Religious Liberty Questioned

8/14/2019 Religious Liberty Questioned

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A certain liberal-evolutionism tries to obscure these immutable truths by building atheology of the historical evolution of doctrine based on a historical relativism of thisdoctrine.

According to this theory, we can always attribute to any teaching of the Church, most

particularly its political doctrine, an essential historical condition resulting from the historicalperiod during which that doctrine was elaborated and promulgated.The consequence is that since one new historical climate follows another, the doctrine

of the Church is forced to change and find new foundations. 5

That is why religious liberty, which was condemned by the popes of the 19th century because of its premises of absolute liberalism and rationalism, should now allegedly berehabilitated in the name of human dignity. That is also why the relations between thetemporal and the spiritual order should allegedly be revised at a time during which themonarchy of a sacred type of the Middle Ages and of the Reformation has been replacedtoday by a democratic and social State.

Not only was the condemnation of religious liberty motivated by its intrinsic Oppositionto the immutable doctrine of which we spoke, but the idea that a change of foundation6can

justify a change of doctrine falls squarely under the condemnation of Pius XII:

There is also a kind of false historicism, which attends only to events of human life,and razes the foundations of all truth and absolute law, nor only insofar as it pertains to the

philosophical matters, but to Christian teachings as well. 7

To establish the scope of our doubts, it has been necessary to analyze closely the severalfoundations given to religious liberty byDignitatis Humanae.

We could not but uncover a certain number of ambiguities and confusions, such asconfusion between the ontological dignity of man and his operative dignity;

illegitimate conversion of the subjective rights of men to objective rights;

illegitimate break between positive and negative rights of men;

false symmetry between being forced to act against ones conscience in religiousmatters and being stopped from acting against ones conscience in religious matters. 8

It will be relevant also to cast mote light than we have on the contradiction that seems to be expressed by Dignitatis Humanae between the affirmation that man is essentiallyconnected to God (and therefore subject to compulsion by God) and the affirmation that allmen are to be immune from coercion on the part.. .of any human power. 9

Is it not precisely human law that enforces and specifies divine law and its requirements?

Finally, we have tried to demonstrate systematically the formal identity that seems to existbetween the three ofDignitatis Humanae and the three parallel assertions10 condemned bythe encyclical Quanta Cura of Pius IX if, as we have tried to explain, Quanta Cura condemnsthe three assertions in question, then in consequence there are many agonizing questions

5 Since they were allegedly born of a preceding historical context which no longer exists, the doctrines of thatpreceding historical periodsuch as the doctrine of the social kingship of Christare considered irrelevant.6I.e., a change of historical foundarion.7 Humani Generis, August 12, 1950; Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma (Herder, 1957), 2306;

hereafter, Dz. All citarions toHumani Generis are to this source.8 Having heard Archbishop Lefebvre speak numerous times on the subject, I think His Grace meant stopped

from acting according to ones conscience in religious matterswhat is actually written in this French edition

being, perhaps, an editorial mistake? [Translators note.]9DVII,pp.678-679.10I.e., the three main assertions.

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which the Church will have to answer.

The first part of our work consists of a brief philosophical explanation of the notion ofliberty. This is a necessary preliminary to any scrutiny of the notion of religious liberty.

The second part shows the theological, dogmatic, and doctrinal principles of the

traditional doctrine of the Church on religious liberty as they emerge from the documents ofthe Magisterium.[The third and final part is made up of a number ofdubia and questions on the document

Dignitatis Humanae of Vatican II.]

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PART ONE

WHAT IS LIBERTY?

Liberty can be of three different types:

-psychological libertyor free willthat is, the possibility of acting according to one's de-liberate choice towards one specific good rather than another without being predetermined toone choice;

- moral libertythatis, the faculty to do good; and

- liberty of action, or liberty from coercionthat is, the capability of acting without beingforced to act against ones conscience or restrained from acting according to onesconscience.

Psychological liberty or free will

Psychological liberty is a fact of nature; and because it is rational, it belongs to any manwho has the use of reason.

Moral liberty

Moral liberty has as its unique sphere goodness. Outside of goodness, it is corrupt andbecomes license. Only goodness and truth can be the basis for moral liberty.

Liberty is the faculty to choose between different means, provided the orientation tothe end [goodness] is preserved. (Fr. Santiago Ramirez, O.P.)11

Liberty is the faculty to act within what is good. (Leo XIII) 12

Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for itsobject. (Leo XIII) 13

For, as the possibility of error, and actual error, are defects of the mind and attest itsimperfection, so the pursuit of what has a false appearance of good. though a proof of ourfreedom, just as a disease is a proof of our vitality, implies defect in human liberty. (LeoXIII) 14

... the possibility of sinning is not freedom, but slavety. (Leo XIII) 15

11 The meaning is that outside of the orientation to the end, liberty is abused.1213Immortale Dei, December 1, 1885; A Lightin the Heavens: The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII

(TAN, 1995), p.123; hereafter, A Light in the Heavens. All citations toImmortale Dei are to this source.14

Libertas Praestantissimum, June 20, 1888 (Angelus Press, 1998), p.6, 6; hereafter, Libertas. All citations toLibertas are to this edition.15Ibid,p.7, 6.

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liberty....Liberty cannot be an end in itself or the ultimate end [of man] since it is only anoperative faculty, and any faculty is oriented towards its operation, and all our operationsin this life are oriented entirely towards some good. (Cardinal Billot)

CONCLUSION: To declare that man is free by nature, aspires to be free, and, therefore,

has the right to be free from constraints is to profess the absurd and condemned principle ofliberalism.

THE LAW

The law, whether divine or human, directs mankind to his end and determines the meansto be used to obtain said end.

De Ecclesia Christi, II, p.2O; summarized by Fr. Henri le Floch inLe cardinal Billotlumire de La thologie (1932), p.46.

Hence, far from being the enemy of liberty, law, especially civil law, is the guarantor of moralliberty.

Such, then, being the condition of human liberty, in necessarily stands in need of lightand strength no direct ins actions no good and no restrain them from evil. Without this, thefreedom ofour will would be our ruin. First of all, there must be law; that is, a fixed rule ofteaching what is to be done and what is to be left undone. (Leo XIII)22

[Liberty consists] rather in this, that through the injunctions of the civil law all may more

easily conform no the prescriptions of the eternal law. (Leo XIII)23

The lawan ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care ofthe community, and promulgared24is essentially an act of reason; but since in the state ofsin-

25ful nature it is not enough no know the proper order of meansand ends to abide by them, in is therefore imperative that the legislative power be at the sametime constraining. Legal coercion is thus legitimate and necessary for the common good.

But since some are found no be depraved, and prone no vice, and not easily amenable towords, in was necessary for such to be restrained from evil by force and fear, in order that,

an least, they might desist from evil-doing, and leave others in peace, and that theythemselves, by being habituated in this way, might be brought no do willingly whathitherto they did from fear, and thus become virtuous. Now this kind of training, whichcompels through fear of punishment, is the discipline of laws. Therefore, in order that manmight have peace and virtue, it was necessary for laws to be framed. (Sn. ThomasAquinas)26

For, law is the guide of mans actions; in turns him towards good by ins rewards, anddeters him from evil by ins punishments. (Leo XIII)27

22Libertas,p.8, 7.

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29 Ibid.,p.11,10.

Summa Theologica, I,II, q. 9O, a.4. Citations to the Summa Theologica are to ChristianClassics (198]); hereafter, STI.e., corrupted by original sin. [Translators note.]

26 STI II, q.95, a. 1.2Libertas,p.8, 7.CONCLUSION: Far from being antagonistic to liberty, law is its indispensable help,

especially through legal coercion.

CONSCIENCE

I) Conscience is the moral judgment of man on his action in specific circumstances.Conscience is the proximate and sub jecrive rule of action whereas law is the remote andobjective rule of action.

2) To do good, man must follow his conscience, provided28

said conscience is not guiltily erroneous. Honest error is exemptfrom guilt but will nor transform a bad and illicit action into a good action.29

3) Consequently, once an act goes from the intimacy of the soul to an external and socialsetting, the norm that comes into effect cannot be error, nor even honest error, but has to beobjective truth. To maintain the contrary is to remove the radical opposition between what isreal and what is not, to accept that social order be based on fiction and order be replaced bychaos.

CONCLUSION: Conscience is the norm of action in our individual life (provided it is notguiltily erroneous); but life in society does not have any other norm than truth. Therefore,only truth can give its tights to our conscience.

