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Genesis315
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The Church at Vatican II in the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae stated the following about the moral duty of men and societies towards the true religion (aka Catholicism):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 [the Vatican Council] **leaves untouched **traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies towards the true religion and towards the one Church of Christ. The explanation of the great theologian Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman from his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk will be referenced as Newman spoke on this theme:
When we turn to the Allocution, which is the ground of its being put into the Syllabus, what do we find there? First, that the Pope was speaking, not of States universally, but of one particular State, Spain, definitely Spain; secondly, that he was not noting the erroneous proposition directly, or categorically, but was protesting against the breach in many ways of the Concordat on the part of the Spanish government; further, **that he was NOT referring to any work containing the said proposition, NOR contemplating any proposition at all; NOR, on the other hand, using any word of condemnation whatever, NOR using any harsher terms of the Government in question than an expression of “his wonder and distress”. **And again, taking the Pope’s remonstrance as it stands, is it any great cause of complaint to Englishmen, who so lately were severe in their legislation upon Unitarians, Catholics, unbelievers, and others, that the Pope merely does not think it expedient for every state from this time forth to tolerate every sort of religion on its territory, and to disestablish the Church at once? For this is all that he denies. As in the instance in the foregoing section, he does but deny a universal, which the “erroneous proposition” asserts without any explanation.
The error is presuming that in a Catholic country it is wise to promulgate civil laws to declare the non-Catholic to have public exercise of their religion. Vatican II, with the subject of religious liberty, dealt with the rights of individuals to freedom from coersion from practicing their religion provided that they were not disturbing the public order. Here is how public order was defined by DH:The right to religious freedom is exercised in human society: hence its exercise is subject to certain regulatory norms. In the use of all freedoms the moral principle of personal and social responsibility is to be observed. In the exercise of their rights, individual men and social groups are bound by the moral law to have respect both for the rights of others and for their own duties toward others and for the common welfare of all. Men are to deal with their fellows in justice and civility.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.
- and don’t the self-styled orthodox have their crosses ?
). It is because we are trying to love our neighbor as ourselves.