Acts of Vatican II - De Smedt's Defense of Dignitatis Humanae

I believe many are not aware that full Acta of the Second Vatican Council are publicly available. We are able to see the contents of all the discussions and debates of the council fathers, the objections raised to all of the documents, the responses to those objections, and how the decrees evolved over time before reaching their final form. While the contents of the acts are not at all authoritative, they are nonetheless helpful in interpreting the meanings of the words of the council. What follows is an English translation of the last major response provided for objections to Dignitatis Humanae. I have highlighted a couple sentences that I found interesting.

THE NATURE OF THE GREATER OBJECTIONS

The greater objections or difficulties seem to derive chiefly from the following sources.

[The notion of a right]. Many difficulties have arisen from the fact that it was not well understood in precisely what sense religious freedom was said to be a right. Therefore, it may perhaps help to add certain explanations. First, although a person’s right in religious matters is counted among his civil rights, it is nevertheless a right of a unique kind. For most human rights concern civil life as such; consider the right to private property. Other rights, however, concern the human person insofar as he is not wholly ordered, according to his entire being, to the ends of society, but further toward the end of his own perfection; consider the right to cultivate the arts. But a person’s right in religious matters concerns his private and public religious life, which altogether transcends the civil order and the earthly ends of human society. For this right is founded upon the fact that man is directly ordered to God, to whom alone, in the end, he is bound to render an account of his life. Therefore, one must not argue about the religious rights of man in entirely the same way as in the case of other rights.

Second, the term right can be taken in a twofold sense. In the first sense, a right is called a moral faculty for acting—that is, a capacity by which someone has, from within, a positive authority (empowerment, Ermächtigung, autorizzazione) to act. In the Declaration, the term right is not used in this sense, lest irrelevant questions arise—for example, the speculative question of the rights of an erroneous conscience, which lies outside the juridical question of religious freedom as it is treated in the Declaration. In the second sense, a right is called a moral faculty of demanding that one not be forced to act nor prevented from acting. In this sense, a right signifies immunity in acting and excludes coercion, whether compelling or restraining. It is only in this second sense that the term right is used in the Declaration.

From this it is clear that, in affirming religious freedom to be a true human right, it is in no way being asserted that all religions possess the same positive authority received from God to exist and propagate themselves. Far from it; such a view would amount to the worst form of religious indifferentism. Nor is it being asserted that public authority may grant to all religions a positive authorization so that they may enjoy equal legal standing in society. This too is excluded; it would amount to that extreme form of state totalitarianism characteristic of secularism. On the contrary, the Declaration is concerned with human persons, whether considered individually or collectively, all of whom possess equal human dignity and therefore equally demand that they be free, or immune, from coercion in religious matters.

[False inference]. Some of the Fathers criticized the earlier text for drawing a false inference from the subjective order of conscience to the objective order of right. However, the method followed in the new redaction of the text more clearly shows that there is no danger of subjectivism. For the starting point is taken from the present condition of affairs regarding the juridical structure of nearly all states today. The question is then posed in concrete terms: whether a regime of religious freedom is to be judged as in itself honorable, suitable, and necessary for safeguarding both the personal and civil dignity of the human person. In the argument, there is no transition from the subjective order to the objective order. Such a transition would in fact presuppose a false philosophy, as though man were first some kind of individual living an interior life of his own, and only afterwards—or as it were in a second moment—became a social being, enjoying rights in society. On the contrary, the argument concerns the concrete, integral person, as he exists in the objective order, and the full nature of religion, also as it exists in the objective order. From the very beginning, the argument remains entirely within the objective order in which the human person exists. Therefore, there can be no question of a double right, one subjective and the other objective. Rather, a single right belongs to the whole human person in religious matters: a right that concerns immunity from external coercion in the exercise of religion in society, while at the same time safeguarding the immunity of the interior forum of conscience.

If someone were to say that a person indeed enjoys freedom in the internal forum and even in the domestic forum, but that the social manifestations of religion are nevertheless subject to the legitimate authority of the state—so that this authority may, for example, restrict the public exercise of religion—then the reply is made by making a distinction. It is within the competence of public authority to restrict the public exercise of religion in certain cases, if it seriously harms public order. In this way, public authority acts within the civil order, not within the order of religion as such. On the other hand, it is not permitted for public authority to restrict the public exercise of any religion by law or administrative action on the grounds that this or that religion is judged to be false, or that its practice proceeds from an erroneous conscience, or that it is harmful to the good of the Church. For in such a case, the coercive action of public authority would be directed to religion as such, which is unlawful.

