RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: DID VATICAN II
CONTRADICT TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE?

N.B.: The following is an incisive and detailed book critique, which exposes many of the objections that have plagued the religious discourse since 1965. Normally, this writing would be placed in the "Book Review" section, however due to the import of the subject, and Dr. Likoudis' exposition of the material in the book, the website manager, decided to place it in the current section.

The above is the title of an important volume co-authored by Arnold T. Guminski and Brian Harrison, OS (St. Augustine's Press, South Bend, IN [296 pages, $35.00, paperbound; www.staugustine.net]). It constitutes a scholarly debate on Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae, December 7, 1965 — to be referred henceforth as DH — one of the seminal documents of Vatican II which was to lead to widespread controversy and discussion among both Catholics and non-Catholics.

There would occur after the Church's 21st Ecumenical Council a significant and formal ecclesiastical schism involving hundreds of priests, followers of the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Formed as the "Society of St. Pius X" under four illicitly ordained bishops, that schismatic group has vigorously protested the teaching of DH on religious freedom, declaring it a doctrinal error which contradicts past Catholic teaching found in papal encyclicals and the syllabus of Pope Pius IX.

Vatican II critics have accused the Council either of outright doctrinal error, or ambiguities in teaching, or being just a "pastoral council" (despite its two dogmatic constitutions) and whose teaching on religious freedom lacked any binding authority.

Some years ago, Avery Cardinal Dulles noted the fundamental question to ask regarding DH:

"Was the Declaration a homogeneous development within the Catholic tradition, or was it a repudiation of previous Church doctrine?"

It proved injurious to the Church that an Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church would be accused of a doctrinal error, even heresy, by "traditionalists" in many countries and of a "welcome doctrinal change" by an array of liberals and modernists rejoicing in a "spirit of Vatican II" marked by a "hermeneutics of rupture and discontinuity."

The spread of open dissent from Vatican II's teaching has unquestionably caused much confusion regarding ecumenism, religious freedom, and collegiality. This would prove a major cause of the crisis of faith besetting post-conciliar Catholicism. The authority of the Teaching Church came into question, with disputatious theologians even proceeding to deviate further by rejecting essential moral teachings of the Church. Passage of the Council's Declaration on Religious Liberty was, in fact, a difficult and stormy one during the Council itself (1962-1965), involving six drafts, 600 written statements, and over 2,000 amendments submitted by conciliar fathers, giving rise to heated debates.

The final text of DH received an overwhelming 2,300 votes in favor and 70 against, and the solemn confirmation by the visible head of the Church, Pope Paul VI. Ironically, Archbishop Lefebvre was a signatory to DH.

This is a remarkable work attempting to explore in depth the meaning of the concepts of "natural right," and "the objective moral order," "sacred doctrine," "the public good," and the "common good," "conscience," "tolerance," and the responsibilities of the state, the coercive power of the Church, and "freedom" itself — as found in DH. The authors, debating whether Vatican II represented a "hermeneutic of doctrinal continuity" with past Catholic teaching or a "hermeneutic of rupture" inconsistent with past papal pronouncements, are Catholic theologian Fr. Brian Harrison, OS (upholding doctrinal continuity), and Boulder, Colo., attorney Arnold T. Guminski (a "non-theist") who has written extensively on constitutional issues and has a special interest in the philosophy of religion and church-state problems.

Fr. Harrison, an Australian convert to the Catholic Church from Presbyterianism, is a well-known controversialist who has published many articles on DH and a major work, Religious Liberty and Contraception (1988), rejecting the notion of dissenters that DH involved a kind of radical change from previous papal teaching that would justify contraception.

The book is a fascinating read with its scholarly and civil exchanges between Fr. Harrison, the son of a lawyer, and attorney Guminski, who has argued cases before the Supreme Court and uses his dialectical skills to argue that Fr. Harrison's:

"interpretation of the doctrine of DH on religious liberty is unjustified, and that his thesis as to how that doctrine can be reconciled with pre-conciliar doctrine, is fundamentally flawed."

That Vatican II's teaching on religious freedom is inconsistent with pre-conciliar Catholic doctrine, and, in fact, "obviously" contradicts it, is the burden of Guminski's meticulous "legal" case. Fr. Harrison confesses that Guminski has posed the "most serious challenge I have had to confront during a quarter-century of intermittent controversy on this topic."

In the opinion of this reviewer, Guminski's case fails to be convincing, foiled by Fr. Harrison who argues effectively that prudential norms of "ecclesiastical public law" sanctioned by the Magisterium of the Church and leading to past historical restrictions on non-Catholic worship and propaganda never amounted to a matter of Catholic doctrine. The limitations placed on non-Catholic worship and the public expression of other religious beliefs were rather pragmatic responses to the dangerous social situation in which Catholic states and the Church often found themselves.

