1.Religous
Liberty- In the works of Dr. Art Sippo that you have posted, I
noted one statement that the Second Vatican Council has defined
the details of religious liberty. How can this be when they
appear to be a contradiction to the encyclicals of many popes.
Obviously Vatican II can not be a definitive exposition on
Religious Liberty because it seems to be supporting what was
decreed in encyclicals to be "liberty of perdition".
How are the details of Religious Liberty defined in the Council
if they completely ignore the dangers of religious liberty and
the infallible reasons why past popes have opposed it?
You have fallen
under the sway of some of the Traditionalist folks. Have you read
Michael Davies' book on this? I would be very cautious about the
interpretations of Davies et al. I know Michael. We met when I
was stationed in England 10 years ago and we have spoken at some
of the same conferences for the pro Fide Forum in London. I
respect his research and his books on Archbishop Lefebvre helped
get me back on the right track. On religious liberty, though, I
think his interpretation of previous Papal teaching is very rigid
and not sufficiently nuanced. I recommend to you Fr Brian
Harrison's book "Religious Liberty and Contraception"
which is distributed by Catholics United for the Faith in
Steubenville, OH. This is the best book available on this subject
and shows that there is no conflict between Vatican II and
previous papal teaching on this matter.
Michael Davies
claims that in a Catholic confessional state, false religions are
a constant threat to the Public Good and that public expression
of such religions can therefore be repressed at any time at the
whim of the ruler for any reason or none . His position is that
"Error has no rights." He further states that the
Declaration on Religious Liberty -- Dignitatis Humanae (DH) --
from Vatican Council II (VCII) applied the principle of Public
Order as the basis of the state's tolerance of false religion
thus contradicting previous Papal teaching.
This is not true.
One of the critiques levied against the Catholic position on
religious liberty by Protestants was that the idea that the state
could repress others religions at whim without any need for
specific cause did not present any moral limits or guidelines to
state action in the repression of false religion. If you read
some of the Catholic moral, social, and political works from the
pre-VCII era which deal with the religious liberty question, you
will see this point raised. John Courtney Murray SJ was only one
theologian who raised this issue. Another important theorist who
was concerned about this issue was Bishop Karol Wojtyla from
Cracow, Poland who was on the committee who drafted DH who later
became Pope John Paul II. Basically, they said that while error
has no rights, erroneous people do and there must be a moral
limit on state activities with regard to religious expression.
I have a copy of
an address that Fr Murray made at Notre Dame in 1966 at a
conference at which various experts gave a retrospective to VCII.
His comments about DH are interesting. He said that when the
committee began deliberating on the issue, they realized that the
political situation in the world had changed in the 20th Century
with the rise of totalitarianism. States were becoming
increasingly secular. Repression of ALL religions in the name of
the Public Good was practiced widely by various states
(Communist, Masonic, Fascistic, etc) and so there was a perceived
need to provide new guidance on the question of religious
liberty.
Fr Murray said
that as the committee reviewed the issues, they concluded that it
was not possible to entirely separate the concepts of Public
Order and the Public Good. A good state needs to have some level
of Public Order and that an orderly state nevertheless needs to
be ordered to that which brings about the Public Good. The
committee concluded that the state's actions must be limited by
respect for the dignity of the human person. (This is where
Bishop Wojtyla was most influential with his phenomenological
theory of the acting person.) Thus, the practice of religion
generally contributes to the Public Good since human beings are
by nature religious. Repression of false religion in private or
in public without good cause makes the state both disorderly and
immoral. Hence Public Order is not devoid of moral content and
when DH uses that term it is NOT referring to the same thing that
Michael Davies says it does.
Have you actually
read DH? You should. Please don't take anyone's word for it --
neither Davies' nor mine. Read it for yourself.
DH stated the
following:
"1. A
sense of the dignity of the human person has been impressing
itself more and more deeply on the consciousness of
contemporary man, and the demand is increasingly made that
men should act on their own judgment, enjoying and making use
of a responsible freedom, not driven by coercion but
motivated by a sense of duty. The demand is likewise made
that constitutional limits should be set to the powers of
government, in order that there may be no encroachment on the
rightful freedom of the person and of associations. . ."
