In a previous article, I looked at Catholic teaching regarding the relationship between religion and state. In this article, I would like to follow up on this by exploring how the Catholic Church has dealt with this issue throughout her history. The selections below are from my larger work on Church history which can be found here (links to specific sections are also included below).
From Unit 3: The Church Post-Constantine and in the Early Middle Ages
Church and State
As we saw earlier, in 380, Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. This led Christians to have to reflect a lot more on how political power fits in with the life of the gospel.
St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, 13:1-7, lays out a foundational vision of civil power which has informed Christian thought ever since:
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.
We see here a recognition that to the extent that civil authority is valid, it must be seen as coming from God. For only God can authorize anything ultimately. God created humanity in such a way that we naturally develop into social groupings, and those social groupings require rules and rulers. So political authority, being natural to human societies, is ordained and authorized by God. Like all areas of life, its legitimate use must be regulated by the moral law of God so that its exercise will be just.
In the earliest centuries of the Church, Christians spent most of their mental energy with regard to the Roman civil authority discussing the duties and obligations of people in general and of Christians in particular towards that authority, especially in light of the fact that that authority was often engaged in persecuting them. There are many pleas from the early Fathers to the Roman governors to grant religious liberty to minority religions (like themselves) on the grounds that it is unjust and futile to attempt to force people to perform acts of piety (since, by definition, such acts must be voluntary and sincere). Tertullian (155-220), an important early Christian writer, put it this way:
However, it is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions: one man’s religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion — to which free-will and not force should lead us — the sacrificial victims even being required of a willing mind. You will render no real service to your gods by compelling us to sacrifice. For they can have no desire of offerings from the unwilling, unless they are animated by a spirit of contention, which is a thing altogether undivine.
Once the Empire became Christian, however, new questions arose. To what extent should political power be used to promote the good of religion and to oppose religious evils? This is a natural question. After all, if piety towards God is the greatest of goods and the supreme moral act, then blasphemy, false religion, and heresy must be great moral evils and also greatly harmful. It is the job of the civil power to promote the well-being and the good values of the society and to protect society from that which brings harm. So shouldn't the civil power promote true religion and oppose false religion? In the words of St. Paul, is not the civil magistrate "the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil"? What could be more evil than to insult and oppose God and to corrupt the true religion, the source of salvation?
So Christians during this time began to contemplate how political power might be used to promote truth and oppose error. The Emperor Theodosius himself was one of the first to move in this direction, as we can see from this selection from his law code:
It is our desire that all the various nation which are subject to our clemency and moderation, should continue to the profession of that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one diety of the father, Son and Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since in out judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that the shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of divine condemnation an the second the punishment of out authority, in accordance with the will of heaven shall decide to inflict.
The great St. Augustine of Hippo illustrates the growing consideration of the obligations Christians might have to use political power to promote religious truth and goodness in his letter to Vincentius regarding the Donatists (Vincentius was himself a Donatist). In the letter, Augustine tells how he was originally opposed to the use of civil penalties against the Donatists. He says he came around, however, partly by the realization of the great good that civil coercion can do for such people. He recounts stories of former Donatists who now testify to how grateful they are that they were coerced, because the civil power was able to jolt them out of their error, indifference, or complacency to consider new truths and so to be brought to a better relationship with God and his Church. Although true religion must be voluntary, yet civil authority can be used to get people to consider or pay attention to or take seriously things they might otherwise have neglected and so come to a better understanding of the truth and so make better voluntary choices.
The Church will continue to reflect on the relation between the Church, religion, and the State in subsequent centuries, and our narrative will continue to revisit this theme.
https://wherepeteris.com/religious-liberty-neglected-by-christendom-restored-in-vatican-ii/ - Article on early Christian arguments for religious liberty in the Roman Empire.
Read in Class - http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102093.htm - St. Augustine's letter on the Donatists (read 2-9, 16-18).
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/theodcodeXVI.asp - The selection from Theodosius's law code.
Read in class - https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/gelasius1.asp - Letter from Pope Gelasius to Emperor Anastasius on spiritual and temporal power (494).
From Unit 4: The Church in the Later Middle Ages
The Crusades
Another major series of events that takes place during our time period is the Crusades. In the previous unit, I mentioned how the rapid spread of Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries had threatened Christendom. Islamic civilization continued to threaten Christendom in subsequent centuries. The Muslims had taken over large portions of what had previously been Christian lands, leaving many Christians under Islamic rule. Also, Muslims had conquered the Holy Land and other important Christian pilgrimage sites. Pilgrimages were an important aspect of devotion and piety during the Middle Ages, as they still are for Catholics today. Thus, there was a growing sense in Christendom that something needed to be done to repel and push back the Muslim invaders, to rescue the Christians stranded under Muslim rule, and to liberate the sacred Christian sites and make safe again the routes of pilgrimage.
In 1095, the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I Comnenus, sent a message to the West requesting aid against the Muslim Turks. Pope Urban II responded to this request at the Council of Clermont, calling for Christians of the West to go to battle against the Muslims to liberate the Christians of the East and Christian lands. We have five major accounts of this speech at Clermont, summarizing the sorts of things that Pope Urban said. Here is a selection from the account of Fulcher of Chartres:
Although, O sons of God, you have promised more firmly than ever to keep the peace among yourselves and to preserve the rights of the church, there remains still an important work for you to do. Freshly quickened by the divine correction, you must apply the strength of your righteousness to another matter which concerns you as well as God. For your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten to give them the aid which has often been promised them. For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called the Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.
All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ! With what reproaches will the Lord overwhelm us if you do not aid those who, with us, profess the Christian religion! Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels and end with victory this war which should have been begun long ago. Let those who for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights. Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the eternal reward. Let those who have been wearing themselves out in both body and soul now work for a double honor. Behold! on this side will be the sorrowful and poor, on that, the rich; on this side, the enemies of the Lord, on that, his friends. Let those who go not put off the journey, but rent their lands and collect money for their expenses; and as soon as winter is over and spring comes, let them eagerly set out on the way with God as their guide.
Robert the Monk describes the people's response to Urban's speech:
When Pope Urban had said these and very many similar things in his urbane discourse, he so influenced to one purpose the desires of all who were present, that they cried out, "It is the will of God! It is the will of God!" When the venerable Roman pontiff heard that, with eyes uplifted to heaven he gave thanks to God . . .
In Robert's version, Urban tells the people to wear the sign of the cross when they take up the crusade:
Whoever, therefore, shall determine upon this holy pilgrimage and shall make his vow to God to that effect and shall offer himself to Him as a, living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, shall wear the sign of the cross of the Lord on his forehead or on his breast. When,' truly',' having fulfilled his vow be wishes to return, let him place the cross on his back between his shoulders. Such, indeed, by the twofold action will fulfill the precept of the Lord, as He commands in the Gospel, "He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
Over the next several centuries, many people of all classes took up the call of the Popes to go to battle against the Muslims to liberate captive Christendom. This took many different forms, with a wide variety of outcomes. The crusaders had a good deal of success, but also a good deal of failure. Various crusading efforts were better or more poorly organized. One of the worst problems the Crusades had was the behavior of many of the crusaders. Many of the crusaders had tendencies to what I would call "barbarism." They could be intensely cruel and uncontrolled. Many times the crusading armies would sack innocent villages (even Christian ones) along the way to their destinations, indiscriminately murdering people, stealing food, etc. When the crusaders reached their destinations, they would often not only conquer but pillage and destroy. One of the most famous examples of this was when the armies of the First Crusade finally took back Jerusalem from the Muslims. Once inside the city, they killed a large portion of the population indiscriminately and cruelly, including local native Christians. The other most famous example of crusader barbarity was the Sack of Constantinople in 1204. There were rival claimants to Byzantine leadership during that time, and in connection with this dispute the crusaders ended up going to Constantinople, attacking the city, and cruelly and mercilessly butchering many of its inhabitants while plundering or destroying its treasures.
The Crusades overall did end up having some success, at least partially and temporarily. The crusaders, at various times, did manage to take back Jerusalem and other Christian places. They set up Latin kingdoms to rule over these newly-regained territories, and they often appointed Latin church leaders to replace the Eastern ones--all of which further exacerbated the conflict between Western and Eastern Christendom. There were many centuries of back-and-forth as Christians and Muslims battled each other, Christians battled other Christians, and Muslims battled other Muslims. Eventually, by the end of it all, the crusaders had ended up losing most of what they had earlier gained.
The Crusades are, I think, a good illustration of the interplay between the divine and the human elements of the Church in the world. The Church is a divine institution, created and guided by God. She possesses the true faith, and is guided by the Spirit to preserve, articulate, and apply it accurately. She possesses the Holy Spirit and the holiness that comes from the Spirit. She possesses the sacraments and other means of grace. And yet she is still human, and the humans in her are not, in this life, entirely free from sin. There are those within her who are still, in their hearts, enemies of God. And even those who are true friends of God fundamentally lack perfection. They are beset with remaining sinful tendencies as well as other human failings, such as lack of prudence. In the Crusades, we see the concern of Western Christians to aid their Eastern brothers and to restore justice to Eastern Christendom. We see a selfless desire to put aside one's own concerns for the sake of the greater good. We see the unity of races that Christianity brought, as Europeans of all varieties came together to carry out the mission they were called to by the Popes. We see many good things. But we also see much lack of prudence and much short-sightedness. We see terrible failures of compassion and justice. We see hatred and disunity. We see good and bad, the wheat and the tares, mingled together, and it is impossible to fully separate them. We must defend what is good, and acknowledge what is evil, learning from both, as we continue to try to be the People of God in this world.
Watch in class - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bGxMcSHOmI&t=1298s - This is the first of a set of two half-hour-or-so documentary videos on the Crusades by Dr. Ryan Reeves, a Church history professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (a Protestant seminary). He does a good job of providing a historical overview of the Crusades. A little bit of Protestant bias, but not too much.
Watch in class - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju0HLYU9Z7A&t=596s - This is the second Crusades video from Dr. Ryan Reeves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dopQ1EcY3JM - For those of you who would like a more detailed account of what went on in each of the crusades (including strategies and accounts of battle), this video goes into extensive detail.
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/urban2-5vers.asp - These are the five major versions we have of the speech of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, calling for the Crusades.
http://lonelypilgrim.com/2013/07/20/indulgences-gift-of-the-martyrs/ - As the video describes, Popes offered "plenary indulgences" to people who participated in the crusades. This article describes the history of indulgences, showing how they developed from practices in the early Church.
https://www.catholic.com/tract/primer-on-indulgences - This is a nice, basic overview of the theology of indulgences.
http://freethoughtforchrist.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-fresh-look-at-catholic-doctrines-of.html - Here is my write-up on the theology of penance, purgatory, and indulgences. I make use of a family analogy to help explain these concepts more clearly.
Ecumenical Councils of the Period
There were several ecumenical councils that took place during this period (1000-1500). You can read a brief description of each of them
here or
here.
The Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1431-1439) were important in terms of their efforts to bring about reconciliation with the Eastern churches, as we talked about earlier.
The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) was important for a number of reasons. It established (or re-articulated) the well-known rule, still in force, that Catholics must confess serious sins at least once a year and receive communion at least once a year at Easter if possible (as bare minimum requirements). It
articulated very clearly the order of authority of the major patriarchal sees of the Church. Constantinople is granted second place. We remember that this was a source of controversy in previous centuries.
Renewing the ancient privileges of the patriarchal sees, we decree with the approval of the holy and ecumenical council, that after the Roman Church, which by the will of God holds over all others pre-eminence of ordinary power as the mother and mistress of all the faithful, that of Constantinople shall hold first place, that of Alexandria second, that of Antioch third, and that of Jerusalem fourth, the dignity proper to each to be observed; so that after their bishops have received from the Roman pontiff the pallium, which is the distinguishing mark of the plenitude of the pontifical office, and have taken the oath of fidelity and obedience to him, they may also lawfully bestow the pallium upon their suffragans, receiving from them the canonical profession of faith for themselves, and for the Roman Church the pledge of obedience. They may have the standard of the cross borne before them everywhere, except in the city of Rome and wherever the supreme pontiff or his legate wearing the insignia of Apostolic dignity is present. In all provinces subject to their jurisdiction appeals may be taken to them when necessary, saving the appeals directed to the Apostolic See, which must be humbly respected.
The council also articulated the Church's stance on what should be done about heretics when they live in Catholic lands. It calls on the secular authorities to enact civil penalties against them to rid Catholic territories of them.
Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath.
(It should be noted that the Latin word translated here as "exterminate" is a bit looser than our English word. It means simply, literally, to "push beyond the boundary," and so can have the meaning of "expel." It does not necessarily mean to kill. However, there were secular rulers during our period who punished heretics with the death penalty. We will come back to this point just below.)
