Dignitatis Humanae Colloquium

[Genesis315]

I’m trying to understand this, but I am having a hard time tbh.

Firstly: Where did you read Fr. Harrison’s speech at the colloquium? I would love to read it.

I didn’t find his speech there, but I found other articles by him on this topic–I’m assuming he made the same argument at the conference. Here are two:

rtforum.org/lt/lt151.html
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8775

Secondly: Let’s see if we can break it down. From my understanding, Dr. Pink’s argument was adopted from the Thomistic principle that the government does not have the right to coerce in Religion, as DH states. Yet, he argues, the Church does. The Church can extend the authority to act as the “arm” of the Church to the government, or can choose not too. While the government once acted in this role, and it was licit, the government does not any longer as the Church no longer wished it. That could change down the road and be licit. If that is wrong, please correct me.

Pink is right that the Church does have a borad coercive authority over the faithful and that it can even inflict temporal penalties as well as spiritual (see Canons 1311 and 1312 of the 1983 Code).

From what I understand Pink is also right that the Church can delegate this power to her members, including those with temporal authority. So Pink gets the Church’s power right.

While the Church’s authority to coerce her offending members in religious matters is much broader and less limited than the state’s, I think Pink errs by giving too narrow a scope to the state’s non-delegated power by saying the state has no innate power at all to place restrictions on religious activity without the Church’s delegation. To be fair to Pink, his position has had its supporters over history (e,g, Suarez), but it seems to not have been adopted by the Magisterium. I don’t think it is found in the 18th and 19th century papal documents on the topic, DH, or the Catechism. If I remember correctly, in one of his essays, Pink even says his jurisdictional approach was neglected during that period. Also, Murray argued a somewhat similar point concerning the state’s incompetence in this area at the Council, but his position was opposed by others and ultimately not adopted.

In a nutshell: Pink says the state’s innate authority is merely with regard to matters of natural reason. The Church has taught, instead, that the state’s innate power exists with reference to its role of advancing and defending the common good–and the common good includes supernatural considerations as well as those of natural reason. That’s the main difference.

This is why CCC 2109 (which cites DH 7 and Quanta Cura 3) is incompatible with Pink’s position: it specifically says the limits the state can and should place on religious liberty cannot be “naturalist” (ie taking account only the realm of natural reason).

So, what is Fr. Harrison’s argument on this, super-simplified? From what I know of Fr. Harrison, I know he would not fall into the camp that diminishes the teaching authority of the DH document itself, as some other theologians did at the colloquiem. So I assume he is trying to argue for the continuity of the document, but I am having a hard time understanding the continuity- even what is stated in the Catechism.

My take, and what I see as Harrison’s also, is that the Church’s doctrine on religious liberty is as follows:

From the perspective of man: Man has a right to be free from coercion by the state in religious matters within the limits of the common good (understood as the Church defines it). From the perspective of the state: the state has the right and duty to restrict false religious activity when it is necessary to defend or advance the common good. The variations in praxis over time are accounted for by the differences in circumstances that affect the needs of the common good and the prudential judgments applied by different people to those circumstances (the Catechism specifically says they are matters of political prudence).

The point of discontinuity is usually alleged to be between certain 18th and 19th century documents apparently condemning religious liberty and DH which apparently affirms it. However, the condemnations of religious liberty we see in the past were condemning an absolute, unlimited liberty, or a liberty limited only by a naturalistic conception of the public peace that is religiously indifferent. These conceptions were founded on the rationalist error that man has a moral right to disregard the obligation of faith.

The affirmation of religious liberty in DH (and as interpreted by the Church afterward), rather than falling under those condemnations, is the exact opposite of what was condemned. Instead, it provides the positive formulation that complements the negative condemnations. The liberty affirmed by the Church is founded on man’s obligation of faith toward revealed truth and is limited by a conception of the common good that takes into account both the natural and supernatural good of a society.

I hope that helps!

 

[Barricade]

My take, and what I see as Harrison’s also, is that the Church’s doctrine on religious liberty is as follows:

From the perspective of man: Man has a right to be free from coercion by the state in religious matters within the limits of the common good (understood as the Church defines it). From the perspective of the state: the state has the right and duty to restrict false religious activity when it is necessary to defend or advance the common good.