"First,
the council professes its belief that God Himself has made
known to mankind the way in which men are to serve Him, and
thus be saved in Christ and come to blessedness. We believe
that this one true religion subsists in the Catholic and
Apostolic Church, to which the Lord Jesus committed the duty
of spreading it abroad among all men. . . On their part, all
men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns
God and His Church, and to embrace the truth they come to
know, and to hold fast to it.
This Vatican
Council likewise professes its belief that it is upon the
human conscience that these obligations fall and exert their
binding force. The truth cannot impose itself except by
virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the
mind at once quietly and with power.
Religious
freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill
their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from
coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched
traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and
societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church
of Christ.
Over and above all
this, the council intends to develop the doctrine of recent popes
on the inviolable rights of the human person and the
constitutional order of society.
2. This
Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to
religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be
immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social
groups and of any 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, whether alone or in
association with others, WITHIN DUE LIMITS.
The council
further declares that the right to religious freedom has its
foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this
dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by
reason itself. This right of the human person to religious
freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby
society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right. .
."
"Furthermore,
society has the right to defend itself against possible
abuses committed on the pretext of freedom of religion. It is
the special duty of government to provide this protection.
However, government is not to act in an arbitrary fashion or
in an unfair spirit of partisanship. Its action is to be
controlled by juridical norms which are in conformity with
the OBJECTIVE MORAL ORDER. These norms arise out of the need
for the effective safeguard of the rights of all citizens and
for the peaceful settlement of conflicts of rights, also out
of the need for an adequate care of genuine public peace,
which comes about when men live together in good order and in
true justice, and finally out of the need for a PROPER
GUARDIANSHIP OF PUBLIC MORALITY."
In essence, DH is
the first Magisterial document to DEFINE the meaning of the
concept of Public Order for the whole Church. It is definitive,
infallible, and irreformable. Despite what some earlier Popes may
have meant by the term "Public Order", DH uses it to
include the objective moral order so that a rigid distinction
between Public Order and the Public Good can no longer be
maintained by Catholics.
The simple ideas
of orderliness and goodness in society used by previous Popes are
appropriately separate in a focused discussion but in the real
world the two cannot be separated in any meaningful way. That is
the teaching of VCII.
a. If the Holy
Spirit teaches the truth, one who rejects the truth is logically
rejecting the Holy Spirit. Can one really be saved if they die in
opposition to the Holy Spirit. This does not really mean that all
non-Catholics are damned. It just means that those who die
professing a faith with beliefs against the Catholic faith (i.e.
those who know of Christ's life but reject that he was God, those
who have multiple wives, those who have twisted the Bible, those
who deny monotheism; obviously those who believe in such things
are not accepting the Holy Spirit) Are these statements not in
accordance with Catholic faith?
I would be more
cautious. The issue is not whether non-Catholics reject the truth
but whether they do so in a morally culpable manner. If someone
honestly does not believe that God exists, God MAY be gracious
enough to forgive him and save him anyway IF he tries to act in
what he thinks is a morally upright manner. The question here is
not OBJECTIVE truth but SUBJECTIVE understanding. Someone who is
a practicing Christian can be damned for no other reason than
that they have refused to join the Catholic Church IF they know
they ought to do so. Someone who has been an anti-religious
zealot MAY be saved if they are sincere in their error. An honest
man who makes an honest mistake is still an honest man.
b. Jesus states
"He who is not with me is against me", so how can
anyone who is against Jesus and his teachings (Protestants are
opposed to the true teachings of God) be saved if he is against
God?
Your scripture
quote is from Matthew 12: 30 and Luke 11: 23.
Jesus also
said this in Mark 9: 38-42 -
38 John said
to him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in
your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not
following us."39 But Jesus said, "Do not stop him;
for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able
soon afterward to speak evil of me.40 Whoever is not against
us is for us.41 For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup
of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by
no means lose his reward.42 "But any of you who puts a
stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe
in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were
hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea."
I am afraid that
Jesus was very much less "denominational" than we are.
While he did found the Catholic Church to be the ordinary means
of salvation for all mankind, he was generous enough to give
those outside of his Church community a break. He did not rule
out their chance for salvation and scolded the Apostles for being
too narrow minded.
c. I would like to
note that I am pretty much opposed to the teachings of Fr.
Feeney. I think that those who know not of Christ, but worship
God in an unknowing way, without opposing truth and the Holy
Spirit, can be saved.
