The SSPX and relgious liberty

[bear06]

Well, all, this has gotten very confusing. I agree with ncjohn on some things but not others. Pax seems to ask questions but then answers some exactly as I would and others in a way I never would. stmaria agrees to some of the same rights I do. And, last but not least, I’ve got to bake 10 dozen cookies today so I’ll have to suspend my part in this conversation until my chores of the season are done! Have fun!

 

[FATIMAisUrgent]

While I pretty much agree with stmaria and Pax et Caritas, I think a better point (and perhaps a more unifying one) is that Dignitatis Humanae has only blurred and confused the Church’s teaching (regardless of whether or not it is direct contradiction). It claims to uphold the traditional teachings but at the same time it introduces new ideas in a very confusing manner (the fact that we still don’t know the “official” interpretation is proof of this). But that is one of the principle tactics of modernism, to introduce subtle changes and ambiguous language.

Since Vatican II did not bind us to any of it’s teachings, and it was primarily a pastoral council called to “open up to the modern world,” why can’t we just all agree that the fruits are rotten, and just get back to being Catholics again? I know that may sound too idealistic, but honestly, why must we accept the new pastoral orientations of Vatican II? Pope Benedict XVI (or any pope) is not bound to that pastoral experiment, he could say “the experiment has failed, lets go back to what used to work.”

The real problem that faces the Church and the world today is not one of “using a dead language” or “outdated teachings.” The real problem is that the Church at large and the world have ignored Our Lady of Fatima’s warnings. Christ has been dethroned and the world continues the down the ruinous path of sin. Even before Vatican II a growing portion of the Church became infected by the spirit of the world; Vatican II just sped-up the process from within.

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

You can punish wrongdoing that occurs, either out of the belief system (getting an abortion) or out of the “legalities” of family functioning (failing to clean their room). Those are individual actions, which have consequences, and they have no “right” to violate the “law”. But you cannot punish them simply for failing to accept your beliefs as this would be trying to coerce their Catholic belief which all have accepted we cannot do. This is, in essence, what DH says…

It is possible we’re just talking past each other due to differences in how we perceive terminology. Or perhaps we just have a basic disagreement on what “rights” governments should have over their charges, given that not all governments are going to promote Christian beliefs.

NCJohn, I hope you read this post.

I just read throught the entire thread and have a few comments for those I had a discussion with.

1. Firstly, several people made comments asking me why I was saying this or that when D.H. didn’t even discuss it. The answer is that I was not directly commenting on D.H. in this thread. I was simply stating what the Church teaches on the subject of rights and free will. Those who were reading my posts must have had D.H. on their mind, but I myself was not even thinking about that document.
2. Secondly (and this is regarding NCJohn’s post above), I have never claimed that a person should be requried to convert to the true faith. That is not what I have said.

What I have said is that a person can indeed be prevented from either propogating a false religion, or practicing a false religion in public. The Catholic State has the right to forbid evil acts (including the public practice of false worship), and it has the right to punish those who violate that law. But that is not the same as saying the person should be forced to convert to the true faith.

Preventing someone from committing a sin is different than forcing them to convert against their will (which would not be a true conversion anyway). One is a negative (preventing them from practicing a false religion in public) while the other is a positive (forcing them to convert). Forcing them to convert would be wrong, but preventing them from practicing false worship in public would be OK.

I should also point out that the Church does indeed allow the State to tolerate false forms of worship when prudence dictates. There is nothing wrong with tolerating false worship; but there is a problem when people claim that false worship has a “right” to exist. There is a difference… and it is actually a big difference.

I am going to make one more post commenting on something you said in your last post to me. Hopefully the example will clarify what I have been trying to say…

continue…

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

continuation…

Here’s your example:

Perhaps a different example would work, at least for those who have endured trying to raise teenagers. You can tell a teen anything in the world, and be completely right objectively, but you cannot force that teen to believe you. As the “government” in this example, you should have the right to promote your objective truth, but you cannot have the right to coerce that teen to accept that truth. That teen cannot be tortured or killed by you for failing to accept your belief.

You can punish wrongdoing that occurs, either out of the belief system (getting an abortion) or out of the “legalities” of family functioning (failing to clean their room). Those are individual actions, which have consequences, and they have no “right” to violate the “law”. But you cannot punish them simply for failing to accept your beliefs…

That example will work for this discussion.

