Michał Chaberek The Teaching of the Church on Religious Freedom: A Break or Continuity of Tradition? 1 (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Teaching of the Church on Religious Freedom: A Break or Continuity of Tradition?
2021
This paper elaborates upon the Catholic Church’s teaching on religious freedom in the period from The French Revolution to The Second Vatican Council. Based on quotations from the original documents, the author presents the evolution of the Church’s position that switched from the initial rejection to the final acceptance of the religious freedom over past two centuries. The fact of this dramatic change begs the question about the continuity of tradition and credibility of the contemporary position of the Church. Based on the document by the International Theological Commission, “Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past,” as well as the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI, the author demonstrates that – in contrast to some contemporary interpretations – the hermeneutics of continuity is possible regarding Church’s teaching on religious freedom.
Constantability of Catholic Church Teaching Religious Freedom
2020
The purpose of the article is to embed the twentieth-century teaching of the Church’s Magisterium on the right to religious freedom in the Church’s Tradition, showing clear evidence for the continuity of this teaching. Religious freedom is not a law that existed in the teaching of the Church fifty years ago, but one of its traditional elements, which may not have been strongly realized for centuries. It is, however, one of the elements of science about the relationship between the Church and the state that does not contradict any other elements.
Contributing toward such an interpretation of the Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty (the Declaration, Dignitatis Humanae, or DH) is the chief purpose of this important volume of essays. The authors emphasize that the grounds of religious liberty here declared are not those of modern Enlightenment liberalism, with its indifference to religious truth, privatization of faith, and supposed neutrality as between religion and irreligion.
A Paradigm Shift in the Catholic Church: Recognising Religious Freedom and Secular Autonomy
2018
This paper explores the shift in the position of the Catholic Church regarding religious freedom, in the context of the changing perspective on the relationship between Church and State. The Declaration Dignitatis humanae of Vatican II recognised religious freedom as a human right deriving from the dignity of the person. It reflected a significant change in perspective as it understood religious freedom as abidance by convictions held in conscience and as freedom from coercion. Both the State and the Church are expected to ensure freedom from external coercion and from psychological pressure. The process which led to the recognition of religious freedom in the Catholic Church went along with the acknowledgement of the autonomy of the State in secular matters. The State is expected to recognise the freedom to profess freely religious beliefs and the right to free worship, but religious freedom may not interfere with secular authority in its own sphere of competence. Dignitatis humana...
The Catholic Doctrine of Religious Liberty. A Reply to Professor Thomas Pink
The purpose of this paper is to develop the ideas presented by Professor Thomas Pink in his 2008 paper "What is the Catholic doctrine of religious liberty?" and to demonstrate that the mediaeval tradition in favour of coercion of the internal forum can be integrated with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council in favour of religious liberty, and with the teaching of the Church that was in place before the Council, all within the framework of public international law which governs relations between the Church and the states which comprise the international community. The author concludes that, under present juridical arrangements, the Church's power of coercion can justly be used only for crimes known to civil law and through the judicial process available to citizens generally, and is material only in cases where a civil and an ecclesiastical prosecutor differ in their determination of whether a prosecution serves the general public interest.
Catholic Social Science Review, 2012
In this brief volume, well -known Catholic author, translator, and writer, Kenneth D. Whitehead, gives a remarkably concise exposition and convincing defense of the doctrinal continuity of Vatican II's "Declaration on Religious Freedom" (Dignitatis Humanae) with past Catholic teaching. The conciliar "Declaration on Religious Freedom (DH) has remained a source of great controversy in the post-conciliar period, giving rise to the only organized major schism, that of Archbishop Lefebrve and his followers, as well as to a spate of other "traditionalist" sectarians -all of whom have accused Vatican II of a radical break with past Catholic teaching on religious liberty. Some "traditionalists" would became outright schismatics in denial of the truth of DH's teaching on religious freedom while others have candidly expressed their inability to resolve what appeared to be a contradiction of past Catholic teaching because of DH's doctrinal formulation of religious liberty as "one based on affirming the human dignity of the religious believer".
Science et Esprit, 2017
This book is the result of a symposium held from the 5th to the 7th of September, 2013 at the University of Strasbourg, France. It was organized by the French Society of Philosophy of Religion and Philosophy (Société francophone de philosophie de la religion) and the Group of Philosophy of Religion of the University of Strasbourg. It is a very interesting, and dense, book on the relationship between the noitons of religion and freedom, within the discipline of philosophy of religion. Even though the subject of the book focuses particularly on the Christian religion, it is also interested in other religious traditions such as Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism.