The Second Vatican Council’s Teaching on Religious
Liberty in the Light of Tradition
Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist.
1 November, 2014
INTRODUCTION
Of all the documents of the Second Vatican Council the one that has most determined the official relations of the post-conciliar Church with the world is the Declaration on Religious Liberty Dignitatis Humanæ. The official diplomacy of the Holy See in the decades since Vatican II has largely been concerned with the defense of religious liberty. In the years immediately following the Council the defense was mounted against atheistic communism in Central Europe, and later it was taken up against militant Islam in the Near East, and “the dictatorship of relativism” in the West.
Moreover, no other document marks the transition between the “pre-conciliar” and the “post-conciliar” Church more than Dignitatis Humanæ. For while the post-conciliar Church presents herself as the passionate defender of religious liberty, the pre-conciliar Church of the “Pian Age” (1789-1962) seemed to be the implacable enemy of such liberty. A chief concern of Vatican II was to overcome the antagonism between the Church and modernity, an antagonism symbolized at the dawn of modernity by the Galileo affair, and which had taken violent political form in the French Revolution. Instead of merely condemning the errors of modern liberalism, Vatican II wished to uncover the positive elements and authentic human concerns expressed therein. The Council wanted to show how the Church could make these positive elements her own, purifying and elevating them through the influence of grace.2
Religious liberty was seen as a key point in this transition, because freedom of conscience and therefore of religion was an important concern of the Enlightenment and of the bourgeois liberalism of the 19th century, and the opposition of the 19th century popes to this freedom was one of the sources of liberal anti-clericalism. 3
The change in the Church’s attitude toward modernity seems especially clear in the matter of religious liberty. In fact, there seems to be a direct contradiction between the teaching of the Council and the teachings of the popes of the 19th century on this point. If one compares the central affirmation of Dignitatis Humanæ with, for example, the section on religious freedom in Bl. Pius IX’s Quanta Cura the contradiction seems obvious...
1
Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist.
1 November, 2014
INTRODUCTION
Of all the documents of the Second Vatican Council the one that has most determined the official relations of the post-conciliar Church with the world is the Declaration on Religious Liberty Dignitatis Humanæ. The official diplomacy of the Holy See in the decades since Vatican II has largely been concerned with the defense of religious liberty. In the years immediately following the Council the defense was mounted against atheistic communism in Central Europe, and later it was taken up against militant Islam in the Near East, and “the dictatorship of relativism” in the West.
Moreover, no other document marks the transition between the “pre-conciliar” and the “post-conciliar” Church more than Dignitatis Humanæ. For while the post-conciliar Church presents herself as the passionate defender of religious liberty, the pre-conciliar Church of the “Pian Age” (1789-1962) seemed to be the implacable enemy of such liberty. A chief concern of Vatican II was to overcome the antagonism between the Church and modernity, an antagonism symbolized at the dawn of modernity by the Galileo affair, and which had taken violent political form in the French Revolution. Instead of merely condemning the errors of modern liberalism, Vatican II wished to uncover the positive elements and authentic human concerns expressed therein. The Council wanted to show how the Church could make these positive elements her own, purifying and elevating them through the influence of grace.2
Religious liberty was seen as a key point in this transition, because freedom of conscience and therefore of religion was an important concern of the Enlightenment and of the bourgeois liberalism of the 19th century, and the opposition of the 19th century popes to this freedom was one of the sources of liberal anti-clericalism. 3
The change in the Church’s attitude toward modernity seems especially clear in the matter of religious liberty. In fact, there seems to be a direct contradiction between the teaching of the Council and the teachings of the popes of the 19th century on this point. If one compares the central affirmation of Dignitatis Humanæ with, for example, the section on religious freedom in Bl. Pius IX’s Quanta Cura the contradiction seems obvious...
1
This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to
be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to
be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with
others, within due limits.4
And thus Quanta Cura:
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,’ [deliramentum] 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.’5
Does not Vatican II here affirm precisely that which Pius IX, citing Gregory XVI, calls a deliramentum? This ostensible contradiction made Dignitatis Humanæ the most controversial document at the Council. So many doubts were raised about the first three schemata that Bl. Pope Paul VI decided to delay voting on it, moving the vote from the third to the fourth and final session of the Council.6 At this a large group of council fathers protested, begging the Pope with the very greatest urgency (“instanter, instantius, instantissimus”) to reverse his decision, lest public opinion turn against the Council.7 Nevertheless, the vote did not take place till the very end of the last session.8
After the Council the question of the relation of Dignitatis Humanæ to previous teachings remained controversial.9 Any interpretation of Dignitatis Humanæ has to deal with this question, and interpreters have proposed various approaches that all give different answers to the question—from the assertion of a radical break with tradition to that of complete continuity with tradition. I shall now consider several answers that I consider inadequate before turning to an explanation and defense of the answer proposed by the English philosopher Thomas Pink. According to Pink there is continuity at the level of principles, but discontinuity at the level of Church policy toward the state. He shows this first by giving a new interpretation of the condemnation of religious freedom on the part of the popes of the Pian Age, showing its roots in counter-Reformation political theology. And then he applies key distinctions taken from that analysis to Dignitatis Humanæ.
https://thejosiasdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/pater-edmund-dignitatis-humanae2.pdf
And thus Quanta Cura:
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,’ [deliramentum] 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.’5
Does not Vatican II here affirm precisely that which Pius IX, citing Gregory XVI, calls a deliramentum? This ostensible contradiction made Dignitatis Humanæ the most controversial document at the Council. So many doubts were raised about the first three schemata that Bl. Pope Paul VI decided to delay voting on it, moving the vote from the third to the fourth and final session of the Council.6 At this a large group of council fathers protested, begging the Pope with the very greatest urgency (“instanter, instantius, instantissimus”) to reverse his decision, lest public opinion turn against the Council.7 Nevertheless, the vote did not take place till the very end of the last session.8
After the Council the question of the relation of Dignitatis Humanæ to previous teachings remained controversial.9 Any interpretation of Dignitatis Humanæ has to deal with this question, and interpreters have proposed various approaches that all give different answers to the question—from the assertion of a radical break with tradition to that of complete continuity with tradition. I shall now consider several answers that I consider inadequate before turning to an explanation and defense of the answer proposed by the English philosopher Thomas Pink. According to Pink there is continuity at the level of principles, but discontinuity at the level of Church policy toward the state. He shows this first by giving a new interpretation of the condemnation of religious freedom on the part of the popes of the Pian Age, showing its roots in counter-Reformation political theology. And then he applies key distinctions taken from that analysis to Dignitatis Humanæ.
https://thejosiasdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/pater-edmund-dignitatis-humanae2.pdf