Religious Freedom: The Catholic Approach

I should make plain at the beginning that I am neither a theologian nor a church historian, and I do not represent the Catholic Church. What follows is merely my understanding of the key documents and some of the key interventions by the Church on the topic of religious freedom over the last fifty years. In writing this comment, I have used a collection of the Church's statements on religious freedom published by the Caritas in Veritate Foundation in Geneva. This foundation is concerned with the social doctrine of the Church and seeks to support the work of the Holy See and other Roman Catholic bodies at the United Nations. Anybody interested in the Church's position on this and related issues will find some useful material on the foundation's website.