Don't sell Fr
Feeney too short. He was right that we take it for granted that
those outside the Church who are "good people" will be
saved because of their ignorance. In some cases we act as if it
is harder for us to be saved because we know too much and are
placed under too many obligations. In fact, those outside of the
Catholic Church have a much harder time of it. They are
essentially living a lie and do not have the benefit of the
Sacraments and the Magisterium of the Church to guide them in the
truth. Fr Feeney had properly diagnosed a serious problem in our
time. Unfortunately, his solution was to the problem was to
oppose that leniency which the Magisterium had always extended to
non-Catholics. You can't be more Catholic than the Pope!
It is possible to
believe in "extra ecclesiam nulla salus" without being
a Feeneyite. I hold to such a view and I think you do too. In
this I think we are in agreement.
I have only read
various quotes from [DH]. Have you read "Quanta Cura"?
Yes, and it
doesn't deal with the same problems. QC clearly says that the
right to religious freedom can not be with out any moral limit.
DH says the same thing. QC is opposing those movements which
would say that the revelation of God in Christ via the Catholic
Church is irrelevant to society. DH says that it is on the BASIS
of this revelation that moral limits must be placed on state
activity vis a vis religion. I don't see any conflict. Can you
provide some specific examples from the text of QC of what is
troubling you?
I do think that
listening to a protestant preacher can put large doubts in ones
mind, and unless they understand their faith, (little understood
today) these doubts could be harmful.
In a Catholic
confessional state, false religious proselytizing should be
forbidden in public. But what about a public declaration of faith
in Jesus as the incarnate Son of God? Or of the inspiration of
Scripture? Or of religious opposition to abortion? Would society
be more edified by repression of such thing or by cauthious
toleration of them? Fr Harrison make the point in his book that
the more narrow view of the Traditionalists on religous liberty
would actually praise Stalin for his repression of the false
religion of Russian orthodoxy for performing an objectively good
moral act. I think you must agree that there is a serious problem
with such a view.
I understand what
you are saying, but I do not understand what you mean. Where is
the logical flaw:
1. One can not be
saved on his own. He must have the help of the Holy Spirit. This
was defined, I think, by the council of Orange.2. a. The holy
spirit does not teach a lie. b. Therefore, the holy spirit does
not inspire anyone to worship a false god or to believe that the
Eucharist is only symbolic.3. Connecting 1 and 2, how can people
who take an active role in these activities be saved?
The flaw is in
your idea that we must have a conscious mental assent to true
propositions in order to be saved. The theological virtue of
faith is not merely an intellectual assent to propositions on
which we can be tested on a multiple choice exam. It is a
commitment to God and to what we believe to be true about him to
the best of our ability. Faith includes an intellectual element
but also affective and volitional components as well. Sometimes
the Holy Spirit leads us by our minds. Sometimes, he leads us by
our hearts. Sometimes he leads us by experience. That means that
some people's hearts may be in the right place although they are
intellectually muddled. How many people in the congregation of
any solid Catholic parish know all there is to know about
Catholic dogmatic theology? I am fairly well read in such matters
and I still keep running into issues where I need to modify my
views in some esoteric area of theology to bring them in line
with defined dogma. Has the Holy Spirit failed with all of us, or
is he just not quite finished with us yet? Give him time. Maybe
someone will be invincibly ignorant of the truth here on earth.
That is why purgatory exists: to complete the work of the Holy
Spirit which was started during our lifetime.
We are not saved
by knowing the truth. We are saved by God's graciousness. It is
his action, not our knowing that saves us. As long as people do
not KNOWINGLY place obstacles between themselves and the will of
God, they are acting in good faith and they MAY be excused for
their errors.
I think most
people are sincere. If all that is required is sincerity, then
what about those who are sincere in thinking that sin hardly
exists? What about those who think salvation is universal. If
they honestly think that what they do in life can not cause them
to loose salvation, then can what they do in life cause them to
loose it? Just because that is what they believe?
I would submit
that most people who do not profess faith in God are culpable for
the mortal sin of unbelief. St Paul implies this is Romans
1:17ff. There may be SOME who honestly don't know God or realize
their obligations before him, but these are rare. Nevertheless we
cannot condemn any man to perdition. Only God can do that. What
the Church teaches in such matters is that we can HOPE for the
POSSIBILITY of the salvation of ANYONE regardless of what they
have professed in public.