[The proper freedom of the Church]. An objection was raised that the earlier text did not sufficiently distinguish between the basis of the Church’s freedom and that of her faithful, and the basis of the religious freedom of all persons in human society and of religious communities. The new redaction responds adequately to this objection. For it clearly emphasizes that the Church claims for herself freedom by virtue of Christ’s mandate, according to which the Church alone is entrusted with the mission and duty of preaching the Gospel throughout the whole world. On the other hand, religious freedom in the modern sense is described in such a way that it clearly appears to be a certain and undeniable demand of human reason, which in our time has come to understand more deeply the requirements of human nature itself and of human dignity. These require that a person be free, or immune, from legal and social coercion in the exercise of religion.

[State confessionalism]. If it is rightly understood, the doctrine of religious freedom does not contradict the historical concept of what is called the confessional state. Indeed, a regime of religious freedom forbids that kind of legal intolerance according to which certain citizens or certain religious communities would be reduced to an inferior condition with respect to civil rights in religious matters. However, it does not forbid that the Catholic religion be publicly recognized by human law as the common religion of the citizens in a given region, or that the Catholic religion be established by public law as the religion of the state. In such a case, however, care must be taken lest from the institution of a state religion there arise legal or social consequences which would harm, in religious matters, the equality of all citizens in public law. In a word, alongside a regime of a state religion, a regime of religious freedom must also be observed.

[Concordats]. The regime of religious freedom is fully compatible with the present-day practice of the Holy See regarding concordats. This becomes clear if one carefully considers the essential purposes of concordats. For today concordats are concluded with the aim of safeguarding the freedom of the Church and of her faithful, which is owed to them by Christ’s mandate. Now it is entirely compatible with the full freedom of the Church to establish a regime of religious freedom; indeed, each supports the other in a mutually beneficial way. It is indeed true that in past times certain concordats were accustomed to pursue other aims, for example the legal exclusion of non-Catholic forms of worship from a given territory, or various legal privileges, and so on. But this occurred because of particular historical and social circumstances, and because of the prevailing form of political organization at the time.

[The Tradition of the Church]. Some complain that in this Declaration the traditional doctrine has been abandoned, as it was especially formulated by Leo XIII. However, if the very nature of Catholic tradition in this matter is properly understood, this is not true. For Leo XIII himself held very much at heart the well-known principle: “to develop and perfect the old by means of the new.” In many ways he developed and perfected what had gone before, in that he took account of the historical circumstances of his time and addressed the new questions that arose in his era. What he himself did is also permissible today—indeed, it must be done. For in our time a new question has arisen regarding religious freedom, a situation of the question that did not exist in the same way in the nineteenth century. This Declaration responds to that question. It does not abandon what is old; rather, it develops it further and brings it to completion, perfecting the teaching of Leo XIII in its own proper sense and intention.

[The rights of truth]. Frequent appeal is made to a principle which is stated almost as an axiom, namely that truth has exclusive rights, whereas error has no rights. If, however, there is any juridical meaning in this commonly used axiom, it amounts only to this: that what is false and evil does not enter the juridical order of human society in the same way as what is true and good. For what is true and good can legitimately be positively sanctioned by human authority; whereas what is false and evil can only be permitted or tolerated. And there is no ambiguity among Catholics—indeed, not even among reasonable persons—about this juridical sense of the axiom. For it is self-evident that human authority cannot make what is false to be true, nor what is evil to be good. Not even God can bring this about. Given these premises, it must further be said that this axiom, in the matter of religious freedom as understood today, has no application at all. For the modern regime of religious freedom does not in any way imply that public authority positively affirms false religions to be true. Under such a regime, public law simply recognizes that no one is to be forced to act against conscience, nor prevented from acting according to conscience. Whatever else may be said about the “rights” of truth and error, there is no place for that question here.

[Toleration]. It is objected against the Declaration that the Church may approve of toleration, but not of religious freedom. However, if the present state of the question is correctly understood, this opinion can no longer be maintained. For concerning the modern institution of religious freedom, it cannot be said that, although it is in itself an evil, it may nevertheless be tolerated as a lesser evil for the sake of achieving a greater good. On the contrary, this institution must be affirmed as something good in itself, since it is solidly grounded in both the personal and civil dignity of the human person. Moreover, toleration is a moral attitude of mind, which is joined with prudence and charity. It therefore remains necessary and is still urged by the Church with regard to relations between citizens in their personal dealings.

[Dangers]. Some point out dangers to which this Declaration might open the way. However, if dangers are to be considered, one must not overlook those dangers that would threaten the Church if this Declaration were not promulgated to people who have long been expecting it, whether they are Catholics or non-Catholics. Moreover, in the life of the Church dangers are present on all sides. Confronting them with a strong spirit, however, is the task of the Church.

Relatio of Emiel-Jozef De Smedt, Bishop of Brugge, Belgium; Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oeicumenici Vaticani II - Volumen III (Periodus Tertia) - Pars VIII (Congregationes Generales CXXIII-CXXVII Sessio Publica V); Pg. 461-465