Dignitatis Humanae and the Development of Doctrine

by Kevin L. Flannery, S.J.

Dignitatis humanae, officially approved during a public session of the Second Vatican Council on December 7, 1965, is certainly one of the three or four most important documents of the Council. Its importance, however, to an extent not true of other Council documents, overflows the limits of its own subject matter. Officially entitled, Declaration on religious liberty: On the right of the person and communities to social and civil liberty in matters religious, it deals primarily with the proper relationship between governments and religions—including the Church. But the document generated animated discussion both before and after its promulgation for what it implies (or seems to imply) about the development of doctrine. Fr. Charles Curran, for instance, during a press conference in 1986, defended his dissent from Humanae vitae by arguing that the Church by means of Dignitatis humanae had officially changed its teaching on religious liberty; it was not impossible, therefore, he argued, that she would do the same with respect to contraception [Origins, March 27, 1986]. Such arguments are not unfamiliar in the contemporary Church.

Before getting into this particular issue, it will help to say something about the document more generally and to give a summary of its contents. The intention of the Council Fathers was to produce a pastoral as opposed to a doctrinal document. Nonetheless, at the beginning of paragraph 2, we find some fairly solemn language: “This Vatican Council declares [declarat] that the human person has a right to religious liberty. This liberty means that all men are to be immune from coercion....” And, a couple of lines later: “The Council further declares that the right to religious liberty 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 latter phrase about “the revealed word of God,” as well as the general tone of these remarks, might seem to put the right to religious liberty at least within the so-called “secondary object of infallibility,” i.e., among the truths so closely connected to the Faith that their absence or denial would impede the Church’s mission [Ad tuendam fidem §§3-4]; but the structure of the document itself shows that the Council Fathers regarded the argument “by reason itself” to enjoy a certain precedence. The fourteen paragraphs of the document following the introduction are divided into two parts. The first (paragraphs 2-8) bears the title, “The general principle of religious liberty”; the second (9-15) the title, “Religious liberty in the light of Revelation.” At the beginning of the latter [DH 9], the Council Fathers affirm that religious liberty (i.e., the liberty dealt with especially in the first part) has its roots in revelation in so far as revelation affirms the essential dignity of man; but they do not speak of any closer or necessary relationship.

Part I of Dignitatis humanae leads with a rather modern sounding natural law principle: “All men, because they are persons — that is, equipped with reason and free will and therefore also endowed with personal responsibility — are impelled by their own nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth” [DH 2]. The Council also invokes the principle of the supremacy of conscience (“which man is required to follow faithfully in all his activity”) and says that religious acts “transcend the terrestrial and temporal order of things” and therefore they transcend also “civil power,” whose purpose is to care for the “temporal common good” [DH 3]. Paragraphs 4 and 5 say that religious liberty pertains not just to individuals but also to groups, including not only religious organizations but also families who have the right to educate children in accordance with their religious beliefs. Paragraph 6 takes up the issue of “the common good,” which requires that no citizens and religious communities be discriminated against, although in certain circumstances, it says, one religious community may rightly be given “special civil recognition.” Paragraph 7 takes up the thorny issue of legitimate limitations on religious liberty, establishing the principle that such limitations are legitimate only for the preservation of “public order” (which is connected to the common good). Paragraph 8 acknowledges that many abuses are committed in the name of liberty (“not a few . . . reject all submission [subiectionem] and despise due obedience [debitam oboedientiam]”) and calls on educators especially to instill a spirit of responsibility and of love for “genuine liberty.”

