‘The Church Proposes; She Imposes Nothing.’ —St. John Paul II

Faith is entirely about right relationship with God, and so any external coercion is contrary to religion and so must always be repudiated. Authentic religion proposes revealed realities that should awaken the hunger for divine encounter within others.

With this said, I am hesitant to say that fear is opposed to the spiritual life per se. Within the Catholic tradition, there are two types of fear: servile and filial. Servile fear is the fear of punishment, the fear that says “God is the policeman and He is out to get me.” We would say that this fear comes from a lifeless faith, and this fear I reject as contrary to religion.

Conversely, filial fear is the fear of losing my relationship with my Heavenly Father. This fear is the necessary consequence of the reality of free will; my choices matter, and they either lead me closer to Him or further away.