February 2008 Print

38) What does Vatican II teach about religious liberty?   

• Was there a fourth "liberal Catholic" wave?

Jacques Maritain (1882-1973) was the principal leader of the fourth "liberal Catholic" wave in France beginning in the 1930s.

• But wasn't Jacques Maritain a great Thomist philosopher?

Just as at the beginning of the Church's history certain men betrayed the true faith after having been its champions (Tertullian, for example), likewise Maritain, a champion of Thomism, progressively evolved towards liberalism.¹ He went so far that, towards the end of his life, he had come to doubt the eternity of the pains of hell.

• Was this fourth "liberal Catholic" wave condemned?

In 1953, Cardinal Ottaviani, the Pro-Secretary of the Holy Office, refuted some of Maritain's liberal theses in a solemn speech at the Lateran; in 1958, the Holy Office prepared a document condemning certain propositions of Maritain or of the American Jesuit John Courtney Murray, but Pius XII's death prevented its publication. Ultimately, Maritain and Courtney Murray triumphed at Vatican II.

• Does the religious liberty proclaimed by Vatican II incur these condemnations of "liberal Catholicism"?

The religious liberty taught by Vatican II incurs several of these condemnations. In Quanta Cura, for example, Blessed Pius IX condemned "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); namely, 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...."² He equally condemned the following error as contrary to Holy Scripture, the Church, and the holy Fathers: "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."³

• Can you cite another pope?

Leo XIII, in Libertas Praestantissimum, sounded a warning not only against the irreligious State, but also against a State that would "treat the various religions (as they call them) alike, and bestow upon them promiscuously equal rights and privileges," "a line of action which would end in godlessness." Such a State would sin against justice and reason.⁴

• Do the popes of the 20th century teach the same doctrine?

Pope Pius XII taught on October 6, 1946:

The Catholic Church, as we have already said, is a perfect society and has as its foundation the truth of Faith infallibly revealed by God. For this reason, that which is opposed to the truth is, necessarily, an error, and the same rights, which are objectively recognized for truth, cannot be afforded to error. In this manner, liberty of thought and liberty of conscience have their essential limits in the truthfulness of God in revelation.⁵

• But doesn't Dignitatis Humanae refer to papal pronouncements?

Dignitatis Humanae cites Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical Libertas in support of religious freedom. Here is the relevant paragraph (§30):

Another liberty is widely advocated, namely, liberty of conscience. If by this is meant that everyone may, as he chooses, worship God or not, it is sufficiently refuted by the arguments already adduced. But it may also be taken to mean that every man in the State may follow the will of God and, from a consciousness of duty and free from every obstacle, obey His commands. This, indeed, is true liberty, a liberty worthy of the sons of God, which nobly maintains the dignity of man and is stronger than all violence or wrong–a liberty which the Church has always desired and held most dear.

• What is the import of this passage of Leo XIII?

After condemning "liberty of conscience" as it is commonly understood in the modern world, Leo XIII says that this expression can, however, be rightly understood. Speaking of "a liberty worthy of sons of God," he unequivocally means the freedom to be able to practice the true religion (the right of which he speaks has as its object the will of God and the accomplishment of His precepts). It is dishonest to pretend to apply this passage to false religions.

• Do the authors of Dignitatis Humanae admit that their document contradicts the teachings of previous popes?

Several of the authors of Dignitatis Humanae were obliged to admit that the text posed some difficulties. The chief inspirer of the text, Fr. John Courtney Murray, acknowledged this in his commentary: "Almost exactly a century later, the Declaration on Religious Freedom seems to affirm as Catholic teaching that which Gregory XVI and Pius IX held as 'insanity,' a mad idea."⁶ Fr. Yves Congar admitted: "It cannot be denied that the Declaration on Religious Liberty does say materially something else than the Syllabus of 1864; it even says just about the opposite of Propositions 15 and 77 to 79 of this document."⁷ Elsewhere he said: "I collaborated on the final paragraphs–which left me less satisfied. It involved demonstrating that the theme of religious liberty was already contained in Scripture. Now, it isn't there."⁸

• How could Vatican II have reached the point of promulgating a declaration so radically in contradiction with the Church's practice and teaching?