CONSCIENCE AND CONSTRAINT IN GENERAL

Is it violating someones conscience to force him to act against it or to restrain him fromacting according to it? What must we think of legal coercion?

Concerning legal coercion, we must distinguish between internal and external acts,private and public acts. Purely internal acts, which by their very nature escape all coer28

ST, I II, q.19. a. 5&6.2)

STI II, q.l9, a. 6, ad 1.cion, are not the object of our inquiry; only those acts that are called mixed becausethey are internal (of the soul) and external (of the body) are of interest to us.

Private acts are exempt by their nature from legal coercion unless they have bad socialconsequencesfor example,

inhuman cruelty to their children by unworthy parents;

private meetings of secret societies or other sects which subvert the common good.

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On the contrary, public acts fall directly under the dominion of legal constraint if theydisrupt the common good.

To restrain someone from acting according to his conscience is obviously heir if it isfor his own good or for the common good.

To prevent someone from committing suicide is an act, or even a duty, of charity.

It is a duty of justice towards the common good for civil authorities to prevent thedistribution of drugs30 or the spread of immoral and seditious ideas regardless ofwhether or not the delinquents are convinced of their right to commit illegal orimmoral acts.

Is it permissible to oblige someone to act against his conscience? We have todifferentiate between two possibilities:

For a conscience guiltily in error. After having reminded a person of his duties, it is

permissible to force that person to fulfill them. For example:

in the private domain, to oblige a student to study;

in the public domain, to oblige a father to support his children or a supplier to fulfillhis contract.

For a conscience honestly in error. To act against ones honestly erroneous conscience isto sin. Thus, to force someone to act

30I.e., the illegaldistribution of drugs. [Translators note.]against such conscience is to cooperate in his sin; but again, we need to further distinguishbetween two different cases:

To formally cooperate in someone elses sin is never permissible (in this case,willing precisely to extort from someone an act against his wishes); it is a sinagainst charity.

It is, however, permissible to cooperate materially in someone elses sin (desiringthat someone do willingly what at first he did not want to do without opposing theeventuality of a forced act) provided that this cooperation be remote and that thereis a grievous proportional cause for such a course of action. The material

cooperation will remain remote if only moral constraints are used, such as some sortof civil discrimination. A proportionate reason for such constraints will be that

because of the circumstances a serious conversion (intellectual or moral) by per-suasion alone could not be hoped for from a majority of obstinate people in theabsence of such constraints.

Specific example: combating polygamy and divorce in a country in which the governmenttries to restore the natural law.

CONCLUSION: To force a conscience is not always a violation,3 far from it. But tounderstand that, the distinctions set forth in moral theology must be kept in mind.

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HUMAN FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND THEIR LIMITS

To moral liberty corresponds in the social order the tight or moral faculty to demand.Man has rights as long as he has matching dutiestowards God, towards himself, andtowards his neighbor.

To the natural duty of honoring God corresponds the right to worship God.

31I.e., a violation of the forced conscience. [Translators note.]

To the natural duty of educating their children corresponds the right of the parentsto raise their children according to their own religious conviction.

The principal natural rights of man are what we call his fundamental rights. Pius XIIenumerated a certain number of them during his radio message of Christmas 1942:

Whoever wants the star of peace to rise and shine upon human society must do his part

to restore to mankind the dignity conferred on man by Cod since the beginning...promoting the respect and the practical exercise of the fundamental rights of man, that is:

the right to maintain and develop a corporal, intellectual, and moral life,particularly the right to a religious formation and education;

the right to worship God, privately and publicly, including religious charitableactivities;

the right to marriage and to the pursuit of its end rprocreation and education ofchildren];

the right to domestic and conjugal society; the right to work as an indispensable means to sustain family life;

the right to a free choice of state of life, including priestly or religious state of life; the right to material goods with the awareness of ones personal duties and societal

limits.32

These fundamental rights are not only negative rights (the right of not being preventedfrom acting, or being forced to act differently) but also affirmative rights (the right to act).They are natural rights, therefore inalienable, and they must be recognized as civil rights.

However, we have to ask ourselves whether man loses his natural rights when they areapplied to

32

Documents 1942, p.341, orPIN803-804. [Documents refers toDocuments pontificaux, oneof the 21 volumes of pontifical documents published by Editions Saint-Augustin;PINrefers toLa paix intrieure des nations, one of the 18 volumes of pontifical documents

published by the Benedictine monks of Solesmes, France, in the 1950s. Translators note.] what is objectively an error or a moral evil;

what is contrary to divine positive law. After all, Pope John Paul II did declare:

Human rights cannot be in effect truly but where the imprescriptible rights of God arerespected; and the commitment to the former is illusory, inefficient, and short-lived if

pursued outside or in spite of the latter.33

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Does man have a right to error or moral evil?The answer is no: only truth and goodnesshave tights. Error and moral evil never have rights.

At the time of Vatican II, some thought to be clever by objecting, But neither truth norerror has rights! Rights are subjected34 in persons, who either have those rights or dont.This approach was used to confuse the subject and push into obscurity objective rights so

as to speak only of subjective rights.It is possible indeed to distinguish between objective and subjective right.

Subjective rightis the power of demanding, as rooted in the individual, regardless of itsapplication; for instance, the right to worship God, regardless of the type of worship.

Objective right is, on the contrary, the specific object of the right: this particularworship, this specific education.

So the solution is very simple: the objective right is alienable and the subjective right isinalienable.

The reason is that the subjective right is based on a corresponding duty to be fulfilledor,

to put it another wayon the transcendental relation between a faculty (e.g., the will) and itsobject (e.g., to worship God or to educate ones children). That relation and that duty remainno matter what happens.

On the contrary, the objective right, or the specific object of right, is based on theobjective order of beings and their end; it disappears as soon as the individual, by his actions,severs himself from that order. This is what Pius XII teaches:

Letter to the Bishops of Brazil, December 10, 1980; Documentation catholique 1802,February 15, 1981, p.152.

~I.e., the person is the subject of the rights. [Translators nore.l

... that which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has noright to exist, to be spread or to be activated.05

The trick36 was to consider only that transcendental while conveniently pushing aside theobjective order: truth or errot. But the proper answer is as follows: even with error or withmoral evil, man does keep his subjective rights; but he loses all objective rightswhich goes

back to what we were saying at the beginning: Error and moral evil have no rights; only truthand goodness have tights, if by rights we understand objective rights.

Consequently, man loses all his objective natural rights when they are applied to error orto evil.

More particularly, when Pius XII speaks of the right to worship God as a fundamentalright, he always implies the subjective right of worshiping God and the objective tight to the

true worship of the true God. In some instances, he explicitly makes that clarification:

The respect of the human personof his inalienable rights and, more specifically, ofthe rights of the individual and of the family, among which there are the complete libertyof true divine worship and the right of the parents to raise their children and to provide fortheir educationis one of the fundamental principles on which Christian politique must

be based. This is why the Church must preserveand will preserve, no matter what-theright of Catholic parents to schools that respond to their

38convictions.

Do we have a right to what is opposed to divine positive law? What is opposed to divine positive law is error. Therefore, why ask the question since it has been solved in the

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preceding paragraphs? We nevertheless do ask the question in that form in order to answer anobjection.

Ci Riesce, December 6, 1953; Michael Davies, The Second Vatican Council and Religious

Liberty (Neumann, 1992), p.

31

1, V All citations to Ci Riesce are to this source.For some at Vatican II. [Translators note.]0

Of the subjective right. [Translators note.]55

Allocution to the Christian-Democrat youth of West Berlin, March 28,1957; Documents 1957, p. 129, or PIN 1252.St. Thomas Aquinas does teach indeed, according to that objection, that divine positive

right does not take away objective natural rights;39 e.g., Muslim parents remain the naturaleducators of their children.

But this principle of St. Thomas obviously cannot be applied when a natural right is usedcontrarily to divine positive law; thus, the teaching of the Muslim religion (which denies the

Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Redemption) to children is not a natural objective right ofMuslim parents but only the object of practical non-repression (also called negativetolerance).40

The same should be said of the teaching and of the practice of any religion that professesbeliefs contrary to the true religion by rejecting explicitly some of its dogmas.

On the other hand, followers of a religion which, without superstitions, renders some sortof natural worship to God as He can be known by the lights of natural reason, ignoringwithout guilt the dogmas of the true religionsuch people do benefit from a natural objectiveright to practice their religion. But the existence of such a religion is merely hypothetical.

CONCLUSION:1) If we want to speak of the fundamental rights of man and of his objective rights, wemust honestly admit that these rights have no existence outside of the truth.