The council also used the word "transubstantiation" to refer to the change of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. The word had been used earlier, but it is noteworthy that it is picked up here by an ecumenical council. The concept that the bread and wine are changed into Christ is an ancient one in the Church, but the use of this word signaled a move to articulate the idea even more clearly in philosophical language.
The Council of Constance (1414-1418) is important especially for its role in the ending of the Great Western Schism, which we will discuss below.
Describe to the class, very briefly, the basics of each council during this period using this page, in addition to the discussion of particular elements that come up elsewhere in this section or in this unit -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_ecumenical_councils
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/lateran4.asp - Text of the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council.
The Treatment of Heretics
In the previous unit, we discussed changing views of the relationship between Church and State, spurred on in part by Christianity's rise to being the official religion of the Roman Empire. In the High and Late Middle Ages, the Church and Catholic theologians continued to reflect on this subject.
Because of the strong unity between Catholic faith and secular society that was the norm in Medieval Christendom, the questions we raised in our previous unit continued to come to the fore. False religion and heresy are greatly harmful to spiritual life. They are also harmful to the unity and authority of the secular society and to the state in a society in which Catholic Christianity forms the fundamental values on which civilization itself is based. So if the secular authority's role is to protect the good and the values of society from harm, shouldn't it help to protect the society from the spread and corruption of false religion and heresy?
That it should indeed do so was the dominant opinion during our time period. We saw above that the Fourth Lateran Council called on the secular authorities to use civil power to get rid of heretics. Some theologians and many secular authorities believed that heresy was so harmful that even the death penalty should be used to get rid of heretics. One of the strongest statements of which I am aware of this thinking comes from St. Thomas Aquinas, who
articulated very clearly and succinctly the rationale for such a drastic penalty:
With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death.
On the part of the Church, however, there is mercy which looks to the conversion of the wanderer, wherefore she condemns not at once, but "after the first and second admonition," as the Apostle directs: after that, if he is yet stubborn, the Church no longer hoping for his conversion, looks to the salvation of others, by excommunicating him and separating him from the Church, and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death. For Jerome commenting on Galatians 5:9, "A little leaven," says: "Cut off the decayed flesh, expel the mangy sheep from the fold, lest the whole house, the whole paste, the whole body, the whole flock, burn, perish, rot, die. Arius was but one spark in Alexandria, but as that spark was not at once put out, the whole earth was laid waste by its flame." (The Summa Theologiæ of St. Thomas Aquinas, II-II:11:3. Second and Revised Edition, 1920. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Online Edition Copyright © 2017 by Kevin Knight.)
Looking back at this period from our present vantage point, with our very different context and culture, we must be careful to understand accurately the thinking of people who advocated the punishing of heretics. This is so foreign to our way of thinking and so jarring to us that it is hard for us to examine it objectively and carefully, so that our evaluation of it can be well-rounded and accurate.
The Medievals understood that faith is voluntary. They did not believe in trying to force people to believe in Christ. St. Thomas Aquinas, again,
articulates this clearly:
Among unbelievers there are some who have never received the faith, such as the heathens and the Jews: and these are by no means to be compelled to the faith, in order that they may believe, because to believe depends on the will: nevertheless they should be compelled by the faithful, if it be possible to do so, so that they do not hinder the faith, by their blasphemies, or by their evil persuasions, or even by their open persecutions. It is for this reason that Christ's faithful often wage war with unbelievers, not indeed for the purpose of forcing them to believe, because even if they were to conquer them, and take them prisoners, they should still leave them free to believe, if they will, but in order to prevent them from hindering the faith of Christ.
On the other hand, there are unbelievers who at some time have accepted the faith, and professed it, such as heretics and all apostates: such should be submitted even to bodily compulsion, that they may fulfil what they have promised, and hold what they, at one time, received. (Ibid., II-II:10:8)
Civil penalties enacted against heretics were not intended to convert them to the faith (at least not directly--no doubt there was hope that it might have this effect indirectly, as Augustine spoke about with regard to the Donatists in our previous unit). They were intended to protect the society from the harm heresy could do to souls and to the values and fabric of Christian civilization.
But what about freedom of conscience? Did the Medievals believe that people have the right to follow their own consciences?
"Freedom of conscience" is actually quite a loaded phrase, though we are so used to it we often don't notice it. Does anyone believe in complete freedom of conscience? Complete freedom of conscience would mean the end of civil society, for it would mean that the state would have to allow anyone to do anything at all that they professed themselves bound to do by their beliefs or values. So if a follower of ISIS believes he is morally bound to blow up a night club in a suicide bombing, law enforcement must let him do it. If I profess that I believe I have a moral duty to rob your house, the state must allow this to happen. Nobody believes in complete freedom of conscience. Everyone believes that if freedom of conscience is a value, it is one that has to be balanced with other values with which it is often in tension, such as the value of protecting society from harm.
Medieval Christians did not necessarily dispute that people have a right to freedom of conscience. We saw in our previous unit that in the early days of Christian persecution under the Roman Empire, Christians sometimes appealed to a concept of freedom of conscience on behalf of religious liberty. We see the ingredients of freedom of conscience in St. Paul's discussion of Christian liberty in Romans 14. When Medieval Christians advocated the punishment of heretics in civil law, it was not because they didn't understand or respect the value of free will or of conscience in religious matters, but because they believed that heresy was a great harm that needed to be curtailed by the civil magistrate.
This segment from a book by University of San Diego law professor Steven D. Smith brings this point out very well, I think:
So then did the people in premodern Europe who resisted religious toleration--the Thomas Mores, the John Calvins--somehow fail to grasp or accept the idea of "reciprocity"? Not at all. Or at least they need not have opposed the idea. Rather, they might cheerfully acknowledge the legitimate demands of "reciprocity," and they might further concede that, if Christianity, Islam, and, say, Shintoism are relevantly similar, then if Christians expect to be permitted to evangelize in territories dominated by Islam or Shinto, they likewise ought to allow representatives of those religions to proselytize in Christendom. But that premise--namely, that these religions are relevantly similar--is precisely what the premodern believers emphatically denied. In their view, one of the religions leads to salvation, while the others lead to damnation: that is hardly equivalence. And what could be more perverse than to insist that reciprocity requires truth to be treated in the same way as falsehood? It is as if a student were to argue, on grounds of reciprocity, that if the school gives credit for true answers on a test it must give equal credit for false answers.
To be sure, even the most devout adherents to the different religions might acknowledge that the religions are similar in the sense that their own followers believe them to be true. But is that similarity dispositive for the question of reciprocity? Well, it may be, if we assume, for instance, that belief, not actual truth (or salvific efficacy), is the relevant factor. And that assumption may seem natural enough--even obvious--to, say, a modern skeptic who supposes that none of the faiths is actually true in any strong sense anyway, or that in any event their truth in unknowable to us. Conversely, to a premodern true believer--to a Thomas More, once again, or a John Calvin--that assumption would likely seem as odd as would a claim by a failing student that since all humans (including teachers) are fallible, what should matter in determining grades is not whether the answers on an exam are actually correct (about which we can never be absolutely confident anyway) but whether the student sincerely believed those answers. (Steven D. Smith, The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010], 26-33.)
I am not saying that Medieval Christians got everything right in how they treated heretics and unbelievers, or even that it was right of them to punish heretics in civil law at all. The Church does not claim that the decisions of the Popes or bishops of the Church will always be right or best. We recall from earlier units (and even from our discussion of the Crusades earlier in this unit) that the Church claims herself to be guided by the Holy Spirit in her teaching of the faith, but not necessarily kept from moral failings or lack of prudence or shortsightedness in her prudential applications of the principles of the faith. In her prudential acts and rulings and in her non-definitive teaching, she can make choices and take positions that turn out later to not have been right or best. As the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith put it in the document
Donum Veritatis in 1990:
When it comes to the question of interventions in the prudential order, it could happen that some Magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies. Bishops and their advisors have not always taken into immediate consideration every aspect or the entire complexity of a question. But it would be contrary to the truth, if, proceeding from some particular cases, one were to conclude that the Church's Magisterium can be habitually mistaken in its prudential judgments, or that it does not enjoy divine assistance in the integral exercise of its mission. In fact, the theologian, who cannot pursue his discipline well without a certain competence in history, is aware of the filtering which occurs with the passage of time. This is not to be understood in the sense of a relativization of the tenets of the faith. The theologian knows that some judgments of the Magisterium could be justified at the time in which they were made, because while the pronouncements contained true assertions and others which were not sure, both types were inextricably connected. Only time has permitted discernment and, after deeper study, the attainment of true doctrinal progress.
With regard to questions of religious freedom, the Church has acknowledged that "[i]n the life of the People of God, as it has made its pilgrim way through the vicissitudes of human history, there has at times appeared a way of acting that was hardly in accord with the spirit of the Gospel or even opposed to it. Nevertheless, the doctrine of the Church that no one is to be coerced into faith has always stood firm" (
Dignitatis Humanae #12). In later units, we will look at the further development of the Church's teaching on this subject that has occurred since the Middle Ages.
In all her dealings with unbelievers and heretics, however, the Church always strove to act with justice and compassion, even if she sometimes fell short. In many cases, the Church pled for greater leniency against the stronger inclinations of secular rulers, and many of her laws and rulings were designed to mitigate the effects of secular laws and policies.
An important development during this time period in connection with the treatment of heretics is the development of the method of
inquisition to help deal with heresy. Rather than being one traveling tribunal (which one might think by the use of the common singular, "The Inquisition"), it was more a common method of investigating charges and cases of heresy that came into use in the 12th century and continued on afterwards for several centuries. You can read about it
here.
During this time, also, the Popes made clear that while there were two different kinds of authority--spiritual and temporal, or religious and civil, or Church and State--the spiritual power is higher, because it is directly appointed by God and deals with the most fundamental aspects of human existence--ultimate truth and morality. Therefore, the civil power has an obligation to submit to the spiritual power. This goes so far that if a civil authority is acting out of accord with the demands of justice and morality as determined by the spiritual authority, the spiritual authority could even declare him unworthy of office. This reality of the dominance of the spiritual over the temporal power was heightened in the Middle Ages by the fact that the Popes during this time not only had an acknowledged role as spiritual overseer within Christendom but also a kind of political role in helping to arbitrate political matters within Christendom. The Popes played an important role in preserving and managing the political and social unity of Western society, particularly after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West.
Although the preeminence of spiritual over temporal power was widely acknowledged in the Middle Ages, including by temporal rulers, in practice things did not always go smoothly when Popes would challenge the authority of particular rulers. Two good examples of the sorts of conflicts that could erupt are the
investiture controversy of the 11th and 12 centuries and t
he conflict between St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury in England, and King Henry II.
Read in class -
http://www.bede.org.uk/inquisition.htm - Very helpful FAQ on inquisitions. Provides a good explanation and overview, and clarifies a lot of common misconceptions.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm - Helpful article on inquisitions, and in general on the history of how heretics have been treated by the Church throughout Church history.
Read in class -
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/papal-bulls - A very interesting, short summary of important papal bulls concerning Jews from throughout the Middle Ages.
http://freethoughtforchrist.blogspot.com/2014/11/steven-d-smith-on-smuggling.html - This is a selection from University of San Diego law professor Steven D. Smith (from which my quote from him earlier was taken). Smith does an excellent job of exposing the kind of question-begging (or "smuggling," as he calls it) that often goes on when secularists attempt to argue against religious influence in law. I highly recommend Smith's writings in general as shedding a great deal of perceptive light on the often-unrecognized assumptions in modern secular political thought when it comes to religion and society.
Discuss in class -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investiture_ControversyTalk about Becket in class and his conflict with Henry II and eventual martyrdom -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket
Missions and the Treatment of Natives
One of the most important aspects of our time period is that this was the prime age of European exploration and colonization, and, going along with that, it was a period of intense and widespread missionary activity by the Church.
Due to advancing technology, awareness of other cultures due to trade, and many other factors, Europeans during this period became intensely interested in other parts of the world. There was a desire to establish and increase trade with distant lands, and to figure out more convenient ways of reaching such lands. Going through Muslim-dominated territories to reach and establish connections with distant lands like India and other Far Eastern countries was not appealing, so explorers began to attempt sea voyages to reach these lands. Bartolomeu Dias was the first to manage to sail around the bottom tip of Africa, and Vasco da Gama was the first to reach India by such a route. Christopher Columbus made his famous trip trying to sail around the world going west in order to reach India (and ending up accidentally reaching and discovering the American continents in the process). Europeans established trade where they could, and, where they could, they established European colonies.