The Preparatory Theological Commission constituted by Pope John XXIII to prepare the Council had drafted an entirely traditional document, summarizing the Church's doctrine in this matter.⁹ But the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, presided by Cardinal Bea, had prepared an alternative schema drafted with a view to pleasing the Protestants and Freemasons. During the preparatory sessions held on June 19-20, 1962, "the texts of the Commission and the Secretariat were presented together before the Central Commission, provoking the most dramatic confrontation that body ever experienced."¹⁰ Cardinals Ottaviani and Bea vehemently clashed. On the eve of the Council, two contrary doctrines were proposed. One referred to the unbroken tradition of the Church, the other invoked the expectations of the modern world.

• Was the Secretariat for Christian Unity able to impose this innovative text easily?

The Secretariat for Unity was able to impose its text only after four years of lobbying the Council Fathers. The innovators hoped to bring it to a vote in 1964 as a sort of repentance for Pius IX's Syllabus, whose centenary was being observed that year, but they did not succeed. Finally, the Declaration on Religious Freedom was voted and promulgated at the end of the Council's last session in 1965. To reduce the opposition, they had moderated the tone and added numerous apparently traditional passages. But the fundamental orientation of the document remained liberal, and the definition given to "religious freedom" contradicted the constant teaching and practice of the Church.

39) How does Vatican II try to justify religious freedom?

The Declaration on Religious Liberty bases it on the dignity of the human person: "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" (§2).

• Why do the authors of this document want to found the right to religious liberty on the dignity of the human person?

In order to bypass the Church's previous condemnations (notably against the idea that error has rights), a new foundation for religious liberty had to be found, so they tried to consider things from the viewpoint of persons: to be able to adhere freely to religious truth, they must be exempt from constraint in matters religious.

• What should we think of this argumentation?

It is an attempt at diversion by means of a threefold sophism.

• Where's the diversion?

A theoretical distinction about the foundation of religious liberty cannot change the fact that religious liberty itself is directly contrary to the constant teaching and practice of the Church. It is a fact that the Church has always striven to reduce (and if possible to ban) the practice and propagation of false religions. Regardless of the cleverness deployed to provide religious freedom with new foundations not yet explicitly condemned, a false right will always remain a false right (and the new foundations, sophisms).

• What is the first sophism?

Under the pretext that man must adhere to religious truth freely, Vatican II would exempt him from any constraint in this matter. Dignitatis Humanae thus asserts:

...The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power....

It is in accordance with their dignity as persons–that is, beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility–that all men should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth, once it is known, and to order their whole lives in accord with the demands of truth. However, men cannot discharge these obligations in a manner in keeping with their own nature unless they enjoy immunity from external coercion....

Truth, however, is to be sought after in a manner proper to the dignity of the human person and his social nature. The inquiry is to be free, carried on with the aid of teaching or instruction, communication and dialogue, in the course of which men explain to one another the truth they have discovered, or think they have discovered, in order thus to assist one another in the quest for truth. (§§1-3)

• It is true after all that coercion is opposed to freedom; where then is the sophism?

An expert at the Council, Fr. Berto,¹¹ neatly exposed the sophism:

Not everyone is an adult, and many adults by age are not so by intellect.

The schema ignores the timid; it ignores the slaves of sin; it ignores the pressure of the passions; it ignores the spreading of errors by perverse men, and imagines an angelic man....Where in the world, or on what planet, does this schema put us? From a child's tenderest age and attainment of the use of reason there are "moral problems" to resolve, and far from having a right to be left to itself to resolve them, the child has a right not to be left to itself, but rather to be helped by the counsels, commands, injunctions, and paddle of its parents and educators to resolve its "moral problems" with rectitude. The child has a right to have its freedom limited; it has the right to have those in charge order it to do what is inherently right. And the parents and educators who abdicate from ordering, prescribing, ordaining, and spanking, fail in a very serious duty and heavily burden their consciences before God.