2) More specifically, the right to the worship of God as an objective right has for itsobject the true religion only, to the exclusion of all other religions.

3) If it is a case of reacting against regimes that persecute indiscriminately all religion,the Catholic Church may evoke, and justly so, the fundamental

30 ST II II, q 10. a 10.

You cannot take children from the Islamic education of their parents against their willwithout, at the same time, depriving the parents of their natural objective right ofeducating their children. (See ST II II q. 10, a. 12 and Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri.)[Note from the second French edition. Translators note.]

right of man to worship God in abstracto, since it is the root itself of that rightthat is, the subjective rightwhich these atheistic regimes attack.

IS THERE A NEGATIVE RIGHT TO ERROR AND EVIL? OR A RIGHT TOTOLERANCE?

Man has no natural objective positive oraffirmative right to do what is either erroneous

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or evil. We have demonstrated just that in the preceding paragraphs.

For example, no one has the right to sell drugs or to practice a religion opposed to the truereligion.

... it must be clearly stated that no human authority, no state, no community of states,whatever be their religious character, can give a positive command or positiveauthorization to teach or to do that which would be contrary to religious truth or moralgood. (Pius XII)

that which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has noright to exist, to be spread, or to be

42activated. (Pius XII)

Is it not possible for man to benefit from an objective negative right to that which iscontrary to truth or moral law? That is to say, the right not to be restrained from acting

in religious or moral matters, even when such action departs from what is true or good?To summarize, the right to be tolerated?

The answer to that question takes three words: such a right is absurd, false, andcondemned by the Church.

1) The absurdity of such a negative right to err is abhorrent to common sense.

Can a father say to his son, You do not have the right to smoke marijuana, but youhave the right not to be stopped from doing so by me without ruining his paternalauthority? It is one thing to refuse to

Ci Riesce,p. 3lO, V.stop ones son from taking drugs and thus to tolerate that evil; but it is a completelydifferent matter to acknowledge to such a son a right to non-repression.

Likewise, can the Church say to Catholics, You do not have the tight to apostatizeand become Protestants or Muslims, but you do have the right not to be impeded bythe Church if you feel like it without ruining its right to direct souls and withoutrenouncing traditional canon law which imposes severe canonical punishments onapostates? Must we say that the Church made a mistake by imposing such

punishments, or that the Church must adapt itself to a modern mentality whichdemands now, in the name of some sort of alleged metamorphosis of human nature,

a right to be exempt from any constraints whatsoever?

Generally speaking, to create within the legislative power a dichotomy according towhich whatever the legislator cannot accept as a positive right (the right to dosomething) he may legitimately grant as a negative right (the right not to berestrained from doing something) is the symptom of an obvious and incurableschizophrenia which defies common sense. It is, in any case, an aberrant self-destruction of the power of jurisdiction which brings to mind the anarchist maxim:If everything is not permitted, at least it is forbidden to forbid.

2) This alleged negative right is against sane reason.

Not to stop someone from doing evil or accepting error is to open the door to evil and

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error. It is the liberty of perdition and the right to scandal. Such liberty is an evil in itselfeven if by accident, as a result of some circumstances, it must be considered the lesser of twoevils because it avoids a greater evil. As Sr. Augustine simply put it, If you do away withharlots, the world will be convulsed with lust.43

See ST II II, q. 1O, a.11But anything that is evil in itself cannot be the object of any rights, as we have amplydemonstrated before. Therefore, a negative right to evil is as unthinkable as a positive right toevil.

3) The Magisrerium of the Church has condemned the negative tight to error or evil.

that which does nor correspond to truth or to the norm ofmorality objectively has no right to exist, to be spread, or to be

activated.44

We emphasize to be spread because, by definition, it means diffusion without anyrestrictions since propaganda is meant to influence public opinion, which will be impossibleif it is restrained. The right to propaganda is thus, and indissociably so, both posirive andnegative: the right to propagate, and the right not to be restricted from propagating. That iswhy Pius XII condemned both positive and negative right to propagate error or evil.

CONCLUSION: We cannot, in the absence of a positive right, proclaim the existence of anegative right to error or evil in any realm whatsoever, particularly in the religious realm,without, by the same token, falling victim of a sophism.45

Ci Riesce,p.311, V.In this section, it was demonstrated that a naturalnegative right to error and evil cannotexistthat is, that immunity for error or evil can never be a natural right.

Archbishop Lefebvre in his bookThey Have Uncrowned Him (AngelusPress, 1988) specifies that although it can never be a natural right, suchimmunity may, on occasions, be a civil rightwhen the legislator may have to tolerate thisor that particular manifestation of error or evil. Without ever admitting the right to doevil, there may be a civil right not to be restrained from doing so when a just law forbidssuch restraint forsufficient reasons. (Joseph Baucher, Libert, Dictionnaire de thologie catholique, IX,col. 701.)But one thing is the civil rightto tolerance guaranteed by law in view of securing public

peace for a specific people in a specific set ofcircumstances; and another very different one is an alleged and inviolable right totolerance in principle, and at all times, regardless ofcircumstances, for every conceivable deviation from truth and goodness. Consequently,religious liberty, as an immunity for the public worship of false religions, can never be anatural right but only a civil right totolerance, and only in certain circumstances. [Note from the secondFrench edition. Translators note.l

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PART TWO

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY PROPERLY SPEAKING

Is the dignity of the human person independent from the choices of that person? Thatquestion cannot be properly answered without first distinguishing between the ontologicaldignity and the operative dignity of man: one thing is what man is by nature, and another iswhat man becomes by his actions. The answer to the question depends on that distinction.

Ontological dignity of man

The dignity of man consists in the intellectuality of his nature; that is, the nobility of anature endowed with intelligence and free will. Man is essentially called by it to know God,his Creator and his ultimate end: To love, honor, and serve God, as St. Ignatius put it at the

beginning of his Spiritual Exercises. Furthermore, man is capable of the beatific vision, as St.Thomas Aquinas said, by, first, being capable of elevation to a supernatural state throughsanctifying grace.

0 God, who in creating human nature, didst marvelously ennoble it, and hast still moremarvelously renewed it, as the Church puts on the lips of the priest at the offertory of theMass.

It can be said that this ontological dignity of man consists

mainly in a transcendental orientation to God and is thus a divine call which is thefoundation in man of the duty to search for the True God and the true religion to which, oncefound, man must adhere.

Finally, since all men have the same nature, which cannot be had without being fullyhuman, it must be said that the onrological dignity of the human person is the same ineveryone and can never be lost.

However, it is important to remember that original sin profoundly wounded human naturein its faculties, most especially in its capacity to know God. The natural dignity of man hassuffered, as a consequence, a universal degradation that not even the grace of baptism canheal completely in Christians.

Moreover, all races and all people, already provided with different natural gifts by the

Creator, have not been wounded exactly the same way by original sin: some are affectedmore deeply by the blinding of their intelligence, others by the weakness of their will, others

by a hatred rooted in a dissolute concupiscence, others, finally, by fear rooted in a disorderedirascibility, etc.46 The result is radical inequalities among different people in the concrete47

natural dignity of persons, inequalities which require unequal treatment from both divine andhuman authority.

Operative dignity of man

The operative dignity of man is the result of the exercise of his faculties, essentiallyintelligence and will.

In other words, to the perfection of nature is added to man a supplementary perfectionwhich will depend on his actions.

Faculties are by nature oriented towards their actions, 48 and the perfection of these

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actions will be to attain their end: the end of the intelligence is truth, the end of the will isgoodness.

Hence the operative dignity of man will consist in adhering in his actions to truth andgoodness, thus ultimately acquiring the virtues which make good actions prompt, easy, andpleasurable, as Aristotle said, not to mention infused supernatural virtues. It follows that if

man fails to be good or if he adheres to error or evil he loses his dignity, the good actionbeing replaced by an act that even if not necessarily a formal sin is nonetheless objectivelyevil. Virtue will rapidly be replaced by bad habitsthat is to say, by vice.

46 Concupiscence and irascibility here are the names of the lower faculties of

the soul as defined by Aristotelian philosophy. They are also called sensitive appetites (asopposed to intellectual appetites). Concupiscence can bedefined as the desire for the absolute good, whereas irascibility can bedefined as the desire for the arduous or difficult good. [Translators note.] As opposed toabstract. [Translators note.]

