The role that the Catholic Church has played historically in securing freedom is not well appreciated. Whether due to ignorance or bias, we need to set the record straight, especially now that we are about to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.

CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria is a secular-minded former Muslim who has a good grasp of history. He says it is wrong to cite Greece as the birthplace of liberty as we know it. That trophy belongs to the Catholic Church.

“The Catholic Church was the first major institution in history that was independent of temporal authority and willing to challenge it. By doing this it cracked the edifice of state power, and in nooks and crannies individual liberty began to grow.” He concludes that “the rise of the Christian Church is, in my view, the first important source of liberty in the West—and hence the world.”

Zakaria is right to call attention to the fact that when liberty was established in the West, it was the first to do so in the world. We can look in vain for the historical unfolding of freedom in Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. The truth of the matter is that,........

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