US Bishops mark Religious Freedom Day with message for peace

At a time when war and armed conflicts fester around the globe, the U.S. Bishops Conference has reaffirmed that religious freedom is essential for lasting peace.

Today, October 27, the United States observes International Religious Freedom Day to commemorate the signing of the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998. The chairmen of two U.S. Bishops Conference committees are marking the day with a call for renewed commitment to religious liberty.

“Let us stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who are suffering, and let us resolve to do our part to promote religious freedom for all people around the world,” said Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on International Justice and Peace, and Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee for Religious Liberty.

The bishops called attention to religious persecution as being detrimental to peace.

“Across the world, millions of people are denied the basic right to religious freedom, a denial that fuels violent conflict and hinders human development,” Bishops Zaidan and Rhoades said. “In recent years, for example, thousands of Christians and Muslims in Nigeria have been kidnapped and killed by Islamist extremists, while the government has imprisoned members of both religious groups for blasphemy. In many other countries as well, people of faith are under consistent assault, while their governments engage in or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom.

“We have seen that repression and persecution of religion is ultimately detrimental to the peaceful development of all nations. Religious freedom fosters peace. Our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV said recently that a culture of peace requires full respect for religious freedom in every country, since religious experience is an essential dimension of the human person.”

ACN’s religious freedom report

The bishops issued their statement days after the release of Aid to the Church in Need’s Religious Freedom in the World Report 2025 (RFR), which also makes the point that the presence of believers in a society and their ability to freely live out their faith contribute to harmony and stability. Persecution and discrimination often lead victims to emigrate. But the resulting loss of religious diversity simply opens the door to sectarianism, widening the gap with other regions of the world where pluralism exists.

Days before the launch of the RFR, Pope Leo met with a delegation from ACN, which presented him with the first advance copy of the report.

The right to religious freedom is “not optional but essential,” the Pope told the delegation, describing it as “a cornerstone of any just society, for it safeguards the moral space in which conscience may be formed and exercised.”

Bishops Zaidan and Rhoades’s statement concludes: “We must stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who are suffering, and resolve to do our part to promote religious freedom for all people around the world. May our religious practice, and the practice of other believers, cultivate ‘the purification of heart necessary for building peaceful relationships.’”