QC vs. DH part II

#3 is another absolute. I'll let Cardinal Newman, a contemporary of the condemnation explain it (in the context of defending it against a British fellow who objected to it):

Cardinal Newman said:

The condemned proposition speaks as follows:--

"Liberty of conscience and worship, is the inherent right of all men. 2. It ought to be proclaimed in every rightly constituted society. 3. It is a right to all sorts of liberty (omnimodam libertatem) such, that it ought not to be restrained by any authority, ecclesiastical or civil, as far as public speaking, printing, or any other public manifestation of opinions is concerned."


Now, is there any government on earth that could stand the strain of such a doctrine as this? It starts by taking for granted that there are certain Rights of man; Mr. Gladstone so considers, I believe; but other deep thinkers of the day are quite of another opinion; {274} however, if the doctrine of the proposition is true, then the right of conscience, of which it speaks, being inherent in man, is of universal force--that is, all over the world--also, says the proposition, it is a right which must be recognised by all rightly constituted governments. Lastly, what is the right of conscience thus inherent in our nature, thus necessary for all states? The proposition tells us. It is the liberty of every one to give public utterance, in every possible shape, by every possible channel, without any let or hindrance from God or man, to all his notions whatsoever [Note 2].


Which of the two in this matter is peremptory and sweeping in his utterance, the author of this thesis himself, or the Pope who has condemned what the other has uttered? Which of the two is it who would force upon the world a universal? All that the Pope has done is to deny a universal, and what a universal! a universal liberty to all men to say out whatever doctrines they may hold by preaching, or by the press, uncurbed by church or civil power. Does not this bear out what I said in the foregoing section of the sense in which Pope Gregory denied a "liberty of conscience"? It is a liberty of self-will. What if a man's conscience embraces the duty of regicide? or infanticide? or free love? You may say that in England the good sense of the nation would stifle and extinguish such atrocities. True, but the proposition says that it is the very right of every one, by nature, in {275} every well constituted society. If so, why have we gagged the Press in Ireland on the ground of its being seditious? Why is not India brought within the British constitution? It seems a light epithet for the Pope to use, when he calls such a doctrine of conscience deliramentum: of all conceivable absurdities it is the wildest and most stupid. Has Mr. Gladstone really no better complaint to make against the Pope's condemnations than this?

Perhaps he will say, Why should the Pope take the trouble to condemn what is so wild [Note 3]? But he does: and to say that he condemns something which he does not condemn, and then to inveigh against him on the ground of that something else, is neither just nor logical.

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As we have already seen, this is not what the DH is promoting at all.


Religious freedom in the context of Dignitatis Humanae refers to the traditional Catholic doctrine that the act of faith must be free, and not coerced (cf. Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, para. 104; Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, para. 36; Bl. Gregory X, Protection of the Jews, para. 3. ) coupled with the fact that the state, apart from it's general duty towards the common good, lacks the power of coercion in religious matters unless delegated it by the Church (see Suarez in Part I).

The freedom declared by DH exists so that man's duty to place His faith in God by His own free choice can be fulfilled. This famous quote of Pope John Paul II says this well: "Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought." Thus, the right to religious freedom is a right before the state, not a right before God.

Second, we have to define what acts of religion are in the context of DH. DH defines them as such:

DH said:

....the exercise of religion, of its very nature, consists before all else in those internal, voluntary and free acts whereby man sets the course of his life directly toward God.

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This is what some scholastics called "natural religion" since God can at least be known by natural means (ie, without access to revelation). This excludes idolatry, polytheism, atheism, etc. It is also Catholic teaching that good law is rooted in reason, especially human law. For this reason, Suarez taught this commenting on St. Thomas:

Suarez said:

St. Thomas, however, rightly distinguishes two kinds of religious practices: there are those which go against reason and against God insofar as he can be recognized through nature and through the natural powers of the soul, e.g., the worship of idols, etc. Others are contrary to the Christian religion and to its commands not because they are evil in themselves or contrary to reason as, for example, the practices of Jews and even many of the customs of Mohammedans and such unbelievers who believe in one true God.

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As regards the other religious practices of unbelievers which go contrary to Christian beliefs but not counter to natural reason, there is no doubt but that the unbelievers, even though they are subjects, may not be forced to abandon them. Rather the Church has to tolerate them.

