Article 7
“The right to religious freedom is exercised in human society; hence its exercise is subject to certain regulatory norms.”
Deep into the document, the council fathers now indicate the existence of “regulatory norms” for religious freedom, adding to the prior “due limits” and “just public order.”
“In the use of all freedoms the moral principle of personal and social responsibility is to be observed.”
This is apparently a summary form of the regulatory norms. An educated Catholic layperson would have some idea what “personal and social responsibility” means, but the norms are so general that their application here is unclear. This sentence, for example, refers to “the use of all freedoms,” not specifying how religious freedom, which the council fathers wanted to develop, fits together with the remaining freedoms, especially the freedom of the Church.
Are these norms, for example, dependent on the continuing freedom of the Church, such that religious freedom gives way whenever the freedom of the Church herself is threatened? Since the council fathers set out to develop the Church’s teaching on religious freedom, such clarifications are critical. And yet the fathers do not provide them.
“In the exercise of their rights, individual men and social groups are bound by the moral law to have respect both for the rights of others and for their own duties toward others and for the common welfare of all.”
An apparent elaboration of the regulatory norms. The key words, “rights,” “moral law,” “duties,” and “common welfare” remain undefined.
“Men are to deal with their fellows in justice and civility.”
The same comment applies to this sentence. Notions of “justice” and “civility” vary over time and from place to place, and yet the council fathers do not define terms. May they have thought they could dispense with definitions because they were writing for a particular group of people? But if so, who were those people? The lesser clergy? The educated Catholic laity? Non-Catholics? So-called modern man? All sorts have presumed to read and interpret Dignitatis humanae, and it was foreseeable they would do so. If the council fathers intended to teach, their failure to specify their meaning, or at least to specify their intended audience, was fatal to good communication.
“Furthermore, society has the right to defend itself against possible abuses committed on the pretext of freedom of religion.”
One would like to know how government can distinguish freedom of religion from its pretextual use. The council fathers asserted in article 2, “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.” If immunity continues to exist even in those who do not seek the truth and adhere to it, then their religious freedom must also continue to exist. And if their religious freedom continues to exist, how could its exercise be a “pretext”?
For example, say an inmate demands steak dinner every night on the basis his religion requires such dining. Could the state say no? Even if the inmate is acting in bad faith, he is simply failing to live up to his obligation to seek the truth and adhere to it. Under the council fathers’ standard, the inmate apparently still enjoys immunity. The immunity would presumably protect the inmate from denial of religious liberty as a mere pretext just as effectively as it would protect him from denial on any other basis.
There is mention of “abuses,” yes, but as formulated the abuse assumes the pretext. Absent a pretext, one retains freedom, even if the action in question can be characterized as an abuse. Logically considered, the point is inescapable. If error has rights, error cannot provide the basis for loss of rights.
“It is the special duty of government to provide this protection.”
Questions already raised in article 6 apply here. How can government provide protection to religious freedom if it lacks jurisdiction over religion? How could it otherwise know, as just discussed, true freedom of religion from a mere pretext? Should it listen to a religious authority on this point? If so, to what authority? Would any authority aside from the Catholic Church fulfill that role, in the eyes of the council fathers? Let’s see if the fathers are more specific in what’s to come.
“However, government is not to act in an arbitrary fashion or in an unfair spirit of partisanship.”
Not specific.
“Its action is to be controlled by juridical norms which are in conformity with the objective moral order.”
Not specific, albeit with reference to the “objective moral order,” which sounds like Catholicism.
“These norms arise out of the need for the effective safeguard of the rights of all citizens and for the peaceful settlement 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.”
Not specific, although it is once again difficult to believe the council fathers were thinking of anything apart from Catholicism. But it is a funny sort of Catholicism. If the True Faith grants rights to error, as the document seems to do in places, the fathers could not have been confident a flourishing social order would be reliably attained. To hold otherwise would require one to believe error produces “genuine public peace,” “good order,” “true justice,” and a “proper guardianship of public morality.” An educated Catholic layperson could think such a belief inconsistent with Catholicism.[1]
“These matters constitute the basic component of the common welfare; they are what is meant by public order.”
A sentence which does something to define “public order,” long after the phrase was first used in article 2. This is the last of four such uses, two as “public order” and two as “just public order.” If the “just” adds something to the phrase, the following comments are only strengthened.
As set out before, “public order” could be read to mean Catholicism. If so, the adjectives of the prior two sentences of article 7 make sense: “effective safeguard,” “peaceful settlement,” “adequate care,” “genuine public peace, “good order, “true justice, “proper guardianship,” and “common welfare” (emphasis added). So the questions once again are: Did the council fathers think anything other than Catholicism could do all this? If not, what did the council fathers mean by the sentence where “public order” first appeared: “[T]he right to this immunity [from coercion in religion] continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it and the exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed”? Did the council father mean that these adjectives and more besides are found even among those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it? If so, an educated Catholic layperson could consider the teaching unaccountably optimistic.
“For the rest, the usages of society are to be the usages of freedom in their full range: that is, the freedom of man is to be respected as far as possible and is not to be curtailed except when and insofar as necessary.”
A sentence both ambitious and vague. It purports to establish a governing philosophy, “the usages of freedom in their full range,” without specifying the range. Calls to respect the freedom of man “as far as possible,” and not to curtail that freedom “except when and insofar as necessary,” add nothing to the specification. The council fathers only say there are limits, a point no society would dispute.
Conclusion to article 7
Unless these passages of Dignitatis humanae, like many others, are read as a cryptic defense of Catholic government, virtually any society could endorse this article. Religious freedom is good but there are limits, the council fathers repeat without clarifying either the freedom or the limits. The fathers do eject anarchy, but that is not really teaching. No one could think the Catholic Church believes in anarchy.
[1] “In the fullness of time, God the Father sent his Son as the Redeemer and Savior of mankind, fallen into sin, thus calling all into his Church and, through the work of the Holy Spirit, making them adopted children and heirs of his eternal happiness.” Compendium of the Catechism of the Church, ¶1, retrieved on December 10, 2020, from: http://www.vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html.