Along with the military and economic interests and motivations of Europeans, there were also religious motivations. Europeans were aware that there were many places around the world where the gospel had not been preached, or at least not fully preached, and there was a desire to reach these souls for Christ. Accompanying European explorers and colonizers, therefore, were missionaries of various religious orders--especially Jesuits, Franciscans, and Dominicans. These missionary ventures had a great deal of success, so that during the same time that the faith was suffering so much in Europe due to the Protestant Reformation and the growing secularism that would be one of the results of the Reformation (which we'll talk about in the next unit), the faith was expanding rapidly in non-European societies around the world.
One of the pressing questions of this period was how Europeans should treat the peoples they encountered in their travels. This was an especially acute question when Europeans encountered people who seemed to them very "primitive." Europeans had a very hard time understanding the mentality and way of life of many of the native peoples of the Americas, for example. Because of their more simple civilizations, their nomadic lifestyles, their indigenous forms of paganism, and other factors, Europeans often tended to regard such peoples as almost like children, and they felt a justification and even sometimes a calling to colonize such areas and "take care" of such people, helping them to achieve proper civilization in addition to receiving the saving gospel. It was difficult for Europeans to understand the long-term impact of their colonization in these lands. For example, with the more nomadic sorts of tribes, it seemed that they made no claims to ownership over the lands they moved through, which seemed to leave those lands unclaimed and suited to European claims and colonization. Over time, this led to a European domination of these lands and peoples. The condescending paternalism of the Europeans, who viewed many of the natives as little more than children in intellect, led to them taking control of their lives and dominating them, showing little respect for their own cultures and independence.
This was a problem even with Europeans with the best intentions. But not all Europeans had the best intentions. There were many among the colonizers who were quite happy to exploit and mistreat the natives for their own personal gain, sometimes in barbaric and cruel ways. In Central America, for example, it seemed to the Spanish conquerors (
conquistadors) that the native tribes and empires were ripe for the picking. The missionaries from the various religious orders who accompanied these conquerors and exploiters ended up becoming a thorn in their side, as many of them protested the ill treatment of the natives and worked to protect them from unscrupulous exploitation. But it was very difficult to prevent such mistreatment, since in many cases the conquerors and colonizers, being literally on the other side of the world, were difficult for their European governments to reign in or to exercise effective oversight over.
In Asia, things went very differently, because Europeans who went there encountered cultures they could more easily recognize as legitimate civilizations, or at least whom they had a tougher time trying to exploit. The Jesuits especially were very active in trying to spread the gospel in India, Japan, China, and other Asian countries. Missionaries like Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci preached the gospel in India, Japan, and China. One of the strengths of the Jesuits in particular was their ability to enculturate the gospel. They could learn to dress like the natives, use the language of the natives, and try to relate the gospel to native ideas. Sometimes they went so far with this as to make other people nervous. Ricci and others, for example, in China, wanted to approve even of Chinese ancestor-devotion, considering it a legitimate expression of respect, trying to avoid opposing customs that were not inherently immoral. Other missionaries complained about this, and it caused quite a controversy, until Rome finally ruled that they couldn't do that anymore. The concern was that such ancestor-veneration veered too much towards idolatry. Missionaries in Asia during this time period were sometimes subject to strong and cruel persecution by the native peoples--there are some particularly horrific stories about the persecution of Christians in Japan during parts of this time period, as can be seen, for example, in the accounts of
St. Paul Miki and his companions.)
In the Americas, with the Spanish colonies and missions in particular, the question over the treatment of the natives led to a huge controversy. In the very early days of exploration of the Americas, shortly after Columbus discovered them (from the European point of view, anyway), as I mentioned, there was much confusion among Europeans as to exactly how the natives related to the land. Did they own it? Did they even claim to own it? Were they able adequately to care for it without supervision from more "mature" peoples? Etc. We remember that the Popes had a strong temporal as well as spiritual influence over European society in those days. So the Popes wrote documents helping to arbitrate between various countries, particularly, in the Americas, between Spain and Portugal. In 1493, for example, Pope Alexander VI wrote a document (
Inter Caetera) in which he divided up the newly-discovered lands between Spain and Portugal. Since the lands seemed to be inhabited only by childlike nomads, there didn't seem to be any reason not to allow European civilizations to claim ownership over them and divide them up amongst themselves.
However, as European expansion continued and more reports continued to come in about how things were going, there was increasing concern on the part of the Church that Europeans were not always acting justly towards the natives. The Popes began to put out documents trying to give spiritual and ethical (as well as political) instruction and commands with regard to how Europeans were to relate to native peoples. In the document
Sicut Dudum, for example, written in 1435, Pope Eugene IV reprimanded Europeans who were making slaves of the natives of the Canary Islands. He warned that "some Christians (we speak of this with sorrow), with fictitious reasoning and seizing and opportunity, have approached said islands by ship, and with armed forces taken captive and even carried off to lands overseas very many persons of both sexes, taking advantage of their simplicity." Pope Eugene commanded the Europeans to stop doing this and to set free all those who had been enslaved, under pain of excommunication.
The natives that were being encountered by Europeans, especially in the Americas, were so strange to the Europeans that there were actually debates at this time regarding whether they could be considered rational human beings. This was, of course, a hugely important question. The practical consequence of it would determine the rights that the natives would be considered to have. It was in the interest of some of the colonizers to consider the natives irrational savages, thus providing fodder to justify enslaving them, taking their lands, etc. The natives were indeed greatly mistreated in many cases, such as in the Spanish American colonies. It was primarily out of the ranks of the religious orders that defenders of the natives came. The Dominicans, in particular, were at the forefront of this defense in the 16th century--men like Pedro de Córdoba, Antonio de Montesinos, Francisco de Vitoria, and Bartolomé de las Casas. These men entered into great controversy with other Spaniards regarding how the natives should be thought of and how they should be treated. Las Casas eventually wrote a scathing critique of Spanish treatment of natives entitled
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, in which he described terrible atrocities that he had witnessed in the colonies. These Dominicans reported to the Popes what was happening in the Spanish colonies and helped them to understand the situation better. Partly as a result of this, in 1537, Pope Paul III issued the document
Sublimis Deus, in which he strongly asserted the humanity of the natives along with their right to freedom and retention of their own property, and commanded everyone to respect their rights. He attacked those who "have not hesitated to publish abroad that the Indians of the West and the South, and other people of whom We have recent knowledge should be treated as dumb brutes created for our service, pretending that they are incapable of receiving the Catholic Faith." He said that the natives were "truly men," and he commanded that "the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved."
Unfortunately, even the word of the Popes failed to put an end to the debates over the nature and rights of the natives. Eventually, the Spanish King Charles V called for a debate on the subject to be held at Valladolid in Spain. Representing the defense of the natives was Bartolomé de las Casas, while taking the side of Spanish conquest was theologian and philosopher Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. Sepúlveda argued that the native peoples were irrational savages, and that therefore they were naturally oriented towards being slaves to those races that were superior to them in intellect. He also argued that they were steeped in terrible immoralities and that they regularly committed acts of violence and atrocity (such as human sacrifice) within and between their societies, and that this justified Spain in coming in and conquering them in order to prevent these things. Las Cases argued, in response, that the natives were not inferior to Europeans in their ability and use of reason, even if they expressed themselves differently because of their different cultures. He also argued that even though it was true that the natives engaged in great immoralities and even atrocities, this did not justify enslaving them, as the Spanish had no jurisdiction over them. In response to Sepúlveda's argument that the Spanish had a duty to defend the well-being of those who were being tortured and killed by the atrocities of the natives, Las Casas argued that it would be a worse evil for the Spanish to enter into a bloody war of conquest in order to stop these things. The debate did not entirely end what Las Casas considered unjust Spanish dominance over the natives, but it did have the effect of making Spanish laws and policies somewhat more humane.
Look at in class -
https://www.britannica.com/list/to-all-nations-8-fascinating-jesuit-missionaries - Short bios of eight important Jesuit missionaries.
Watch in class -
https://www.amazon.com/Xavier-Missionary-Saint-Liam-Neeson/dp/B000S5XOUK - Documentary on the life of St. Francis Xavier and his missions to the Far East.
Watch in class -
http://www.californiafrontier.net/junipero-serra-video/ - Helpful video on the Spanish California missions in the 18th century, focusing on the great Franciscan missionary St. Junípero Serra.
Look at in class -
https://www.californiafrontier.net/indian-life-california-missions/ - Nice, relatively brief, but detailed look at the California missions.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resource/56007/slavery-and-the-catholic-church - Helpful, brief article defending the Church from the charge that she didn't condemn or that she even promoted slavery through her history.
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/alex06/alex06inter.htm -
Inter Caetera, document from Pope Alexander VI in 1493 dividing up the New World between Spain and Portugal.
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/Eugene04/eugene04sicut.htm -
Sicut Dudum, document from Pope Eugene IV in 1435, "Against the Enslaving of Black Natives from the Canary Islands."
http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2011/02/dum-diversas-english-translation.html - This article contains a translation of
Dum Diversas, a document from Pope Nicholas V in 1452 in which he granted King Afonso V of Portugal the authority to fight against enemies of the Catholic Church and to subjugate them, including putting them into a state of perpetual servitude. This is sometimes alleged as contrary to other documents from the Popes during this time period opposing slavery, such as the ones linked to here and mentioned in the narrative above. However, we need to keep in mind the distinction between the capture and subjugation of people in just warfare and the forcing of innocents into involuntary servitude. The Popes did not see these as identical things (even if we might argue that the Popes' positions on warfare needed adjustment in the direction of greater justice). Also, as we've seen, ignorance about the nature of some of the more "primitive" native peoples led the Popes to fail to realize the full implications of European colonization, especially during its earlier days. This does not mean, however, that
Dum Diversas and other such documents (such as the follow-up document
Romanus Pontifex, also by Nicholas V and written in 1455) did not contribute to mistreatment of the natives. Even if the Popes did not intend to sanction the kidnapping and subjugation of innocent persons into servitude, it can certainly be argued that their support of Portugal and Spain and their colonizing missions contributed to such evils, even taking into account the other Papal documents we've mentioned which clarified the Church's opposition to these things.
Read in class -
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul03/p3subli.htm -
Sublimis Deus, by Pope Paul III in 1537, in which he recognized the reason and the humanity of native peoples, their right to their own freedom and property, and the duty of all to refrain from subjugating them or stealing from them and to preach the gospel to them peaceably.
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/greg16/g16sup.htm -
In Supremo Apostolatus, Pope Gregory XVI, 1839, "Condemning the Slave Trade."
http://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_05051888_in-plurimis.html -
In Plurimus, encyclical of Pope Leo XIII from 1888 on the abolition of slavery.
Skim through this and bring us some selections in class -
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20321 -
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, by Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas, in which he lays out some of the atrocities committed against natives by Spaniards in Spanish colonies in the Americas.
https://history.sfsu.edu/sites/default/files/images/2001_Bonar%20Ludwig%20Hernandez.pdf - A helpful account of the history and arguments involved in the Valladolid debate (particularly the sections labeled "The Context of the Debate" and "The Theoretical Debate").
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/De_Indis_De_Jure_Belli - A selection from Dominican scholar Francisco de Vitoria (from around 1532) in which he argues about the just treatment of American natives, giving arguments in favor of the idea that they should not be conquered or enslaved. See particularly
Part II. Do a search for "Sixth Proposition: Although" and read from there through to the section labeled "SUMMARY OF THE THIRD SECTION." (Ed. 3/1/23: The links seem to be broken. You can find the document
here in various formats and do the same searching as described above to find the selection I am referring to.)
Summarize and discuss in class the Valladolid debate, the arguments on both sides, Vitoria's arguments, etc.Read in class -
https://www.pbs.org/conquistadors/devaca/lascasas_01.html - Part of the famous speech by Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos in which he called out the unethical behavior of the Spaniards towards the natives.
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2023/03/30/230330b.html - The Vatican Dicasteries for Culture and Education and for Promoting Integral Human Development have issued a joint statement regarding the Catholic view of the "doctrine of discovery" - the idea that many had in the colonial period that colonial powers had a right to take land from natives. The statement also briefly articulates some things the Church did right and some things she did wrong in terms of recognizing and protecting the rights of natives during this time period.
Summarize the story and discuss in class -
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2018-12/our-lady-of-guadaloupe-feast-day-mexico-americas.html - An article summarizing the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe and her appearances to St. Juan Diego, an Aztec peasant. These appearances had a profound effect on the Aztec natives of Mexico and led to the conversion of many Mexicans to Catholicism.