Do you agree that the father of the house has the right, and even the duty, to establish rules that will help his child? For example, you can establish a time for them to be home and a certain bedtime. And you can also punish them if they violate the rules. In fact, if you don’t punish them they will be less likely to follow the rules.

You can’t force them to agree with the rules, but you certainly have the right - and even the duty - to make good rules; as well as the right to punish them if they violate the rules. They don’t have to agree with your rules, but they have to follow them. Let’s apply the same example to “religious liberty”…

Let’s say that, God forbid, a person’s child became a satanist. The father of that house would have every right to say “you cannot sacrifice those animals on my property any more”.

Would the father have the right to make that rule? And would that rule be a good rule? Yes, he would have that right, and it would be a good rule. Does that mean they are forcing their child to convert to the true faith - one that they don’t believe in? No, it just means that they are forbidding them from committing that sin on your property.

The Catholic State has the same right (and duty) with its citizens that you would have with your children. It has the right (and duty) to pass good laws that help direct men in their actions; and it also has the right to forbid certain evil actions in public, such as false worship.

The State may find that it is prudent to tolerate certain sins, such as the public practice of false religions, but that does not mean that the public practice of a false religion is a right. Members of a false religion have no more of a right to practice their religion in public than the child does to sacrifice animals to the devil on their parents property.

continue

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

continuation

I’ll end with this quote from the Council of Vienne. In this quote we will see the Pope, using the authority of a Church Council, forbidding the public practice of a false religion which until them had been “tolerated”.

Pope Clement V, Council of Vienne: “It is an insult to the holy name and a disgrace to the Christian faith that in certain parts of the world subject to Christian princes where Saracens (Muslims) live, sometimes apart, sometimes intermingled with Christians, the Saracen priests, commonly called Zabazala, in their temples or mosques, in which the Saracens meet to adore the infidel Mahomet, loudly invoke and extol his name each day at certain hours from a high place… This brings disrepute on our faith and gives great scandal to the faithful. These practices cannot be tolerated without displeasing the divine majesty. We therefore, with the sacred council’s approval, strictly forbid such practices henceforth in Christian lands. We enjoin on Catholic princes, one and all… They are to forbid expressly the public invocation of the sacrilegious name of Mahomet… Those who presume to act otherwise are to be so chastised by the princes for their irreverence, that others may be deterred from such boldness.”

Here we see the Pope commanding the authorities of the State to forbid the public practice of the false religion of Islam. Notice, he does not force them to covert, but only to cease their public sins.

That is in perfect harmony with what the Church taught right up to Vatican II. Try to reconcile the above quote with the teaching found it D.H.

If D.H. - a fallible document - teaches something contrary to what the Church has always taught (as found in many magisterial documents), and something exactly contrary to the practice of the Church as found in the Council of Vienne, what are we to do?

We can’t believe both at the same time. If we believe D.H. we fall under the condemnation of the Syllabus of errors of Pius IX and Pius X.

The Traditionalists agree with what the Church has always taught, while the “conservatives” and liberals accept the new teaching, which is the contrary.

What the Church has always taught is infallible in virtue of its being taught consistently by the ordinary magisterium. D.H. was: 1.) not protected by infallibility; 2.) a new teaching, and; 3.) exactly contrary to what the ordinary magisterium has always taught.

What we are left with is a fallible teaching (D.H.) that is contrary to an infallible teaching. Which are we to accept?

 

[ncjohn]

I was in agreement with much of what you said in your preceding posts. Then I got to this misinterpretation:

Here we see the Pope commanding the authorities of the State to forbid the public practice of the false religion of Islam. Notice, he does not force them to covert, but only to cease their public sins.

The Pope did NOT forbid the public practice of Islam. He forbade the public exhortation of Mohammed’s name as the faithful found that offensive. There is a huge difference between the two. I also doubt that such a governmental decision carried any weight of infallibility, and question whether it was even prudent though without looking at the context of the times it would be hard to say and certainly nothing more than a personal opinion.

However, even within a “Catholic State”, should such a thing somehow come back into existence, it would not be a prudent thing to think that one could fully suppress others from their own religions. Could it be done? It could be attempted, just as it is attempted in reverse in many Islamic countries. But the point of DH was, again, to recognize the realities that many societies are not even Christian states, much less Catholic, and that many societies do attempt to enforce a ban on Christian religions. As a practical matter, if a Catholic State tried to do such a thing, or the Church proclaims that States should do such things, it would be hard to argue that other States would not also have such a right.

You can make statements that your weren’t commenting on DH, but in the end DH is the document on religious liberty so I don’t see how you can discuss the issue in this context and avoid the document.

As to your final conclusions, I will have to respectfully disagree in full. I disagree that there is an infallible right to suppress other religions, and that DH teaches anything “new” much less contradictory to any infallible teaching. Just as the argument is used that the Galileo decision wasn’t really based on infallibility because it dealt with a matter of science rather than faith and morals, so I would submit that prudential decisions about suppression of other religions are not in the realm of infallibillity as they are matters of governance–disciplinary in nature–rather than matters of faith and morals.

In saying this I am not commenting on “error has no rights” or in any way condoning any individual’s choices to do evil, or “rights” to “false worship”. I am only commenting on the inherent God-given freedom of will and that governance decisions dealing with suppressing that cannot be enforceable or infallible. DH only deals with the practical aspect that we cannot coerce others to be Catholic and calls on those societies which are not Christian society to not try to interfere with a Catholic’s right to their free will.

After reading those other posts and thinking that maybe we really were more in agreement than I had previously thought though, your conclusions in the last one seem to imply exactly the opposite so I will in fact leave it at that, while wishing you well.

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

As to your final conclusions, I will have to respectfully disagree in full. I disagree that there is an infallible right to suppress other religions, and that DH teaches anything “new” much less contradictory to any infallible teaching.

I have two questions:

1.) Have you ever read Libertas?

How do you reconcile what you believe with the following condemned propositions:

[It is an error to hold that] "In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship. (Syllabus # 77)

Whoever believes that in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religions should be held as the only religion of the State, to teh exclusion of all other forms us worship, is condemned. How do you reconcile that with what you believe?

The following is also a condemned proposition:

[It is an error to hold that] “Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship”. (Syllabus # 78)

Those are both condemned propositions, and they are in perfect harmony with what the Church had always taught.

I’ll end with this quote from a Quanta Cura of Pope Pius IX:

Pope Pius IX “For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of “naturalism,” as they call it, dare to teach that “the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones.” And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that “that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.” 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.” But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching “liberty of perdition;” … Therefore, by our Apostolic authority, we reprobate, proscribe, and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in this letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned”. papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9quanta.htm

How can you possibly reconcile what you believe with those dogmatic teachings of the Church? And if you justify your belief the documents I quotes aren’t infallible, I would reply by saying that neither is Dignitatis Humanae. The difference is, the quotes I provided not only represent what the Church has always taught, but what she has practiced as well.

Regarding infallibility: Notice how Quanta Cura ends. It says “Therefore, by our Apostolic authority, we reprobate, proscribe, and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in this letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned”.

Remember what the requirements for infallibility are: The Pope must be 1.) teaching a doctrine of faith or morals, 2.) from the Chair of Peter, and 3.) intending to bind the entire Church. If Quanta Cura does not meet the requirements for Infallibility, I would like to know why. And even if it doesn’t meet the requirements of infallibility, we are bound to accept all that the Church teaches.

How can a person believe Libertas, Quanta Cura, and the Syllabus on one hand, and D.H. on the other? Since a person cannot believe both, he is left with the choice of which he will believe. Will it be that which is in agreement with the teaching of the Church from the beginning, and the practice of the Church for 1600 years, or will it be the contrary as found in one fallible and ambiguous document from a council that no one seems to be able to interpret “correctly”?

 

[ncjohn]

Remember what the requirements for infallibility are: The Pope must be 1.) teaching a doctrine of faith or morals…

As noted previously, I do not hold items of secular governance to be doctrines of faith and morals any more than whether the earth orbits the sun or the sun orbits the earth is a matter of faith and morals, though the Church tried to claim it was for 1400 years, with Popes condemning the proposition that the earth was not the center of the universe. Or any more than the oft-repeated claim that the Pope did not have the authority to change the Mass because of the previous “prohibition”.

I’m sorry but I just don’t buy into your interpretations of what is to be infallibly held by the faithful on this subject. And with that truly do bid you adieu.

