Mexico symposium to network religious freedom advocates

Mexico City, Mexico, Aug 25, 2009 / 21:03 pm

Experts on religious freedom in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada will be meeting for a symposium in Mexico City next month to help bolster their international efforts.

The symposium “Voices: The Lay State and Religious Liberty” will meet at Mexico City’s El Hotel Presidente InterContinental from September 25 to 26. There, religious liberty experts will analyze the right to religious liberty as defined in international human rights law and discuss how the right is exercised in Mexico and other countries of the Americas.

According to a press release from organizers, the symposium aims to inspire “nascent voices of religious liberty,” particularly in Mexico, and to encourage collaboration between academics and cultural and opinion leaders.

Patrick Kelly, Vice President for Public Policy and spokesman for the Knights of Columbus, said the symposium will create a new network of experts on religious liberty in the Americas.

“We will become, in effect, the Facebook of religious liberty for the Americas,” he claimed.

Kevin “Seamus” Hasson, founder and chairman of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said that religious freedom is the “cornerstone of any healthy democracy.”

Speakers at the symposium include Supreme Knight Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus, and Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard professor who is a former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See.

The symposium is organized by the Becket Fund under the auspices of the Archdiocese of Mexico. It is sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and is free and open to the general public.

The symposium’s web site is at http://www.voices-symposium.org