The same ought to be said analogously of most men, who are not able to overcome even vincible errors unless the errors are kept far from them by those who have received the duty, and they can as it were breathe the truth. Just as sick people are sent to a sanitarium so that they can breathe the fresh air of the mountains or sea shore to rebuild their strength and they can escape the noxious air of the city, likewise the human race, sick from original sin and manifold actual sins, has a right, not to an unlimited "religious freedom," but on the contrary to such restraint on "religious freedom" that by using their liberty men embrace the truth. This does not mean that people are forced to embrace the faith against their will, but rather that the stupid and the weak are placed in a situation in which they can more easily discern and choose the truth. Unlimited "religious freedom," besides being inherently bad, opens the door to error to the great detriment of the rights of the weak and the ignorant.¹²

[Moreover] Since in this world error has such power, all those endowed with authority of whatever degree–parents over their children, the State over its citizens, the Church over the baptized–have a very serious duty, whether natural or supernatural, to protect those in their charge from error. Some say that truth can defeat error all by itself without the help of any authority. This will be true the day when men are no longer men, but supermen or superangels! I have sufficiently shown above that error finds its accomplices within us and among us.¹³

• What is the second sophism?

Under the pretext of not hindering the free search for truth (DH 2), Vatican II promotes the free propagation of error (DH 4).

• What's the answer?

This error is self-refuting. Recall that Pius IX, quoting St. Augustine, affirmed that the unrestricted freedom to publicly manifest opinions of all stripes is a "liberty of perdition" (libertas perditionis).¹⁴ He also quotes St. Leo the Great: "If human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."¹⁵

• What is the third sophism?

The third sophism hinges on the "dignity of the human person":

The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person....

...Therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature. In consequence, the right to this immunity continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it and the exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed. (DH 2)

• Where is the sophism?

There is a confusion between radical [or ontological] dignity and operative or terminal dignity.

What is man's radical dignity?

The radical dignity of man is tied to his human nature. It derives from man's having a spiritual soul and consequently being endowed with reason and free will. It also derives from the fact that he is called by God to a supernatural end: the beatific vision.

• Why is it called radical dignity?

This dignity is called radical from the Latin root of the word, radix–root, because it is the root of the voluntary acts by which man can increase, diminish, or lose his dignity.

• What is operative dignity?

Insofar as a man adheres to the good and the true, he achieves his perfection; he acquires a dignity that is called operative or terminal.

• All men, then, do not possess the same dignity?

It is obvious that a murderer does not have the same dignity as a saint, and that a man loses his dignity by adhering to error or evil. In this life, he cannot lose his radical dignity completely (even the worst criminal can convert and amend his life); but in hell, the damned (who are no longer even capable of moral good) have totally lost their dignity.

• Where can this teaching on man's dignity be found?

The Roman liturgy reminds us that our human dignity is wounded by sin and can only be restored by the practice of temperance.¹⁶

• Have the Doctors of the Church addressed this question?

St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Theologica, explains: 1) that by sinning, man departs from the order of right reason and thereby falls away from his human dignity; and that 2) he thus loses his right to a certain liberty.¹⁷

• Have the popes confirmed this teaching?

Pope Leo XIII teaches in the Encyclical Immortale Dei:

If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. (§32)

• In light of this, what should we make of the text of Vatican II?

During that Council, Fr. Berto explained:

If the dignity of the human person is considered only in its root [the simple fact of man's being endowed with reason and free will] then these considerations will be entirely inadequate and insufficient. An adequate consideration of human dignity requires that a man's acts be taken into account....A dunce and a scholar do not have the same dignity. The dignity of someone who follows error is certainly not equal to that of someone who adheres to truth; nor is it equal between one who desires the good and one who desires evil.

The drafters, who have erected their schema on an inadequate notion of the dignity of the human person, have for this reason alone presented a deformed work of an extraordinary unreality; in effect, whether one will or no, between human persons adequately considered there are vast differences in dignity. And this is even truer in the context of the schema on religious freedom; for, obviously, religious freedom is proper to a person, not in virtue of his radical or ontological dignity, but in accordance with his operative dignity. Thus freedom cannot be the same for a child and for an adult, for an idiot and for a wise man, for a dunce and for a scholar, for someone possessed by the devil and for someone inspired by the Holy Ghost, etc.