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

As noted previously, I do not hold items of secular governance to be doctrines of faith and morals

So, in your opinion are we perfectly free to reject the teaching of Dignitatis Humanea? And do you agree that the documents I quoted are in direct contradiction to what D.H. says?

As a side note, the condemnations in the syllabus of errors are very serious and not to be disregarded lightly. These are errors that have been formally and explicitly condemned by the Church.

 

[ncjohn]

So, in your opinion are we perfectly free to reject the teaching of Dignitatis Humanea? And do you agree that the documents I quoted are in direct contradiction to what D.H. says?

As a side note, the condemnations in the syllabus of errors are very serious and not to be disregarded lightly. These are errors that have been formally and explicitly condemned by the Church.

I disagree that DH is in contradiction to any Church doctrine. I’d have to look further as to what level Catholics are bound to adhere to it.

Even it is only considered disciplinary one would be bound even if one did not agree that its approach was the best, just as we are able to disagree as to whether priestly celibacy is the best approach but cannot decide on our own to change it. Disciplinary measures are binding on the faithful during the time when they are in force.

 

[stmaria]

I

Regarding infallibility: Notice how Quanta Cura ends. It says “Therefore, by our Apostolic authority, we reprobate, proscribe, and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in this letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned”.

 

[ncjohn]

And here, in this lengthy quote which mostly has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand, and which at no time contradicts DH, you highlight one part of a sentence and then just kind of skip over the next part of the sentence which confirms the goals of DH.

**The Church, indeed, deems it unlawful to place the various forms of divine worship on the same footing as the true religion, **

 

[stmaria]

QUOTE=ncjohn;3081901]And here, in this lengthy quote which mostly has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand, and which at no time contradicts DH, you highlight one part of a sentence and then just kind of skip over the next part of the sentence which confirms the goals of DH.

My last post from Pope Leo is about Church and State so it has everything to do about the topic. Unless you want me to post the entire text which is probably 30-40,000 words, I have to skip and highlight. I posted the link so you could read the entire text.
Also, what you said I skipped is the Traditional teaching of the Church. For the common good the Church must on occasion tolerate false ideas and opinions. But that does not mean that error has rights.

Outside of a non-existant purely Catholic state, in the pluralistic societies that today exist, the “some great good” is the granting of each person the free will given by God to allow people to live in peace rather than believing they have the “right” in the name of religion, to extinguish another’s free will and peace.

Why are Catholic states non existant? Because of DH. Spain, Portugal, Brazil all have been protestantized.
Error has no rights. Read* Quanta Cura*. It is INFALLIBLE DOGMA.

For if one society feels that it can impose or coerce a “state religion” and take whatever remedies it sees to its benefit against anyone outside of that religion, then all other societies must also have that right. It is exactly that which DH seeks to avoid, and especially to make sure that Catholics in non-Christian cultures are able to profess their faith. And of course the rest of that paragraph you cited is just further confirmation of that constant teaching.

But DH went further then that. It meant the even in CATHOLIC states error must have the right to propagate itself. That is exaclty what Quanta Cura infallibly condemns

In fact it is quite possible that Gregory the Great is the “original” in the idea of the separation of Church and state because of his need to "buy off’ the Lombards in the face of Italy being totally overrun and having no other help in sight, including from the Emperor or the Eastern Church. He undoubtedly proposed an equality of State enforcing secular power with the Church enforcing spiritual law.

I believe it is called the Kingship of Christ

It can easily be argued that later Popes contradicted his position in such statements as Pax quoted

.

What pre-Vatican Pope contradicted his position?

But that simply further goes to show that governance issues are not matters of faith and morals but are subject to the times and conditions in which they occur. The Church went through constant changes in view as to whether they considered themselves separate but equal, or whether they tried to claim everything subject to Church rule, and it usually depended on how much temporal “force” they were capable of exerting at the time.

Is *Quanta Cura *infallible dogma or not?

The question isn’t at all whether power proceeds from God and must be subject to Him. Nor is it whether the state can sanction things which are not virtuous. Nobody here has said anything to the contrary, nor does DH in any way say anything like that. DH deals solely with whether others should be free to their own will in choice of religion without coercion, and the end of the statement you quoted clearly shows that they should, going back at least to the wisdom of Augustine.

As I posted earlier, Spain changed its Constitution because of DH. Pope Paul made no effort to stop that from happening. Because of adopting DH Spain, as Pope Leo predicted, became godless as false beliefs were allowed to be propagated. Abortion, gay marriage, pornograghy all became legal. This would have NEVER happened if Spain had remained a Catholic state.