These restrictions utilizing the coercive power of the Church flowed from contingent historical situations in which Church and state were united. They may have been sanctioned by prudential papal policy judgments seeking to safeguard Catholic Faith and morals, but such never represented the demands of infallible Catholic doctrine.

Other conclusions may be drawn from the spirited exchanges of two astute disputants.

1. There was never any infallible doctrine declaring there was no natural right to religious freedom grounded in Revelation and reason. (Guminski acknowledges this.)
2. There was never a Catholic doctrine decreeing an absolute obligation on the part of Catholics to establish a confessional Catholic state (two, in fact, continue today: Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic).

Fr. Harrison demonstrates clearly that it was never a Catholic doctrine that the civil authority of a state, and especially the Catholic state, must be civilly intolerant to non-Catholics and, in effect, to be obliged to persecute their adherents by external coercion and violence. Pre-conciliar Catholic thinkers never held Guminski's position that civil laws repressing the public manifestation of non-Catholic beliefs have always and everywhere been violations of the natural right to religious freedom.

For Fr. Harrison, past papal condemnations of Liberalism, laicism, secularism, religious indifferentism, and doctrinal relativism remain as true today as in the days of Blessed Pius IX. It is important to note that each false system attempted to ground religious liberty in society on false philosophical premises that may be said to have awaited historical purification and clarification in the work of Vatican II.

Thus, DH made no doctrinal "flip-flop" in the Church's stance on religious liberty, as Guminski attempted to prove. Fr. Harrison shows that DH manifested continuity with past Catholic teaching that the right to religious liberty is not an absolute for this natural right; it is defined in DH n. 2 as one with "due limits."

"Due limits" on religious freedom are surely in order where there occurs the unwarranted disruption of national unity, public order, public peace, or public morality. Catholic theologians have always acknowledged these as valid reasons for civil authorities placing justified restrictions on religious liberty on those violating such conditions. DH is also in continuity with past Catholic teaching in nowhere recognizing a moral right to religious error. There was never such a "right."

DH recognized only the right of a person publicly expressing such error to "immunity from coercion in civil society." Even then, this immunity is guaranteed only within "due limits" which are to be "determined for each social situation by political prudence," and in conformity with "the objective moral order," as Catholic Tradition has always maintained (cf. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2109; DH, n. 7). DH indeed taught such immunity as a "natural right," but NOT as Fr. Harrison stated, "an acquired right granted by the Church" (to which Guminski rightly objected).

Interestingly, Fr. Harrison presents a critique of Jesuit Fr. John Courtney Murray's view of religious freedom, which some have confused with the actual teaching of Vatican II.

In a fine appendix, both debaters find themselves in agreement that the coercive power of the Church is limited to the imposition of spiritual penalties and various temporal penalties which are of a different character than those proper to civil authority.

Troubling is the loose use of the terms "doctrine" and "teaching" on the part of both debaters. This, unfortunately, has the result of an unwarranted minimizing of the scope of the Church's infallibility. Thus, Attorney Guminski writes of what he terms the "authoritative, non-definitive, pre-conciliar doctrine of the Church," while Fr. Harrison speaks of "pre-conciliar doctrine on religious liberty" being "fallible," though he holds doctrine to be "teaching proposed as true for all times and places." He also writes of "authentic and authoritative but not infallible doctrine" as well of a non-definitive Magisterium.

Now, there have indeed been developments of doctrine found in the decrees and declarations of Vatican II and specifically described by the Popes to be "authentic and authoritative doctrine." But surely, it is impossible for the Church as the Teacher of Truth to propose "authentic and authoritative doctrine" (e.g., DH, nn. 1-2; doctrine, moreover, that is rooted directly or indirectly in divine Revelation), which could be false or needing to be rejected.

The teaching of an Ecumenical Council on "the right to religious freedom" as set forth in DH certainly obliges the faithful's firm acceptance of a doctrine taught infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium as a "sententia definitive tenenda" (the second level of magisterial teaching). It is assuredly the expression of a truth safeguarded by the infallibility of the Magisterium of Pope and bishops and to be held definitively ("de fide tenenda"). Such is more than a novel theological opinion or a "theologoumenon" (a respectable theological but non-binding teaching); it is doctrine.

Though subject to further explication by the Magisterium of Pope and bishops, doctrine taught as true, IS irreformable, because intrinsically infallible (and able to be elevated to dogma, the first level of magisterial teaching).

For all the above, see "Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the 'Professio Fidei' in Ad Tuendam Fidem," the Apostolic letter – motu proprio – of Pope John Paul II issued in 1998.

