Archbishop Miller defends religious freedom and conscience rights

Vancouver archbishop urges Canadians to guard their religious freedoms

Archbishop Miller (CNS/courtesy of Archdiocese of Vancouver)

By Deborah Gyapong
Catholic News Service

OTTAWA, Ontario (CNS) -- Although Canada has traditionally had a healthy relationship between church and state, Catholics need to remain alert to protect religious freedom, said Archbishop J. Michael Miller of Vancouver, British Columbia.

A secularist agenda "basically wants to privatize religion and leave it restricted to the private sphere," Archbishop Miller said in a mid-November interview from Vancouver.

Pressures to compress religious freedom into private belief and private worship are not what is intended in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or universal human rights documents, he said.

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