Now this dignity, which we call operative, does not belong to the physical order, but, obviously, to the order of intellect and will. The failure in the schema to take into account the deliberative aspect, namely knowledge and virtue, constitutes a very grave error....¹⁸

In this regard, Archbishop Lefebvre wrote:

[T]o the extent that a man adheres to error or attaches himself to evil, he loses his final dignity or does not attain it; and nothing more can be founded on it!¹⁹

 

Translated exclusively for Angelus Press by A. M. Stinnett from Katholischer Katechismus zur kirchlichen Kriese by Fr. Matthias Gaudron, professor at the Herz Jesu Seminary of the Society of St. Pius X in Zaitzkofen, Germany. The original was published in 1997 by Rex Regum Press, with a preface by the District Superior of Germany, Fr. Franz Schmidberger. This translation is based on the second edition published in 1999 by Rex Regum Verlag, Schloss Jaidhof, Austria. Subdivisions and slight revisions made by the Dominican Fathers of Avrillé have been incorporated into the translation.

 

¹ Jacques and Raissa Maritain, Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Ed. Saint-Paul, 1992), pp.440-78.

² Pius IX, Encyclical Quanta Cura (December 8, 1864), §3 (online at www.papalencyclicals.net).

³ Ibid.

⁴ Leo XIII, Libertas (June 20, 1888), §21.

⁵ Pius XII, Ecco che gia un anno, October 6, 1946 [English version online at www.geocities.com/Athens/ Rhodes/3543/liberty.htm.]

⁶ Fr. John Courtney Murray, S.J., "Towards an Understanding of the Development of the Church's Doctrine on Religious Freedom," Vatican II: Religious Liberty [French], Unam Sanctam 60 (Paris: Cerf, 1967), p.111.

⁷ Fr. Yves Congar, O.P., The Crisis in the Church and Msgr. Lefebvre [French] (Paris: Cerf, 1977), p. 51. In 1984, Fr. Congar reaffirmed: "The declaration on religious freedom says the contrary of several propositions of the Syllabus of 1864" (Ecumenical Essays: The Men, the Movement, the Problems [French] [Paris: Centurion, 1984], p.85).

⁸ Fr. Yves Congar, O.P., interviewed by Eric Vatre in The Father's Right Hand: A Look at Catholic Tradition Today [French] (Paris: Trédaniel, 1994), p.118.

⁹ The document was entitled De Relationibus inter Ecclesiam et Statum, necnon de Tolerantia Religiosa [On the Relations between the Church and the State, and Religious Tolerance].

¹⁰ Giuseppe Alberigo, Histoire du Concile Vatican II, 1959-1965 (Paris: Cerf, 1997), I, 334.

¹¹ Fr. Victor-Alain Berto (1900-68) was a Dominican tertiary and Archbishop Lefebvre's theologian during the Council.

¹² Fr. Victor-Alain Berto, essay on religious liberty written in 1964 for the Coetus Internationalis Patrum and published in the anthology La Sainte Eglise Romaine (Paris: Cedre, 1976), pp.405-6 (emphasis added).

¹³ Ibid., p.396.

¹⁴ Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Quanta Cura (December 8, 1864), §3.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Collect for the Thursday in Passion Week: "Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that the dignity of human nature, impaired by intemperance, may be restored by the practice of salutary self-denial."

¹⁷ "By sinning man departs from the order of reason, and consequently falls away from the dignity of his manhood, in so far as he is naturally free, and exists for himself, and he falls into the slavish state of the beasts..." (II-II, Q.64, Art.2, ad 3). This is how St. Thomas justifies the death penalty for certain criminals.

¹⁸ Berto, essay on religious liberty (1964), pp.387-88. Archbishop Lefebvre developed the same idea in the dubia he presented to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in October, 1985 (Religious Liberty Questioned [Angelus Press, 2002], pp.19-22, 31-36, 99-100).

¹⁹ Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, They Have Uncrowned Him (Angelus Press, 1988), pp.192-93. This work is undoubtedly the best and most thorough study of religious liberty.