Farr on "The Church and the Global Crisis of Religious Liberty"

In addition to John Garvey's excellent remarks, check out this address, "The Church and the Global Crisis of Religious Liberty," which Thomas Farr delivered at the Bishops' meeting in Atlanta.  Here's the gist:

In fact, I have been privileged to spend the last thirteen years of my life reflecting, writing, and acting on the subject of religious liberty, both here and abroad. Those years have convinced me of three propositions that will frame my remarks today:

First, both history and modern scholarship demonstrate that a robust system of religious liberty in both law and culture is indispensible to individual human dignity, and to the social, economic, intellectual, political, and religious flourishing of civil societies and of nations.

Second, religious liberty is in global crisis, with enormous consequences for the Church, the United States, the success of democracy, the defeat of religion-based terrorism, and the cause of international justice and peace.

Third, propositions one and two are highly contested. . . .