanese reality is valid unless it recognizes how the regional and international forces at work throughout the Middle East have been projected into Lebanon. It is not solely a religious conflict. The element of religious liberty, however, is one of the factors at work in Lebanon. Lebanon has been a unique meeting ground of cultures and religion. East meets West in Lebanon, and one reflection of that meeting has been the relationship of Christianity and Islam. Precisely at the time when these two great religious traditions desperately need to be in dialog in the Middle East, Lebanon, the most fertile ground for such dialog, has been torn to shreds. The Christians of Lebanon have a legitimate and pervasive concern that the future of Lebanon provide for a public Christian presence in the life of the society. That right needs to be protected and, at the same time, religious dialog and religious pluralism needs to be affirmed. That is the challenge of the Lebanese society. Precisely because of the pivotal role Lebanon has played in the Middle East in the past, it is an international concern that both religious liberty and the freedom and independence of Lebanon be preserved in the Middle East. These three illustrations of the significance of religious liberty in different regions of the world raise a final point that I will close with. Understanding how the right to religious liberty takes shape in distinct situations and how the church relates to them or other religious bodies relate to the right, I think, can be a source of guidance for the analysis of U.S. policy. Particularly, in Latin America, for example, our experience has been that this angle of vision of the religious groups has not been sufficiently integrated into a policy vision. I am not saying it has not been heard; I am saying it has not been sufficiently integrated into a policy vision of U.S. policy toward the region. We think that that is a mistake, and a mistake not only in Latin America, but it can be a mistake in other places to overlook the significance of this right and its political implications. Thank you. Mr. BONKER. Thank you, Reverend Hehir. PREPARED STATEMENT OF REV. J. BRYAN HEHIR, DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I testify today in the name of the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC), the policy agency of the Catholic bishops of the United States. On behalf of the USCC I wish to express our appreciation for the opportunity to present our views on religious freedom as a human right. In his address on human rights at the United Nations (1979) Pope John Paul II said: Respect for the dignity of the human person would The USCC believes that discussions at the national level about religious freedom should include the institutions which represent the religious bodies of our nation and we commend the idea of these hearings. This testimony will address three points: first, the relationship of religious freedom to other human rights; second, the content of the right of religious freedom; third, the relevance of the right of religious freedom in international politics today. Religious Freedom as a Human Right I. In Roman Catholic thought religious freedom is regarded as both a unique human right and as closely connected with a spectrum of other rights which protect the dignity of the human person. Religious freedom is unique because of its object; all other |