THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

Stop the presses! America magazine has actually published an article in praise of Donald Trump - well, an action of his, anyway -violating the
sacrosanct never-Trump principle that anything this President says or does is automatically wrong, an offense, an evil, a crime for which
he should be impeached right away, and over and over, if not wiped out from the surface of the earth altogether.

If he says 'black is black', his opponents would jump all over him and protest, "But no, black is not black and could never be black!" That's how
irrational they have become over him. And they're blissfully unaware of their collective madness... And of course, the writer of this article -
a professor at Notre Dame U - takes a stab at Trump every chance he gets, clearly not happy that he has to say something good about this
executive order.

Ignore the optics:
Trump’s executive order could jump-start
the cause of global religious freedom
by Daniel Philpott

June 09, 2020

On June 2, President Trump signed the Executive Order Advancing International Religious Freedom, but few noticed amid everything else that happened that week. The day before the signing, law enforcement officers used rubber pellets and tear gas to forcefully remove peaceful protesters near the White House so that Mr. Trump could hold a Bible aloft in a photo op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church.

This sparked two more days of controversy in which the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, brandished their own Bibles; the archbishop of Washington, Wilton Gregory, denounced the managers of St. John Paul II National Shrine for allowing Mr. Trump to appear there; and thousands of citizens fanned a firestorm of tweets, denunciations and recriminations.

Has anyone read the executive order? Religious freedom advocates might well be frustrated that tear gas and controversy occluded a measure whose very purpose is to lift the cause of religious freedom out of the shadows.

The second sentence of the order contains words that these advocates have been waiting for years to hear a president utter: “Religious freedom for all people worldwide is a foreign policy priority of the United States, and the United States will respect and vigorously promote this freedom.”

Why are these words important? The answer lies in the previous sentence: “Religious freedom, America’s first freedom, is a moral and national security imperative.”

Why is religious freedom a moral imperative? While the pandemic has surged around the world and the United States agonizes over racism and police violence,
- several hundred Christians have been killed in Nigeria;
- China has escalated its brutal crackdown on churches and continues to hold a million Uighur Muslims in concentration camps in Western China; and
- Christians, Muslims, Jews, Bahais and people of other religious traditions suffer “high” or “very high” levels of restrictions on religion in 50 other countries, according to the widely respected Pew Research Center.

But is religious freedom also a national security imperative? This has been a hard sell for foreign policy makers in the past several administrations, which have subordinated religious freedom to fighting terrorism, securing alliances and expanding trade.

Much recent research shows, though, that religious freedom mitigates terrorism and civil war, strengthens democracy, enhances economic development, fosters peace, enables reconciliation and advances opportunities for women.

Religious repression has contributed to violence, terrorism and instability in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt and other countries that have preoccupied U.S. foreign policy makers in the past two decades.

President Trump is an unlikely promoter of human rights. [WHY? That is a totally unfounded statement tht is nothing but sheer bias!] But the right message still merits support.
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True, President Trump is an unlikely promoter of human rights. Beginning with his 2016 campaign, he has stoked animus against Muslims, immigrants, African nations and numerous other vulnerable groups of people, and he has trampled on many global norms. [Speaking the harsh truth about certain groups of people in specific situations - not those groups in any or every situation - to justify proposed measures to remedy said situations is not sowing animus.]

Still, if the message is crippled by the messenger, the message still merits support when it is the right one. The Trump administration, whose staff includes sincere and dedicated experts on the issue, has promoted global religious freedom through:
- an annual ministerial conference that has brought together hundreds of foreign policy officials, religious leaders and civil society leaders from around the world;
- the appointment of Sam Brownback as a committed and effective ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom; and now,
- last week’s executive order.

The order helps to lift the U.S. government’s advocacy of religious freedom abroad into high-level foreign policy. It expands upon the work that Congress began in 1998 when it sought to ensconce the promotion of religious freedom into U.S. foreign policy through the International Religious Freedom Act, which established an office of religious freedom in the State Department, added an advisor on religious freedom to the National Security Council, and created the independent and nonpartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Since that time, annual reports have raised awareness and provided solid information about violations of religious freedom, helping to secure religious freedom’s place in global discourse about human rights. Some nations have freed religious dissidents from prisons. And several European states and the European Union have followed the lead of the United States and taken up global religious freedom in their foreign policies.

Yet it would be difficult to argue that these policies have made any country more religiously free, and the world as a whole may well be less religiously free than it was 20 years ago. Contributing to this lack of efficacy are the lukewarm commitments of presidents, who have allowed the policy of religious freedom to languish in a corner of the State Department, and of foreign policy makers who have failed to integrate the issue into their strategic thinking.