Le., intelligence will think. [Translators note.l

Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that the dignity of human nature may be restoredby the perseveringpractice of healing self denial. (Missale Romanum) 49

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 anabyss of corruption. (Leo XIII)50

From where, in fact, does the person derive his dignity? Hedraws his dignity from his perfection. Now the perfection of the human person consists inthe knowledge of the Truth and the acquisition of Good. This is the beginning of eternallife and eternal life is that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ

Whom Thou hast sent (Jn. 17:3). Consequently, so long as he clings to error, the humanperson falls short of his dignity.The dignity of the human person does not consist in liberty set apart from truth. In fact,

liberty is good and true to the extent to which it is ruled by truth. The truth shall set youfree, said Our Lord, that is, the truth shall give you liberty. Error is of itself anobjective, if not subjective, lie. And through Our Lord we also know him who when hespeaketh a lie, he speaketh from his own (Jn. 8:44). How then is it possible to say of a hu-man person that he is worthy of respect, when he misuses his intelligence and his liberty,even when there is no blame to beassigned to him?

The dignity of the person also comes from the integrity of his will when it is ordainedto the true Good. Now error gives birth to sin. The serpent deceived me, said Eve, who

was the first sinner. No truth can be clearer than this to all mankind. It is sufficient toreflect upon the consequences of this error on the sanctity of marriage, a sanctity of thegreatest interest for the human race. This error in religion has gradually led to polygamy,divorce, birth control, that is to say, to the downfall of human dignity, above all in woman.(Archbishop Lefebvre)51

CONCLUSION: The dignity of man, when we consider man in his actions, consists in hisadherence to truth and goodness. There is no real dignity outside of truth.

~ Collect of Thursday in Passion week. [Translators nore.lImmortale Dei,p.124.Intervention filed with the Secretariat for Vatican II, November 26, 1963;I

Accuse the Council,pp.28-29.

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Dignity and liberty

The dignity of man, in the concrete area of human activity, consists in its de factoadherence to truth and goodness, as we have just demonstrated. Therefore, liberty of action,or the concrete autonomy of man in this adherence, is not the essential element of human

dignity, even if it is legitimately desirable. To exalt liberty of action to the extent oftransforming it into the essence of the operative dignity of man is a condemned error whichonly exacerbates human pride at the expense of humble adherence to the received truth fromoutside52by a teacher and, what is more, with constraints in the form of threats of divinechastisement for those who will refuse it.

He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall becondemned. (Sr. Mark)53

... at the root of all their fallacies on social questions lie the false hopes of the Sillonistson human dignity. According to them, Man will be a man worthy of this name only whenhe has acquired a strong, enlightened and independent consciousness, able to do without a

master, obeying only himself, and able to assume the most demanding responsibilitieswithout faltering. Such are the big words by which human pride is exalted, like the dreamcarrying man away without light, without guidance, and without help into the realm ofillusion. (Sr. Pius X)54

CONCLUSION: The dignity of the human person does not consist in liberty set apartfrom truth. In fact, liberty is good and true to the extent to which it is ruled by truth. Thetruth shall set you free, said Our Lord; that is, the truth shall give you liberty.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY CONDEMNED

BY THE POPES OF THE 19TH CENTURY

1) The popes of the 19th century condemned liberty of conscience and of worship.

52Le., from outside oneself[Translators note.l

Our Apostolic Mandate, August 15, 1910 (Angelus Press, 1998), p.29, 25. All citations toOur Apostolic Mandate are to this edition unless otherwise noted. Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas condemned Article 22 of the French constitution of

1814:

Another subject of sorrow which painfully affects Our heart and, We confess,torments Us with extreme anguish and despondency, is the 22nd article of the[French] constitution. Not only is the liberty of worship and of conscience

permitted, but, to use the very words of this article, support and protection arepromised to that liberty and to the ministers of those so-called denominatsons aswell.55

Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos condemned the proposition according to which we mustestablish and guarantee for every man liberty of conscience:

We now come to another and most fruitful cause of the evils which at present afflict

the Church and which We so bitterly deplore; We mean indifferenrism, or that fatalopinion everywhere diffused by the craft of the wicked, that men can by the

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profession of any faith obtain the eternal salvation of their souls, provided their lifeconforms to justice and probity....

From this poisoned source of indifferenrism flows that false and absurd, or ratherextravagant, maxim that liberty of conscience should be established and guaranteedto each man.56

The expression liberty of conscience, according to the language of the time and ourstoday, is

the faculty given to any man to adopt the religious doctrines of

his choice without being harassed by civil authority.57

TheDiction naire des dictionnaires specifies further:

From the indisputable liberty of our conscience, must we logically deduce liberty ofconscience? The liberty of our conscience is internal whereas liberty of conscience is

external and

April 29, 1814;PIN19. [No known translation of the whole documentEnglish. Translators note.]August 15, 1832 (Angelus Press, 1998), pp.11-12. 14-15. All citations toMirari Vos are to this edition.

Conscience,Nouveau Larousse illustrIII, 206 col. 3. [This encyclopedia was publishedunder the direction of Claude Aug around 1900. Translators note.]Dictionary of dictionaries. [Translators note.]has to do with the profession of our beliefs publicly, within society. The liberty of

conscience can be considered as a political59right, protected by constitutional guarantees.

Pius IX in Quanta Cura condemned the following propositions:

..... the best condition of human society is that wherein no duty is recognized by theGovernment of correcting, by enacted penalties, the violators of the Catholic Reli-gion, except when the maintenance of the public peace requires it.

the liberty of conscience and of worship is the pecu,,61liar (or inalienable) right of e very man.

[This right] must be proclaimed and guaranteed by

law in every properly constituted society.6

Leo XIII inImmortale Dei condemns the following opinion:

[The State] is bound to grant equal right to every creed, so that public order maynot be disturbed by any particular form of religious belief. And it is a part of thistheory that all questions that concern religion are to be referred to private judgment;that every one is to be free to follow whatever religion he prefers......

2) What was condemned was religious liberty in the sense in which it is still understoodtoday:

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liberty of action (the negative right not to be restrained);

liberty in the public arena;

natural and civil right.

~Conscience, III, 130, col. 3. [Edited under the direction of Paul Gurin. Translatorsnote.]

December 8, 1864 (Angelus Press, 1998), p.6. 3. All citations to Quanta

Cura are to this edition unless otherwise noted.~Ibid

PIN40. [Sentence omitted in English translations ofQuanta Cura.

Translated for this book from the Italian and French versions of the encyclical (they areidentical). Translators note.]

P121.Religious liberty is condemned even when it remains in pracrice within the bounds of

public peace and those who use it do nothing mote than violate the Catholic religion, that isto say, transgress against the worship and the discipline of the Catholic Church.

3) The circumstances and the historical origin of this false religious liberty are clearlydelineated, both in their logical order and in their links of cause and effect:

The individualistic rationalism and absolute liberalism, inherited from the so-calledFrench Revolution, according to which man is the absolute subject of rights indepen-dently of any superior authority from which to receive those rights:

All [men] are equal in the control of their life;.. .each one is so far his own master asto be in no sense under the rule of any other individual;. . . each is free to think onevery subject just as he may choose, and to do whatever he may like to do. (LeoXIII)65

The monism66 and indifferentism of the State in religious matters:

government is nothing more nor less than the will of the people....And since the populace is declared to contain within itself the spring-head of all

rights and of all power, it follows that the State does not consider itself bound byany kind of duty towards God. Moreover, it believes that it is nor obliged to make

public profession of any religion. . .or to prefer one religion to all the rest. (LeoXIII)67

With the exception of the moderate liberalism espoused by the liberalCatholicism of Lammenass and condemned by the encyclical Mirari Vos of Gregoty XVI,as shown by the preceding quotations. [Note of thesecond French edition. Translators note.l

Immortale Dei,p.l 20.66 Monism, from Greekmonos, meaning one. Philosophical theory according

to which the ultimate reality is entirely of one substance; for instance, modern materialism

is a form of monism. As applied to the State it is a theory that affirms that all authority ofany kind, including spiritual or

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religious, belongs to the State only, which does nor recognize any authority (especiallythat of the Church) outside its own. (See Monism in The

Catholic Encyclopedia). [Translators note.] The consequence is the right to that false religious liberty within society:

but [government] is bound to grant equal rights to every creed, so that publicorder may nor be disturbed by any particular form of religious belief.And it is a part of this theory that all questions that concern religion are to be

referred to private judgment; that every one is to be free to follow whatever religionhe prefers, or none at all if he disapprove of all. (Leo XIII)65

To say that this condemnation of a false religious liberty was caused by historicalcircumstances, that is, the particular liberalism and rationalism of a rime long gone, andfurthermore, that those historical circumstances were the only reason behind thecondemnation, is a stepnay, an abysswhich we will not bridge, as we are now going todemonstrate.

