On Religious Liberty

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JSmitty2005

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Do you believe that every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true?
 
Why exactly would anyone claim they shouldn’t be? God gave us freedom of speech, so ought we give freedom of speech to one another.
 
Every man is free in the sense that no one is to be COERCED to violate his or her conscience. Still, the Catholic Church teaches that man is duty-bound to seek the true God and the true Religion and , when once he has found it, to embrace it and never depart from it.

Jaypeeto3
 
It is an ambigous statement, by itself, which needs clarification.

In relationship to God, of course not. No one has a moral right before God to reject the religion He founded and instead embrace man-made religions.

In relationship to the state, absolutely YES. No goverment has the right to force us to follow a particular religion.

This teaching from the syllabus of errors is used by dissidents, both on the right and left to say the Church changed her teachings in Vatican II
That is false. The original statement was in reference to our relationship with God. Vatican II was in reference to the state.

Two different subjects.
 
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dcdurel:
This teaching from the syllabus of errors is used by dissidents
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While I don’t consider myself a dissident, I was waiting for someone to recognize that this statement was **CONDEMNED ** by Pope Pius IX in his Syllabus of Errors.
 
Smitty,

I see your tagline:

**“Is it pastoral care to let them [dissidents]
skip and dance their merry way to Hell?”
-Fr. John Corapi

**Father Corapi, seems to speak against “letting” dissidents dissent. I assume you believe that they shouldn’t be allowed to do so?

How would you and the good father prevent dissidents from dissenting?
 
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BillP:
How would you and the good father prevent dissidents from dissenting?
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Great question. The problem with limiting dissenting speech is not purely philisophical. It is most definitely a *practical * problem. If you back up your rhetoric with exercises of power, you will encourage – not discourage – dissenters.

Mind you, I believe there is a place for things like excommunication, or statements condemning the teachings of certain people. These are messages to the faithful, guiding them away from false teaching. They are *not * indications that the Church wants to limit the freedom of the individual being excommunicated.

Peter cut off the ear of the guard.

Jesus went out of his way to heal, even to heal his enemy.

Personally, I’d rather take Christ’s example.
 
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BillP:
Father Corapi, seems to speak against “letting” dissidents dissent. I assume you believe that they shouldn’t be allowed to do so?

How would you and the good father prevent dissidents from dissenting?
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Of course I don’t agree with dissent! I say that we tell them that they’re wrong and why, ask them to recant their former beliefs and reconcile themselves with the Church’s true teachings. If not, excommunicate them! Here’s part of an email I got a while ago from Crisis magazine. It was on 12 Myths Every Catholic Should be Able to Answer. Here’s myth #7:
  1. Code: 
        "Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep
our minds open to new ideas."

You might hear this argument a lot today, especially in the wake of the
abuse scandal in the Church. Everyone wants to find a solution to the
problem, and in doing so some people are advocating ideas that are
outside the pale of our Catholic faith (i.e., women priests, being open
to homosexuality, etc). A lot of people blame the Church for being too
rigid in its beliefs and not wanting to try anything new.

The truth is, a lot of the ideas for reform that are floating around
today aren’t new. They’ve been around for a while, and the Church has
already considered them. In fact, the Church has spent its entire life
carefully examining ideas and determining which ones are in line with
God’s law and which aren’t. It has discarded heresy after heresy while
carefully building up the tenets of the Faith. It should come as no
surprise that there are thousands of other Christian churches in
existence today – all of them had “new ideas” at one point that the
Church had decided were outside the deposit of faith.

The Church has an important responsibility in protecting the integrity
of our Faith. It never rejects ideas out of hand, as some dissenters
would claim, but has two thousand years of prayer and study behind the
beliefs it holds to be true.

This doesn’t mean that we can never disagree on anything. There’s always
room to discuss how best to deepen our understanding of the truth – for
example, how we can improve our seminaries or clergy/lay interactions –
all within the guidelines of our Faith.
 
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JSmitty2005:
Of course I don’t agree with dissent! I say that we tell them that they’re wrong and why, ask them to recant their former beliefs and reconcile themselves with the Church’s true teachings. If not, excommunicate them!
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To whom would this apply? Theologians? Clergy? Lay people?

How, practically speaking, would you enforce it?

Would we require them to sign a document?

Publically swear some sort of oath?

Let me give you a practical example. Currently ~85% of married Catholics practice ABC. How do you identify them? Does everyone have to submit a signed undertaking not to practice ABC before they can be admitted to Communion?
 
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JSmitty2005:
Do you believe that every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true?
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Yes of course… Unless of course that person is a steelers fan.
 
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JSmitty2005:
While I don’t consider myself a dissident, I was waiting for someone to recognize that this statement was **CONDEMNED ** by Pope Pius IX in his Syllabus of Errors.
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Actually, the quote you posted in the poll was not condemned, because you forgot to add the “reason” phrase.
 
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Ahimsa:
Actually, the quote you posted in the poll
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was not condemned, because you forgot to add the “reason” phrase.Thanks Ahimsa!
 
Yes, everyone is free to choose their religion, but do not confuse freedom with license.

Nobody has the license to choose any religion they want.
 
I tend to reject this whole freedom vs. license argument, because it always seems to be promoted by those trying to restrict someone else’s freedom.
 
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a_cermak:
I tend to reject this whole freedom vs. license argument, because it always seems to be promoted by those trying to restrict someone else’s freedom.
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I suspect you are mistaking restrictions on your freedom with being made to feel uncomfortable for the choices you have made.

(Since you have given no details or examples I have license to speculate wildly. 😃 )
 
Does anyone have a link to Maxima Quidem June 9, 1862, in English? That seems to be the reference in the Syllabus. It would be nice to fully understand what it is.

What do “embrace and profess” mean? I’m thinking that it would be hard to not consider as true something that one “considers true”! :whacky: So embrace and profess perhaps are public things, freedom of speech, and the like?

Also modern 'ol me wonders about the usage of the phrase guided by the *light *of reason. This sounds like a very positive statement. It is not set off in sarcastic quotes or anything. Is it trying to say something about those who do faithfully follow reason, our God-given gift? It doesn’t seem to be considering those who are mucking about with their reason, twisting it or anything. Yet the notice is specifically given to those who are guided by the light of reason (which, taken by itself, I would tend to consider a good thing, especially given the presence of the word “light”).

Of course, if the pope is just quoting some guy and condemning what that guy said, then it is the entire set of words/ideas put together as the guy meant them that is out the window, and one oughtn’t get too particular about the choice of words.
 
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Ahimsa:
Actually, the quote you posted in the poll was not condemned, because you forgot to add the “reason” phrase.
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The complete quote would not fit, so I did my best to shorten it without losing the meaning. I put the full quote in post #1.
 
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