 

[ncjohn]

I give up. There is a total inability here to distinguish between things, no matter how many times they are explained. No matter how many times it is explained that DH has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH CONDONING ANY ACTION TAKEN BY ANYONE, it keeps coming back to “error has no rights”, which has absolutely nothing to do with what DH says. DH says nothing more than what Augustine said, and what Gregory the Great practiced.

You seem determined to read things into DH that are not there and seem to be determined to not believe what the Church say is true, trying to find contradictions the Church says are not there. You claim to not be SSPX, yet quote all the interpretations they take which the Church disagrees with. You have that right. I’ll leave you to it. I’m sure God will bless your devotion and willingness to stand for what you believe.

Peace,

 

[stmaria]

I give up. There is a total inability here to distinguish between things, no matter how many times they are explained. No matter how many times it is explained that DH has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH CONDONING ANY ACTION TAKEN BY ANYONE, it keeps coming back to “error has no rights”, which has absolutely nothing to do with what DH says. DH says nothing more than what Augustine said, and what Gregory the Great practiced.

You seem determined to read things into DH that are not there and seem to be determined to not believe what the Church say is true, trying to find contradictions the Church says are not there. You claim to not be SSPX, yet quote all the interpretations they take which the Church disagrees with. You have that right. I’ll leave you to it. I’m sure God will bless your devotion and willingness to stand for what you believe.

Peace,

If I am guilty of reading things" into DH that are not there" then so was the country of Spain. They clearly changed their Constitution and allowed all religions the civil right to propagate.

From DH "Over and above all this, the council intends to develop the doctrine of recent popes on the inviolable rights of the human person and the constitutional order of society…
The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right. "

First if this is developement of doctrine, where are the footnotes from pre-Vatican II Popes from which it which it was developed? Where is Quanta Cura and Libertas?

Compare DH and civil rights to Quanta Cura which is infallible dogma.
*Quanta Cura *Pope Pius IX
……" 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.” But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching “liberty of perdition;” … Therefore, by our Apostolic authority, we reprobate, proscribe, and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in this letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned”.

We obviously will never agree but let me ask you this. Wouldn’t you like to live in a Catholic state? What if Italy were a Catholic State. All laws were based on the Divinely revealed teachings of Christ. No abortion, no partial birth abortion, no gay marriage, no pornography. Other religons would be tolerated. No one would be forced to be Catholic. They would be allowed to privately worship as they wish. They would not be allowed to publicly preach or to publish that the Catholic Church is the anti-Christ or the the Eucharist is mere bread or that “once saved always saved”. What would be wrong with that?

Likewise a country like the U.S. could be Protestant. Its laws would be based on secularism. Abortion would be allowed as well as gay marriage and pornography. The Catholic Religion would be tolerated. We would not be allowed to publicly preach. We would worship in private. Where would you rather live? Which country would living according to the will of God? Which country and which citizens would be blessed? One that is with God or one that is godless?

Libertas
…justice therefore forbids, and reason itself forbids, the State to be godless; or to adopt a line of action which would end in godlessness – namely, to treat the various religions (as they call them) alike, and to bestow upon them promiscuously equal rights and privileges. Since, then, the profession of one religion is necessary in the State, that religion must be professed which alone is true, and which can be recognized without difficulty, especially in Catholic States, because the marks of truth are, as it were, engraven upon it

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

NCJohn,

Can you explain, in your own words, what you think stmaria and I are saying; and what exactly you disagree with? I wonder if you are misunderstanding what we are trying to say. Neither of us have argued, for example, that people should be forced to convert to the true faith. That’s not what we are saying. In fact, we are not even saying that false religions must be banned from a Catholic State.

What we are saying is that false religions do not have the right to exist in a Catholic State, and that the State DOES have the right to forbid them and to punish any violators of that law. Will that always be the most prudent measure for the Catholic State to take? No. Sometimes it will be more prudent to tolerate false religions (just as it is sometimes best to tolerate other evils)… but the evils not permitted (tolerated) because they have a right to exist. They are permitted because it is prudent in order to aboid some other evil.

For example, Cardinal Ratzinger discusses the toleration of prostitution in his book Salt of the Earth.

