Religious Liberty at Vatican II and Before

These are groups who believe the Second Vatican Council was a massive repudiation of previous Church teaching on various topics.  Most of these claims boil down to complaints about abuses which occurred after the council, or bad interpretations of the documents – but not anything to do with the council itself.

The best argument for a contradiction is found in the Vatican II document on religious liberty, Dignitatis Humanae.  That's what I want to take a closer look at today.

An Apparent Dilemma:

Previous Papal teaching, like Pius IX's encyclical Quanta Cura, supposed that a Catholic State was ideal.  He gave permission for nations to assert the Catholic faith over the public square and penalize people who act against it.  Further, he condemned the idea that the State should be irreligious, ambivalent to the spiritual wellbeing of citizens, and simply preserve a secular peace:

[Condemned Statement] "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." 

[Condemned Statement] "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."

["Condemned Statement] "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." - Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, 3

However, the Vatican II document taught that wide latitude should be given to religious groups and the government should NOT prevent them from operating in public and even publicly teaching:

"Provided the just demands of public order are observed, religious communities rightfully claim freedom in order that they may govern themselves according to their own norms, honor the Supreme Being in public worship, assist their members in the practice of the religious life, strengthen them by instruction, and promote institutions in which they may join together for the purpose of ordering their own lives in accordance with their religious principles.

Religious communities also have the right not to be hindered, either by legal measures or by administrative action on the part of government, in the selection, training, appointment, and transferral of their own ministers, in communicating with religious authorities and communities abroad, in erecting buildings for religious purposes, and in the acquisition and use of suitable funds or properties.

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, 4

In other words, it looks an awful lot like Dignitatis Humanae affirmed precisely the thing Pius IX condemned.  So how do we make sense of this?


Principles of Action:

The key is to use the principles in Dignitatis Humanae to imagine how far a government can go in imposing limits on religious practices.  Let's look at a few.

First, the document recognizes, and does not rule out, the possibility of an official state religion as long as the rights of persons in other religions aren't trampled upon:

"If, in view of peculiar circumstances obtaining among peoples, special civil recognition is given to one religious community in the constitutional order of society, it is at the same time imperative that the right of all citizens and religious communities to religious freedom should be recognized and made effective in practice." - DH 6

The document further says the government has the duty to cultivate religious devotion to God [DH 3,6]

"The religious acts whereby men, in private and in public and out of a sense of personal conviction, direct their lives to God transcend by their very nature the order of terrestrial and temporal affairs. Government therefore ought indeed to take account of the religious life of the citizenry and show it favor, since the function of government is to make provision for the common welfare." - DH 3

"Government is also to help create conditions favorable to the fostering of religious life, in order that the people may be truly enabled to exercise their religious rights and to fulfill their religious duties, and also in order that society itself may profit by the moral qualities of justice and peace which have their origin in men's faithfulness to God and to His holy will." - DH 6

And very critically, it charges governments with upholding the moral order of society:

"Furthermore, society has the right to defend itself against possible abuses committed on the pretext of freedom of religion. It is the special duty of government to provide this protection. However, government is not to act in an arbitrary fashion or in an unfair spirit of partisanship. Its action is to be controlled by juridical norms which are in conformity with the objective moral order." - DH 7

So... far from being ambivalent to the matters of God, Dignitatis Humanae encourages governments to take an active role in the spiritual wellbeing of citizens.  It even permits the State to restrain the public practice of a religion if doing so is necessary for preserving the moral order.

Imagining Catholictopia:

So let's imagine a fictitious country:  Catholictopia.

This country will operate at the outer limit of what is allowable under DH.

[Note: I'm not saying Catholictopia is a good idea... its just a theoretical exercise to see if Vatican II ruled out the type of government which would please Pius IX.]

Catholictopia is a Catholic monarchy, but it tolerates other religions and allow them to freely own property and run their institutions without interference.

However, Catholictopia also recognizes that the First Commandment is part of the natural moral law.  In fact, it is the highest moral duty of mankind.  Therefore, it considers the honor of God to be a crucial part of the objective moral order.

This means Catholictopia banned all books advocating Atheism, Pantheism, and Polytheism.  And anyone who preaches those ideas in public gets penalized on the first offence.  They get deported after the second infraction.

Similarly, movies like The Cider House Rules were not allowed into the country because of their positive portrayal of abortion.  Broke Back Mountain didn't make the cut either.  [You know why]

Perhaps you're getting the idea.


If you really want one...:

Here's the point:  Previous Popes had condemned the idea that the State should be purely secular, with no regard for God.  They rejected the notion that governments should just deliver the mail and keep people from killing each other.

But Dignitatis Humanae is far from advocating such a thing.  It allows governments to take on an official religion and explicitly instructs governments to act toward the spiritual good of citizens by preserving the moral order.

The question is, what constitutes a sufficient disruption to the moral order?  How far can the government go in restraining offensive activities?  This is where the document unfortunately does not go into detail.  It is a true deficiency.

But by taking a robust understanding of the public moral order, one can easily see continuity with past teaching.

If you want a benevolent Catholic tyranny, Dignitatis Humanae won't get in your way.