Fr. Z's Blog

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

Could you explain how the definition of religious liberty in Dignatis Humanae is the same as how Popes defined it previously before the Second Vatican Council, I don’t quite understand how it can be said to be the same.

Mind you, I am not an expert on this question.   After reviewing to help me understand it, I think I can break it down.  It is important, because this difficult question is close to the heart of the resistance of the SSPX with the Vatican over the documents of Vatican II (not Vatican “eleven”), particularly concerning religious liberty.

The difficulty is real, and it should not be waved away.   Also, when there are true difficulties, we should have greater freedom, as John XXIII reminded:

“In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas.”

Please, God, let those in the SSPX and in the Holy See take this to heart.

Ad ramos.

If by “religious liberty” one means the proposition that man has a natural moral right to religious error as such, or that the State has no duty toward God and the true religion, then that is condemned by pre-Conciliar popes.

Bl. Pius IX condemned the view that the best civil society is one in which no distinction is made between the true religion and false religions, and he also condemned the claim that “liberty of conscience and of worship” is an unrestricted right to be proclaimed in every well-ordered society.

Leo XIII – who should be canonized – likewise rejected the theory that the State may treat all religions as though they had the same public title before God, since civil society must acknowledge God and cannot be “godless.”

There is a tension, which even careful traditional writers have acknowledged. Michael Davies, for example, (via Fr. Harrison) while remaining respectful toward the Holy See, wrote that he did not claim a contradiction existed, but that he did not see how the traditional teaching and Dignitatis humanae could be reconciled and asked the Magisterium to clarify the matter.  (We are still waiting.)

The key point is that Dignitatis humanae can be taken to define religious liberty in a deliberately restricted juridical sense.

It says: “Religious freedom… has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society,” and adds that it “leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.” HERE

In other words, Vatican II did not define religious liberty as a moral right to error, nor as a denial of the social Kingship of Christ, nor as a denial that individuals and societies have duties toward the true religion. It defined the right in question as a civil immunity from coercion by merely human power within due limits.

That is why the Council grounds the right in the dignity of the person as a rational and free being who is morally obliged to seek the truth, adhere to it once known, and order his life according to it. This is decisive. The right is not founded on the subjective sincerity of the person, nor on the supposed equal truth of all religions. Dignitatis humanae says that the right “has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature.”

Popes condemned a false “liberty of conscience” understood as indifferentism, religious relativism, social atheism, and the unrestricted public license of error. Vatican II affirmed a civil immunity from coercion in religious matters, within the limits of public order, while preserving the duty of all men and societies toward the true religion.

Those are related issues, but they are not identical.

Leo XIII supplies part of the distinction. In Libertas 30, he condemns false liberty, but he also says that if “liberty of conscience” means that a man may follow the will of God and obey His commands “free from every obstacle,” then “this indeed is true liberty,” the liberty loved by the Church, the Apostles, the apologists, and the martyrs. He also teaches that public authority may tolerate what is contrary to truth and justice for the sake of avoiding a greater evil or preserving a greater good, while never approving evil as such.

That does not yet amount to the full formulation of Dignitatis humanae, but it shows that the older teaching already distinguished moral approval from civil toleration or immunity.

John XXIII, before the Council, moved the discussion further in Pacem in terris. He taught that man has the right to worship God according to “the right dictates of his own conscience” and to profess religion both privately and publicly, while citing Leo XIII on true freedom. This is important because Pacem in terris stands between Leo XIII and Vatican II and uses the language of human dignity, conscience, and public religious profession without adopting religious indifferentism.

Dignitatis humanae also limits the right.

It says that religious freedom is exercised in society and is subject to the moral law, the rights of others, the common welfare, public peace, and public morality. The State may restrain abuses committed under the pretext of religion, but it must do so according to juridical norms conforming to the objective moral order. Thus the Council did not teach an absolute license. It taught a presumptive civil immunity, limited by just public order.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith later explained the same. Its 2007 Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization rejects the idea that respect for religious freedom means religious indifferentism. It says that respect for religious freedom “must not in any way make us indifferent towards truth and goodness,” and that love impels Christians to proclaim saving truth. At the same time, it insists that evangelization must avoid coercion or improper persuasion and that witness to the truth does not impose by force. This is very close to the logic of Dignitatis humanae: truth must be proposed, preached, defended, and embraced, but the act of faith itself must be free.

Benedict XVI gave perhaps the most concise hermeneutical key. The CDF’s 2007 note cites him in his famous 2005 Christmas Curia Address to the effect that religious freedom cannot be understood as the “canonization of relativism.” Rather, it must be understood as an intrinsic consequence of the truth, because truth cannot be externally imposed, but must be personally adopted through conviction.