Cardinal Ratzinger: “There’s a passage in Saint Augustine where he asks what one should do about this problem [prostitution]. And he answers that, given man’s makeup, it’s better for the order of the commonwealth when prostitution exists in an ordered form.”

This doesn’t mean that prostitution has a right to exist; it just means that he believed it to be more prudent to tolerate it in an ordered way, rather than push it underground.

I’ll end again with the encyclical we have been quoting over and over again - Libertas, by Pope Leo XIII - where we find the mind of the Church on all the points being discussed in this thread.

: “with the discernment of a true mother, the Church weighs the great burdens of human weakness, and well knows the course down which the minds and actions of men are in this our age being borne.** For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything except what is true and honest, she does not forbid the public authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or preserving some greater good**…

“But, to judge aright we must acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further it is from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such a case the motive of good is lacking. And although in the extraordinary condition of these times, the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of providing for the eternal salvation of mankind. One thing, however, remains always true – that the liberty which is claimed for all to do all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights.” ( On the Nature of True Liberty, Pope Leo XIII).

 

[FATIMAisUrgent]

I give up. There is a total inability here to distinguish between things, no matter how many times they are explained. No matter how many times it is explained that DH has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH CONDONING ANY ACTION TAKEN BY ANYONE, it keeps coming back to “error has no rights”, which has absolutely nothing to do with what DH says. DH says nothing more than what Augustine said, and what Gregory the Great practiced.

You seem determined to read things into DH that are not there and seem to be determined to not believe what the Church say is true, trying to find contradictions the Church says are not there. You claim to not be SSPX, yet quote all the interpretations they take which the Church disagrees with. You have that right. I’ll leave you to it. I’m sure God will bless your devotion and willingness to stand for what you believe.

Peace,

 

[FATIMAisUrgent]

I give up. There is a total inability here to distinguish between things, no matter how many times they are explained. No matter how many times it is explained that DH has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH CONDONING ANY ACTION TAKEN BY ANYONE, it keeps coming back to “error has no rights”, which has absolutely nothing to do with what DH says. DH says nothing more than what Augustine said, and what Gregory the Great practiced.

You seem determined to read things into DH that are not there and seem to be determined to not believe what the Church say is true, trying to find contradictions the Church says are not there. You claim to not be SSPX, yet quote all the interpretations they take which the Church disagrees with. You have that right. I’ll leave you to it. I’m sure God will bless your devotion and willingness to stand for what you believe.

Peace,

If I may presume to speak for stmaria and Pax et Caritatis, I think they (as I do) have a very difficult time interpreting DH in continuity with previous teachings. We all acknowledge that the Church and State issue involves matters of prudence (tolerating error and other evils at times), but the very strong thematic language of “human dignity,” “rights,” and “freedom” seems to lean heavily on the Enlightenment. Also, I think we have a hard time accepting the simple proposed solution to interpret DH “in light of tradition,” especially with the way DH has been emplemented by certain countries (as noted already) and by the rhetoric from the Church heirarchy itself. I have seen several quotes from certain Church leaders basically saying that DH was the Church embracing certain ideas from the Enlightenment. Now if one were to reply that “well they may not have been interpreting DH correctly,” I would counter with “well how will we ever know what DH really taught?” If DH is teaching Church doctrine, it should be clear, flowing logically and coherently from previous teaching.

Let me also say that I totally understand your frustration with Catholics who sympathize with the SSPX because it seems like they are against the Church because of the division and confusion that has come about since Vatican II. But have you ever considered the possibility that perhaps, just maybe, we are living through the worst crisis/apostasy in the Church and that even the Church heirarchy has been infected with it (without judging them of course). The only solemn and binding statements to come from the last few popes have been condemnations of abortion, contraception, and no women priests (unless I’m forgetting something), which is great, but many other Church teachings have been either ignored or altered by any and every bishop, priest, or lay person who so desires. As for Vatican II and DH, I personally don’t even bother much in trying to find errors in the documents, because of the facts that the purpose was “pastoral” and no binding statements were made, and that no one can figure out the “correct interpretation.” Since I know of no recent solemn and authoritative statements that would directly contradict past teachings, I have absolutely no agony of conscience to disagree with (or at least be suspicious of) certain new ideas that have come since Vatican II.

Not sure how coherent that was, but I hope you won’t abandon the discussion. God be with you!