4) Reasons for the condemnation of liberty of conscience andof worship by the popes:

a) Considered in itself,69 this liberty is false and absurd, that is, contrary to the naturalorder and to reason.

Pius VI in Quad Aliquantum condemned the civil constitution of the clergy in France:

It establishes, as a right of man in society, that absolute liberty which nor onlygrants the right of nor being harassed because of ones religious opinions, but whichalso grants a license to think, to write, and even to print with impunity anything

suggested by the most disturbed imagination; a monstrous right ... 70

Pius VII inPost Tam Diuturnas gave the first reason for the condemnation:

67 Immortale Dei,pp.l2O-l2l.

I.e., independently of any time-line. [Translators note.] March 10, 1791;Receuil,p.53, orPIN1. [No known translation of the whole document in

English.Receuilrefers to Receuil des allocutionsconsistoriales. encycliques et autres lettres apostoliques des souverains pontifsClment XII, Benoit XIV, Pie VI, Pie VII, Lon XII, Grgoire XVI et Pie IX

cities dans lencyclique et le Syllabus bus du 8 dcembre 1864, suivi du concordat de 1801et de divers autres documents (Adrien le Clere, 1865). Translators note.]

By the very fact that one establishes the liberty of anyworship without distinction, truth and error are mixed

7up.

Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos condemned liberty of conscience as a false and absurd,or rather extravagant, maxim called by St. Augustine the liberty of error; whatmore certain death for souls!72

Pius IX in Quanta Cura condemned the first proposition quoted above as beingcontrary to the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, of the Church, and of the Holy

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Fathers [a] totally false notion of social government. Moreover, following GregoryXVI, he condemned liberty of conscience and of worship as being that erroneousopinion most pernicious to the Catholic Church, and to the salvation of souls and aliberty of perdition.73

b) Considered in its immediate consequences, it constitutes a violation of the public rightsof the Church, that is, of all the principles that flow necessarily from the dogma of the socialKingship of Jesus Christ and from the divine constitution of the Church which are connectedto Revelation and are therefore absolutely immutable.

Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas gives the second and principal reason forcondemnation:

.the very fact of establishing liberty of worship indiscriminately. . .reduces to thelevel of heretical sects.. .the Immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside ofwhich there is no salvation.74

Leo XIII in Immortale Deipoints out the immediate consequences of that liberty ofworship:

Now when the State rests on foundations like those just namedand for the timebeing they are greatly in favorit readily appears into what and how unrighrful a position theChurch is driven. For when the manage~PIN19.72 P12,15.

P.6, 3.PIN 19.

ment of public business is in harmony with doctrines of such a kind, the Catholic

religion is allowed a standing in civil society equal only, or inferior, to societiesalien from it; no regard is paid to the laws of the Church, and she who, by the orderand commission of Jesus Christ, has the duty of teaching all nations, finds herselfforbidden to rake any part in the instruction of the people. With reference to mattersthat are of twofold jurisdiction, they who administer the civil power lay down thelaw at their own will, and in matters that appertain to religion defiantly put aside themost sacred decrees of the Church. They claim jurisdiction over the marriage ofCatholics, even over the bond as well as the unity and the indissolubility ofmatrimony. They lay hands on the goods of the clergy, contending that the Churchcannot possess property. Lastly, they treat the Church with such arrogance that,rejecting entirely her title to the nature and right of a perfect society, they hold thatshe differs in no respect from other societies in the State, and for this reason

possesses no right nor any legal power of action, save that which she holds by theconcession and favor of the government. If in any State the Church retains her ownrightand this with the approval of the civil law, owing to an agreement publiclyentered into by the two powersmen forthwith begin to cry out that matters af-fecting the Church must be separated from those of the State.Their object in uttering this cry is to be able to violate unpunished their plightedfaith, and in all things to have unchecked control.75

c) Another disastrous consequence of liberty of conscience and of worship is that itpropagates the pestilence ofreligious indifferentism (father of todays false ecumenism).

Pius VII inPost Tam Diuturnas:

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In addition, by promising favors and support to heretical sects and their ministersare tolerated and favored not only the persons but their errors as well. It is implicitlythe disastrous and always pernicious heresy mentioned by Saint Augustine in thesewords: It affirms that all the heretics are in the right and say the truth, absurdiry somonstrous that I cannot believe any sect really professes it.76

Pp.121-122.76 PIN l9.

Pius IX in the Syllabus, condemned proposition 79:

Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form ofworship, and the fullpower, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoeverand thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and the minds of the

people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism7

CONCLUSION: We must affirm without hesitation that under the expression liberty ofconscience and of worship, religious liberty understood as the natural and civil right to

liberty of action in religious matters and recognized for any member of any religion wascondemned in the 19th century:

not only in its premise, which is the absolute liberalism of the time,

but in itself as absurd and false, and by reason of its immediate consequences:violation of the public rights of the Church and religious indifferentism in man.

5) Authority of the Magisterium for this condemnation:

The constancy and recurrence of the condemnation of religious liberty gives it the highest

authority of the ordinary Magisrerium of the Church.But it seems that the condemnation of religious liberty in Quanta Cura goes further andmeets the four conditions of an ex cathedra78 document and is therefore infallible.

Here are the condemned propositions: They are the three propositions we have quotedbefore which we quote again here in their context:

Appendix to Quanta Cura (Angelus Press, 1998), pp.28-29. All citations to the Syllabus ofPius IX are to this edition.

Ex cathedra means from the chair (of Sr. Peter) and refers to the infallible pronouncementsof the popes in what is called the exercise of their

extraordinary Magisterium; for instance, the dogmatic proclamation of theAssumption of Our Lady in the 1950s by Pius XII was cx cathedra. [Translators note.]Contrary to the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers,these persons do not hesitate to assert, that the best condition of human society is thatwherein no duty is recognized by the Government of correcting, by enacted penalties, theviolators of the Catholic Religion, except when the maintenance of the public peacerequires it. From this totally false notion of social government, they fear nor to upholdthat erroneous opinion most pernicious to the Catholic Church, and to the salvation ofsouls, which was called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI (lately quoted) the insanity[deli ramentum] (Ibid.): ~ namely, that the liberty of conscience and of worship is the

peculiar (or inalienable) right of every man, which should be proclaimed by law, and that

citizens have the right to all kinds of liberty, to be restrained by no law, whetherecclesiastical or civil, by which they may be enabled to manifest openly and publicly their

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ideas, by word of mouth, through the press, or by anyso

other means.

Then, we have a global condemnation of the theses denounced in the encyclical:

Amid so great a perversity of depraved opinions, We, remembering Our Apostolic duty,and solicitous before all things for Our most holy Religion, for sound doctrine, for thesalvation of the souls confided to Us, and for the welfare of human Society itself, haveconsidered the moment opportune to raise anew Our Apostolic voice. Therefore do We, byour Apostolic authority, reprobate, denounce, and condemn generally and particularly allthe evil opinions and doctrines specially mentioned in this Letter, and We wish that theymay be held as reprobated, denounced, and condemned by all the children of the CatholicChurch.8

Finally, we have the verification of the four conditions for an ex cathedra document(according to the constitutionPastor Aeternus of Vatican I), 82 thus infallible:

The pope speaks as pastor and teacher of all Christians.

~I.e., Mirari Vos. [Translators note.] Quanta Cura,p.6, 3.Ibid.,p.11,6.~ July 18, 1870; Dz 1839.

The pope speaks concerning a doctrine on faith or morals, connected with divineRevelation.

The pope definesthat is, he specifies precisely-the terms of the theses that areeither defined or condemned and pronounces on said doctrines or theses a judgmentwhich is definite and irrevocable.

The pope specifies that the faithful must abide by the proposed doctrine.

CONCLUSION: The doctrines condemned in Quanta Cura do seem to have beencondemned infallibly, at least those which were clearly described in their formulation. That isindeed the case of the three propositions mentioned in paragraphs 1 and 5. Therefore, thesethree propositions are infallibly condemned. Consequently, liberty of conscience and ofworship is condemned-and, in all likelihood, based on the formulation of Quanta Cura,infallibly so.

IS THE DIGNITY OF MAN AFOUNDATION FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY?

1) Religious liberty: a new foundation

In the years before Vatican II, a new theory on religious liberwas born, with the samemeaning of negative right not to be

withheld from any form of worship. This theory has become famous because of its use byVatican II.

According to this theory, liberty of action for anyone in religious matters is founded onthe dignity of man. This dignity of man, regardless of any consideration of the truth, consists

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in the simple fact that man by nature is ontologically connected to God by a transcendentalordination of which we spoke earlier.

