ready;9421033:
But does Vatican II teach that all people have a moral right to practice whatever religion is in accordance with their concience? I do not know if it does, as I have not read the documents on religious liberty. Peace and God bless you!
I once shared this concern, and e-mailed a very knowledgeable and intelligent friend about it. Here was his (very useful) reply. Interests of disclosure, he regards Vatican II as a gross *prudential *error but not as heretical; call him a moderate traddie:
Please note the following response is directed at “moderate traddie” (not sw85).
“Dignitatis Humanae” (DH) looks like the sort of thing one gets when one tries to “translate” Christianity into the vocabulary of an incompatible philosophy (i.e. the whole purpose of VII)–what you get is something that’s not even coherent enough to be wrong.
While “moderate traddie” may deem the genuine insights derived from Personalist Phenomenology in Vatican II pronouncements to be incompatible with the Deposit of Faith, the Magisterium has not. Apparently he fails to remember certain propositions from the Angelic Doctor were initially designated as antithetical by Bishop Étienne Tempier on 7 March 1277? Just because certain statements first
appear contradictory does not mean they
actually are.
When confronted with this sort of thing, we all try to supply a foundation that will make sense of it. The most natural one (as the more devious of the Council Fathers realized) in this case would be liberalism and would involve the heretical consequences you describe. The document itself denies that this is what it means:
“Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”
First, why would “moderate traddie” have any reason to doubt
Dignitatis Humanae means what it says? Second, it is telling “moderate traddie” gives no documentation for his supposed claim that “liberalism” (which is curiously never defined) provided the foundation for religious liberty.
So, we each have a duty to worship God as Catholics, and society itself has such a duty (which to me naturally implies a religious establishment), but the State isn’t authorized to force us to. Of course, the Church has always believed this in some sense: forced baptisms being invalid and wrong, and all that.
While
societies have a
de facto moral duty to uphold the Catholic Faith, this does not necessarily imply the
state must establish
de jure the Catholic Church as the only legally recognized form of religion (although it does not reject such an arrangement).
But DH takes things farther, saying that the social nature of man means that false religions have the right to organize in public. Previously, the Church had only recognized such a right for the Jews (and Herself, of course), although She recognized that it may be prudent to allow other religions a somewhat free hand. And even the Jews weren’t thought to have a right to propagate their views in the larger society. One might turn the document’s reasoning against it and say that the social nature of man means that the common good requires the State to maintain a religious consensus.
Dignitatis Humanae concedes the Church’s previous application of religious liberty was framed within the historical context in the religious homogeneity of the confessional state. Since the Age of Christendom has been supplanted by the
fait accompli of the Enlightenment, the Church accordingly adapted her understanding on religious liberty to the actual reality of religious pluralism characteristic of the secular state.
In fact, it appears that DH thinks it necessary to the common good and the social kingship of Christ that a moral consensus if not a religious one be maintained, since it says that religious freedom doesn’t allow one to jeopardize public morality:
“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.”
Since every other religion countenances at least some sinful behavior (contraception, divorce, polygamy, abortion, infanticide, suicide, etc.), DH would seem to authorize more “partisanship” by the State than its supporters recognize. It can presumably suppress Protestant agitation for acceptance of divorce, for example. (By the way, the reference to “partisanship” above shouldn’t be taken to mean a duty for the State to practice religious neutrality in general. The next sentence clarifies it means adherence to the rule of law in its recognized religious rights. The alternative would be like in Europe today, where there’s a general rule against denigrating religions, but it’s only applied if the offendee is Islam.)
The moral principle of double effect (within the socio-cultural context of the modern world) could be cautiously applied by implicitly acknowledging the possibility for the lesser evil of partisanship may be begrudgingly tolerated to avoid the greater evil of outright violence (e.g., the religious conflict underlying the Thirty Years’ War).
DH is an unfortunate document, no doubt. When read as I prefer, the exceptions largely devour the rule. What makes it most unhelpful is that it never presents a vision of what the spiritual common good means. This is what it gets for expressing itself in individualistic categories rather than using its own tradition. There’s also the issue, which cries out for treatment but doesn’t get it, of what the relationship between society and the State is, or ought to be. This is actually something I would like to have a clearer sense of myself.
“Moderate traddie” fails to realize the faithful are not to read the ecumencial documents [of Vatican II] “as I prefer” according to our own individual judgment. We are called to faithfully adhere to the authoritative pronouncements of the Magisterium for their authentic interpretation in the light of the Deposit of Faith. Contrary to his assertion, he seems to have overlooked there are certain (underlined below) criteria of what constitutes the common good of the public order:
“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” (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Session IV, Declaration [of 7 December 1965] on Religious Freedom
Dignitatis Humanae, n. 7, §2).
