The Catholic Church is involved in politics at the fringe, mostly in socio-economic matters, and does not support any particular political party. The Church freely criticizes the Government. There also are sizable Mennonite communities, whose members originally came to the country in order to escape religious persecution. These communities came to the country in several waves between 1880 and 1950. The Government is secular.
Most government officials are Christian.
The Government does not take any particular steps to promote interfaith understanding. Adherence to a particular creed confers no legal advantage or disadvantage, and foreign and local missionaries proselytize freely. There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom during the period covered by this report. There were no reports of religious detainees or prisoners. There were no reports of the forced religious conversion of minor U.S. citizens who had been abducted or illegally removed from the United States, or of the Government's refusal to allow such citizens to be returned to the United States.