In this view, any man, regardless of his subjective dispositions (truth or error, good or badfaith), is inviolable in the actions by which he operates his relation to God, that is, in his

personal quest of the divine together with acts of worship, whether private or public, alone or

collectively.According to this theory, the right to liberty of action in religious matters is no longer anabsolute right without God or masret, as the liberalism of the 19th century affirmed, but the right of a person essentiallyconnectedto God, even if he is wrong in his free choice and does not actually fulfill his dutyto honor God and to worship Him in the true religion.

To perfect the argument, its proponents will claim that the same right to religious libertywas condemnable by the popes of the 19th century because of its individualistic, materialisticliberal premise but can be proclaimed today in the name of human dignity. The content is thesame but its foundation will be radically different:

It cannot be denied that the declaration on religious liberty [by Vatican II in Dignitatis

Humanae 2] does say materially something else than the Syllabus of 1864; it even saysjust about the opposite of propositions 15 [and] 77 to 79 of this document.

Fr. John Courtney Murray, who did belong to the intellectual and religious elite,showed that, although materially contradicting the Syllabus (which was written in 1864and conditioned therefore, as Mr. Roger Auger demonstrated, by specific historicalcircumstances), the declaration [on religious liberty] was the continuation of the struggle

by which the popes, faced with Jacobinism and totalitarianism, fought more and moreenergetically for the dignity and the liberty of man because he is made according to Godsimage.84

What is new in this doctrine compared to the teachings of Leo XIII, and even of PiusXII, although the movement started then, is the determination of theproper and proximatefoundation of this liberty, established not on the objective truth of religious or moralgoodness but on the ontological quality of the human person.

That theory of the new foundation of religious liberty as the basis for the conciliardeclarationDignitatis Humanae cannot be described and characterized any better.

~ Congar,La crise dans lglise et Mgr. Lefebvre,p.51.Congar, A propos dEcne et la prsente tempte, Documentation catbolique. 1704, 5-

19, September 1976, p.790.Congar, Bulletin Etudes et documents du Secrtariat de l,piscopat franais 5, June 15,1965, p.5.

2) Rebuttal of the new theory on religious liberty

a) The new thesis on religious liberty bases liberty of action (nor to be restrained) inreligious matters on the ontological dignity of the person. It is an error: the ontologicaldignity of man refers only to his free will86 and not at all to moral liberty or liberty of action.87

Actually, moral liberty and liberty of action are in relation to the operations or actions of aperson and not to his essential being. They have therefore as a foundation the operative dig-nity of man, or, what amounts to the same thing, truth: that is, the actual adherence of the

person to the truth.When, on the contrary, man cleaves to error or moral evil, he loses his operative dignity,

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which therefore cannot be the basis for anything at all.

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 anabyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth, may nor rightly be

brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor andprotection of the law. (Leo XIII)58

The initialand, in fact, new-argument was based on the freedom of every man topractice inwardly and outwardly the religion of his choice, on the basis of the dignity ofthe human person. In this view, liberty is based on dignity which gives it its raisondtre. Man can hold any error whatever in the name of his dignity.

This is putting the cart before the horse. For whoever clings to error loses his dignityand can no longer build upon it. Rather, the foundation of liberty is truth, not dignity. Thetruth will make you free, said Our Lord. (Archbishop Lefebvre)89

Consequently, if one wants to base a right of man to religious liberty on the dignity of the

human person, it can only be the right to religious liberty in relation to the true religionwhich is thus established, and not, in any case, a right to wrong religions or to

s~ I e., as a faculty. [Translators nore.l

I.e., the usage of said faculty. [Translators note.]Immortale Dei,p.l24.Open Letter to Confused Catholics (Angelus Press, 1986), p.83.all religions without distinction. That is the acceptable meaning of the expression liberty ofconscience given by Leo XIII: liberty pursuant to the true religion is the only liberty which

concurs with true human dignity.

Another liberty is widely advocated, namely, liberty of conscience. If by this is meantthat everyone may, as he chooses, worship God or not, it is sufficiently refuted by thearguments already adduced. But it may also be taken to mean that every man in the Statemay 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 wrongaliberty which the Church has always desired and held most dear. This is the kind of libertythe Apostles claimed for themselves with intrepid constancy, which the apologists ofChristianity confirmed by their writings, and which the martyrs in vast numbersconsecrated by their blood. And deservedly so; for this Christian liberty bears witness to

the absolute and most just dominion of God over man, and to the chief and supreme dutyof man toward God. (Leo XIII)95

It is hardly necessary to point out that to follow the will of God, to obey Hiscommands, this Christian liberty refer obviously to the duties of the true religion.

b) Undoubtedly, the ontological capacity of man to adore, love, and serve God isalready in itself, even before it is used, something indeed of great dignity and inalienable: anyman, no matter how depraved he may be, does keep that possibility of the divine whichGod can always activate if He so wishesHe who, by His sanctifying grace, transforms asinner into a saint. This is certainly the foundation of a charitable and prudential duty towards

the person in error, following the example given to us by Our Lord, Who, according toIsaias, the bruised reed.., shall not break: and smoking flax... .shall not extinguish.9

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But a duty of leniency, or even a charitable duty towards the misguided soul in the hopeof a conversion, does not imply in that misguided soul any right; that is, nothing is due to himin justice

Libertas,p.26, 30. Mt. 12:20.regarding his liberty of action. Charity (I give you of what is mine) should not be confusedwith justice (I am giving you what is your due, what you are owed). In justice, only thatwhich answers to truth and virtue has a right to liberty of action (see tolerance, below).

c) Finally, the key argument in the attempt to justify this new theory of religious liberty--that is, the change of foundation will prove itself to be a glaringly obvious sophism.

In good logic, if religious liberty for any religion was good in itself, it would nor havebeen condemned because of the bad principles which were its foundation in the 19thcentury (individualistic rationalism and State monism); only those principles would have

been condemned. Any type of liberty is either good or bad according to the object to which it

is applied, not according to the motives advanced to justify its existence, contrary to thefollowing little story:92

Daddy, I am going to join the Moonies, Valerie, a 17-year-old Catholic, declares oneday

Why? kindly asks her father.Because I am free to do what I want!Alas, my dear, I am afraid that under the circumstances, you do not have the right to

do so, mumbles contritely her father.

The following day, Valerie tries again.

Father, I want to follow Han Krishna.With no less kindness than the day before, her father asks:

Why?In the name of my dignity as a human person. ..and, she adds pensively, I am

searching; I feel somehow connected.If that is the case, says the father enthusiastically, go ahead; you now have that

right!

In general, the morality of human acts is essentially determined by their object and not bythe intention of the person acting. It is therefore irrelevant to invoke the rationalism of the19th century or some personalism of the 20th century as the intention behind religious liberty.

It is religious liberty which must be judged, either in itself or in its fruits.

92 Which will prove the point by reduction ad absurdum. [Translators note.] It is precisely religious liberty (liberty of action in relation to any religion without

distinction) which was condemned by the popes of the 19th century, both in itself, as aliberty of perdition, and in its fruitsor, rather, in its immediate consequence, theviolation of the public rights of the Church. Religious liberty was not condemned at all

because of historical motivations of the time but in itself, as a careful reading of thedocuments has just proved.

CONCLUSION: This alleged new foundation of religious liberty, that is, the dignity ofman, is nothing more than a false excuse. Religious liberty in relation to any kind of religion,

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regardless of truth or error, is and remains condemned as false; absurd; in violation of OurLords rights as well as the rights of His Church; and, finally, as imbuing souls with the

poison of religious indifferentism.

WOULD THE LIBERTY TO SEARCHBE A FOUNDATION FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY?

The new thesis on religious liberty has wanted to use also, as a foundation for liberty ofaction in religious matters, a liberty to search; that is, a soul in error but said to besearching, thus potentially connected to God and the truth. Here is their argument: toinfluence or to constrain such a soul in the midst of its research will be deflecting it from away that will guide it to God and truth. It is necessary, therefore, to insure everyones libertyto free search, even though it may express itself publicly and externally by acts of worshipor any other acts that may be contrary to the true religion.

This thesis alleges three things:

Those who accept the truth only potentially would have the same right of expression asthose who accept it in fact.

Any honest soul can, by itself, arrive at religious truth. Any religion could be a way to reach the true God and the true religion.

Let us examine these allegations, one by one.1) Rights of the searching man

To be searching is at the most a potential acceptance of the truth only andtherefore cannot be thebasis for rights due solely to the actual acceptance of saidtruth. Only the effective dependence from God and His revealed truth confers on

man dignity and thus a right to liberty of action.

