Religious freedom is under attack everywhere – from Pakistan to Philadelphia, from college campuses to communist China. Every day we hear about infringements on the right to practice faith. Every day we read about attempts to silence people of faith, by secular pressure groups and even the Biden administration. And every day we feel more upset and concerned about it. What should we do? Is the world drifting into a new era of witch-hunting? Where are we going as a nation? Who is fighting for religious freedom?

The Conscience Project and the National Catholic Register have teamed up to bring you Religious Freedom Matters, a new podcast that will discuss these questions with the urgency they deserve, drawing on a formidable range of experts in this field. In our inaugural series, I’ll be joined by Joan Desmond, National Catholic Register senior editor and tireless campaigner for the persecuted, and Mattthew Bunson, Executive Editor and D.C. Bureau Chief of EWTN News. Together we’ll shed light on what we’re up against – the resurgent fundamentalism that produced such terrible scenes at Kabul airport, and closer to home the overwhelming cultural force of militant secularism that silences Christian students on campus and tries to force faithful Catholics to participate in the provision of abortion.

In each episode we address what the mainstream media repeatedly misses and gets wrong about the new wave of affronts to religious liberty. We’ll also look at how the Catholic Church is championing religious freedom for everyone – and discuss the tragic possibility that, in China, Vatican policy errors are making life worse for the faithful. And we’ll throw a spotlight onto the policies of the Biden Administration. Will it prioritize religious freedom – or circumscribe it at the behest of progressive lobbyists?

Our message is clear: religious freedom will survive only if we know how to defend it. That means knowing the legal arguments, knowing the facts that the persecutors and their allies are desperate to keep out of the news, and knowing that across-the-board religious freedom advances the common good.