Toleration and Pluralism
The Protestant Reformation had the effect of dividing a previously-united Christendom (thinking particularly of Western Christendom, after the break between East and West). This is not to say that pre-Reformation Christendom was always one big happy family of people who always got along. Far from it. There were plenty of conflicts and divisions. But there was always a fundamental unity of faith to come back to which tended to make the divisions and conflicts ultimately temporary. The Reformation fundamentally altered this situation.
Catholic Christendom had been used to having a unified faith. If heretics arose, they were typically a relatively small and isolated group and didn't challenge the general consensus. As we've seen previously, eventually the Christian civilization that developed from the union of Church and civil society took a position of rooting heretics out of their midst. They were always treated differently from Jews and unbelievers. Jews and unbelievers had never been Christians, and so they were considered outsiders, not subject to the religious jurisdiction of the Church. Medieval Christians generally therefore considered it inappropriate to attempt to enforce Christianity upon them--though it did make rules by which they could exist within a Christian civilization without getting in its way. Heretics, on the other hand, had been Catholics and had left the purity of the faith. They should not receive the same toleration as unbelievers because they could and should be held to what they had previously embraced and promised. They were under the jurisdiction of the Church.
The Reformation challenged this whole way of looking at things. Now we had large groups of people, eventually multiple generations of them, who were living in Christian lands, claimed to be Christians, but held heretical views. It took some time for the Catholic culture to adjust to this new situation. The same can be said for the Protestant cultures that were developing--many of them had just as strong a view of the unity of the faith and the Church with civil society and the need to use civil authority to oppose heresy. Therefore, the divisions of the Reformation--between nations as well as between individuals and families within nations--created an unstable situation that led to an enormous amount of chaos and bloodshed. This is the time of the great "European wars of religion." Most people still thought that there needed to be a unified, orthodox Christendom--but now they disagreed about which version of the faith was "orthodox." So there were intense efforts on all sides to fight for different versions of an orthodox Christian civilization. The fighting took place between nations who had adopted different loyalties to different faiths. The fighting also took place within nations, as the dominant powers attempted to squelch dissenting viewpoints and dissenting minorities tried to subvert dominant powers.
Eventually, it became evident to many people on all sides that the Reformation wasn't going to be a merely temporary conflict that would eventually go away, leaving behind unity of faith. This was going to be a long-term situation. Stability would have to come from some other source than an ideal resolution of all disagreements and unity of faith. One of the first ideas tried was the idea of "cuius regio, eius religion"--Latin for "whose realm, his religion." In other words, each nation's ruler would decide the religion of that nation, and all the other nations would accept this situation. Rulers could choose between Catholicism or Lutheranism (which was sometimes interpreted broadly enough to include Calvinists).
While this cut down on international conflicts, it didn't entirely solve the problem. For one thing, there was a growing diversity of viewpoints as Protestantism continued to result in more and more divisions. Also, as diversity
within individual nations was growing, "cuius regio, eius religion" still resulted in a lot of persecution within nations. Eventually, people began advocating for more toleration for dissenting viewpoints within nations. A famous example of this advocacy is the philosopher John Locke's classic work,
A Letter Concerning Toleration, published in 1689. Although this idea was strongly resisted by many, eventually most people--including Catholics--came to accept it as necessary for peace and harmony and respect for differences between people of different versions of faith, given the growing pluralism--religious diversity--of European societies. Although the Catholic Church resisted this idea for a time, eventually she was able to accept this situation, since, although she had advocated civil penalties against heretics during the Middle Ages, she had never adopted the idea that there was some kind of intrinsic moral requirement that heretics must always be penalized in civil law. Whether and to what extent heretics should be punished in civil law depended not only on the evil of the heresy but also on all the other factors that determined what would be best for the common good. If the growing pluralism of European nations made it so that more trouble would come from trying to use civil authority to oppose heresy than from tolerating it, the Church was willing to grant that concern for the greater good favored greater toleration. (Also, although Protestantism was originally classified as a heresy, the idea of "heresy" as the Church was used to thinking of it typically had in mind a situation where a group of Catholics departed from their former faith. Once there was time for a multigenerational Protestantism to develop, Protestants no longer fit the category of "heretics" quite as neatly, since most of them had never been Catholics and had inherited a tradition that hadn't been Catholic in recent memory.)
However, religious pluralism, conflict, and toleration eventually gave birth to ideas that were more insidious from the Catholic point of view, as a kind of Agnosticism began to grow up among Europeans, leading to religious indifferentism among individuals and within the structures of civil society. But we'll talk more about that, and the Catholic Church's response to it, in our next unit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuius_regio,_eius_religiohttps://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Letter_Concerning_Toleration - John Locke's famous argument for religious toleration.
Enlightenment Politics
The Enlightenment had great influence in politics as well. In contrast to political thought which emphasized, for example, the "divine right of kings" to rule dynastically over society, Enlightenment political thinkers were much more down to earth in their ideas regarding civil authority and its foundation. The Enlightenment came to favor, typically, a "social contract" sort of view of the foundations of civil authority. In such a view, the people as a whole--as opposed to some divinely-appointed king or dynasty--are held to be the ultimate holders of political authority. The people then delegate that authority to rulers who run the society. This can take many forms, including monarchy, so long as it is understood that, if there is a king or a dictator, he receives his authority from the people who appoint him to rule. But during this time, the trend of thought overall was towards a more democratic or republican idea of the structure of civil government, as we see, for example, in the results of both the French and the American Revolutions. The social contract view suggests, also, that it might be possible and reasonable in some circumstances for the people to remove a ruler who is ruling unjustly. If the people have the highest authority, and the authority of the ruler is delegated from the people, then the people who appointed the ruler can also remove him from office. This, of course, is the foundation of the revolutions that happened during this time period and later on also in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
John Locke is one of the most well-known and influential early articulators of the social contract point of view. Here is a succinct statement of the idea from his
Second Treatise on Government (1690), section 95:
MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest.
The idea of the people as the primary holders of authority in civil society was an idea that Catholic theologians had already been articulating for some time, so this aspect of social contract thinking was not uncongenial to the Catholic view. The modern
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004) articulates this aspect of Catholic social teaching:
The subject of political authority is the people considered in its entirety as those who have sovereignty. In various forms, this people transfers the exercise of sovereignty to those whom it freely elects as its representatives, but it preserves the prerogative to assert this sovereignty in evaluating the work of those charged with governing and also in replacing them when they do not fulfil their functions satisfactorily. Although this right is operative in every State and in every kind of political regime, a democratic form of government, due to its procedures for verification, allows and guarantees its fullest application. The mere consent of the people is not, however, sufficient for considering “just” the ways in which political authority is exercised. (#395, footnote removed)
However, within the more Agnostic strains of the Enlightenment context in which the idea was developed, many formulations of the social contract came to have elements in them that were not so congenial to the Catholic worldview. Many social contract theorists went further and placed the ultimate moral authority and legitimacy of civil government in nothing more than the consent of the governed people. In other words, following the language of John Locke above, it was imagined that everyone originally is free of all obligations to obedience to any civil authority. But then these free and independent individuals agree amongst themselves to create a civil society, and any authority the government of that society has over them is ultimately rooted only in their own consent. If the government, then, tells me what to do, it is only my own consent which provides the foundation for any obligation I might have to obey it. In its most extreme, Naturalistic form, the idea is that there is no objective moral law. My desires constitute the ultimate basis of morality, and so my desires--my consent--forms the only basis for any obligation I might have to obey civil authority. When I obey civil authority, I am really ultimately only obeying myself and my own desires, which consent to delegate authority to the government on the grounds that the government is needed to help me attain the satisfaction of my desires.
The Catholic worldview cannot accept this Naturalistic theory of morality and civil authority. Section #396 of the
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church addresses this issue explicitly:
Authority must be guided by the moral law. All of its dignity derives from its being exercised within the context of the moral order, "which in turn has God for its first source and final end”. Because of its necessary reference to the moral order, which precedes it and is its basis, and because of its purpose and the people to whom it is directed, authority cannot be understood as a power determined by criteria of a solely sociological or historical character. “There are some indeed who go so far as to deny the existence of a moral order which is transcendent, absolute, universal and equally binding upon all. And where the same law of justice is not adhered to by all, men cannot hope to come to open and full agreement on vital issues”. This order “has no existence except in God; cut off from God it must necessarily disintegrate”. It is from the moral order that authority derives its power to impose obligations and its moral legitimacy, not from some arbitrary will or from the thirst for power, and it is to translate this order into concrete actions to achieve the common good. (footnotes removed)
Even if the people are the primary holders of political power in a society, that does not mean that the will of the people is the
ultimate source of political or moral authority. God is the ultimate source of moral and therefore political authority. God, in his moral law, grants people the right and duty to create civil governments to serve the common good. The people, then, having received authorization from God, delegate that authority to the rulers they choose. But since God and his moral law are the ultimate source of moral authority, "justice" is defined by the moral law, not merely by the whims or desires of the people. If the people try to create an unjust law--that is, a law that goes against the requirements of the objective moral law of God--that law is null and void. It has no authority, no matter how much the people are in favor of it. And the obligation of citizens to obey just civil laws does not derive ultimately from their own consent, but from the moral law of God which requires them to obey the government for the sake of the common good. So we see that the "social contract" idea can end up taking very different forms depending on which worldview-context it is developed in. This became a source of conflict between the Church and various secular Western societies during our time period, as we will see.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7370 - Locke's
Second Treatise of Government.
https://freethoughtforchrist.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-social-contract-isnt-worth-paper-it_27.html - An article I wrote up a few years back criticizing a Naturalistic reading of social contract theory.
A New, Secular--Religiously Neutral?--Society
The idea of the people as having the ultimate authority in civil affairs has led to many revolutions over the past few hundred years. The first of these was the American Revolution, followed shortly thereafter by the French Revolution. These revolutions were very different in many ways. The American Revolution was friendly towards Christianity, while the French Revolution was very aggressively and violently anti-Christian (leading to the martyrdom of many Catholics during that time). The American Revolution was more moderate and careful, and avoided a number of the pitfalls the French Revolution afterwards fell into. But the two revolutions were similar in that they attempted to create "secular" societies--that is, societies that were not grounded in some particular religious point of view.
When the United States had finally gained independence from England and was able to form its own Constitution, the framers of the Constitution made a decision that had enormous philosophical and political implications. They developed a "Godless" Constitution. The Constitution, ratified in 1788, had no mention in it of God at all. The foundation of civil authority was described as being "We the people." It certainly did not repudiate God or Christianity, but it did not affirm them either. Not long afterwards, in 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified. Within the Bill of Rights was the First Amendment, which said that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof." (This was later considered to have been extended to apply to the states as well by the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.) The United States was to have no officially-established religion. This has been understood in different ways by different people down through the centuries, but the view that was intended by at least some of the Founders and which has eventually prevailed in the official interpretations of the courts is that it meant that the United States has no official religious point of view as well as no officially recognized religious denomination, and no religious point of view is allowed to be the basis of any laws or policies. In other words, the United States is officially neutral in matters of religion.
However it was understood, this was an extraordinarily momentous declaration. To my knowledge, there had never in the history of the entire human race been a nation up to that time which had declared itself to have no official religious position. This was a tremendous break, then, not only with the previous establishments of Christendom, but with all human precedent whatsoever.
So the United States, at least according to some, claimed to be neutral in religious matters. But what does this actually mean? There is a difficulty with this point of view, because it is actually impossible for any society of human beings to be religiously neutral. We can see this if we consider carefully what "neutrality" means. "Religious neutrality" would be a situation in which a society holds no views, and takes no actions, that contradict or disagree with the religious views or worldview beliefs of anyone at all (or at least anyone living in the society). I think that just by stating the idea explicitly we can see how impossible it is going to be. To take a very obvious example, there were plenty of people at the time the Constitution was ratified who disagreed with its Godlessness. These people held that it was wrong for the Constitution to be Godless, because all societies ought to acknowledge God and his true religion and base their laws on his moral law. Catholics held that point of view, and so did many Protestants. The Catholic Church continues today to hold that society cannot be neutral towards God and his moral law:
Authority should always be exercised as a service, respecting fundamental human rights, a just hierarchy of values, laws, distributive justice, and the principle of subsidiarity. All those who exercise authority should seek the interests of the community before their own interest and allow their decisions to be inspired by the truth about God, about man and about the world (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #463).
So, ironically, the very attempt to make the society religiously neutral was itself a violation of religious neutrality, because not everyone agreed that society ought to try to be religiously neutral!
