Religious liberty versus the Church`s condemnation of indifferentism and religious relativism
The post-conciliar Church has long been aware of the apparent contradiction between the Vatican II teaching on Religious Liberty and the Church`s previous condemnations of indifferentism and relativism, in fact ever since its promulgation by the Vatican II declaration on religious liberty, Dignitatis humanae. It has consequently taken great pains in its attempt to explain how it is that religious liberty is not the same thing as indifferentism and relativism with respect to the truth, and it does so by arguing that the right to religious liberty is only a negative right, that is the right of not being impeded in the public or private exercise of worship, and that this right is based upon the dignity of the human person, and not on the truth or falsehood of his religious beliefs.
This position is expressed most explicitly by a Doctrinal Note of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith of November 24, 2002, signed by the then Cardinal Ratzinger. It stated:
“The right to freedom of conscience and, in a special way, to religious freedom, taught in the declaration Dignitatis Humanae of the Second Vatican Council, is based on the ontological dignity of the human person and not on a non-existent equality among religions or cultural systems of human creation. Reflecting on this question, Paul VI taught that `in no way does the Council base this right to religious freedom on the fact that all religions and all teaching, including those that are erroneous, would have more or less equal value; it is based rather on the dignity of the human person, which demands that he not be subjected to external limitations which tend to constrain the conscience in its search for the true religion or in adhering to it`. The teaching on freedom of conscience and on religious freedom does not therefore contradict the condemnation of indifferentism and religious relativism by Catholic doctrine; on the contrary, it is fully in accord with it.” (§8).
DIGNITATIS HUMANAE
It is certainly true that the Vatican II document on Religious Liberty did indeed base its declaration on the dignity of the human person: “The Council further declares that the right to religious freedom is based on the very dignity of the human person”. (§2). It is also true that the Council states that religious liberty is a negative right or “freedom from coercion” and that it maintains that this is not in contradiction with Tradition, for it “leaves intact the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies towards the true religion” (§1).
Consequently, the non-contradiction with the Church`s traditional teaching is not a new issue at all. The question remains whether these are just words to encourage the faithful to accept the novelty of this new teaching, or whether there truly is compatibility. The answer to this starts to become clearer as one reads through the consequences of religious liberty, as described in Dignitatis humanae. This right supposedly exists even in those who do not care about the truth or who are manifestly in error: “The right to this immunity continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it” (§2) Furthermore it is a right that must be accorded to every false religion: “The freedom or immunity from coercion in religious matters which is the right of individuals must also be accorded to men when they act in community…They must be allowed to honor the supreme Godhead with public worship, help their members to practice their religion and strengthen them with religious instruction…” (§4).
It is very difficult to understand how this could not be regarded as indifferentism, placing all religions on the same level, whether they be true or false, and relativism, namely that the truth is relative to the individual believer. Otherwise, how could a right be conceded to those who are manifestly in error? It is true that it does not affirm that all religions are equal, but in stating that all religions have rights, the words of Pope Gregory XVI could certainly applied to it: “From this most rotten source of indifferentism flows that absurd and erroneous opinion, or rather insanity, that liberty of conscience must be claimed and defended for anyone.” (Mirari vos), just to mention one of the many Papal condemnations of indifferentism.
TWO SOPHISMS
But how can Benedict XVI say that there is no contradiction between a religious liberty based upon human dignity and the Church`s condemnation of indifferentism? There has to be an error of logic somewhere, a sophism, in the argument in favor of religious liberty.
It was Archbishop Lefebvre who, in his book Religious Liberty Questioned, pp. 31-36, unmasked this sophism. The error lies in confusing man`s ontological dignity with his moral or operative dignity, and consequently in affirming that because man has by his nature ontological dignity, he has the right to act, that is, to use his operative dignity, however he likes.
Man`s ontological dignity derives from his nature, as having intellect and free will, and the capability of knowing and loving God, and being in this way open to the divine. This dignity is retained by every man, regardless of his false ideas or false religion or of even how badly he acts. The error here is that his actions receive their dignity not from his nature as a free being, that is his ontological dignity, but from their moral object.
In our discussion of religious liberty we are speaking about man’s operative dignity, namely the dignity of his actions, and consequently about whether or not he should have the right to act in such a way. This dignity depends upon the goodness or evil of his actions, and ultimately upon their objective conformity with the divine law and with truth. To deny this is to say that good is evil and evil is good just because a man is free. This is precisely the subjectivism and relativism that the above-mentioned Doctrinal Note pretends that religious liberty stays clear of, but which in fact it cannot avoid. It is for this reason that the principle of freedom of conscience or religious liberty was condemned in the past, whereas the right of the Catholic to freedom of religion and to follow his correctly formed conscience has always been vehemently defended by the Church, because it is objectively right. It really has nothing at all to do with the ontological dignity of man, but everything to do with the morality of his actions.