Part II introduces, as I have said, the issue of divinely revealed truth, adding at the end of paragraph 9 that “religious liberty in society is fully consistent [plene est . . . congrua] with the liberty of the act of Christian Faith.” This phrasing is important, for it implies that the two “liberties” are quite distinct (although connected). The document then proceeds to show how Christ and his Apostles respected the liberty of the act of Christian Faith [DH 10-11]; it also says that the importance of this liberty has been the constant teaching of the Church. “Over the course of time,” it says, “the Church has kept safe and handed on the doctrine received from the Master and the apostles” [DH 12]. In paragraph 13 we find the very strong affirmation, accompanied by a reference to Leo XIII’s letter Officio sanctissimo, that, among the things contributing to the good of the Church and “everywhere and always to be preserved and defended from every injury, this one most certainly is most preeminent [praestantissimum]: that the Church enjoys as much liberty of action as its care for the salvation of men requires” [DH 13; see also ASS 20 (1888), p.269]. One can deduce from this principle what Leo himself deduced: i.e., that, if the mission of the Church is promoted by a very close relationship between Church and government whereby the Church is awarded a special juridical status, this is to be embraced. The same paragraph of Dignitatis humanae, again following Officio sanctissimo [ASS 20 (1888), p. 269], ties this liberty to the “sacred liberty” won for the Church by Christ on the cross. Paragraph 14 says that in forming their consciences Christians “must attend diligently to the sacred and certain doctrine of the Church.” The document concludes [DH 15] by calling on all nations to respect religious liberty.

So then, as mentioned above, one often encounters the argument that Dignitatis humanae contains a development of doctrine. There is language in the document to support this thesis. In paragraph 1, for instance, after what appears to be a proleptic reference to the Leo XIII material in paragraph 13 (“[the Council] leaves intact traditional Catholic doctrine about the moral duty of individuals and societies with respect to the true religion and unique Church of Christ” [DH 1]), the Council Fathers says that in the document they intend to “develop (evolvere) the teaching of more recent popes regarding the inviolable rights of the human person and the juridical order of society.”

What teaching is meant here? The footnotes to the document contain references to the writings of Leo XIII, Pius XI, Pius XII and John XXIII; but, when the argument is made for development of doctrine, the most frequently cited text is Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors, especially the condemned propositions, numbers 77 and 78: “In our day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion be regarded as the only religion of a state, all other forms of worship being excluded. Hence it has been wisely decreed by law, in certain countries deemed Catholic, that persons immigrating there should be allowed the public exercise of their own peculiar worship” [D 2977-2978; see also Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei, ASS 18 (1885), p.163].

It is to be noted first of all that, since the condemned propositions treat of what was “expedient” at the time, so also do their contradictories; so it could well be that in our day (more than a century later) it might not be expedient for the Catholic religion to be the established religion of a land without this contradicting Pius IX’s condemnations. Still, it is apparent that Pius IX (along with some other later popes) was generally in favor of the official establishment of the Catholic Church to the exclusion of other religions or religious practices. But this does not contradict Dignitatis humanae. As we have already seen, the Council Fathers acknowledge in paragraph 6 that, in certain circumstances, one religious community may rightly be given special recognition; they acknowledge also, in paragraph 7, that some religious practices may be prohibited. It is probably true that it would be inexpedient today in whatever country to establish the Catholic religion and to ban all other religious practice. But can we also say, even today, that it is expedient that every religious practice be permitted?

Another possible locus of doctrinal development would be the traditional idea that “error has no rights.” This theme finds expression in the teaching of Leo XIII, who said that what some call “liberty of worship . . . is not liberty at all but the depravation of liberty and the servitude of a soul abandoned to sin” [Acta Leonis XIII 8, pp. 229-30],” as well as in the teaching of Pius XII, who in 1953 said that “that which does not correspond to the truth and to the moral norm has objectively no right either of existence or of self-propagation or of action” [AAS 45 (1953), p.799]. Is not this position contradicted by such remarks in Dignitatis humanae as: “this right of the human person to religious liberty should be recognized in the juridical order of society in such a way that a civil right might result” and “the right to this immunity [from coercion both “psychological” and “external”] is preserved even in those who do not satisfy their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it” [DH 2]? Not necessarily, for the right at issue here is a different type of right from that spoken of in the second part of the document, where the right of the Church to religious liberty is at issue. That liberty, as we have seen, is a positive right, deriving from Christ’s death on the cross. It concerns not just the “bare act of faith” but also the content of the Catholic Faith. The religious liberty of the first part is about giving all people the freedom to make an act of faith. They are morally obliged to make this act in favor of the Catholic Church to the extent that they understand the truth (“the truth is firmly to be embraced by a personal act of assent” [DH 3]), although this obligation is not to be — indeed, it cannot be — imposed upon them.