Some laws are going to be agreed upon by the majority of people (laws against murder, theft, etc.), but other laws will necessarily be controversial. In our own day, we fight about things like abortion, euthanasia, transgenderism, immigration, the death penalty, just warfare, and a myriad of other things that people have very strong and diverse opinions about owing to different worldview beliefs and values. There is no way that society could possibly embrace any positions towards these things that could be neutral towards all points of view. And even in the things where the vast majority of people agree, there may be at least
some people who disagree. (For example, if we outlaw human sacrifice, what if someone stands up and claims to be a follower of the old Aztec religion and believes he has a moral duty to sacrifice his enemies to the gods? Or if we outlaw suicide bombing, what about followers of Al Qaeda or ISIS who think this is sometimes a moral duty?) Every time we make any law at all, we are applying a set of values and beliefs. We make laws to regulate things according to what we value, and what we value is rooted in what we believe to be true. It cannot be otherwise. Therefore, inherently, all laws are establishments and applications of some particular worldview.
I would argue, in fact, that the establishment of "religious neutrality" in the law is really, effectively, the establishment of Agnosticism as the official worldview of the society. In practice, "neutrality" amounts to taking a "know-nothing" attitude towards religious and worldview claims. We will not affirm or deny any such claims. We will act as if we do not know what is true with regard to such claims, as if we have no knowledge available to come to any conclusions. This may seem, on the surface, neutral, but it is not, because it contradicts the beliefs of those who think we
do possess knowledge about such claims--that is, the beliefs of all non-Agnostics.
Let's look at a modern example: In the United States today, it is considered illegal to teach "creationism" in the public schools. "Creationism." as it is often defined, is the idea that the world was created in six days by God as described in a literal reading of the Book of Genesis. Some forms of Christianity (and Judaism) hold creationism as a religious belief. They think it to be true. They believe that God--not only an eyewitness to the creation of the world but the one who actually did the creating--has revealed that this is the way the world was created. Therefore, understandably, they want this view at least represented in the public school classes that deal with the origin and history of the universe. But it is currently illegal to have this view taught in the public schools. Why? Because it is religious. Instead of creationism, the theory of evolution and the view of the earth as billions of years old is deemed appropriate to teach, a view which is diametrically opposed to the beliefs of the creationists. It should be obvious on the surface that this is not a neutral situation, and yet it is typically claimed to be a neutral approach by the courts. In this case, it is evident that "neutral" really means "Agnostic." If we take an Agnostic approach, what the public schools do makes perfect sense. Many forms of Agnosticism hold that we can have knowledge in things pertaining to the natural world, because these are accessible to our senses, while we cannot have knowledge of things pertaining to religious matters or the ultimate nature of the universe, for these things cannot be known through the senses. Since, on this view, we have no evidence that Genesis really is an eyewitness testimony from God, or that the creationists are interpreting it correctly, Genesis is irrelevant to our knowledge of the real history of the origin of the world. But evolution is based, so it is held, on scientific observations--that is, on data that comes from the senses. So evolution has a legitimate basis in the evidence. Therefore, if we want to teach kids what is really, objectively true about the origin and early history of the world, we will teach an evolutionary view and reject the creationist view. We may not
know that Genesis is not from God, but since we can't know if it
is from God either, it is irrelevant to our knowledge of real earth history. So a "neutral" point of view--that is, an Agnostic, "know-nothing" point of view--leads to the rejection of creationism and the embrace of evolution. But, again, this is not really neutral at all. It only has a superficial appearance of neutrality that falls away if we look at it more carefully.
The secularization of the United States became an inspiration to many other nations to varying degrees and in various ways, and over the next few centuries secular, Agnostic attitudes became very influential in much of Western civil society.
https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/human-basis-laws-ethics/ - Article articulating a Naturalistic (Atheist or Agnostic) idea of the foundation and meaning of ethics.
http://freethoughtforchrist.blogspot.com/2016/04/articles-on-impossibility-of.html - A list of articles arguing for the impossibility of religious neutrality in civil government.
Bring out in class -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli - The Treaty of Tripoli famously declared that "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion," supporting the interpretation of the Constitution and the First Amendment that holds that the United States endorses no particular religious viewpoint.
https://www.covenanter.org/reformed/2016/4/21/james-r-willsons-essay-on-tolerance - A very perceptive, short essay by a 19th-century American Presbyterian minister asking some hard questions about the meaning of the idea of "religious tolerance."
Take a look at in class, perhaps -
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/nature_04 - A page from an educational website on evolution put out by the National Center for Science Education and the University of California Museum of Paleontology, and funded by the National Science Foundation. As a government-supported website, it would claim to be religiously neutral, and yet anyone who can read between the lines can see the clear Naturalistic (Agnostic, or even Atheistic) philosophical bias of the content. Just one among many examples that could be given of people trying--and failing miserably--to accomplish the impossible task of arguing for a controversial position while trying to be neutral.
Agnosticization of Western Culture
Over the centuries between the 1600s and the 1900s, secular Agnosticism continued to become more and more influential and pervasive. It greatly influenced the civil sphere, as we've seen, but it also influenced all other aspects of life and thought. It pervaded the natural sciences, philosophy, biblical studies, and all other areas of education. It pervaded the thinking of Westerners on a grassroots level as well, so that many people came to think Agnostically about life, about knowledge, about the world, and about religion. A very important feature of this "Agnosticization" of Western culture is that it has not taken place in a purely explicit manner, as have most other worldview conversions throughout human history. Agnostic thinking spread to a great degree by infiltrating the thinking of people who often did not think of themselves as Agnostic. Although sometimes--and more and more so as time went by--people were persuaded to explicitly abandon their previous religious convictions in favor of an explicit Agnosticism or Atheism, many more people found themselves thinking Agnosticly while still affirming their traditional religions. Religious institutions themselves began to change and Agnosticize, until, in many cases, while there was still an outward form arising from old beliefs, the beliefs themselves--at least in terms of their objective content--had been gutted, or at least greatly muted, in favor of substantially Agnostic views and attitudes. Thus arose the prevalence of so-called "liberal religion"--religion which continued to affirm classic doctrines, but which now thought of those doctrines not so much as objective claims about the world but as subjective attitudes taken by individuals towards the world. People more and more began to think in terms of dichotomies between
facts, knowledge, reason, science, and objectivity on the one hand, and
faith, belief, religion, feelings, and subjectivity on the other. The very terminology that shaped the thinking of people on religion took on the form of Agnostic-influenced categories.
Even theology was affected by this Agnosticization. I mentioned that in some religious circles, religious doctrine, while preserving classic terminology, underwent changes in meaning as the substance of beliefs was Agnosticized to varying degrees. (To see an extreme example of this, consider
Reconstructionist Judaism.) This push went on even within the Catholic Church and among Catholic theologians, which began eventually to alarm the Popes. This Agnosticizing movement within the Catholic Church came to be called
modernism. Pope Pius X (who reigned from 1903 to 1914), in the earliest days of the twentieth century, began a kind of crusade (not a literal crusade) to root modernism out of the Church. He required theologians to take an oath against modernism. He published encyclicals attacking it. His encyclical
Pascendi Dominici Gregis, given in 1907, attempted a thorough analysis and attack upon it. Pius X very clearly and explicitly recognized
Agnosticism as the fundamental philosophical perspective underlying it:
Modernists place the foundation of religious philosophy in that doctrine which is usually called Agnosticism. According to this teaching human reason is confined entirely within the field of phenomena, that is to say, to things that are perceptible to the senses, and in the manner in which they are perceptible; it has no right and no power to transgress these limits. Hence it is incapable of lifting itself up to God, and of recognising His existence, even by means of visible things. From this it is inferred that God can never be the direct object of science, and that, as regards history, He must not be considered as an historical subject. Given these premises, all will readily perceive what becomes of Natural Theology, of the motives of credibility, of external revelation. The Modernists simply make away with them altogether; they include them in Intellectualism, which they call a ridiculous and long ago defunct system. Nor does the fact that the Church has formally condemned these portentous errors exercise the slightest restraint upon them. Yet the Vatican Council has defined, "If anyone says that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known with certainty by the natural light of human reason by means of the things that are made, let him be anathema" (De Revel., can. I); and also: "If anyone says that it is not possible or not expedient that man be taught, through the medium of divine revelation, about God and the worship to be paid Him, let him be anathema" (Ibid., can. 2); and finally, "If anyone says that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external signs, and that therefore men should be drawn to the faith only by their personal internal experience or by private inspiration, let him be anathema" (De Fide, can. 3). But how the Modernists make the transition from Agnosticism, which is a state of pure nescience, to scientific and historic Atheism, which is a doctrine of positive denial; and consequently, by what legitimate process of reasoning, starting from ignorance as to whether God has in fact intervened in the history of the human race or not, they proceed, in their explanation of this history, to ignore God altogether, as if He really had not intervened, let him answer who can. Yet it is a fixed and established principle among them that both science and history must be atheistic: and within their boundaries there is room for nothing but phenomena; God and all that is divine are utterly excluded. (Pascendi Dominici Gregis, #6)
I've already mentioned how the Agnosticization of Western culture had affected the political concept of the state, its authority, and its relationship to religion. I should mention also another important political effect: the tendency to consider the State absolute and to refuse to recognize the authority of the Church. In the Catholic view, Church and State are both ordained by God. There is thus real authority in both. The temporal authority of the State must be submissive to the spiritual authority of the Church, because the Church is the guardian of the interpretation of the moral law which tells the whole human race, including the State, how to function justly. But in an Agnostic view, religion is nothing more than people embracing unknowable and unprovable beliefs based on their own personal preferences. The "moral law of God" is nothing more, so far as we know, than an invention of the imagination of human beings. And the Church is nothing more than a voluntary organization of people who form a club based on the fact that they all accept the same imaginary stories and choose to live by them. The Church, therefore, as such, can have no real, objective authority. But the State is the real collection of real citizens trying to get along living their real lives. Therefore, since the desires of the people are paramount, and the State is the collective expression of those desires, the State naturally takes the highest place, being the ultimate dictator of good and bad and what should be done and allowed and what should not be done and allowed. The Church must submit to and be tailored by the State's wishes and authority. The Church, during this period, thus found itself increasingly constrained within various Western nations by laws attempting to dictate how she would be allowed to function. These constraints were more or less severe in various nations. And since laws were being made on a secular--that is, an Agnostic--foundation, those laws did not always jive with the Church's own sense of her duty and her mission. (To give a modern example of this phenomenon, consider
the recent attempt in California to require priests in certain circumstances to reveal information gained in the confessional. In the view of a lot of people, the State has every right to insist that the Church violate what she sees as her divine mandate if the State feels, based on its own Agnosticism-grounded judgment, that it would be best if she would do so. Or, for another example, consider the push in recent years by some
to ban the practice of infant male circumcision, which is a sacred religious practice Jews believe is required of them by God. These laws would be inconceivable from a Catholic or a Jewish point of view, but they are at least plausible from an Agnostic point of view.)
http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html - Pope Pius X's 1907 encyclical attacking Agnosticism among the theologians of the Church, or
modernism.
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius10/p10moath.htm - Pope Pius X's
Oath Against Modernism, which he required of Catholic theologians in order to help root out Agnostic thinking among them.
The Church Responds
The Church grew increasingly alarmed at the progressing Agnosticization of the culture. She reacted strongly by clearly condemning the tenets of the new Agnostic philosophy and the applications of that philosophy in religion, morality, education, politics, etc. Pope Pius IX (who reigned from 1846 to 1878) released in 1864 a
Syllabus of Errors, a list of secular Agnostic propositions condemned by the Church. Here is a small sampling of the propositions condemned:
3. Human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil; it is law to itself, and suffices, by its natural force, to secure the welfare of men and of nations.
20. The ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government.
39. The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits.
52. Government can, by its own right, alter the age prescribed by the Church for the religious profession of women and men; and may require of all religious orders to admit no person to take solemn vows without its permission.
56. Moral laws do not stand in need of the divine sanction, and it is not at all necessary that human laws should be made conformable to the laws of nature and receive their power of binding from God.
