| Title: Affirming Religious Freedom :
How Vatican Council II Developed the Church's Teaching To Meet Today's Needs Author: Kenneth D. Whitehead
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Vatican II adopted an approach to religious liberty based on affirming the human dignity of the religious believer. This new emphasis was reflected in the title of its declaration on religious freedom Dignitatis Humanae which means "On Human Dignity." In it the Church, speaking through the Council, teaches that "the human person has a right to religious freedom." What is entailed by this right is "that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of every human power in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, within due limits." This book goes into detail regarding the implications of this new emphais on what the Church has traditionally held and taught, but which has not always been well understood. |
Kenneth D. Whitehead is a former career Foreign Service Officer who for some ten years was stationed in American embassies in Rome, the Middle East, and North Africa. He later served as President Ronald Reagan's Assistant Secretary of Education for Postsecondary Education. For eight years he was Executive Vice President of Catholics United for the Faith. Since retiring, he works as a writer, lecturer, editor and translator in Falls Church, Virginia. He is the author of hundreds of articles, and of some eight books, most recently, The New Ecumenism: How the Catholic Church after Vatican II Took Over the Leadership of the World Ecumenical Movement (ST PAULS/Alba House, 2009), and One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: The Early Church Was the Catholic Church (Ignatius Press, 2000). With James Likoudis, he is the co-author of a study of the "changes" in the liturgy following the Second Vatican Council, The Pope, the Council, and the Mass (25th Anniversary Revised Edition: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2006). Mr. Whitehead was educated at the University of Utah and the University of Paris and holds an honorary degree as a Doctor of Christian Letters from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, and the Review of Metaphysics. Mr. Whitehead is married to the former Margaret O'Donohue, a professional religious educator, and they are the parents of four grown sons.
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Religious freedom is one of man's most important rights. The Second Vatican Council in the 1960's debated the issue and published its Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, in 1965. The first two words of the declaration give the basic reason for the right to religious freedom -- the dignity of the human person. This is a right that has been massively violated by communist, fascist and liberal governments since at least the time of the French Revolution.
The right to religious freedom is a natural right based on natural law. Dignitatis Humanae says that this right is supported both by reason and by revelation. The key to understanding the position of the Council is to understand the reason for human dignity. Man has human dignity because he was created by God with intellect and free will, and therefore is immortal and has an immortal destiny as a child of God and heir of heaven.
The main threat to religious freedom is the modern state, which tends to assume more and more control over the lives of its citizens. In the time of the Romans religion and state were so closely identified with each other that if one refused to offer incense to the pagan gods of Rome he was automatically an enemy of the state. The modern secular state tends to make itself the absolute in the world and does not wish to recognize natural rights or God-given rights that transcend the state and so are independent of the state.
In this short book on the Vatican II declaration, Whitehead explains the content of the document and the reasons for it. One of the main reasons for it was the serious violations of religious freedom under the communists and Nazis in the first part of the twentieth century.
Whitehead explains that religious freedom means that every person should be free from coercion in the matter of religion. In other words, no one should be forced to embrace a particular religion, and those who practice religion should not be hindered within due limits. And the basis of this freedom is the dignity of the human person. The book contains six short chapters that explain what the Council actually decided, why it said what it said, a description of the American input on the document and a brief summary of the Declaration on Religious Freedom. In an appendix the actual document -- which is rather short -- is printed so the reader can easily consult it.
In the first section of Dignitatis Humanae, the Council says that it intends "to develop the doctrine of recent popes on the inviolable rights of the human person and the constitutional order of society." Whitehead points out that the Declaration restricts itself to just the matter of religious freedom and the obligation of states to recognize it constitutionally. He says further that the Declaration is not a full treatment of the relations between Church and state.
Popes in the past, like PiusIX and Leo XIII, have said some strong things that seem to contradict the right to religious freedom. Whitehead deals with that and shows that the present Declaration is speaking about religious freedom from a different point of view so that there is no contradiction between what Vatican II says and what previous popes had said. It is a matter here of a development of doctrine.
For those interested in the question, this little book is a help in understanding what the Council did and why it is important in the contemporary world. --Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J. in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, March 2011.
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