SOUTH BEND, Ind. — On the night of June 18, 1983, 10 women, from a 57-year-old mother to a 17-year-old student, were held in Adel Abad Prison they were executed in Chowgan Square in Shiraz, Iran, on charges that they belonged to the Baha’i faith.

Even though the Ukrainian Orthodox Church tries to stay independent of Russian officials, agents have dressed in priestly robes to get information.

While Muslim athletes from other countries can wear hijabs during the upcoming Paris Olympics, athletes from France are banned from donning the head coverings.

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These were just a few of the stark examples of religious intolerance that were discussed at the fourth annual Religious Liberty Summit at the University of Notre Dame from July 9-11.

The theme of the conference, which took place at the school’s campus in South Bend, was “Depolarizing Religious Liberty,” which still depends too much on one's race, faith or nationality.

Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. Robert A. Dowd, and G. Marcus Cole, the law school’s dean, opened the conference.

“As the leading Catholic research university in the world, the University of Notre Dame, and Notre Dame Law School, is proud to host you, and to facilitate these discussions,” Cole said. “It is our mission to work toward a world where everyone is free to worship God, each in his or her own way. It is just as important that every person be free to live their lives according to their beliefs, as a living sacrifice and testimony to the greater glory of God.”

‘Faith as activating principle’

Notre Dame is an institution known for football and a mural library high-rise overlooking the stadium called “Touchdown, Jesus.” But it is also known for its law school that produced people like Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

The highlight of the summit was an awards program and gala where the Religious Liberty Clinic was named after Lindsay and Matt Morun, who have supported such efforts financially since its inception.

The event was held in banquet facility inside the Notre Dame football stadium that is part of the student center. Overlooking the stadium is a mural on the side of the schools towering library called “Touchdown Jesus” because it shows Christ holding up his arms like a referee would after a team scores.

“Without the courage and confidence of Lindsay and Matt Moroun to lead the conversation regarding religious freedom, we could not have come together to begin and continue this important work,” Cole said. “The Moroun family’s ability to see the vision of what is possible, with faith as the activating principle, is the cornerstone of all that we have accomplished, and we are deeply grateful to them.”

Cole said law school faculty staff and students have worked on a variety of legal matters to promote religious freedom, domestically and around the world.

Cole added that in the last three years, the Religious Freedom Clinic has filed numerous briefs before a federal appellate court involving a number of groups, like Apache Stronghold v. United States, a case seeking to protect the Indigenous tribe’s sacred land and religious traditions.

The Notre Dame law students have represented U.S. immigrants seeking asylum from religious persecution, advocated for religious ministries’ freedom to serve communities in need, and fought to protect inmates who desire religious exercise in prisons.

John Meiser, director of the Religious Liberty Clinic, said it has come a long way since its inception four years ago, and the Moroun family has been instrumental in that effort.

“I am deeply grateful to the Moroun family, whose generosity has enabled us to give our students unparalleled opportunities to serve people in need and to participate in this critical work to protect our most foundational freedom,” Meiser said.

2024 Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty

The law school also welcomed Nazila Ghanea, United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, to accept the 2024 Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty.

In her award speech, Ghanea, said, “This summit provides such a wonderful opportunity for those who cherish freedom of religion or belief for all, for all who seek to advance it both at home and around the world. We can share experiences, consider challenges, regain strength, and seek opportunities together.”

She added: “As we consult those who are impacted and seek to support them, we learn together how to uphold respect for everyone in the process. It is truly humbling to accept this year’s award for religious liberty, and I do so in deep acknowledgment of all who have made advancing this freedom their passion and their calling.”

During the Wednesday and Thursday sessions, conference participants attended a variety of panels addressing the current state of religious liberty and related pressing topics. The panels included “Women and Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty in a Polarized Age” and “Muslims and Jews Finding Common Ground After Oct. 7.”

Speakers for the discussions included prominent leaders in religious freedom such as scholar John Inazu, Muslim feminist and activist Soraya Deen and human rights advocate Lord David Alton. Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, of Fort Wayne-South Bend, was the conference’s keynote speaker.

There was another panel on Wednesday entitled the “Rise of Antisemitism and Islamophobia in France.” 

Haifa Tlili, a professor at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium, was on that panel. Tlili, who is Muslim, said that she is excited about the Olympics coming to Paris but disappointed because of France’s position in regards to prohibiting Muslim women from covering their head.

“France is the last country to exclude Muslim women because of their hijabs,” she said.

Women’s rights and religious freedom

Meanwhile, former U.N. Ambassador Susan Johnson Cook moderated a panel entitled “Women and Religious Liberty.” One member of the panel, Tschika McBean Okosi of the United States Baha’i Office of Public Affairs, said in 1983 that 10 women, some of them nurses, of the Baha’i faith died in Iran because “they refused to deny their faith.”

Okosi said religious oppression against people of the Baha’i faith is still ongoing today.

A forum entitled “The State of Religious Freedom in Ukraine: Then and Now” featured four speakers that included Metropolitan Yevstratiy Zoria of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Zoria, who lives in Kyiv, said that his church has to work hard to remain independent of political influence, but Russian operatives — masking as faith leaders — still try.

“Freedom of religion is not the same as being free to hide criminal activity under religious garb,” he said.  

The Black church

The last panel of the conference was entitled, “The Black Church and Religious Freedoms,” where several speakers said that there is a difference in how African Americans see religious freedom as opposed to religious liberty.

The panel included Bishop David Daniels of the McCormick Theological Seminary, Jacqueline Rivers from the Harvard University Seymore Institute for Black and Policy Studies, Tim Schultz of First Amendment Partnership and the Rev. David G. Lattimore from Princeton’s Betsey Stockton Center for Center for Black Church Studies.

Several speakers said African Americans see religious liberty and religious freedom in different ways.

Rivers said, “Some say that if you are not White and Christian you are not American.”

In terms of definitions, Coles there must be clarity. He said often African Americans have to speak up.

“Religion can’t,” he said, “just be the property of conservatives or liberals.”

Hamil R. Harris is a veteran journalist and Religion Unplugged correspondent based in Washington, D.C.