That is the Catholic distinction: truth binds the conscience, but coercion cannot produce faith.

Fr. Brian Harrison has defended the position that Dignitatis humanae can be read in doctrinal continuity with traditional Catholic teaching on Church and State. His work explicitly aims at “upholding the doctrinal continuity between the Vatican II Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis humanae, and traditional Catholic doctrine regarding Church, State, and religious toleration.”

Thomas Pink, from a more integralist and traditional political-theological perspective, argues that Dignitatis humanae changes the Church’s policy concerning the State’s use of coercion in religion, without denying the older doctrine that coercive religious authority belongs properly to the Church rather than to the State.

The answer, then, is this: Dignitatis humanae is “the same” as previous papal teaching only if one is speaking about the principle that no one may be forced into faith and that the civil power may not command the interior religious act. It is also in continuity with the older doctrine insofar as it preserves man’s duty to seek and embrace the true religion, and society’s duty toward Christ and the Church.

It is a development, however, in its juridical formulation of a civil right to immunity from coercion for persons and religious communities within due limits.

So we can’t say, “Vatican II says exactly what the earlier popes said.”

Vatican II did not repeat the older doctrine in the older political idiom. It narrowed the question to civil immunity from coercion, explicitly refused to deny the older doctrine concerning the duty of men and societies toward the true religion, and developed a juridical doctrine of religious freedom grounded in the dignity of the person and the free nature of the act of faith.

Whether every phrase of Dignitatis humanae is as clear as it could be is another matter.

But the orthodox reading depends on that distinction.

That said, Dignitatis humanae is a declaration of the Second Vatican Council, hence an act of the authentic magisterium.  But it did not define a dogma.

Paul VI explicitly said that Vatican II “avoided pronouncing in an extraordinary manner dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility,” while nevertheless giving its teaching the authority of the supreme ordinary magisterium, to be received according to the “mind of the Council” and the nature of each document.

The Council itself presents Dignitatis humanae as a limited doctrinal development concerning “immunity from coercion in civil society,” while adding that it “leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”

That means the document’s binding force cannot be treated as though it had definitively settled every Church-State question previously addressed by Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius XI, and Pius XII.

Canonically, non-definitive teachings call for “religiosum voluntatis et intellectus obsequium … religious submission of will and intellect” but not the assent of divine and Catholic faith.

The CDF’s Professio fidei commentary cites canon 752: “While the assent of faith is not required,” religious submission is owed to non-definitive authentic magisterial teaching.

Therefore, even on standard post-conciliar principles, Dignitatis humanae does not require the same irrevocable assent as defined dogma or doctrine proposed definitively by the ordinary and universal magisterium.

Moreover, the CDF’s Donum veritatis admits that, in prudential or historically conditioned interventions, “some Magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies,” because not every aspect or complexity of a question may have been considered.   This is certainly the case with Dignitatis humanae.

That does not authorize contempt or casual dissent.  It does leave room for serious, reverent difficulty, especially where a non-definitive text appears hard to reconcile with prior papal teaching.   Dignitatis humanae does at least leave that room.

This is precisely why traditional writers have treated Dignitatis humanae as debatable.

Michael Davies concluded cautiously that there remains an “apparent contradiction” between traditional papal teaching and Dignitatis humanae, while refusing to declare a formal contradiction.

Thus the strongest conclusion is: a Catholic may not simply sneer at Dignitatis humanae or ignore it.

However, because it is non-definitive, pastorally framed, historically conditioned, and difficult to harmonize with prior papal doctrine, it does not require unconditional interior consent from all Catholics in the way a dogma does. A Catholic may respectfully withhold full assent from disputed formulations while maintaining adherence to the prior magisterium and awaiting clarification from higher authority.

(Of course we have seen even quite recently blatant clown-car attempts to bury prior magisterium with the shovel of the “recent” magisterium”.)

So, that begs another question.

Has there been “clarification from higher authority”?

Yes, there has been clarification from higher authority, but not the kind that would satisfy everyone.

The post-Conciliar Magisterium has repeatedly clarified that Dignitatis humanae must be read as teaching religious freedom as immunity from coercion, not as moral indifferentism, relativism, or a “right to error.”

The strongest official clarification is the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which says that religious freedom means that society and the State must neither force a person to act against conscience nor prevent him from acting according to conscience, but then adds explicitly: “Religious freedom is not a moral license to adhere to error, nor as an implicit right to error.”

Benedict XVI gave the key interpretive clarification in his 2005 address on the “hermeneutic of reform.” The CDF later quoted that address in its 2007 Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization: religious freedom cannot be understood as “a canonization of relativism”; rather, it is “an intrinsic consequence of the truth” because truth cannot be imposed externally but must be embraced through conviction.