The sincere search94 is indeed worthy of charitable patience on the part of theChurch (in a Catholic country), but more worthy of evangelical zeal.

Furthermore, it is not the case at all for non-Christians or non-Catholics. The mind set ofnon-Catholics is opposed to any research or even to dialogue:

These people are enormously attached to their ideas. Entrenched in what they call freethought, they are, generally speaking, very set in their mind. It is even surprising to seetheir self-assured opposition to dogmas of faith in the name of true dogmas....The

pertinacity (II II, q.5, a.3; q.l 1, a.2), that is,... the stubborn entrenchment in their ideas, is

the characteristic of their mind-set. Because of it, they, who pride themselves on being soopen-minded, appear to us stubborn and narrow-minded.

(Fr. R. Bernard)95

Likewise, the fanaticism of the Islamic religion is, in and of itself, an obstacle to anysincere search for the truth on the part of any Muslim individual. The only religious liberty towhich these people can legitimately aspire is their liberation from the social and religiousIslamic yoke that confines them in error.

CONCLUSION: To demand tolerance for all the followers of any religionindiscriminately, in the name of a liberty to search, is to fall into the mirage and the trap of

a blind liberalism.

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I.e., to be searching/or the truth. [Translators note.]I.e., the sincere search/or the truth. [Translators note.]

~ Somme thologique de saint Thomas, Revue des Jeunes, La foi (Descle et Cerf,1963), II, 383; hereafter, Somme thiologique.2) Can any honest soul by itself arrive at the knowledge of religious truth?

To affirm such a thing shows an unwarranted confidence in the capacity of humanintelligence. This affirmation seems inspired by a bewildering, unrealistic idealism and aheretical naturalism.

Such liberty to search is unrealistic.

To illustrate the point, let us quote Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on the declaration onreligious liberty, textus emendatus:

Search for truth: This paragraph clearly shows the unreality of such a declaration. Thesearch for truth, for men living on this earth, consists above all in obeying, in submittinghis intelligence to whatever authority may be concerned: family, religious, and evencivil.96

Such liberty to search is naturalistic.

This idea forgets original sin and its consequences, especially the wound of ignorancewhich now affects mans intelligence, as clearly explained by Sr. Paul in Romans 1:18-23 andEphesians 4:

14, 17-18 to which we refer our reader. Here is what Fr. R. Bernard has to say on the subject:

By the action of the first man who carried our destiny, humanity is at fault. It did notremain as God made it and wanted it to be. Hence the heavy ignorance of divine truthas well as indifference to Gods friendship. Hence also that kind of powerlessness toconnect to divine revelation, to discover it, to distinguish it, and to penetrate oneselfwith it. Nobody, of course, is abandoned by God, everyone is touched by God enoughtimes to be saved. But our whole human race is burdened by a painful blindness: manyindividuals have little time in life and little light in their spirit to open themselves toGods light; more often, while thinking themselves wise, they stupidly dedicate them-selves to darken the light from above, thus preventing enlighten97

ment.

As St. Thomas said simply,

96 Remarks sent to the Secretariat of the Council, December 30, 1964;I Accuse

the Council,p.31.Somme thologique,p.370.[by original sin] all the powers of the soul are left, as it were, destitute of their properorder, whereby they are naturally directed to virtue; which destitution is called a woundingof nature... .In so far as the reason is deprived of its order to the true, there is the wound ofignorance. 98

Hence the necessity of a Revelation external to man so that he can know not onlysupernatural truths but also natural truths connected to God and His religion.

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The Catholic religion is the ordinary means of salvation whereas the other religionsare the extraordinary means.

All men, regardless of what is their religion, are in the way of salvation.We [Christians, Jews, Muslims] believe in the same one God.We [Christians and Jews] await together the Messias.

The historical causes of this religious indifferentism are of a great diversity as well:

agnosticism of the philosophy of lights" 1O7 and its naturalism;

rationalism, according to which every individual is the sole judge of right andwrong;

the maxim liberty-equality-fraternity of the Freemasons, their liberalism, and theRevolution;

the soreriological optimism of the sentimentality of the romanricists of the 19th

century;

the authenticity of the religious experience in all the other religions, affirmed byModernists of the beginning of the 20th century and of today;

the actual concept of the people of God imagined as a super-church that includeswithin itself the Catholic Church and other religions said to be in some sort ofcommunion with the Catholic Church.

It really does not matter what the multiple historical reasons for religious indifferenrismmay be since it is indifferenrism as such which was condemned in all its known variations in

their time by Popes Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, and Pius XII and that,sooner or later, will also be condemned in its

The philosophers of lights were Voltaire, Rousseau, and Co. Explicitly and violentlyanti-Catholic, they caused the French Revolution with itsattendant massacres and miseries. [Translators note.]

actual presentation. We will refer the reader to the documents of the Magisterium whichcondemned indifferentism, quoted in Appendix I.

CONCLUSION ON INDIFFERENTISM

Religious indifferentism is the heresy most often condemnedby the popes since the

secret societies have spread their venom into the world, even into the bosom and theveins of the Church.

The basis for this heresy is the philosophical error of relativism of truth: the Catholictruth and dogmas are assuredly true, but so are the truths of other religions. The truth isno longer one, and the Catholic religion is no longer the only true one. A deadliervenom for the Church can hardly be imagined, since it made the Church doubt itself, itscharacter of absolute and total truth, and its universal mission of salvation.

Actually, indifferentism is more than just a heresy, it is sheerapostasybecause it deniesthat Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only God, our only Savior, the only one who has the

right to be our King, through Whom we must be regenerated, and in Whom we must beincorporated by baptism to be saved. To attribute values ofsalvation, "meaning in the

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mystery of salvation, to other religions is a monstrous insult to Jesus Christ. Even ifsome souls save themselves within a false religion, it is still through the graces and thetruth coming from Our Lord and His true Church and certainly not through these falsereligions which in themselves are an obstacle to the Holy Ghost and to Our Lord.

This indifferenrist apostasy is the very foundation ofthe false ecumenism and of thefalse religious liberty: if, in fact, any religion can be a means to reach God, missionaryspirit must be replaced by ecumenism, and adepts of any religion, without anydistinction, must be granted total liberty of expression and of liberty to search.

CONCLUSION ON LIBERTY TO SEARCH":

Liberty to search in religious matters is indeed an error:

unrealistic in itself, since it silences and denies in practice the necessity of anauthority, or teacher, to be able to reach the truth;

full of naturalism inasmuch as it denies in practice original sin, fallen human

dignity, and especially the wound of ignorance which always remain in humanintelligence;

infected by the heresyor, even more, the apostasyof religious indifferenrismwhich makes any religion into a means of salvation.

Consequently, we cannot base anything on the alleged liberty to search: religiousliberty cannot invoke liberty to search as its foundation without, at the same time,condemning itself.

Furthermore, it seems now clear that the religious liberty of today is historically

motivated by errors much more harmfrl still than the errors that were the underlyingbasis of the 19th centurys proclamation of the liberty of conscience and of worship.The latter was, as we have said, inspired by the rationalism and the absolute liberalismof the rime, but what is that in comparison to the naturalism and, even more so, to theindifferentism of today, which, as we have demonstrated, has all the signs of aposrasy?

Is RELIGIOUS LIBERTYA FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT OF MAN?

Popes Pius XI, Pius XII, and John XXIII, opposing totalitariand, at the same time,distancing themselves from the liberalism inherent in the false rights of man, have

proclaimed the principal natural tights of man, calling them fundamental. Among theserights there is the right to freely worship God. What is the exact meaning of this right? Isreligious liberty for all the adherents of all religions within that fundamental right? Canwe say that this right is the result of the harmonious development of the doctrine of theChurch?

1) Successive formulations of the fundamental right to freely worship God

But it [the liberty of conscience] may also be taken to mean that every man in the Statemay follow the Will of God and, from a consciousness of duty and free from everyobstacle, 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 wronga liberty which the Church has always desired and held most dear. (Leo XIII)'

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man as a person possesses rights he holds from God, and which any collectivity mustprotect against denial, suppression or neglect. (Pius XI)

The believer has an absolute right to profess his Faith and live according to its dictates.