Otherwise put, to make freedom of religious expression depend upon man`s ontological dignity is to affirm that because man is free, then everything he chooses freely to do is good, which is manifestly and obviously false, and even absurd. The morality of human actions would thus not depend upon what is done, but simply on the fact that it is done by a free person. As Archbishop Lefebvre points out: “Something evil cannot be the object of any right. Therefore, it must be affirmed that immunity from coercion for adherents of false religions cannot be the object of a right — that is to say, it is not an objective right” (Op. cit. p.100).
This loss of operative dignity as a consequence of error and vice is described by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical on the Christian Constitution of States (Immortale Dei), which states: “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 an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth, may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law” (In The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII, p. 124). This means that there can be no right to freedom when one departs from virtue and truth.
Here is Archbishop Lefebvre`s conclusion: *“When…man cleaves to error or moral evil, he loses his operative dignity, which therefore cannot be the basis for anything at all…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 religion]{.underline} which is thus established, and not, in any case, a right to wrong religions or to all religions without distinction” (*Ib. p.33)
The other sophism that is used, is to affirm that religious liberty is only a negative right, namely the right not to be impeded from practicing one’s own religion, but that it does not mean that there is a positive right to practice false religions. But, the negative right not to be impeded is logically inseparable from the positive right to embrace these false religions. But the positive right to embrace a false religion cannot correspond to truth, and consequently cannot exist. Archbishop Lefebvre expresses this very clearly by saying that to affirm such a natural right not to be impeded from error and vice would be, first of all, absurd, for the negative right to err is abhorrent to common sense. Secondly, it would be against sane reason, for nothing evil can be the object of a right. Thirdly, it would be condemned by the Church`s Magisterium, for “that which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has no right to exist, to be spread or to be promoted”. (Ib. p. 17 & 18).
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY = TOLERANCE?
This last quote is taken from Pope Pius XII`s discourse on Tolerance of December 6, 1953, which immediately adds to this first principle a second one, namely that “failure to impede this [false religions] with civil laws and coercive measures can nevertheless be justified in the interests of a higher and more general good” (In Michael Davies, The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty, p. 311-312). Here is summarized the Catholic teaching on tolerance, namely that error has no right to be recognized, nor even a right to freedom from coercion, but that for reasons of prudence, governments and authorities can and sometimes should allow this recognition and freedom from coercion for the peace and good-functioning of society. Thus it can clearly be seen that the right to religious liberty taught by Vatican II is something quite different from religious tolerance, as previously taught. This was admitted by Pope Benedict XVI in his post-Synodal Exhortation of September 14, 2012 on the Church in the Middle East, in which he states: “There is a need to move beyond tolerance to religious freedom” (§27), and also in his recollection for the 50^th^ anniversary of Vatican II: “With the developments in philosophical thought and in ways of understanding the modern State, the doctrine of tolerance, as worked out in detail by Pius XII, no longer seemed sufficient”. (www.zenit.org, Oct. 12, 2012).
EXPLANATION OF NON-CONTRADICTION
Benedict XVI also has some interesting observations on how it seems that religious freedom (not tolerance) promotes subjectivism and indifferentism, and how this claim can be refuted. In his above-mentioned discourse he admits that “it could seem as if the modern version of religious freedom presupposed the inaccessibility of the truth to man and so, perforce, sifted religion into the sphere of the subjective”. Moreover, in the post-synodal exhortation he affirmed that the passage from tolerance to religious liberty “does not open the door to relativism, as some would maintain” (Ib.). Why not? He provides a profoundly philosophical explanation: “The truth cannot unfold except in an otherness open to God, who wishes to reveal his own otherness in and through my human brothers and sisters. Hence it is not fitting to state in an exclusive way: `I possess the truth`. [The truth is not possessed by anyone]{.underline}; it is always a gift which calls us to undertake a journey of ever closer assimilation to truth. Truth can only be known and experienced in freedom; for this reason we cannot impose truth on anyone; truth is disclosed in an encounter of love.” (Ib. §27).
To translate what this means, we can say that according to this theory, truth is no longer the conformity of the intellect with exterior reality, but rather the fruit of acts of will, by which a man experiences love, freedom and communication with his fellow man. Truth is a relationship with others and through them to God. It is necessarily a dialogue, which is why no man can possess it in himself. If this is not subjectivism, then what is? Is this not the same thing as to state that truth is all relative to oneself and that it depends upon one`s relationship with one`s fellow men? Consequently the argument of Benedict XVI to affirm that religious liberty does not open up to subjectivism is to say that truth is by its very nature subjective. His answer to the argument that religious liberty introduces indifferentism is that there is no truth, even doctrinal, without sharing and communicating with others who have a different perception of the truth. The absurdity of such an argument is evident, since it presumes the necessity of subjectivism and practical indifferentism in the modern world, denying the objective order to the First Truth, God Himself.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.