Pope Leo XIII (who reigned from 1878 to 1903) published numerous encyclicals attacking Agnostic trends, including
Libertas, which was given in 1888. In this encyclical, Leo XIII laid out the serious problems with the idea of an Agnosticism-grounded morality which separates the foundation of ethics from any knowledge of God and therefore grounds it entirely in knowledge derived from the senses and in the desires of human beings:
15. What naturalists or rationalists aim at in philosophy, that the supporters of liberalism, carrying out the principles laid down by naturalism, are attempting in the domain of morality and politics. The fundamental doctrine of rationalism is the supremacy of the human reason, which, refusing due submission to the divine and eternal reason, proclaims its own independence, and constitutes itself the supreme principle and source and judge of truth. Hence, these followers of liberalism deny the existence of any divine authority to which obedience is due, and proclaim that every man is the law to himself; from which arises that ethical system which they style independent morality, and which, under the guise of liberty, exonerates man from any obedience to the commands of God, and substitutes a boundless license. The end of all this it is not difficult to foresee, especially when society is in question. For, when once man is firmly persuaded that he is subject to no one, it follows that the efficient cause of the unity of civil society is not to be sought in any principle external to man, or superior to him, but simply in the free will of individuals; that the authority in the State comes from the people only; and that, just as every man's individual reason is his only rule of life, so the collective reason of the community should be the supreme guide in the management of all public affairs. Hence the doctrine of the supremacy of the greater number, and that all right and all duty reside in the majority. But, from what has been said, it is clear that all this is in contradiction to reason. To refuse any bond of union between man and civil society, on the one hand, and God the Creator and consequently the supreme Law-giver, on the other, is plainly repugnant to the nature, not only of man, but of all created things; for, of necessity, all effects must in some proper way be connected with their cause; and it belongs to the perfection of every nature to contain itself within that sphere and grade which the order of nature has assigned to it, namely, that the lower should be subject and obedient to the higher.
16. Moreover, besides this, a doctrine of such character is most hurtful both to individuals and to the State. For, once ascribe to human reason the only authority to decide what is true and what is good, and the real distinction between good and evil is destroyed; honor and dishonor differ not in their nature, but in the opinion and judgment of each one; pleasure is the measure of what is lawful; and, given a code of morality which can have little or no power to restrain or quiet the unruly propensities of man, a way is naturally opened to universal corruption. With reference also to public affairs: authority is severed from the true and natural principle whence it derives all its efficacy for the common good; and the law determining what it is right to do and avoid doing is at the mercy of a majority. Now, this is simply a road leading straight to tyranny. The empire of God over man and civil society once repudiated, it follows that religion, as a public institution, can have no claim to exist, and that everything that belongs to religion will be treated with complete indifference. Furthermore, with ambitious designs on sovereignty, tumult and sedition will be common amongst the people; and when duty and conscience cease to appeal to them, there will be nothing to hold them back but force, which of itself alone is powerless to keep their covetousness in check. Of this we have almost daily evidence in the conflict with socialists and members of other seditious societies, who labor unceasingly to bring about revolution. It is for those, then, who are capable of forming a just estimate of things to decide whether such doctrines promote that true liberty which alone is worthy of man, or rather, pervert and destroy it. (Libertas, #15-16)
Pope Pius X, in response to the 1905 law in France separating the government of France from the Catholic Church, vigorously condemned the idea that the State could declare its independence from God and the Church in his 1907 encyclical
Vehementer Nos:
That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul. - Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur."He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. - Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error."[1] (Vehementer Nos, #3)
Catholic Social Teaching
As we've seen, the revelation of God, as interpreted and applied in the Church's teaching, has much to say about morality on both an individual and a corporate level. It provides principles of justice and righteousness upon which individual lives and human societies should be based. The Church had been providing moral guidance to society from her very beginning. In the nineteenth century, however, political and social changes combined with technological advancement had created very new situations not faced by people in previous centuries. We remember that the Church's teaching develops over time as she continues to ponder what the revelation of God means, and especially as she applies its ideas and principles to new circumstances and new questions not previously considered. The great societal changes of the nineteenth century and continuing into the twentieth century led to a great deal of growth in the Church's teaching on social matters.
The 19th century saw the Industrial Revolution, which greatly increased the efficiency of production. But this increase in efficiency also led to a growth in mass consumerism, which eventually began to threaten the integrity of the environment. Also, the increase in productivity increased the need for workers, and so developed a large class of workers who were hired to do jobs in factories, along railroads, and in many other areas. There were those who wanted to get rich partly by exploiting these workers, since there were very few laws in place outlining the sorts of rights workers ought to have. Children were often brought to work in the factories in very dangerous and difficult conditions. Extreme views of economics and politics began to be presented and become popular, such as socialism, which emphasized the unity of the collective of all the people in society, but sometimes at the expense of the rights and concerns and integrity of individuals and smaller social groups. On the other hand, some promoted a radical capitalism which placed so much emphasis on individualism and "free market" values that there was very little room for society to regulate the practices of individuals and of businesses which might use means to attain wealth that cause harm to those who do not fare so well in the relentless and often cruel competition of the market.
Pope Leo XIII is usually credited as the first to begin systematically addressing these new problems and challenges in modern society by articulating values and principles, based in revelation and Church moral teaching, that directly applied to these new challenges. His encyclical
Rerum Novarum, "On the Condition of Labor," given in 1891, inaugurated this modern period of "Catholic social teaching."
Modern Catholic social teaching lays out certain key principles that must all be held together and embraced by society in order to ensure social justice. Some of these include recognition of the fundamental
dignity of human persons, the central importance of the
common good,
solidarity among all, the
universal destination of goods, and
subsidiarity. Society must be organized around respect for the dignity of the human person as made in the image of God and therefore possessing an intrinsic value we all have a moral obligation to recognize and respect. Individuals and institutions in society must seek the common good--that is, the good of society as a whole and of all the individuals within it, including the vulnerable, poor, minorities, and marginalized--in everything they do. We must recognize the unity and solidarity of the human race, that we are all connected to each other--think of St. Paul's image of the Body of Christ--and so have a concern for each other.
One of the major expressions of solidarity is the
universal destination of goods. God has given all the gifts of the creation to all of us. Every single person, therefore, has a right to a reasonable use of these goods. Private property exists as a practical necessity to keep the use of created goods from evolving into chaos. However, the universal destination of goods reminds us that private property is not absolute. If, through my work and diligence, I have access to money, food, education, and other goods that are part of a healthy human life, but someone else, for whatever reason, is unable to attain what they need, I have an obligation to share my goods with them. And note: This is not so much an act of charity (in the sense of giving beyond what is due) as an act of justice. I am giving them what is theirs. If I should withhold my goods against their needs, I would be committing theft. For created goods belong to us all, not just to those fortunate enough to be able to gather them up for themselves first. The
Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2446, referencing earlier teachers of the Church, puts it this way:
2446 St. John Chrysostom vigorously recalls this: "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs."239 "The demands of justice must be satisfied first of all; that which is already due in justice is not to be offered as a gift of charity":240
- When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice.241
There is also the principle of
subsidiarity. Higher orders of society--such as, in the United States, the Federal government--should not unnecessarily interfere with the functioning of lower orders--states, cities, families, churches, individuals, etc.--or try to take their initiative away from them, spoonfeed them, or micromanage them. If a lower order can accomplish something, the higher order should allow them to do it. Higher orders only step in when there is some abuse or disorder that cannot be regulated without intervention from a higher order. So there is a balance here. We avoid two extremes. We do not say that higher orders are
never to step in, even when there are unfixable disorders or abuses of rights in the lower orders; but, on the other hand, we say that it is
only as a last resort that higher orders should step in. Ordinarily, unless necessity calls for something extraordinary, what can be done by lower orders should be done by lower orders.
Keeping all of these principles together and implementing them in proper balance leads to a society where the innovation, diligence, and creativity of individuals, families, businesses, smaller orders of government, etc., are respected and nurtured, and yet there are checks and balances so that abuses can be corrected and rights can be maintained across the whole of society. Note also that Catholic social teaching transcends the boundaries between what we in the United States call the "conservative" and the "liberal" political points of view. It does not fit neatly into either category. There are aspects that conservatives would love and aspects they would hate, and likewise with the liberals. Catholic social teaching gives us a good example of how the Spirit-guided teaching of the Church can speak prophetically and powerfully into the social circumstances and challenges of human societies and provide a perspective from a higher wisdom.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html#The%20beginning%20of%20a%20new%20path - The Church has put out a document summarizing her social teaching, the
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. #87-104 provides a helpful overview of the history of modern Catholic social teaching.
http://usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catholic-social-teaching/foundational-documents.cfm - The US Bishops have put out a very helpful list of important documents from the universal Church and from the US Church over the years since the 19th century having to do with the Church's social teaching.
Dialogue and Doctrinal Development
During this time period, it is often said that the Church adopted a kind of "fortress" mentality against the advancement and challenges of modern ideas--particularly those ideas, rooted in an Agnostic worldview, which threatened her own beliefs and values. It is said that she turned inward and took a defensive stance, attacking modern errors and articulating and defending the truths of her own teaching. This is all quite true. However, it is not the whole truth. Also, during this time, we see the Church begin to engage in fruitful dialogue with the new circumstances and ideas of modernity. Catholic social teaching is a good example of this. The Church is the custodian of divine revelation. As such, she must be, by nature, a guard that protects truth from the encroach of error. She will therefore ever be, and rightly so, involved in defending and articulating truth and rejecting and refuting error. What we might call her "negative," defensive response against error and sin is a necessary part of her divine mission. But she is also called, at the same time, to a more positive dialogue with the times. The Church teaches the world how to understand and apply divine revelation. But, at the same time, she also learns from dialogue with the world how to better understand the revelation she is called to guard and to teach. We've seen this throughout her history. We recall, for example, the period of the first great ecumenical councils. Most of them were called to refute and reject heresies and to defend and articulate the truth. But the heresies didn't simply bounce off an unchanging wall of doctrinal truth. The heresies pushed the Church to consider even more carefully the implications of the divine revelation and to better understand aspects of what it means. So while the Church guarded her ancient truth against the novelties of error, she also learned and grew, and her doctrine developed. The heresies had a positive role to play in the growth of the Church's own understanding. And the Church does not only learn from the errors of the world, but she can also benefit from the wisdom granted by God to the people of the world. While the Church is the authoritative proclaimer of the divine revelation, this does not mean that she cannot and should not also gain further wisdom herself from the wisdom granted to others. We've seen this throughout her history as well--for example, we think of how much the early Church gained from her dialogue with Greek philosophy, and how much the philosophical perspective has enriched her doctrinal depth and articulation throughout the ages. So the dialogue between the Church and the entirety of humanity is a two-way street.
The Church faced new, unprecedented social circumstances during our time period--new problems, challenges, and questions that the human race had never faced before in quite the same way. She encountered new ideas that had never before been voiced in precisely the same way. And so, as she was challenged by these new situations and ideas, her doctrine and practice developed in new ways and new areas, with the result that her teaching began to take on a more modern flavor and a new richness and depth in certain areas. Her social teaching, as I mentioned, is an excellent example of this. But it was happening in many areas.
It was happening in the area of religious toleration and freedom. We've seen in previous units how the Church dealt with religious dissidents in an era when Christianity dominated all of social and political life in the societies in which the Church found herself. We saw her fight against heresies, and even make use of the civil arm to suppress them. But now, things were changing rapidly. Christendom had fallen. Nations were abandoning the Catholic faith and becoming first Protestant, and then secular. The Church's first impulse, in response to this, was to double down in the defense of the duty of individuals and societies to follow the true religion and support the Church. So she vigorously opposed the separation of Church and State and the growing secularism that would embrace Agnosticism in the name of neutrality. But she also learned to adapt, and eventually the new circumstances would help her develop a deeper appreciation for the important values of religious freedom and liberty of conscience. These were not new ideas for her, to be sure. We've seen them articulated by great theologians of the Church not only in the time of the early Roman persecutions but even during the height of Christendom in the Middle Ages. But the unprecedented realities of modern life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would further deepen her appreciation of these values. This would flower at the Second Vatican Council, as we will see in a later unit, but the first signs of growth can be seen during our time period. Pope Leo XIII, for example, in his encyclical
Libertas, even in the midst of his attempt to refute the errors of modern secular morality and politics, shows the Church's growing recognition of the value of toleration and freedom for people of other religions in society.
32. The Church most earnestly desires that the Christian teaching, of which We have given an outline, should penetrate every rank of society in reality and in practice; for it would be of the greatest efficacy in healing the evils of our day, which are neither few nor slight, and are the off spring in great part of the false liberty which is so much extolled, and in which the germs of safety and glory were supposed to be contained. The hope has been disappointed by the result. The fruit, instead of being sweet and wholesome, has proved cankered and bitter. If, then, a remedy is desired, let it be sought for in a restoration of sound doctrine, from which alone the preservation of order and, as a consequence, the defense of true liberty can be confidently expected.
33. Yet, with the discernment of a true mother, the Church weighs the great burden of human weakness, and well knows the course down which the minds and actions of men are in this our age being borne. For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything save what is true and honest, she does not forbid public authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or preserving some greater good. God Himself in His providence, though infinitely good and powerful, permits evil to exist in the world, partly that greater good may not be impeded, and partly that greater evil may not ensue. In the government of States it is not forbidden to imitate the Ruler of the world; and, as the authority of man is powerless to prevent every evil, it has (as St. Augustine says) to overlook and leave unpunished many things which are punished, and rightly, by Divine Providence. But if, in such circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and this is the only legitimate reason), human law may or even should tolerate evil, it may not and should not approve or desire evil for its own sake; for evil of itself, being a privation of good, is opposed to the common welfare which every legislator is bound to desire and defend to the best of his ability. In this, human law must endeavor to imitate God, who, as St. Thomas teaches, in allowing evil to exist in the world, "neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills only to permit it to be done; and this is good." This saying of the Angelic Doctor contains briefly the whole doctrine of the permission of evil.
