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Neil_Anthony
Guest
Is this a contradiction?
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Yours_Truly
Guest
Actually, it is not a contradiction, even though it appears so. If you read it closely, it actually only says that they cannot be forced to act contrary to their religious beliefs. That is correct.
It would be wrong if it said that they are permitted to act according to their religious beliefs. That is different.
Forcing someone to do something, and forbidding them from doing something is different. One is a positive; the other negative
Forcing someone to DO what is contrary to their conscience is different than forbidding them from doing what their religion requires. For example, let’s say that a certain false religion required the sacrifice of the parent’s first born. The state could prevented them from doing that.
But they should not be forced, for example, to confess their sins to a priest, or baptize their baby, if it is contrary to their religious belief. This would be similar to forced conversion, which the Church does not permit.
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Freshman88
Guest
Well done! :clapping:
Those documents you’ve pointed out have really clarified the issue for me. It just goes to show, when in doubt, go to the original sources.
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Neil_Anthony
Guest
Thank you for the explanation!
So does this mean that it would be wrong to force Jews to worship Christ, but that on the other hand, Jews should not be allowed to publicly deny Christ?
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Lujack
Guest
So we are in agreement. As long as one agrees that the ideal is a society of 100% Catholics, they can find it prudent at the present time to tolerate religious freedom, and even protect it in constitutions. If this is the case, isn’t the whole thread much ado about nothing?
So we’re in agreement.
Actually, I think its you that I didn’t understand, because it seems like we aren’t in disagreement at all. The only thing we’re disagreeing on is that I don’t see where the Church has ever taught anything against this, even since Vatican II. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many individual Catholics, even the more liberal ones, who wouldn’t agree that ideally, the entire world would be Catholic.
So we’re in agreement, except I’d insert “to avoid a greater evil” after “what is true and good”.
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Yours_Truly
Guest
1.) The ideal society is that all are Catholic.
2.) After that, the ideal is that the State function as a Catholic State and frame its laws in accord with the laws of God and the Church, which means forbidding false religions, even if there are some non-Catholics lving there.
3.) The next level down would be for the state to merely tolerate false religions in order to prevent a civil unrest.
4.) After that, the next level down would be a pluralistic society such as America, where all religions - true and false - are placed on an equal footing.
5.) The next level down from there would be a society where Christianity is forbidden. In this case, Christians would be permitted by God to practice their faith based on the religious liberty that they possess from God, since they belong to His true relition. They state might kill them for it, but they do have the right from God to practice their religion.
This is where we start to get into the problems. Pluralistic society is not the idea, and to say that the constitution SHOULD protect religious liberty is to say that the State should be pluralistic. This would mean a Catholic State that forids false religions would be bad. Yet, as we know, the ideal is that the State profess the true religion and frame its laws according to that religion. That way, the laws of the State help direct man to his proper end. That is the ideal. It doesn’t mean the Church absolutely condemns other forms of society, but it must be affirmed that these are deviations from the ideal.
Where the problem comes in is that, according to the modern idea of religious liberty, the “ideal” (the Catholic State that forbids false religions) is unjust. Why? Because the modern understanding of religious liberty is that each man has “the right to embrace and profess that religions which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true”. (Syllabus #15) They erroneously believe that this is a God-given right of nature. What does that mean for the Catholic State that forbids false religions? It means that this “ideal” State is a violation of a “right of man” - the pretended “right” to practice a false religion.
One of the means by which Liberalism accomplishes its revolution is by ascribing “rights” to man that man does not possess. Just as it pretends that women have a “right to choose”, so too it pretend that man has a “right to religious liberty”. How do we know that a women does not possess an inherent right to choose to have an abortion? Because it violates the 5th commandment, and no one has a right to violate God’s law. And how do we know that man does not possess an inherent “right to religious liberty”. Because it violates God’s “first and greatest” commandment.
The modern understanding of religious liberty is false,because it claims that man has a right to profess a false religion. It is based on a false right, just like the pro-abortion movement.
Yet, based on the erroneous modern understanding of religious liberty, Rome itself has forced Catholics states to change their constitution in such a way that the profession of the Catholic religion as the only religion of the State was dropped. Rome itself forced this change. Why? Because of Vatican II.