Admittedly, it is difficult to grasp how the remarks just quoted from paragraph 2 do not effectively recognize a “right to error.” But there is determinative evidence that, when they voted in favor of the document, the Council Fathers did not think that they were recognizing such a right. Since Dignitatis humanae began its existence as a part of the “Decree on Ecumenism,” the progress of the document through the Council was in the hands of the Secretariat for Christian Unity, whose official relator was Bishop Emil De Smedt of Bruges. On September 17, 1965, Cardinals Ruffini, Siri, Florit and Ottaviani proposed some changes [modi] to the document as it then stood: “The particular right of the Church to diffuse the truth that it alone possesses should be expounded”; “truth and falsehood cannot have the same right of diffusion.” De Smedt’s response to these proposals, made known to the Council Fathers before they voted, was as follows:

All these things, as far as the scope of the Declaration permits, are sufficiently put forward in the text. See paragraphs 1, 10, 13 and 14. Moreover, it is to be observed that the approved text affirms the right whose object is immunity from coercion not the content of any religion. Such an immunity is required by the very dignity of the person. Nowhere is there affirmed nor would it be right to affirm (what is evident) the granting of a right to diffuse error. If persons diffuse error, this is not the exercise of a right but its abuse. This abuse can and ought to be impeded if it gravely damages public order, as is affirmed several times in the text and explained in paragraph 7. If these fundamental elements are kept in view, many of the proposals [molti modi proposti] appear unacceptable. Because if the right so understood is denied, then a proposal [modus] goes contrary to the substance of the text approved by the Council Fathers and therefore cannot be admitted” [Acta synodalia, vol.4, part 6, p.725].

There could be no clearer, nor more official, statement of how Dignitatis humanae is to be understood with respect to the so-called “right to error.” Bishop De Smedt is virtually quoting Pius XII’s 1953 remarks. This becomes even more apparent when one takes note of the fact that Pius, just after saying that error “has objectively no right either of existence or of self-propagation or of action” (as quoted above), adds that “not to impede [such error] by means of state laws and coercive measures can nonetheless be justified in the interest of a superior and more extensive good” [AAS 45 (1953), p.799].

This interpretation of Dignitatis humanae has been confirmed recently by the Church’s Magisterium, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, number 2108, which says: “The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error, but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities.” The Catechism cites Pius XII and Leo XIII.

What are we to make, then, of the remark in paragraph 2 about developing the teaching of more recent popes? For it is difficult to find any inconsistency between earlier teaching and that of Dignitatis humanae. The problem is rendered resolvable once one casts off the contemporary tendency, reflected in Fr. Curran’s remarks cited above, to understand the phrase “development of doctrine” as meaning a change of doctrine, i.e., a change from one idea to a second that is inconsistent with the first. The Council Fathers in effect tell us that this is not how they understand development when, in paragraph 1, having explained that liberty was then much under discussion in all parts of the world, they say: “Attending diligently to these aspirations and proposing to declare to what extent they conform to truth and justice, this Vatican synod examines the sacred tradition and doctrine of the Church, from which it brings forth new things, always consistent with the old [nova semper cum veteribus congruentia].” Development of doctrine for the Fathers of Vatican II meant the elaboration of ideas already existing in the tradition, but in nascent form. As John Henry Newman explained most lucidly, the deposit of the Faith is a living organism. The young organism contains parts that have yet to arrive at full maturity. These parts’ maturation adds something new but it does not contradict that which is present from the beginning. The developed parts emerge from an organism of a certain nature; they cannot be conceived as contradicting that nature without calling into question the coherence of the nature itself.

What then is the “developed” doctrine of Dignitatis humanae? It is the idea that there exists a human right corresponding to the “bare act of faith,” i.e., the act of faith considered independently of its content. Unlike the Church’s right to “as much liberty of action as its care for the salvation of men requires,” this is a limited right (as the document says especially in paragraph 7); but it does exist, say the Council Fathers, and it needs to be defended, especially in our day.