34. But, to judge aright, we must acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further is it from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the motive of good is wanting. And although in the extraordinary condition of these times the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of providing for the eternal salvation of mankind. One thing, however, remains always true - that the liberty which is claimed for all to do all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights. (Libertas, #32-34, footnotes removed)
The growing secularism and pluralism of the Western world was accompanied by the growth and spread of false religious ideas and immoral behavior. Pope Leo XIII points out the duty of the state to seek the common welfare by fighting against such evils, but he also recognizes that there are other concerns that have to be balanced together with the duty to oppose these evils. To prohibit and penalize heresy and the spread of false religion in Medieval Christendom is one thing; to do it in modern, pluralistic societies is something else. Leo XIII recognized that there had to be greater toleration of these evils in his day than there had been in the past, for ignoring changing circumstances and attempting to act as if everyone was still in Medieval Christendom would do more harm than good. In dialogue with modern circumstances and modern thought, the Church was coming to recognize the value of religious tolerance in the modern day. Note that it is not that her fundamental beliefs or principles had changed. She had always had to balance principles such as the danger of false ideas and the duty to oppose them; the importance of keeping the civil government from micromanaging society; the importance of freedom and conscience; etc. But she was learning how to balance them differently and wisely in light of new circumstances.
Another example of this growth occurred in the area of the Church's attitude toward the salvation of non-Catholics and non-Christians. The Church had always recognized that salvation comes to human beings only through Christ and through his Church. She had many times articulated this teaching very forcefully. An example of this constant teaching is found among the affirmations of the
Ecumenical Council of Florence (1438-1445), in Session 11:
It [that is, the Roman Church] firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the catholic church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the catholic church before the end of their lives; that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only for those who abide in it do the church's sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia produce eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed his blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and the unity of the catholic church.
Sounds pretty straightforward! Unless you are a member of the Catholic Church, you can't be saved. This is because salvation flows from Christ through the Church. If you reject Christ, or you reject his Church, you are rejecting salvation, just like those who reject the only medicine that can cure them will die of their disease. However, it had always been recognized that there are nuances in this. For example, the Church recognized very early on that Catechumens, who were on their way to joining the Church but had not yet been baptized, were already connected to the Church through their desire to join it. If such Catechumens should die before they could be baptized, they would go to heaven. For another example, we see Church Fathers affirming that Christ's salvation was at work in the world before Christ came and brought salvation to those who had not heard of the historical personage of Christ but were nonetheless connected to him by his all-pervasive presence and grace. Of course, this applied to the Old Testament people of God before Christ came, but it also applied to those who were strangers even from the Old Testament covenants and revelation. The great Church Father Justin Martyr spoke about this back around the years 153-155 in his
First Apology:
But lest some should, without reason, and for the perversion of what we teach, maintain that we say that Christ was born one hundred and fifty years ago under Cyrenius, and subsequently, in the time of Pontius Pilate, taught what we say He taught; and should cry out against us as though all men who were born before Him were irresponsible—let us anticipate and solve the difficulty. We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious. So that even they who lived before Christ, and lived without reason, were wicked and hostile to Christ, and slew those who lived reasonably.
The Church Father Optatus of Milevis, writing between the years 363-376, made the argument that schismatics, who have broken from the Catholic Church but who have maintained the doctrines of the Catholic faith, are not necessarily cut off from salvation because they have the same sacraments. As we saw back in Unit 2, back in the third century Pope Stephen I had caused controversy by declaring that the baptism of heretics and schismatics should be accepted as valid, so that when people who had been baptized by them returned to the Church they did not need to be re-baptized.
Despite these sorts of nuances, however, it was the case that for the most part, Catholics throughout the earlier and middle ages of the Church tended to generally assume that a person who was not a Catholic--whether an atheist, a pagan, a Jew, a heretic, or a schismatic--had rejected Christ and his Church and was therefore bound for hell unless they repented. Catholics had a lot of confidence in the truth of their religion. This was only heightened by the spread of the gospel and the growth of Christendom. So it was very easy to assume that the truth is evident enough so that people who refuse to accept it are rejecting that which they ought to know and so are culpable in their refusal to convert. Most of the time, therefore, Catholic teachers and Church councils did not see a need to elaborate upon all the possible nuances when making strong assertions regarding the necessity of Christ and the Church for salvation, as we saw above in the strong declaration from the Council of Florence. Nevertheless, the Church never rejected those nuances, even if they were not typically brought out or emphasized. This started to change during our time period, however, as the Church began to adjust herself to the fact of the demise of Christendom and the growing prevalence of pluralism in the Western world. She began to take more seriously the fact that not everyone who is not a Catholic is necessarily willful and malicious in their errors or in their failure to immediately come into the Church. While still maintaining the necessity of Christ and the Church for salvation, she began to focus more attention on the nuanced question of those who, through no fault of their own, are unable to come explicitly to the Catholic faith or the Catholic Church--even when such people live in societies where the Catholic faith is known. Pope Pius IX, who, as we saw above, was on the forefront fighting against Agnosticism in the Church and defending historic Catholic doctrine, was also the first Pope to begin to put more emphasis on this nuance in his public teaching. In 1863, he issued the encyclical
Quanto Conficiamur Moerore, in which he made these comments:
7. Here, too, our beloved sons and venerable brothers, it is again necessary to mention and censure a very grave error entrapping some Catholics who believe that it is possible to arrive at eternal salvation although living in error and alienated from the true faith and Catholic unity. Such belief is certainly opposed to Catholic teaching. There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments.
8. Also well known is the Catholic teaching that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church. Eternal salvation cannot be obtained by those who oppose the authority and statements of the same Church and are stubbornly separated from the unity of the Church and also from the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff, to whom “the custody of the vineyard has been committed by the Savior.” The words of Christ are clear enough: “If he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you a Gentile and a tax collector;” “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you, rejects me, and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me;” “He who does not believe will be condemned;” “He who does not believe is already condemned;” “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.” The Apostle Paul says that such persons are “perverted and self-condemned;” the Prince of the Apostles calls them “false teachers . . . who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master. . . bringing upon themselves swift destruction.” (footnotes removed)
In 1908, Pope Pius X issued a catechism (the
Catechism of St. Pius X) which also addressed the nuances of this issue:
21 Q. What is the constitution of the Church of Jesus Christ?
A. The Church of Jesus Christ has been constituted as a true and perfect Society; and in her we can distinguish a soul and a body.
22 Q. In what does the Soul of the Church consist?
A. The Soul of the Church consists in her internal and spiritual endowments, that is, faith, hope, charity, the gifts of grace and of the Holy Ghost, together with all the heavenly treasures which are hers through the merits of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and of the Saints.
23 Q. In what does the Body of the Church consist?
A. The Body of the Church consists in her external and visible aspect, that is, in the association of her members, in her worship, in her teaching-power and in her external rule and government.
24 Q. To be saved, is it enough to be any sort of member of the Catholic Church?
A. No, to be saved it is not enough to be any sort of member of the Catholic Church; it is necessary to be a living member.
25 Q. Who are the living members of the Church?
A. The living members of the Church are the just, and the just alone, that is, those who are actually in the grace of God.
26 Q. And who are the dead members?
A. The dead members of the Church are the faithful in mortal sin.
27 Q. Can one be saved outside the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church?
A. No, no one can be saved outside the Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church, just as no one could be saved from the flood outside the Ark of Noah, which was a figure of the Church.
28 Q. How, then, were the Patriarchs of old, the Prophets, and the other just men of the Old Testament, saved?
A. The just of the Old Testament were saved in virtue of the faith they had in Christ to come, by means of which they spiritually belonged to the Church.
29 Q. But if a man through no fault of his own is outside the Church, can he be saved?
A. If he is outside the Church through no fault of his, that is, if he is in good faith, and if he has received Baptism, or at least has the implicit desire of Baptism; and if, moreover, he sincerely seeks the truth and does God's will as best he can such a man is indeed separated from the body of the Church, but is united to the soul of the Church and consequently is on the way of salvation
30 Q. Suppose that a man is a member of the Catholic Church, but does not put her teaching into practice, will he be saved?
A. He who is a member of the Catholic Church and does not put her teaching into practice is a dead member, and hence will not be saved; for towards the salvation of an adult not only Baptism and faith are required, but, furthermore, works in keeping with faith.
Salvation only comes through Christ and the Church, but, if one is in "invincible ignorance" (in other words, ignorance that can't be helped, as opposed to willful or culpable ignorance), or for some other reason is unable to embrace the faith or belong to the visible body of the Church in an explicit manner, if such a person, moved by grace, is following God as best they can based on their ability and knowledge, such a person is indeed in Christ and in the Church in the deepest sense, since they are in a state of grace (grace which flows through Christ and the Church), although their unity with the people of God is very imperfect.
Again, such nuances were already latent in Church teaching and at least partially recognized by the Church in previous eras, but, through her dialogue with the realities of modern persons in the new circumstances of modern Western pluralism, the Church was led by the Spirit to further develop and put more emphasis on these nuances in her teaching and in her relationships with the people of the world.
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/steven-greydanus/if-non-catholics-can-be-saved-why-evangelize - Helpful, short article on the Church's teaching regarding the salvation of non-Catholics and the history of this teaching.
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Church_Dogma/Church_Dogma_032.htm - Longer article on the same subject.
http://shamelesspopery.com/salvation-outside-of-the-church/ - Another very helpful article on the same subject.
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/fathers/view.cfm?recnum=1610 - The
First Apology of Justin Martyr (ca. 153-155).
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/ecumenical-council-of-florence-1438-1445-1461 - Documents of the Council of Florence (1431-1449).
https://ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/optatus_01_book1.htm#C10 - St. Optatus of Milevis's writing
Against the Donatists, Book I (ca. 363-376).
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9quanto.htm -
Quanto Conficiamur Moerore, by Pope Pius IX (1863).
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/catechism-of-st-pius-x-1286 -
Catechism of Pope St. Pius X (1908).
Vatican II
In 1958, John XXIII was elected Pope. It is said that a lot of people expected him to be a "caretaker" Pope--that is, a Pope who just keeps things going but doesn't initiate anything significantly new. This turned out definitely not to be the case. Only two months into his pontificate, John XXIII called for a new ecumenical council. The council--The Second Vatican Council--was opened at the Vatican on October 11, 1962, and continued to meet until December of 1965. John XXIII died in June of 1963 and was succeeded by Pope Paul VI, who reigned until 1978, and who continued to oversee the council until its closing in 1965.
In our previous unit, we talked about the positive and the negative roles of the Church in her dialogue with the ideas and practices current in the world. She has a responsibility to guard the truths of divine revelation, to affirm them, and to refute errors that contradict them. But she also has a responsibility to learn from the dialogue and to grow in her own understanding of the depths of divine revelation. The "modern" period, with the Protestant Reformation, the growth of Agnostic ideas, secular governments, the ending of Christendom, etc., put her on the defensive, especially in the nineteenth century. But this has been a time, also, of growth and development, and the Church has tried to come to terms with new ideas, ways, and practices, and to discern how to apply the riches of the divine deposit of revelation fruitfully in this new context. Vatican II was a high point in this process. Whereas Vatican I had been a very defensive council, defining and asserting the historic truths of the faith in the face of modern errors, Vatican II had a very different tone, emphasizing positive dialogue with modern culture. This different tone was evident from the very beginning, as we can see from a selection from
John XXIII's speech by which he opened the council:
At the outset of the Second Vatican Council, it is evident, as always, that the truth of the Lord will remain forever. We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. And often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun. The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She consider that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations. Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions, and dangerous concepts to be guarded against an dissipated. But these are so obviously in contrast with the right norm of honesty, and have produced such lethal fruits that by now it would seem that men of themselves are inclined to condemn them, particularly those ways of life which despise God and His law or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life. They are ever more deeply convinced of the paramount dignity of the human person and of his perfection as well as of the duties which that implies. Even more important, experience has taught men that violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination, are of no help at all in finding a happy solution to the grave problems which afflict them.