According to Rome, Vatican II taught that the ideal state is a violation of a “right” of man. This is a serious error and implicitly condemns 1500 years of Catholic teaching and practice. It condemns all of Christendom, in which Catholicism was the sole religion of the State “to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” (Syllabus #77)
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Dauphin
Guest
No, but there is a direct and manifest contradiction between Quanta Cura and Dignitatis Humanae, and it lies in the teaching concerning whether false religions may publicly manifest their falsehoods:
"From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity,“2 viz., that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.”” - Quanta Cura
“Religious communities also have the right not to be hindered in their public teaching and witness to their faith, whether by the spoken or by the written word.” - Dignitatis Humanae
Dignitatis Humanae here says that “religious communities” have a right not to be hindered in the public manifestation of their falsehoods. Quanta Cura condemns precisely this proposition.
Pope Benedict XVI freely admits that there is a rupture here in the Church’s teaching. However, he says that Dignitatis Humanae is really just a return to the Church’s tradition. That’s a rational position to take. To deny that there is a contradiction, however, is absurd.
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Yours_Truly
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You can interpret that quote from DH “in light of tradition” by understanding religious communities to mean religious orders of the Church. If it is interpreted that way, the statement is true. Religious Orders of the True Faith do have a right to exist and to “witness to their faith, whether by the spoken or by the written word”.
The problem is that no one interprets it that way. They all interpret it to mean what you implied; and if interpreted that way it is, as you said, a falsehood.
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Neil_Anthony
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redrosetea,
Yes, I wish this thread was just a joke. However, I’ve been following threads here for a long time, and one of the persistent objections to Vatican II raised here, is that it defined religious freedom as a right. Some traditionalists are opposed to it. And when the thing about Williamson came out, I wanted to see if the suppression of the Jews was part of traditionalist belief. I’ve seen quite a few people post on here that religious freedom should not be a right.
But, the results of the poll are very encouraging. So far 100% of SSPX respondents agree that Jews have a God-given right to publicly deny that Christ is the Son of God! I’m very happy to see that anti-semitism is not, after all, part of SSPX teachings. SSPX has finally adopted the teachings of Vatican II on religious freedom!
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Yours_Truly
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I have a question: Does man have a God-given right to deny the holocaust? If not why?But, the results of the poll are very encouraging. So far 100% of SSPX respondents agree that Jews have a God-given right to publicly deny that Christ is the Son of God! I’m very happy to see that anti-semitism is not, after all, part of SSPX teachings. SSPX has finally adopted the teachings of Vatican II on religious freedom!
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Neil_Anthony
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Are you asking me? I would say no, they don’t have that right, because that would be fraud and false witness, and cooperation with genocide.
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Yours_Truly
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So, you are saying that the Jews have a God-give right to deny Christ, but that man does not have a God-given right to deny the holocaust? Please tell me that is not what you meant.
You think that denying the holocaust is to cooperate with genocide, but don’t believe that the denial of Jesus as the Son of God is to cooperate with His death?
Don’t you see that the Jewish holocaust is replacing the real Holocaust? The true Holocaust was the death of the Son of God for our sins. That is what Christendon was built upon. The new holocaust is replacing the true Holocaust. The victim and sacrifice of the Son of God has been replaced with the death of the Jews.
But what about the death of the 100 million Gentiles at the hands of the Communists during the 20th century? How is that not worse than the death of several million Jews? Both are bad, but 100 million is far more than even the most inflated number of Jews who were killed.
You need to think about things. Your mind has been so twisted by the constant emphasis on the Jewish holocaust that you consider denying it worse than denying Christ. While at the same time the death of 100 million Gentiles at the hands of the Communists does not even enter your mind. Why? Answer: Because there is no emphasis being placed on it, just like there is no emphasis being placed on the True Holocaust of our Lord. All emphasis is placed on the murder of the Jews, and none placed on the murder of other groups, such as Catholics, millions of whom have been put to death by the Muslims in the past few decades, and it is still taking place as we speak.
Are we to attribute the death of these Catholics to the denial of Christ? Of course. That is the reason they are put to death - because the Muslims deny Christ. But you claim that denying Christ is a God-give right, whereas denying the holocaust is “cooperation with genocide”. May the scales fall from your eyes.
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Neil_Anthony
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I didn’t say it: the SSPX members who voted in the poll said it. I’m just summarizing the results of the poll.
I don’t think they’re comparable. To get up on the witness stand and say you didn’t see a murder being committed is different from not having faith that Christ is the Son of God. One is a lie to help someone get away with murder, and to help them commit another murder. To not believe in Jesus is a matter of faith.
Uhhh… what? The genocide of Jews in WWII somehow absolves human beings from sins? I thought it was the opposite, it shows how evil human beings are and how badly we are in need of God.