St. Gregory addressed himself clearly to this problem regarding Jews, and he forbade anyone to deprive them of their synagogues or to prevent them from observing their religious practices therein. (Lib. I Epistol. 34) Elsewhere he reaffirmed that no one should prevent Jews from participating in their religious observances. (Lib. II. Ep. 15) The reason is that such observances do not in themselves violate the natural law, and therefore, the temporal power of even a Christian ruler does not confer a right to forbid them. Such action would be based on the fact that what is being done goes contrary to the Christian Faith, but that is not enough to compel those who are not subject to the spiritual authority of the Church. This opinion is also supported by the fact that such a ban would involve, to some extent, forcing people to accept the Faith; and that is never permitted.

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Tract. de Fide Disp. 18 Sect. III


I believe that generally the Council Fathers adopted similar reasoning when promulgating Dignitatis Humanae (obviously the reasons for voting for it may not be the same for all).

Man must be free to fulfill his duties to God (in other words, forced atheism of Communism is an evil) and man must make the act of faith freely. Second, the state only has this power of coercion in religious matters conditional to the will of the Church, and then only in regards to the Baptized who are subject to the Church's jurisdiction. While the particular limits necessary to maintain the common good is a practical judgment, DH is intended to be just that kind of judgment. From the official relatio (an official interpretive document used at a Council to explain the text to the voting Fathers):

Bishop De Smedt's relatio said:

Our decree, since it is pastoral, tries to treat the present matter especially from the practical point of view and, after the manner of John XXIII, will carefully strive to remove the whole question from that world of abstractions which was so dear to the nineteenth century. The question is put therefore regarding real man in his real dealings with other men, in contemporary human and civil societies.

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But I beseech you, Venerable Fathers, not to force the text to speak outside of its historical and doctrinal context, not, in other words, to make the fish swim out of water.


Let our document be studied as it stands. It is not a dogmatic treatise, but a pastoral decree directed to men of our time.

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In fact, Pope Benedict XVI said the same thing in 2005:

Benedict XVI said:

Basic decisions, therefore, continue to be well-grounded, whereas the way they are applied to new contexts can change. Thus, for example, if religious freedom were to be considered an expression of the human inability to discover the truth and thus become a canonization of relativism, then this social and historical necessity is raised inappropriately to the metaphysical level and thus stripped of its true meaning. Consequently, it cannot be accepted by those who believe that the human person is capable of knowing the truth about God and, on the basis of the inner dignity of the truth, is bound to this knowledge.

It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence, or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction.

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Of course, this is a traditional concept as Leo XIII explained in Au Milieu Des Sollicitudes:

Leo XIII said:

In descending from the domain of abstractions to that of facts, we must beware of denying the principles: they remain fixed. However, becoming incarnated in facts, they are clothed with a contingent character, determined by the center in which their application is produced.

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This is the teaching of Pius XII as well in his address Ci Riesce:

Pius XII said:

Could it be that in certain circumstances He would not give men any mandate, would not impose any duty, and would not even communicate the right to impede or to repress what is erroneous and false? A look at things as they are gives an affirmative answer. Reality shows that error and sin are in the world in great measure. God reprobates them, but He permits them to exist. Hence the affirmation: religious and moral error must always be impeded, when it is possible, because toleration of them is in itself immoral, is not valid absolutely and unconditionally.

Moreover, God has not given even to human authority such an absolute and universal command in matters of faith and morality. Such a command is unknown to the common convictions of mankind, to Christian conscience, to the sources of Revelation and to the practice of the Church. To omit here other Scriptural texts which are adduced in support of this argument, Christ in the parable of the cockle gives the following advice: let the cockle grow in the field of the world together with the good seed in view of the harvest (cf. Matt. 13:24-30). The duty of repressing moral and religious error cannot therefore be an ultimate norm of action. It must be subordinate to higher and more general norms, which in some circumstances permit, and even perhaps seem to indicate as the better policy, toleration of error in order to promote a greater good.

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It also bears pointing out that religious freedom is not the right to err, nor can be said to contradict the saying "error has no rights." The Catechism says the same:

CCC said:

2108 The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error,37 but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities.

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However, while no error has the right to exist or be advanced, that does not mean every manner of eradicating it is acceptable. The primary means to be used are preaching, persuasion, and the example of good and holy living (cf. Pope Paul III, Sublimus Dei). However, the state can and should impede religious error when the common good requires; likewise, all men and societies have the duty to God to embrace and advance the true religion. Dignitatis Humanae works from the same principles, even if its practical decisions applying those principles to perceived facts were misjudged (I will refrain from making that judgment here).