That being so, the Catholic Church, raising the torch of religious truth by means of this Ecumenical Council, desires to show herself to be the loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and goodness toward the brethren who are separated from her. To mankind, oppressed by so many difficulties, the Church says, as Peter said to the poor who begged alms from him: "I have neither gold nor silver, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk" (Acts 3:6). In other words, the Church does not offer to the men of today riches that pass, nor does she promise them merely earthly happiness. But she distributes to them the goods of divine grace which, raising men to the dignity of sons of God, are the most efficacious safeguards and aids toward a more human life. She opens the fountain of her life-giving doctrine which allows men, enlightened by the light of Christ, to understand well what they really are, what their lofty dignity and their purpose are, and, finally, through her children, she spreads everywhere the fullness of Christian charity, than which nothing is more effective in eradicating the seeds of discord, nothing more efficacious in promoting concord, just peace, and the brotherly unity of all.
The Second Vatican Council dealt with many issues. It addressed the question of religious liberty and liberty of conscience. It addressed the salvation of non-Catholics and the relationship between the Catholic Church and other churches and religions. It addressed questions of social justice, questions of liturgy and the sacraments, and many other issues. Many characteristics of the Church that have become familiar to modern Catholics (especially Latin Catholics) trace themselves back to Vatican II or to policies and practices that developed in the years following Vatican II, including the use of vernacular languages in the Mass, having the priest face the people during the consecration of the elements, a wider variety of forms of church music, allowance of the laity to receive the chalice, and many other things.
At Vatican II, the Church reasserted her classic teaching, but she also rearticulated it in light of modern language and culture so that it could better address the realities, ideas, values, and feelings of modern life.
Vatican II issued several key documents.
Lumen Gentium focused on the doctrine of the Church and the Church's relationship to the people of the world.
Gaudium et spes dealt with many aspects of life in the modern world, discussing things like human dignity, social justice, the role of the Church in the world, international peace, etc.
Sacrosanctum concilium dealt with the liturgy.
Dei Verbum discussed divine revelation and its preservation, interpretation, and transmission.
Unitatis redintegratio discussed ecumenism and the relationship of the Catholic Church to other churches.
Nostra aetate discussed the relationship between the Church and the Catholic faith and other religions.
Dignitatis humanae dealt with religious freedom and liberty of conscience.
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/16-documents-of-the-second-vatican-council-1509 - List of documents produced by the Second Vatican Council.
https://scalar.usc.edu/works/god-man-and-the-universe-week-two/gaudet-mater-ecclesia - Pope St. John XXIII's
Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, the opening speech of the Second Vatican Council.
Religious Freedom and Liberty of Conscience
To illustrate the doctrinal development of the Church, we can look at two issues we mentioned back in Unit 6--liberty of conscience and the salvation of non-Catholics--and see how the conversation continued in the Church after the nineteenth century and through Vatican II. With regard to religious freedom, the Vatican II document
Dignitatis humanae carried further the nuances that had been coming more to the fore over the previous century regarding the role of toleration of non-Catholic religion in civil societies. We recall that Pope Leo XIII and others had re-emphasized the duty of civil societies to acknowledge and reverence God and to follow the true religion and support the true Church, and they had condemned the growing secular ideal of a (supposedly) "neutral" state which was in fact based on a practical Agnosticism or Atheism. However, these same Popes had also recognized that the civil magistrate has a number of concerns to balance in the protection of the common good. False religion may be a great evil, but it may be that in modern societies the attempt to suppress it would cause greater harm. In such a case, the protection of the greater good calls for a degree of toleration. The Vatican II council Fathers professed an intention "to develop the doctrine of recent popes on the inviolable rights of the human person and the constitutional order of society" (
DH #1).
We also recall that the Church, throughout her history, has recognized the value of conscience and the voluntary nature of faith. The early Church Fathers often appealed to these principles in their arguments against Roman persecution of Christians. Even in the Middle Ages, at the height of Christendom, when Western society was saturated with Christianity and political power was at the service of the Church's beliefs, values, and ideals, these principles were recognized and taken seriously. Hence, the Church opposed the forceful conversion of non-believers--even Jews or other non-believers living within Christian lands--and protected certain fundamental rights that they had--such as the right to raise their own children in their own faith. We recall the vigorous arguments of the Spanish Dominicans against the conquest and subjugation of the inhabitants of the "New World" in the Americas on the grounds that the Church--and Spain--had no jurisdiction over them, that they must embrace the faith voluntarily, etc.
The council Fathers at Vatican II, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, carried on the development of the Church's understanding of all of these principles and their application in the modern day. First, they recognized the growing concern for liberty of conscience in the world at large and declared that this concern was a well-grounded one, in accordance with objective truth and morality. Next, they reiterated their belief that the Catholic faith is the one true faith and the Catholic Church is the one true Church, and that, "[o]n 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." They noted that, if people are going to be able to fulfill their duty to seek and to embrace truth, their consciences must be allowed room to do this without being micromanaged by the civil authority. "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." From this arises a right that every member of society has to a sufficient degree of religious freedom--that is, to immunity from interference from civil government in matters of conscience--to allow them to pursue and embrace the truth.
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.
It is in accordance with their dignity as persons-that is, beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility-that all men should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth, once it is known, and to order their whole lives in accord with the demands of truth. However, men cannot discharge these obligations in a manner in keeping with their own nature unless they enjoy immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom. Therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature. In consequence, 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 and the exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed. (DH #2, footnote removed)
The council Fathers were very clear to distinguish the sort of "religious freedom" they were advocating from the Agnosticism-grounded ideal of "religious freedom" that would root that freedom in the idea that everyone has a moral right to believe whatever they want and no duty to believe in any particular religion. This might make sense if no one can really know objectively what the true religion is anyway, but it makes no sense on the foundation of the Catholic worldview, which asserts the knowability and the importance of religious truth. On the contrary, a true idea of "religious freedom" is grounded in the fact that because seeking and finding religious truth is so important, the civil authority has an objective moral obligation to allow people to exercise their reason and consciences in pursuit of truth and in following what they believe to be true.
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. (DH #1)
Human individuals,
as well as human societies, have a moral duty to embrace the true religion and the one Church of Christ. So there is no idea here of the kind of secularism where a society seeks "religious neutrality"--really, practical Agnosticism--as an ideal. The Church has reiterated this subsequently to Vatican II as well. The current
Catechism of the Catholic Church, in
section #2108, puts it this way:
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. (Footnote removed.)
The
Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #463, puts it this way:
Authority should always be exercised as a service, respecting fundamental human rights, a just hierarchy of values, laws, distributive justice, and the principle of subsidiarity. All those who exercise authority should seek the interests of the community before their own interest and allow their decisions to be inspired by the truth about God, about man and about the world.
Civil authority must not interfere with conscience any more than is necessary, because when people are acting in accordance with their "conscience," what that means is that they are acting in accordance with what they believe to be true and right. Civil authority cannot make someone think something is true or good by force; all it can do is try to use external means to motivate or threaten them into believing what they think is false or doing what they think is wrong. But human beings always have a duty to follow their consciences--which is just to say we always have a duty to believe what we think is true and to do what we think is right. Of course, we also have a moral duty to
form our consciences--that is, to educate them and train them to get reality right so that their judgments will be in accordance with objective truth (see the
Catechism's balanced discussion of conscience
here)--but the fact remains that we always have a duty to follow what we really believe. If the state should coerce someone into going against his conscience, it will have coerced him into sinning--for even when we are doing something objectively right, if we believe it to be wrong, it is sin to us. (See St. Paul's discussion of this principle in Romans 14:13-23.) Therefore, civil authority has a grave moral duty to grant freedom to people to live according to their consciences.
However, this freedom is not absolute. Civil authority must balance many concerns, and that often involves deciding which principles or concerns take precedence in particular situations. Hence, the council Fathers constantly reiterated the idea that everyone has a right to religious freedom, but only "within due limits" or "provided that just public order be observed." It is a harm to coerce someone to violate his conscience. It is also a harm to allow someone to follow his conscience when doing so injures himself or others. To take an obvious example, if I think it my conscientious duty to blow up a market place in a suicide bombing, pretty much all societies on earth will try to stop me. if I plead conscience in the matter, I will be told that the concern for public safety in this case outweighs the concern to protect my ability to act according to my conscience. So liberty of conscience is not an absolute. It is one value among others that must be protected in a balanced way. We saw this point made in Unit 6 by Pope Leo XIII in his discussion of religious toleration.
But how do we know how to balance these competing concerns? Here is where we are reminded of how important it is that civil authorities "allow their decisions to be inspired by the truth about God, about man and about the world." What is the standard by which right and wrong--for individuals or for societies--is to be determined? Is it the feelings or desires of human beings? Or is it something more--the objective moral law of God? Of course, the Catholic faith says it is the latter. Just as individuals can only successfully live a morally balanced life if they are grounded in the objective truths of God, so the same is true of human societies. So, ironic as it may seem to an Agnostic, "secular" mindset, it is only when the State embraces and follows the true religion that it is made capable of truly and effectively respecting social justice, including the right of individuals to religious freedom.
The right to religious liberty can of itself be neither unlimited nor limited only by a "public order" conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner. The "due limits" which are inherent in it must be determined for each social situation by political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority in accordance with "legal principles which are in conformity with the objective moral order." (Catechism #2109, footnotes removed.)
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/ci-riesce-8948 -
Ci Riesce, an address by Pope Pius XII given in 1953 to the National Convention of Italian Catholic Jurists. In it, among other things, Pius XII reiterates previous papal teaching on the balance between opposing false teaching and tolerating false teaching in accordance with what is best for the common good in particular situations, and he specifically mentions the role of respect for conscience in this balance, thus foreshadowing the discussion at Vatican II.
Salvation of Non-Catholics
We saw in the previous unit how the Church, facing the disintegration of Christendom and the growth of pluralism in Western societies, began to emphasize more the fact that while salvation only comes through Christ and his Church, individuals can be connected to Christ and his Church in unusual and imperfect ways even when they are not explicitly members of the visible Catholic community. So it is not necessarily the case that all people who die outside of the visible Catholic Church are damned. The Church continued in the twentieth century to explore this fact, and the council Fathers of Vatican II made it a clear and explicit part of their teaching, articulating the same balance the Church had always had but going further in terms of recognition of how the mercy of God can impact even those who seem far removed from the Catholic community.
Lumen Gentium begins by recognizing the necessity of the Church for salvation:
This Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved. (#14, footnote removed)
If I know that God wants me to enter the Catholic Church, and that she is necessary for salvation, and I understand sufficiently what this means, rejection of the Church is spiritually fatal, for I am intentionally rejecting the only means of my own salvation. But if I don't fully know or understand this, I am not therefore of necessity cut off from communion with the Church if, by grace, I have at least an implicit intention to follow where God is leading. As Popes Pius IX and X had previously articulated, through my intention grace is connecting me to that which I do not yet fully and explicitly know.
There are many baptized Christians who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church--Eastern Orthodox, Protestants, etc. Even though these are not in full communion with the Church, their baptism puts them into at least an imperfect communion with the Church. And, if they are truly following Christ in their hearts, they are receivers of God's grace.
3. Even in the beginnings of this one and only Church of God there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly condemned. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions made their appearance and quite large communities came to be separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame. The children who are born into these Communities and who grow up believing in Christ cannot be accused of the sin involved in the separation, and the Catholic Church embraces upon them as brothers, with respect and affection. For men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect. The differences that exist in varying degrees between them and the Catholic Church - whether in doctrine and sometimes in discipline, or concerning the structure of the Church - do indeed create many obstacles, sometimes serious ones, to full ecclesiastical communion. The ecumenical movement is striving to overcome these obstacles. But even in spite of them it remains true that all who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ's body, and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.
Moreover, some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ. . . .
Nevertheless, our separated brethren, whether considered as individuals or as Communities and Churches, are not blessed with that unity which Jesus Christ wished to bestow on all those who through Him were born again into one body, and with Him quickened to newness of life - that unity which the Holy Scriptures and the ancient Tradition of the Church proclaim. For it is only through Christ's Catholic Church, which is "the all-embracing means of salvation," that they can benefit fully from the means of salvation. We believe that Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, in order to establish the one Body of Christ on earth to which all should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God. This people of God, though still in its members liable to sin, is ever growing in Christ during its pilgrimage on earth, and is guided by God's gentle wisdom, according to His hidden designs, until it shall happily arrive at the fullness of eternal glory in the heavenly Jerusalem. (Unitatis redintegratio, #3, footnotes removed)
What about non-Christians? Jews, Muslims, pagans, even Atheists and Agnostics?
16. Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues. But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all men be saved. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel. She knows that it is given by Him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have life. But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator. Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, "Preach the Gospel to every creature", the Church fosters the missions with care and attention. (Lumen Gentium, #16, footnotes removed)
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