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Yours_Truly
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"Yours Truly:
But what about those who did not see it? What about the remaining Billions of people in the word? Do they have a God-give right to deny the holocaust?
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Neil_Anthony
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There is obvious evidence of the holocaust. The only people who say they don’t see it are the ones who are glad it happened and want to finish it off. It’s not a historial opinion, its a lie to help commit genocide.
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Ghoti
Guest
How would this apply, then, say, to a Jehovah’s Witness who refuses a blood transfusion for their child? Or a Mennonite who refuses to fight in a war that would fit the criteria of a “just war”?
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Yours_Truly
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The definition of faith is believing something on the authority of another. Now, for just about everyone in the world, belief in the holocaust is an act of human faith. They believe it, not because they have seen the evidence, but because they believe those who tell them it happened. I happen to be one of those who believe that it happened, but this belief of mine is based solely on human faith - nothing more.
You say that man is forbidden from denying the holocaust because there is evidence for it. But there is also evidence that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and died for our sins. We have his own testimony, the eye witness testimony of the apostles, as well as the Scriptures, the testimony of the early Christians and even of Pagan.
How can you maintain that it is a God-given right to deny Christ, while simultatnously maintaining that all must believe in the holocaust?
Are you saying that man is bound to accept the holocaust on the basis of human faith, or are you saying that man is bound in conscience to investigate the holocaust? Which is it? And if you say that man has a duty to investigate the holocaust, what about the claims of Jesus Christ? Is man free to ignore this truth?
My final question is this: If man is forbidden from denying the murder of millions of Jews, is man also forbidden from denying the murder of millions of Catholics at the hands of the Mulsims during the past few decades? In your opinion, are these two crimes on an equal level? Or is the murder of a million Jews at the hands of Hitler worse than the muder of millions of Catholics at the hands of the Muslims?
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Yours_Truly
Guest
In my opinion, they should not be forced to do so. You should not force someone to act contrary to their conscience, even if the conscience is erroneous. Acting contrary to our conscience, even an erroneously formed conscience, is a subjective sin.
Now, a person can be forbidden FROM ACTING according to their conscience. For example, let’s say that a person’s religion teaches them that a leader who commits adultery should be put to death. While the State would have the authority to frame such a law, an individual would not have the authority to take this action upon themselves. As such, they could be forbidden from acting on their conscience in this respect.
Remember, forbidding someone from acting according to their conscience is different than forcing them to act in a way that is contrary to their conscience. That is important distinction.
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Ghoti
Guest
I actually should have divvied up my two examples, as they may have to be addressed differently.
I do understand the distinction between “do A” and “do not do B”.
But let me rephrase my question:
How does this jive with a parent/guardian who denies some medical treatment to their children? Should the child be allowed to die so as not to force the parents to act contrary to their conscience? I mean, one could take it to a ridiculous extreme, from the no-transfusion JWs to New Age homeopaths to Breatharians. Would it be that the notion of duty to one’s children would here trump tolerance of an unorthodox belief? Or would we say that we can’t force you to violate your conscience, but your conscience cannot be used to defend your “sin of omission” against another?
Sorry if I’m not coming across well. I’ve got bad insomnia, and sleep dep and theology are not the best mix in my brain.
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Yours_Truly
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You raise some great questions. I don’t have a certain answer for you, but there are some writings from St. Thomas on a related point that may help us to discover the answer. We’ll have to sort through this together to try and arrive at the answer.I actually should have divvied up my two examples, as they may have to be addressed differently.
I do understand the distinction between “do A” and “do not do B”.
But let me rephrase my question:
How does this jive with a parent/guardian who denies some medical treatment to their children? Should the child be allowed to die so as not to force the parents to act contrary to their conscience? I mean, one could take it to a ridiculous extreme, from the no-transfusion JWs to New Age homeopaths to Breatharians. Would it be that the notion of duty to one’s children would here trump tolerance of an unorthodox belief? Or would we say that we can’t force you to violate your conscience, but your conscience cannot be used to defend your “sin of omission” against another?
Sorry if I’m not coming across well. I’ve got bad insomnia, and sleep dep and theology are not the best mix in my brain.
When I get some free time, I look up the writing from St. Thomas that I mentioned above and we’ll see how what he says applies to your questions.
It may be a while before I can get to it. If you want to look into it now, do a search in the Summa of St. Thomas under the subject of baptism of children against the will of their unbelieving parents. I think what he says there will shed some light on your questions.
Since the Summa is online, you can usually find the information by doing a google search.
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