The variations in praxis over time are accounted for by the differences in circumstances that affect the needs of the common good and the prudential judgments applied by different people to those circumstances (the Catechism specifically says they are matters of political prudence).

What I fail to understand in this is how we are to see any clear guiding principles in this document at all. In some cases it would seem burning heretics at the stake is in conformity with Dignitatis Humanae and in other cases a total separation of Church and State and equal liberties given to all faiths is also in conformity with Dignitatis Humanae. If both ends of the spectrum are potentially in conformity with DH, is this document even saying anything at all or is it just a mirror for people to see what they want in it?

The point of discontinuity is usually alleged to be between certain 18th and 19th century documents apparently condemning religious liberty and DH which apparently affirms it. However, the condemnations of religious liberty we see in the past were condemning an absolute, unlimited liberty, or a liberty limited only by a naturalistic conception of the public peace that is religiously indifferent. These conceptions were founded on the rationalist error that man has a moral right to disregard the obligation of faith.

But there are many more things in these documents than what you cite here about the condemnation of an absolute liberty. For example in Pope Leo XIII’s *Libertas *he says the following in section 23:

Men have a right freely and prudently to propagate throughout the State what things soever are true and honorable, so that as many as possible may possess them; but lying opinions, than which no mental plague is greater, and vices which corrupt the heart and moral life should be diligently repressed by public authority, lest they insidiously work the ruin of the State. The excesses of an unbridled intellect, which unfailingly end in the oppression of the untutored multitude, are no less rightly controlled by the authority of the law than are the injuries inflicted by violence upon the weak.

To me, this quote alone seems to decimate Pink’s argument because it definitively says that the state has a right (without a reference made to the Church using the State as her agent) to repress the propagation of falsehood without making exceptions for falsehoods that happen to be classified as religious in nature. Pope Leo XIII even puts this right of the state on the level of the right of the state to enforce laws against violent offenders.

Also, in Dignitatis Humanae claims are made that are far more specific and present their own unique issues besides the broad notion of religious liberty. For example in section 6:

*If, in view of peculiar circumstances obtaining among peoples, special civil recognition is given to one religious community in the constitutional order of society, it is at the same time imperative that the right of all citizens and religious communities to religious freedom should be recognized and made effective in practice.

Finally, government is to see to it that equality of citizens before the law, which is itself an element of the common good, is never violated, whether openly or covertly, for religious reasons. Nor is there to be discrimination among citizens.

It follows that a wrong is done when government imposes upon its people, by force or fear or other means, the profession or repudiation of any religion, or when it hinders men from joining or leaving a religious community. *

How can this be reconciled with the past positions of the Church on how heretics were to be treated who left the Catholic religion? In the Fourth Lateran Counci (an ecumenical council of the church!)l, the Church threatened secular rulers with excommunication if they did not exterminate heretics from their lands, how is this not hindering someone from leaving a religious community? The Church approved of the burning of heretics and Pope Leo X defended this practice in Exsurge Domine against Martin Luther. How are these positions brought into continuity?

 

[Genesis315]

See it is paragraphs like this that seem confusing:

“Furthermore, society has the right to defend itself against possible abuses committed on the pretext of freedom of religion. It is the special duty of government to provide this protection. However, government is not to act in an arbitrary fashion or in an unfair spirit of partisanship. Its action is to be controlled by juridical norms which are in conformity with the objective moral order. These norms arise out of the need for the effective safeguard of the rights of all citizens and for the peaceful settlement of conflicts of rights, also out of the need for an adequate care of genuine public peace, which comes about when men live together in good order and in true justice, and finally out of the need for a proper guardianship of public morality.” Dignitatis Humanae Section 7, Paragraph 2

Shouldn’t a government show partisanship to the Catholic Church? If not, why? It is the true Church, and even though people may not understand that she is the truth, the government still has the objective responsibility to promote her truth whether people realize it or not. Or am I misinterpreting here?

