Abstract: There is a tendency to eliminate the right to religious liberty and to include it under the more general rights to freedoms of conscience, of expression, and of association. Autonomy and ethical independence are seen as the fundamental values, grounding liberties and human dignity. Catholic Social Thought emphasizes the intellectual capacity to seek the truth alongside freedom and autonomy. It teaches that persons should live according to their vision of the good, but that they should investigate if their preferred vision is indeed truly good. This broadens the basis for the grounding of human dignity and rights such as religious liberty. This tradition is echoed in the history of religious liberty in America, in which the Protestant emphasis on conscience stressed the intellectual search for the truth. Alongside the philosophical argument in favor of the broader account of human dignity stressing both knowledge and freedom, there is also the argument from the history of religious persecution. The danger of religious persecution remains whether from ideological secularism or from fundamentalist theocracy. It is therefore wise to insist on the retention of an explicit right to religious liberty in international, national, and regional laws.