Laws which impede this profession and practice of Faith are against natural law. (PiusXI)

Promote the respect of the fundamental rights of the human personthat is, the right tomaintain and develop corporal, intellectual, and moral life, specifically the right to areligious formation and education; the right to worship God in public and in private,including charitable religious action. (Pius XII)

Also among mans rights is that of being able to worship God in accordance with the rightdictates of ones own conscience, and to profess his religion both in private and in public.(JohnXXIII)

The use of the expression mans rights is, in that last encycheal, to be greatly regrettedbecause since its invention that expression always meant the rights of man as absolute subjectof said rights rather than the rights of a creature made to worship, hon'Libertas,p.26, 30.'s Mit Brennender Sorge, March 14, 1937; The Papal En cyclicals 1903-1939,

ed. Sr. Claudia Carlen (McGrath, 1981), p.532, 30. All citations to Mit Brennender Sorgeare to this source.

Ibid, 31. Radio message of December 24, 1942;Documents 1942, p.341.112 Pacem in Terris, April 11, 1963; The Papal En cyclicals 1958-1981, ed. Sr. Claudia

Carlin (McGrath, 1981), p.lO8, 14.or, and serve his Lord and Creator. It is the latter that deserve precisely the appellation ofnatural fundamental rights.

2) Object of the fundamental right of man to the liberty to worship God

a) It is a right that

is natural,but needs to be recognized also as a civil right;

is affirmative (right to honor God by worship) and negative also (withoutconstraints);

issubjective (rights that man receives from God) and objective (right to worshipGod, to charitable religious action, to religious education).

b) The expressions to follow the will of God, believer, to profess ones faith,worship God, to be religious mean

explicitly, a religion, either natural or positive, by which God wants to be honored;

implicitly, the only true positive religion: the Catholic Church, excluding all others.

Actually, as soon as we speak of objective right (specific object of the right inquestion), this right cannot but be morally good or true. That is indeed the teaching of two of

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subjective right and objective right.Let us present two scenarios, to which we will add later a third.

a) First, there is the case of persecuting regimes (communist regimes, for instance) whichseek to destroy all religions without distinction by denying them not only the objective right

to practice freely but also attacking the root itself of the right to worship God, that is, thesubjective right.17 The Church then affirms the fundamental right to worship God inabstracto, that is, the subjective right to the true worship of the true God. Hence the docu-ments we have just quoted.

b) Then there are Christian or even Catholic countries in which the governmentpersecutes especially the Catholic Church, its clergy, its associations, and its members (fascistItaly and especially national-socialist Germany, for instance). In those cases, the Church doesnot hesitate to demand specifically the objective right of the believers, that is, theCatholic souls, both at the supernatural and at the natural level. 118

Ar the naturallevel:

The believer has an absolute right to profess his Faith [abstractly speaking, faith indivine Revelation, but also in this case specifically the Catholic faith] and live accordingto its dictates. Laws which impede this profession and practice of Faith are against naturallaw. (Pius XI 119

Ar thesupernaturallevel:

Le., the subjective right even to believe privately. [Translators note.]

116 In that regard, the reader will read profitably in their entirety the encyclicals

Mit Brennender Sorge andNon Abbiamo Bisogno of Pius XI. [Translators note.]~ Mit Brennender Sorge,p.532, 31.

the sacred and inviolable rights of souls and of the Church; because this matter concernsthe rights of souls to procure for themselves the greatest spiritual work of the Church, thedivinely appointed and so mandatory of this teaching and of this work in that supernaturalorder which is established in the blood of the Redeemer and is necessary and obligatoryfor all of us if we are to share in the divine redemption. It concerns the right of souls soformed to share the treasures of the redemption with other souls, thus participating in theactivities of the Apostolic Hierarchy.2

It was in consideration of this double right of souls that We lately declared Ourselves

happy and proud to wage the good fight for the liberty of consciences. No, indeed, (assomeone, perhaps inadvertently, has represented Us as saying) [We are not in favor of]the liberty of conscience, which is an equivocal expression too often distorted to meanthe absolute independence of conscience and therefore an absurdity in reference to a soul

121created and redeemed by God. (Pius XI)

Let it be noted the care with which Pius XI clarifies possible ambiguities of vocabulary. Itis for the same reason that liberty to worship God must not be confused with liberty ofworships. Likewise, the expression religious liberty, ignored by all the popes prior toVatican II, is to be avoided precisely because of its ambiguity: Which liberty? Which

religion?The two cases a) and b),presented above, exemplify rather well the necessary distinctions

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between subjective rightlobjective right, abstract rightlspecific right (which do not coincideentirely). It is, however, necessary, for the sake of completeness, to present a third case.

c) We have, indeed, to examine also the case of missionary countries in which pagangovernments fight especially the Catholic religion by forbidding her any type of proselytism

(such as India, for example). i22 The Church could then use an argument ad

120 Pius XI had in mind the Catholic Action which had been disbanded under

pressure from the Italian State. [Note from the second French edition. Translators note.]121 Non Abbiamo Bisogno, June 29, 1931; The Papal Encyclicals 1903-1939, ed. Sr.

Claudia Carlen (McGrath, 1981), p.453, 40-4 1. All citations toNon Abbiamo Bisogno areto this source.

122 To which can be added all Muslim countries and Israel. [Translators note.]hominem demanding for her and her missionaries the same common right, that is, theobjective right which the government concedes (wrongly) to other religions. It must be duly

noted, however, that it remains an argument adhominem, from which it will be absurd andimpious to infer that the Church recognizes the principle of an objective, natural, and civilright to liberty of action for all religions without distinction.

i23THE USE OF FORCE IN RELIGIOUSMATTERS IN BIBLICAL HISTORY

The doctrines on religious liberty, from both the 19th and 20th centuries, demandindependence, liberty of action, and, more specifically, liberty from the use of force by any

human power in religious matters.Does biblical history confirm or, to the contrary, oppose this allegation? What doctrinecan we deduce from the Holy Scriptures regarding the use of force in religious matters?

1) The use of force in religious matters in the Old Testament

God enjoins severely His people to remain faithful to the true religion and to avoid theworship of false gods.

To this effect, God promulgated a fundamental law in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter13, in which He commanded the Israelites to reject

false prophets (1-5),

seducers who draw people to other religions (6-1 1), and

towns fallen into idolatry (12-18).

This precept is renewed in chapter 17 verses 2-7.Rigorous chastisements were mandated against the violators of these precepts: pain of the

sword and pain of fire.

23

In other parts of the book, contrainte has been literally translated

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constraint; but in this particular context, the word force is moreaccurate. [Translators note.]All those chastisements are then faithfully applied by all the good judges, the good kings,

and the prophets during all the course of the history of Israel:

Jos. 23:6-8; 24:14-15 Judg. 6:25-26 III Kings 18:40 IV Kings 10:18-31;, 23:5-24 II Par. 15:13; 17:6; 19:3; 23:16-17; 30:14; 34:33 Neh. 9:37; 13:16-18 I Mac. 2:24-25; 9:73 Dan. 14:21, etc.

2) The use of force in religious matters in the New Testament

At the end of the existence of the theocratic state of Israel, the goodness and kindness ofGod our Savior appeared,~~i24Christ, meek, and humble of heart. ,,i25

Nevertheless, Jesus frequently acted decisively and vigorously. He accomplishedmiracles, such as the resurrection of Lazarus,

i26which rendered the Jews inexcusable of their sin. He rebukedvery strongly hypocritical scribes and pharisees who shut the kingdom of heaven againstmen, for you yourselves do not enter

,,i27

in; and those that are going in, you suffer not to enter. Withthe parable of the evil workers of the vineyard,128 and also weepingi29

over Jerusalem while predicting its destruction, Our Lord triedto convince the Jewish people to turn away from infidelityat least if nothing else by thefear of future temporal disasters. Even more, He chased the merchants and their clients fromthe temple, disturbing thus public order.3 Finally, He predicted eternal chastisements forthose who refuse to believe in the spoken word of the missionaries of the Gospel. i3i

24 Tit. 3:4.125 Mt. 11:29.

26Jo. 15:24.127 Mt. 23:13.ss Mt. 21:33-46.129 Lk. 19:44.35Jn. 2:15.~ Mk. 16:16.

The apostle St. Peter rebuked severely Ananias and Saphira for their lie in a religiousmatter, and they received from God the pain of instant death-so that there came great fearupon the whole church, and upon all that heard these things.32 In his second epistle, hescolded strongly the false prophets among the people, calling them fountains withoutwater, and clouds tossed with whirlwinds, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved, and

again the dog is returned to his vomit: and, the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in themire.33

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fulfil what they have promised, and hold what they, at one time, received.

This teaching is reaffirmed with apostolic authority by PiusVI:

Let us examine now the word liberty under another aspec

Religious Liberty Questioned

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