It says “arbitrary” and “unfair”–that means without good reason. The state shouldn’t just persecute people just because they are members of a false religion. There needs to be some harm to the common good to justify the state repressing the activity. This does not mean the state should be indifferent to the truth–DH itself says this duty remains “untouched.” See also CCC 2105, 2244, etc.

This reminds me of one of Archbishop John Hughes’ (the bishop of New York) responses in his debate with a Presbyterian minister about the Catholic Church’s position on religios liberty. The minister argued that it was Catholic doctrine to persecture heretics and gave the Albigensians and some council canons as an example. Here was the response (my emphasis):
Archbishop Hughes:

Let any man apply the doctrines of the Albigenses, simply on two points, viz. the tenet that the devil was the creator of the visible world ; and that, in order to avoid co-operation with the devil in continuing his work, the faithful should take measures by which the human race should come to an end ; and then say whether those errors were merely speculative. They were, on the contrary, pregnant with destruction to society. Was it persecution, or rather, was it not self-preservation, to arrest those errors? We shall see presently, however, that these men, like the Calvinists in France at a later period, took up the sword of sedition, and wielded it against the government under which they lived. We shall see, that long before the canon of Lateran was passed, their course was marked with plunder, rapine, bloodshed. And if so, it follows that their crimes against society springing from their doctrines, constitute the true reason of the severity of the enactment against them.

***Their existence was known from the year 1022. If, then, the extermination of heretics had been a doctrine of the Catholic Church, why were they not exterminated from the first? If it was not a doctrine of the church in 1022, it was not a doctrine in 1215; for the gentleman himself admits and proclaims that our doctrines never change. Why then did not the Catholics exterminate them at once ? Is it that they were not able ? No : for at first the heresy had but few supporters. But why were they afterwards persecuted ? The reason is, that in the interval they had proceeded to sustain and propagate their infernal principles, by violence. ***They had placed themselves under the patronage of factious and rebellious barons, and had fought in pitched battles against their sovereigns. In the former controversy, the gentleman garbled the twenty-seventh canon of the third Council of Lateran, to show that these poor heretics were condemned to awful penalties, for nothing at all but protesting against the errors of the Church of Rome. This he did by quoting the beginning and conclusion of the canon, and, without indicating any omission, suppressing the crimes of these proto-martyrs of Calvinism. It was proved, by the very document from which he quoted, that these lambs of the Albigensian fold were “exercising such cruelty on the Christians, (ie. the Catholics) that they paid no respect to churches or monastaries, spared neither virgins nor widows, neither old nor young, neither sex nor age, but after the manner of pagans destroyed and desolated every thing.”

 

[Genesis315]

What I fail to understand in this is how we are to see any clear guiding principles in this document at all. In some cases it would seem burning heretics at the stake is in conformity with Dignitatis Humanae and in other cases a total separation of Church and State and equal liberties given to all faiths is also in conformity with Dignitatis Humanae. If both ends of the spectrum are potentially in conformity with DH, is this document even saying anything at all or is it just a mirror for people to see what they want in it?

I don’t think so, for the same reason the condemnations in the 19th century weren’t irrelevant. For example, communist countries that were arbitrarily repressing all religious activity were certainly countered by DH. DH itself, in addition to setting out the principles, also has in mind the particular circumstances of its day so it has that value as well (in fact, according to relator, Bishop De Smet, this is its primary value).

Just because something is based on the circumstances doesn’t mean they Church should lay out principles that are to be applied. It does the same with the death penalty and its doctrine on war, for example.

But there are many more things in these documents than what you cite here about the condemnation of an absolute liberty. For example in Pope Leo XIII’s *Libertas *he says the following in section 23:

Men have a right freely and prudently to propagate throughout the State what things soever are true and honorable, so that as many as possible may possess them; but lying opinions, than which no mental plague is greater, and vices which corrupt the heart and moral life should be diligently repressed by public authority, lest they insidiously work the ruin of the State. The excesses of an unbridled intellect, which unfailingly end in the oppression of the untutored multitude, are no less rightly controlled by the authority of the law than are the injuries inflicted by violence upon the weak.

