In a recent address, Baltimore’s Archbishop William Lori warned that the “polite persecution” of Christians which is eroding religious freedom in the U.S. is creating a “merciless society.”

LifeNews is reporting on the address which took place at the ceremonial opening of the newly-expanded Divine Mercy University in Arlington, Va., on May 19, in which the Archbishop reflected on religious freedom in the year of mercy.

First, he clarified what mercy is – and what it isn’t.

“Mercy has nothing to do with making good and evil interchangeable or merely a matter of opinion. Mercy is not cover for wrongdoing or a mere palliative for the conscience,” he said. “In mercy truth and love travel together, they are inseparable. Mercy without truth is a cruel deception and mercy without love is a shadow of itself.”

He went on to reflect upon the situation of religious freedom in the world – and here in the United States – during this Year of Mercy.

“In the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, we glimpse what societies without religious freedom look like. We are witnessing in those places not only physical violence but also the inflicting of deep spiritual wounds upon communities and individuals. We see that once religious freedom disappears, that freedom which pertains to our first and highest relationship, viz., with God, how human dignity suffers and how communities disintegrate,” he said.

“It should be an object lesson for those of us in the West who by and large are complacent about the sometimes-subtle erosion of religious freedom. Without religious freedom, a merciless society emerges from the shadows. While in the West we may suffer from what Pope Francis calls ‘polite persecution,’ carried out largely in courtrooms, boardrooms, legislatures, and government agencies, not to mention venues such as cocktail parties and dinner parties, we too are becoming a merciless society. It was well described by the late Francis Cardinal George of Chicago as ‘a society that permits everything but forgives nothing’.”

Sin wounds freedom, he continued, and not just personal sin. Structural sin, or “structures of sin” are also to blame.

“ . . . [T]hese structures of sin are social situations and institutions that are contrary to God’s goodness and lead their victims to commit evil . . . . Massive peer pressure via the social media that affects the thinking and decisions of young people, the more localized disapproval of our sophisticated friends, broad cultural disapproval of religion, especially non-deconstructed Christianity, the exclusion of faith from almost all public institutions, including schools, laws, court decisions, and policies that seek to manage and put limits on religion… these constitute in a free society what Pope Francis calls ‘polite persecution.’ They create social situations and shape the life of our institutions in which it is more likely that we will de-value religious freedom or exercise this fundamental freedom wrongly.”

He went on to warn that “just because this polite persecution is bloodless, we should not imagine that it is victimless. These structures of sin contribute to the inflicting of deep spiritual wounds in the hearts and minds of many people, maybe even ourselves!”

One of the places where these structures of sin is the most active is in the destruction, marginalization or overturning of intermediate structures in contemporary society such as families and community based organizations such as parishes, schools, Christian clubs in universities, and charities.

“The principle of subsidiarity teaches, and experience confirms, that these institutions are vital for human flourishing. It is in these smaller, more local settings and institutions that our freedoms are exercised, that virtue is gained, and that people find their own dignity and, if you will, their niche in life. Yet it is these same institutions that are under assault today. We have only to think about the arbitrary redefinition of marriage and family or anti-family welfare and relief policies. As these intermediate structures either disappear or come under the direct control of the government, our society becomes less merciful and more impersonal, less apt to be a setting for human flourishing.”

The Archbishop specifically cited the case involving the Little Sisters of the Poor who were being forced by the government to provide insurance coverage for services which violate Catholic teaching. “The current accommodation requires them to sign a form indicating their objections, a form which also functions as authorization for the government to highjack their benefits plan to make it the delivery vehicle for the very things they object to,” he pointed out.

This is a prime example of how the assault on religious freedom is taking place in the West and is why it is so important to resist its merciless encroachment into the fabric of our lives.

“Were we merely to collapse under the weight of the pressure we face and allow our institutions ‘to go along to get along’ … we would not be serving the cause of mercy but quite the opposite.”

Fighting for religious liberty isn’t just a matter of policy and law, the Archbishop he said, but is about the struggle to create conditions within society which enable God to touch the hearts of people.

This is why defending religious freedom must always be seen as a true “work of mercy.”

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