We can get a better handle on the elusive nature of this right by considering what the document says about the common good. This is an interesting topic in any case, for the concept of the common good put forward in the document is not the traditional one. The common good was a frequent topic of discussion at (and around) the Council for several reasons. The Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray cautioned against using it in paragraph 7 of Dignitatis humanae as the criterion for determining the justice of limitations placed on religious liberty. “An appeal to the common good, as the ground for legal restrictions on religious freedom, may be no more than the invocation of a raison d’état, which is a dangerous doctrine” [America, November 30, 1963, p.706]. (Cardinal Wyszynski, the then Archbishop of Warsaw, expressed similar reservations.) Introducing the idea of the common good into the first part of the document also threatened to confound the religious liberty discussed there and the full-bodied liberty of the Church of the second part, for the common good, at least as traditionally conceived, includes the good of religious truth, which is present in its fullest sense only in the Catholic Faith.

As it turns out, paragraph 7 does contain talk about the common good but it bases the right of a society to limit religious liberty on the more specific duty to preserve peace and good order. “These [factors],” it says, “constitute a fundamental part of the common good and fall under the idea of public order. However, the custom of full liberty in a society is to be preserved, according to which custom liberty must be recognized to the greatest extent possible, and only restrained when and in so far as necessary.”

Even more importantly, the conception of the common good employed throughout the document has to do not with substantive goods such as health, education, religious worship, etc., but with the conditions for attaining such goods. At the beginning of paragraph 6, we find the following words:

Since the common good, which is the sum of those conditions of the social life by which men are able to attain their perfection more fully and more expeditiously, consists above all in the maintained rights and duties of the human person, protection of the right to religious liberty looks to... .

The document refers in this passage to John XXIII’s encyclical letter Mater et Magistra [AAS 53 (1961), p.417] where one finds, indeed, almost these very words. John XXIII says there that public officials must possess “the right idea of the common good of all, which idea embraces [complectitur] the sum of those conditions of the social life by which men are able to attain their perfection more fully and more expeditiously.” Note the word “embraces.” Dignitatis humanae has moved from the idea that the common good embraces the conditions for thriving to the idea that it is those conditions. John XXIII’s own approach was more traditional. In his 1963 encyclical Pacem in terris, just before quoting his own (i.e., the above) definition of the common good from Mater et Magistra, he cautions against overly restricted understanding of the common good: “For the common good, since it is entirely bound up with human nature, cannot therefore exist fully and integrally unless, the fundamental nature of the common good and its effectuation having been considered, the human person is without fail taken into account” [AAS 55 (1963), p.272].

The understanding of the common good contained in Dignitatis humanae is inspired by ideas proper to the twentieth century liberal or pluralistic state, which allegedly prescinds from what people believe, looking only to their opportunity of believing it. There are grave dangers in this approach, as the experience of the past three decades in the United States has shown. The concrete demands of morality are only too easily dismissed as the particular content of systems of religious belief, democracy being concerned only with the possibility of choice. Of course, such exclusion of the concrete norms of morality from political life, itself involves a raft of concrete moral judgments, disguised as purely formal considerations. But the argument has proved to be a very seductive one.

We need not assume that Dignitatis humanae is at all supportive of such an approach. For one thing, the definition of the common good in paragraph 6 by no means abolishes the more standard definition which informs other Catholic social teaching; it simply tells us how “common good” is to be understood in Dignitatis humanae. Moreover, as we have seen, the religious liberty associated with the common good in the first part of the document is a pale reflection of the liberty accorded to the Church in the second. This is not to say that the religious liberty of the first part is unimportant. It is has played a major role in the teaching and diplomacy of John Paul II; we should, therefore, have no doubts about its being an authentic development of the Faith handed on to us by the Apostles. Even if its formulation is not infallible, we owe it submission of intellect and will.

Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. is Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Ordinary Professor of the History of Ancient Philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

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