To me, this quote alone seems to decimate Pink’s argument because it definitively says that the state has a right (without a reference made to the Church using the State as her agent) to repress the propagation of falsehood without making exceptions for falsehoods that happen to be classified as religious in nature. Pope Leo XIII even puts this right of the state on the level of the right of the state to enforce laws against violent offenders.

Leo XIII says the state should repress the spread of errors which work toward its ruin–ie that harm the common good. That fits perfectly with what I was saying. In fact, in paragraph 33 of that same document he says that the common good is the principle that governs when the state should or should not repress such activity. The only difference is Leo looks at it from the perspective the state’s right and duty to repress and its right and duty to tolerate, rather than the person’s right to be tolerated by the state under the relevant conditions.

This is also why Pius XII said in Ci Riesce that “repressing moral and religious error cannot therefore be an ultimate norm of action. It must be subordinate to higher and more general norms.”

Continued in next post…

 

[Genesis315]

continue from above…

Barricade:

Also, in Dignitatis Humanae claims are made that are far more specific and present their own unique issues besides the broad notion of religious liberty. For example in section 6:

*If, in view of peculiar circumstances obtaining among peoples, special civil recognition is given to one religious community in the constitutional order of society, it is at the same time imperative that the right of all citizens and religious communities to religious freedom should be recognized and made effective in practice.

Finally, government is to see to it that equality of citizens before the law, which is itself an element of the common good, is never violated, whether openly or covertly, for religious reasons. Nor is there to be discrimination among citizens.

It follows that a wrong is done when government imposes upon its people, by force or fear or other means, the profession or repudiation of any religion, or when it hinders men from joining or leaving a religious community. *

How can this be reconciled with the past positions of the Church on how heretics were to be treated who left the Catholic religion? In the Fourth Lateran Counci (an ecumenical council of the church!)l, the Church threatened secular rulers with excommunication if they did not exterminate heretics from their lands, how is this not hindering someone from leaving a religious community? The Church approved of the burning of heretics and Pope Leo X defended this practice in Exsurge Domine against Martin Luther. How are these positions brought into continuity?

See my post above (#23) where Archbishop Hughes in the 19th century explained the Albigensian issue and the extermination of heretics in general with reference to the Lateran Council.

The Church has the right to use punishments to prevent the flock from defecting, but not the state as such (Pink’s argument has more relevance here). Leo XIII says the same thing in Libertas and Immortale Dei–the faith cannot be imposed by the state.

As for discrimination, someone of one religion should not be treated differently under the law than someone of another–ie if a Methodist is charged with theft and a Catholic is also charged with theft, all else being equal there shouldn’t be any difference in how they are treated under the law. Again, this also goes back to my prior post where I noted that individuals should not have rights deprived from them simply because they are another religion. There needs to be a detriment to the common good. But that doesn’t mean the state can’t “discriminate” between truth and goodness and falseness and evil when deciding how to defend and advance the common good. In fact, it is bound to.

Rightly or wrongly, the general consensus was growing well before Vatican II that the makeup of most countries at the time did not justify strict limits to religious liberty, but rather broader freedoms for all. This was the status quo already many places and the most restrictive places were communist. In fact, this was one of Murray’s early (bad, IMO) arguments (I don’t think he made it at the Council): he said the restriction of religious liberty had become mostly theoretical so that it shouldn’t even be considered a principle anymore (as an analogy, that would be like someone saying that wars so rarely met the just war standard that we should just dump the standard).

The traditional criteria based on the common good was kept, however, in DH and the CCC.

 

[codefro]

(as an analogy, that would be like someone saying that wars so rarely met the just war standard that we should just dump the standard

You mean like what that theological convention did in Rome a few weeks ago?

Genesis, thank you for your responses. They are good, but stay tuned. I need to reflect on them and I will come back with more questions as I encounter them. Any good book recommendations on this topic are certainly welcome. I am going through the communio edition that has speeches from the DH seminar in Rome in 2013. It seems that opinions and interpretations on this document can still be all over the place.

 

[Thomas_Casey]

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