Earlier this week (Sept. 30), Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke at the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican at the "Holy See Symposium on Advancing and Defending Religious Freedom Through Diplomacy." His speech (full text and video) was titled Moral Witness and Religious Freedom. He said in part:
It was important for me to attend this year, because the mission of defending human dignity – and religious freedom in particular – remains at the core of American foreign policy.
That’s because it’s at the heart of the American experiment. Our founders regarded religious freedom as an absolutely essential right of mankind and central to our founding....
But sadly, authoritarian regimes, terrorists, and even secularists, free societies are – in their different ways – trampling religious freedom all around the world.
Vast swathes of humanity live in countries where religious freedom is restricted, from places like Iran, to Nigeria, and to Cuba, and beyond....
Nowhere, however – nowhere is religious freedom under assault more than it is inside of China today. That’s because, as with all communist regimes, the Chinese Communist Party deems itself the ultimate moral authority.
