7-12 grade

1. What does religious liberty/freedom mean according to the Catholic Church?
2. Can religious freedom be limitless?
3. What are some possible threats to religious liberty in the USA?
4. Religious freedom includes all people of faith. What are ways in which religious liberty is under attack against non-Christians in the USA and other parts of the world?

Parish Leadership/Committees

1. What does religious liberty/freedom mean according to the Catholic Church?
2. When speaking about faith traditions other than Catholic, including non-Christian faiths, how does your parish respect religious liberty and inter-religious dialogue?
3. What are some possible threats to religious liberty in the USA?
4. Religious freedom includes all people of faith. What are ways in which religious liberty is under attack against non-Christians in the USA and other parts of the world?

Faith-sharing/Bible Study

1. What does religious liberty/freedom mean according to the Catholic Church?
2. Can religious freedom be limitless?
3. What are some possible threats to religious liberty in the USA?
4. Religious freedom includes all people of faith. What are ways in which religious liberty is under attack against non-Christians in the USA and other parts of the world?

Witness video questions:

7-12 grade

1. What can we learn about the actions of those who put themselves in danger to protect others who faced persecution?
2. If faced with a similar choice, what might be your response?
3. It is one thing to defend your own right to religious freedom but another to defend others’ freedoms. In what ways might you defend the rights of other faiths, including non Christian faiths, in your school, community, state, nations?

Parish leadership/Committees

1. How can your parish help to promote and ensure religious liberty for all in your community?
2. The acts of these houses of worship to protect others during the Holocaust were done at great risk, not only to those escaping the Nazis but the Catholics and Muslims who protected the Jews. What are the challenges to fulfilling one’s own faith in the face of opposition or oppression?
3. Are there people within your own community who are facing infringements on their religious liberty (including non Christians)?

Faithsharing/Bible Study

1. Imagine yourself in the position of the Catholics and Muslims. How might you have responded to the persecution of the Jews?
2. Is religious liberty limited only to those religions with which we agree? How might religious liberty be under threat in your own community?
3. What challenges exist that may coerce people to disobey or give up their faith?

Action Steps

7-12 grade

1. Pray for your community and government leaders that religious liberty is safeguarded for all.
2. Reach out to people of other faith traditions and discover if their religious liberty has ever been attacked or infringed upon.
3. Become more active in your parish and learn more about your faith. Choose a parish ministry to get involved with and dedicate time to it.

Parish Leadership/Committees

1. Include petitions and prayers during liturgies that pray for religious liberty.
2. Defend the right of religious liberty for all in your community by contacting legislators to ensure that people’s faith traditions are not unjustly infringed upon.
3. Hold a group discussion on religious liberty, possibly inviting people from other faith traditions, including non-Christian faith traditions to join in on the discussion.

Faithsharing/Bible Study

1. Pray a rosary, spend an hour in adoration, silent prayer, or singing for religious liberty in the USA and around the world.
2. Identify a current issue that is going on in your community, Iowa, or the USA that directly relates to religious liberty and communicate your concerns to the appropriate officials.
3. Talk with others about the need to safeguard religious liberty for people of all faiths, not just the Catholic faith.

Closing Prayer

O God, who show a father’s care for all,

grant, in your mercy,

that the members of the human race,

to whom you have given a single origin,

may form in peace a single family

and always be united by a fraternal spirit.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, you Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

Amen

(collect For the Preservation of Peace and Justice; Excerpt from the English translation of The Roman Missal © 2010, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation. All rights reserved.)