That the doctrinal content of religious liberty taught in an Ecumenical Council may not be "proposed infallibly" in the form of a dogmatic definition or as Ex Cathedra by the Pope, does not mean the teaching is not definitive teaching (a doctrine) and so to be held by the faithful.

Theologians should give greater consideration to Vatican II's development of doctrine regarding the right to religious freedom by individuals and groups to be doctrine held "de fide tenenda" (the second level of magisterial teaching — see canon law 750), which therefore constitutes infallible teaching (even if not in the form of a formal and solemn dogmatic definition).

Similarly, Humanae Vitae, which receives some notice in the volume, should be acknowledged to be infallible teaching, another example yet of the second level of magisterial teaching involving a declaration of confirmation or reaffirmation by the Roman Pontiff exercising his power to "confirm his brethren." Thus, the Church's doctrines on religious liberty and contraception DO NOT constitute "a new dogmatic definition, but a formal attestation of a truth already possessed and infallibly transmitted by the Church" (see again the above-mentioned "Commentary," n. 9).

The volume has a very helpful select bibliography of books and documents dealing with religious freedom and the controversies surrounding DH. It is highly recommended to all those who would enjoy a jolly good intellectual debate on an issue that is in today's headlines with 100 million Christians, not to mention others, suffering persecution and death from global jihadists or hostile coercive governments.

The authors of this volume are to be commended for providing a valuable contribution to one of the most important theological debates of the post-conciliar period.

 

 

In response to the above review and critique of his book, "Religious Freedom: Did Vatican II Contradict Traditional Catholic Doctrine?" by Dr. James Likoudis, co-author Fr. Brian W. Harrison, OS, wrote an article in The Wanderer "Clarifying The Case For Doctrinal Continuity", May 30, 2013, in which he clarifies and answers some objections in the above review. To this Dr. Likoudis replies as follows:

 

I thank Fr. Harrison for clarification of his positions regarding Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Liberty (DH) in his book debate with my old university school chum, attorney Arnold Guminski. I regret not making it clear that Fr. Harrison had himself retracted the erroneous opinion of a previous essay that immunity from governmental oppression was a right "acquired" in 1965 by virtue of DH. The great value of their book lies primarily in the agreement between them that DH did not contradict pre-conciliar doctrine on religious liberty.

Whereas Mr. Guminski argued that "the authentic doctrine [of DH] contradicts and supersedes a pre-conciliar doctrine of non-infallible status," Fr. Harrison held that DH "did not contradict any pre-conciliar doctrine — infallible or otherwise." In either case, Catholics welcome the conclusion that the infallibility of the Church was not compromised or negated by Vatican II's promulgation of DH.

DH's central doctrinal affirmation was that religious liberty was a natural right of the human person (n. 2). Though much of the teaching of DH is not per se infallible, its central doctrinal affirmation certainly constituted "authentic and authoritative doctrine" distinct from mere theological or canonical opinion, and a "doctrinal development" of a "non-contradictory change."

DH's central doctrinal affirmation was included among a number of doctrinal developments pronounced by the supreme Magisterium of the Church gathered in Ecumenical Council to settle one of the most serious questions affecting man's conscience and activity. At the very least, the teaching requires religious submission of will and intellect on the part of the faithful. A case, though, can be made that DH's central doctrinal affirmation — as a definitive affirmation of an Ecumenical Council — does involve infallibility.

Fr. Harrison's position that DH in its authentic doctrine "has not itself been proposed definitively and infallibly by the Council" thus seems to me questionable. Doctrine is something declared by the Church to be true now and always; it is not fallible theological or canonical opinion, something merely "pastoral" or "prudential" or "non-infallible" that can be disregarded and rejected by clever dissenters, whether modernists or traditionalists. The doctrine that Fr. Harrison has referred to as Proposition X is a doctrine that received the official approval of the Church's supreme Magisterium gathered in Ecumenical Council.

A strong case, therefore, can be made that the bishops at Vatican II, in communion with the supreme Roman Pontiff, made a definitive judgment that religious liberty was a natural right of the human person. The word "infallible" need not accompany definitive and irreformable judgment.

Fr. Harrison's critique has led me to revise my opinion that "DH’s teaching obliges the faithful's firm acceptance of a doctrine taught infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium as a 'sententia definitive tenenda'." I now think that it is doctrine taught definitively (and thus infallibly) because it is the result of a "definitive act" by an Ecumenical Council to propose "a truth of Catholic doctrine" to be held by the faithful. Subject to further correction, I believe a good case can be made for DH's doctrine belonging to the second level of magisterial teaching (cf. the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's "Commentary on Ad Tuendam Fidem").

 

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