The Trump administration’s executive order aims to end this torpor, giving the cause more teeth by
- making religious organizations and communities partners to the government in promoting religious freedom,
- requiring our diplomatic missions in violator countries to develop plans of action for improving the situation on the ground,
- providing serious funding for programs that promote religious freedom,
- mandating the training in religious freedom for all civil service employees in the State Department, and
- channeling foreign assistance toward promoting religious freedom.

The chief threat to these welcome changes would be a presidential administration that reverts to lukewarmness or even becomes hostile toward religion freedom as a priority. The executive order gives the Secretary of State 180 days to develop an implementation plan — but that deadline could arrive in the middle of a presidential transition. [It could also be met much earlier, as surely, work has already been done on it.]

Should there be a Biden administration, let us hope that it would live up to the candidate’s promise of restoring national unity by taking up a cause as American as fireworks on the Fourth of July.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed religious freedom as one of the four freedoms that defined the United States’ aims in the Second World War. After he died, his widow, Eleanor, secured religious freedom’s place in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Let us hope that whoever wins the election in November will carry on this legacy, along with racial justice and protecting the health of our citizens, long after the tear gas [smoke bombs. not tear gas] over St. John’s Episcopal Church has wafted into the atmosphere.

A big step for religious freedom:
A new executive order puts the
neglected issue at the heart
of U.S. foreign policy
By Nina Shea

June 11, 2020

For decades religious freedom has been treated as the unwanted stepchild in the human-rights side of U.S. foreign policy. But in a rare ray of light this dark spring, America’s defining right has been recognized at the highest level as a “moral and national security imperative.” This is more than a symbolic gesture.

On June 2 President Trump signed an executive order that declares support for religious freedom a foreign policy “priority.” It mandates that “the United States will respect and vigorously promote this freedom” abroad. It has been a long journey to this point.

The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor was created in 1977 to help advance individual liberty and democratic freedoms around the world. The U.S. had pledged to do so since 1948, when it backed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Technically religious freedom was covered along with other fundamental rights in the bureau’s mandate.

In reality, many officials saw religious freedom as irrelevant—neither universal nor inalienable. In a 1997 speech at Catholic University, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright dismissed calls to press for religious freedom. Speaking in the context of Sudan’s mass killing, rape and deportation of religious minorities, Ms. Albright said, “We must also take into account the perspectives and values of others.” U.S. officials often vociferously protested the torture and imprisonment of journalists, lawyers and political dissidents. But Washington’s record on standing up for religious believers was spottier.

A broad, faith-based movement — incensed that reports of religious persecution were habitually ignored by the American foreign-policy establishment — successfully lobbied for the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. The IRFA institutionalized concern for religious freedom. It established a new office and the post of ambassador-at-large, along with an independent bipartisan commission to recommend policies. The legislation mandated State publish an annual report that identifies the world’s worst persecutors of religious freedom. A 2016 bill empowered the ambassador-at-large to report directly to the Secretary of State.

Greater awareness has led to results. Many of the persecuted draw courage and receive better treatment because they are not forgotten. Some were even freed from prison, with several high-profile cases in recent years. American Pastor Andrew Brunson, detained on false charges in Turkey for more than two years, finally was released in 2018, in large part thanks to help from the Commission on International Religious Freedom.

But problems persisted. Washington didn’t begin directing humanitarian aid in Iraq to the Christian and Yazidi communities until 2018 four years after Islamic State destroyed their towns and two years after State officially designated them victims of genocide. The effort to overcome the bureaucratic inertia that slowed aid was considered Vice President Mike Pence’s pet project—essentially recognition that it wouldn’t have happened if not for his special interest and specific direction.

There’s always more to do, but the Trump administration has elevated the cause of international religious freedom since the president came into office. The 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy cited violent attacks on religious minorities. In a notable first, the document promised to “place a priority on protecting” such groups.

The recent executive order, which applies beyond the Middle East and religious minorities, ensures the NSS pledge will become operational. For example, Nigeria is on the IRFA “special watch list” and will automatically be given priority through a selection of diplomatic tools — from assistance for rights defenders to help improving security for targeted houses of worship and villages. China, a “country of particular concern” because it suppresses all religions, will receive similar treatment.

The Secretary of State, U.S. Agency for International Development and U.S. embassies around the world must produce specific plans to advance religious freedom. They also will carry out educational training in international religious freedom for the Foreign Service and other federal employees.

Another important provision appears to take aim at America’s previously unconscionable negligence in Iraq by mandating “foreign assistance programs shall ensure that faith-based and religious entities, including eligible entities in foreign countries, are not discriminated against.”

