San Benedetto Del Tronto, Italy - A bishop says that the Catholic Church should collaborate with the state in order to keep the phenomenon of sects from triggering public interference in religious life.
Bishop Gervasio Gestori of San Benedetto del Tronto expressed this conviction when addressing a diocesan congress of the Socioreligious Research and Information Group on "Supplanting and Religious Sects: The Deviation of Tolerance."
Bishop Gestori spoke of religious pluralism and said that "tolerance is a decision of respect vis-à-vis citizens' liberties but it could be reduced to being, at the sociopolitical level, an option of convenience suggested by individualism toward persons and, at the doctrinal level, a theorization of indifference to religious ideas, derived from a skeptical view."
The 70-year-old bishop addressed the topic of "religiosity between freedom and truth," trying to specify the limits and ways within which the state and Church can intervene to oppose the spread of sects.
In this connection, Bishop Gestori explained the various types of perception of religiosity.
"Some say that religion is an 'evil' and an imposture that harms man, humiliating his intelligence and perverting his spirit; therefore, they think that one must promote liberation from religion," he said.
Good and evil
"Others are indifferent to the religious event and think that religions are human inventions that contain good and evil," the prelate added. "Others believe that all religions are the same. Others think that religion is in every sense a good."
Addressing the phenomenon of sects, Bishop Gestori emphasized that the latter "is combated above all with the healthy and mature formation of personal consciences. However, there is also the public problem of some norm of prevention and repression."
Special laws, however, would be dangerous, because there would be the risk of state interference "in an area that is not of its competency. The state cannot define what a sect is and cannot judge a religious doctrine," he added.
"The state must take an interest in sects and, in general, in religion, when it is a question of public order, but it has no right to interfere in the internal affairs of a religious group," he clarified.
From this point of view, the problem of the regulation of sects remains an open question and its evolution merits the careful attention of the Catholic Church in order to collaborate with the state.
The foregoing might also serve to "avoid the objective problem of sects becoming an occasion for interference in religious life, or even only to contain and reduce to a minimum the public relevance of the religious factor," affirmed the prelate. "It might reveal itself as a threat to religious freedom and the profession of faith, of any faith."
The Socioreligious Research and Information Group is an association of Catholics established in 1987. It aims to promote research, study and discernment, to furnish information and counsel on religions and the phenomenology related to them.