The CDF also clarified that religious liberty does not abolish the missionary duty of the Church. In 2008, Benedict XVI told the CDF that Dignitatis humanae itself affirms that “this one true religion continues to exist in the Catholic and Apostolic Church,” and that interreligious dialogue does not dispense the Church from evangelization or from asking men to accept salvation in Christ. This is reinforced by Dominus Iesus, which rejects relativistic theories that treat religions as salvific paths in principle and reaffirms the unicity and universality of Christ and the Church.

There has also been an extensive 2019 treatment by the International Theological Commission, Religious Freedom for the Good of All. It directly acknowledges “difficulties in receiving the new orientation from Dignitatis humanae” and says the post-conciliar Magisterium has interpreted the declaration through “homogenous evolution” and Benedict’s “hermeneutic of reform.” That document explains the Council’s argument: religious liberty is founded on human dignity, the duty to seek truth, the nature of religion, and the limits of civil power in religious matters.

However, here is the important qualification: there has not been, so far as I have seen, a definitive doctrinal reconciliation showing precisely how Quanta cura, the Syllabus, Immortale Dei, Libertas, Quas primas, and Dignitatis humanae all cohere on the exact question of the civil status of false public worship in a Catholic State.

One might ask: Do they have to?   A lot of water has run under the bridge since those documents, also themselves somewhat isolated in their own contexts, were issued.  Where is there room for development?  Development, of course, rooted in the correct perennial principles about “development of doctrine”.

That said, higher authority has clarified the intended reading: no relativism, no right to error, no denial of the true religion, no denial of evangelization, and no coercion into faith.

What has not been fully clarified is the precise relation between the older “toleration of false cults” framework and the conciliar “civil right to religious freedom” framework.

So the fairest answer is: yes, Rome has clarified the official hermeneutic.  But, no, Rome has not produced the kind of exhaustive reconciliation that removes every serious difficulty.

This is getting way too long and it has absorbed a lot of time.

What of the SSPX?  Isn’t that the point of the question at the top?  Really?

The SSPX objects to Dignitatis humanae.  This is a sticking point which could result in tears.

The SSPX argument against Dignitatis humanae is that the declaration turns what earlier popes treated as prudential toleration of error into a natural civil right and that it teaches what previous documents (mentioned above) condemned.   Their fundamental objection – if I understand it correctly –  is that false religion, because it is false, cannot possess a natural right to public propagation.  Also, they say that that “within due limits” does not solve the problem, because the Council defines those limits mainly by “just public order,” rather than by the objective rights of Christ the King and the Catholic Church.

Thus, under the conciliar principle, a false religion may be publicly preached and organized unless it disturbs civil order.  If Christ has rights over societies, then civil authority may not treat all religions as having the same public status.

FINALLY, I think the SSPX could accept Dignitatis humanae as a non-definitive conciliar declaration whose binding sense is limited by its own text and by prior magisterium.

The key is its statement that it “leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”

On that basis, the SSPX could say: we do not accept any reading of Dignitatis humanae that denies Christ’s social Kingship, the objective rights of the Catholic Church, or the duty of civil society to acknowledge the true religion. We accept only the declaration’s narrower claim: that civil authority, as civil authority, must not coerce the interior act of faith, nor suppress religious activity by arbitrary force, provided public order, morality, and the common good are safeguarded.

Mind you, that would not require affirming a) a moral right to error, b) the equal public truth of all religions, or c) liberal indifferentism. It would allow the SSPX to read the text through Leo XIII’s distinction between true liberty and license, and through the traditional principle that coercion cannot produce faith.

Their assent could be qualified, namely, Dignitatis humanae is acceptable insofar as it teaches immunity from unjust coercion, while any interpretation contrary to prior doctrine is rejected.

Such a formula would make the document a matter of interpretive reservation, not an absolute obstacle to canonical union.

On that basis, those who are reasonable and grounded in charity in the Vatican would say,

“Hey, sure!  You’re right.  These are really hard issues and there’s a lot more to talk about.  Meanwhile, have a couple of bishops … on me. You pick though we’d like to discuss them.  You can even pick a consecrator of those bishops from a list you can help us draw up.  And afterward we’ll send theologians to debate you on this and other questions you have until we all get to the truth… together!”

Please, Leo, do that.  If you see this, please do that.  What a great legacy and work of statesmanship and pastoral care.

You do NOT have more important things to do.

It remains to be seen if there is anyone in the Holy See – even the Holy See – willing to be so open minded as to accept that, for the sake of what is constantly being touted as of great importance – unity.