The order puts teeth in IRFA’s listing of severe persecutors by directing the secretaries of state and Treasury to prioritize economic sanctions and visa denials to pressure offending individuals in those countries. It allocates $50 million for new programs to protect religious communities and their culture.

Religious freedom remains a salient foreign-policy issue for a simple reason: Billions of people are religious, and many are persecuted. The U.S. has taken an important step toward ensuring it always stands with them.

Ms. Shea, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, served on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (1999-2012).


An Italian journalist picks out other important features of the Executive Order on religious freedom that are not mentioned in the first two articles translated above:

How Trump will 'punish' those states
that violate religious freedom
by Benedetta Frigerio
Translated from

June 11, 2020

The executive order signed by the US President on the day when he was attacked by the Archbishop of Washington, DC, for having honored John Paul II, decrees that states which violate religious freedom shall not be given US economic aid, will have limited visas to the USA, and opens the doors for those who are persecuted anywhere because of their faith.

In a way, this scales back – and not just in words – the era of free trade and firm handshakes between the democracies and totalitarian regimes. If indeed, heads of governments in the West have ‘always’ supported the cause of religious freedom, their statements have never been followed by facts that truly give it priority. Because, of course, capitalism has always held up commerce and profit as its primary value.

“The religious freedom of every person around the world is a priority of American foreign policy”, says the Executive Order signed by President Trump last June 2, after his visit to the shrine of John Paul II, which caused Archbishop Wilton Gregory to express his indignation publicly. The president and his wife had prayed before a relic of the sainted Pope who had fought regimes, especially the Communist ones, in behalf of religious freedom.

The Word ‘priority’ is nothing new with regard to this subject, but what really matters is what follows. Trump did not limit himself to upholding religious freedom in the USA. His executive order, in fact, provies for sanctions against states and their functionaries who persecute their citizens and residents because of their faith. Thus, besides underscoring that “our founding fathers understood religious freedom not as a creation of the State, but as a gift of God to every person and as a fundamental right in order to prosper in our society”, and that “at least $50 million a year will be allocated for programs that promote religious freedom around the world”.

The order then lists desired objectives, such as the prevention of attacks on individuals or groups, promoting punishment of the culprits, or increasing security measures for places of worship.

Moreover, “the departments and agencies of the United States government that finance foreign aid programs should make sure that entities based on faith and religion… are not discriminated against when they compete for federal funds”.

The Secretary of State (currently Mike Pompeo) should aid US ambassadors who are at particular risk so that they may develop concrete actions that encourage their host nations to eliminate violations of religious freedom. These ambassadors, in dialog with local governments, “should raise concerns about international religious freedom and about cases which involve the imprisonment of individuals because of their faith”.

It asks religious organizations to present to the President their plans for the protection of religious minorites, while federal employees involved in such actions shall be obliged to “follow courses of instruction on inrernational religious freedom”.

But the true novelty is contained at the end of the order: The USA will withdraw foreign aid from states that violate religious freedom and will limit their access to US visas, while it will open the doors to persons persecuted for their faith.

It also speaks of economic sanctions: “The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State. may consider the imposition of sanctions” such as “blocking the propeerty of persons involved in grave violations of human rights”. It means, for instance, that public functionaries who persecute Christians in their countries could lose every asset they may possess in the United States.

Meanwhile, the Republicans managed to pass a bill that would sanction functionaries who violate religious freedom in China (while anti-Beijing demonstrations continue in HongKong), where Christians as well as the Uighur Muslims are persecuted. This caused the Chinese ambssador in Washington to say: “We call on the United States to immediately remedy this error and to stop using the question of Xinjiang [where the Uighurs are persecuted] to interfere in the internal affairs of China.”

Trump’s actiopn also responds to the growth of new Islamic terrorist alliances n Africa, with increasing attacks on Christians in Burkina Faso, Mozambique and Nigeria. In Nigeria, last week, the latest to be killed by jihadists were the Protestant pastor Emmanuel Bileya and his wife, who left behind eight orphans and a flourishing Christian community.

“The Executive Order underscores that religious freedom is not just a human right,” says Tom Farr, president of the Religious Freedom Institute, “but a moral and national security imperative”. Farr pointed out that the order offers the ‘certainty’ that the government will always seriously counter any attack against believers with the adoption of important measures.

Farr expressed his dismay at the Washngton Archbishop’s attack on Trump because, he says, “whether you like the President or not, to condemn him for having honored the great St. John Paul II, whose defense of religious freedom ois honored everywhere, is simply shortsighted”

Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, says the order will advance actities in behalf of religious freeom “in the states that are on the State Department’s Special Watch List”.