Rev. Ralph Wiltgen: The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II

[Stone]

THE THIRD SESSION
September 14 to November 21, 1964

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

No text was subjected to as many revisions by the Council as the one on religious freedom. Before its promulgation as a declaration on December 7, 1965, the day preceding the closing of the Second Vatican Council, six different drafts had been laid before the Council. One of the United States bishops said that, without their support, “this document would not have reached the floor.”

The original schema on the Church, rejected by the Council at the end of the first session principally as a result of the efforts of the European alliance, had included a short chapter entitled “On the Relations Between Church and State.” This chapter was suppressed altogether by the Coordinating Commission at its first meeting in January 1963. The action occasioned no little displeasure among a number of Council Fathers,
particularly those from the United States.

Auxiliary Bishop Primo Gasbarri, of Velletri, a suburb of Rome, drew attention at the second meeting of the second session, on October 1, 1963, to the deletion of the chapter, and insisted that the matter must be treated because it was intimately bound up with the Church’s right to fulfill its mission. A conciliar statement on the subject was necessary, furthermore, to counteract the propaganda conducted against the Church and to clarify the Church’s position in countries where it was subjected to persecution.

Bishop Ernest Primeau, of Manchester, New Hampshire, expressed agreement with Bishop Gasbarri. The text, he said, should lay down general principles governing Church-state relations.

In an interview that Bishop Primeau gave me for the Divine Word News Service, he enlarged upon his ideas. “I do not think that the Council should go into particulars,” he said, “or into the particular relationships that exist between the Church and the state, but some general principles should be laid down.” As examples he mentioned freedom of conscience for individuals and freedom of action for the Church in carrying out its mission.

Bishop Primeau said that there would be little concern over such a statement in countries such as Spain, Italy, “or even England, curiously enough, which is a pluralistic society. But in our country, the Protestant intelligentsia are always asking for a definite statement on Church and state.” Many Council Fathers were opposed to a Council declaration on Church-state relations, he said, because they felt it was a controversial matter. “But we have not come here just to rubber-stamp the status quo. There are knots to be cut.”

Archbishop Lawrence Shehan, of Baltimore, speaking later in the name of the more than two hundred bishops of the United States, said that the question of Church and state was “entirely too important and too delicate to be treated only in passing, almost casually, in a discussion of the apostolate of the laity.” He was referring to Chapter 3, on the laity, of the schema on the Church. The question required careful treatment, he said, and pertained not exclusively to the laity, but to the entire Church, While religious freedom was only one aspect of the larger problem of Church-state relations, it was definitely one of the most important. A conciliar declaration on the matter was further necessary as a preliminary step before the Catholic Church could become seriously engaged in the ecumenical movement. Such a declaration, stating that the Catholic Church officially recognized the rights of members of other religions, would be considered by non-Catholics as a test of Catholic sincerity and would establish the basis for further contacts. Cardinal Bea’s Secretariat, therefore, soon after it was founded in i960, had set to work preparing a schema entitled “Freedom of Cult.” This schema was examined by the Central Preparatory Commission in June 1962, and again by the Coordinating Commission at its first meeting, in January 1963, after the close of the first session. The Coordinating Commission authorized the Secretariat to incorporate in its schema on freedom of cult whatever it wished to take from the chapter on Church-state relations in the original schema on the Church.

Cardinal Bea’s revised text was ready for presentation to the Council Fathers before the opening of the second session. But since doctrinal matters were involved, and since the chapter on Church-state relations had originally been within the competence of the Theological Commission, the schema had to be approved by that Commission before it could be presented on the Council floor. The long delay gave rise to accusations in the press that Cardinal Ottaviani, President of the Theological Commission, was deliberately blocking the document. Finally it was released with the necessary approval.

Cardinal Bea and his Secretariat decided to present the text as Chapter 5 of the schema on ecumenism, which had already been distributed. They felt that to introduce it as an independent schema might jeopardize its passage. It was entitled “On Religious Freedom” and was distributed on November 19, 1963.

Cardinal Ritter, of St. Louis, Missouri, addressing the assembly on November 18, said that he regarded religious freedom as “a basis and prerequisite for ecumenical contacts with other Christian bodies.” He called for “an unequivocal declaration on religious freedom” and said that “without such a declaration, mutual confidence will be impossible, and serious dialogue will be precluded.” He was also speaking for other American bishops when he said that such a declaration should include “considerations on the absolute freedom of the act of faith, the dignity of the human person and his inviolable conscience, and the total incompetence of the civil government in passing judgment on the Gospel of Christ and its interpretation. Such a declaration should also “reaffirm the complete independence of the Church of any civil government in fulfilling its mission.”

The report on Chapter 5 was read on the following day by Bishop De Smedt, of Bruges, Belgium. He said that the Theological Commission had carefully examined the text and made “well-founded and useful observations and suggestions.” He then listed the four chief reasons why “a very large number of Council Fathers have most insistently requested that this Sacred Synod openly express and proclaim man’s right to religious freedom”:

1. The Church must teach and defend the right of religious freedom because this is one of the truths committed to its custody by Christ;

2. The Church cannot keep silent today while nearly one half of humanity is deprived of religious freedom by various kinds of materialistic atheism;

3. The Church, using the light of truth, must show men how to live peacefully with their fellow men, at a time when people all over the world belong to different religions or have no religion at all; all are expected to live peacefully together in one and the same human society;

4. Many non-Catholics harbor resentment against the Church, or at least suspect it of some form of Machiavellianism, believing that it demands the free exercise of religion when Catholics are in the minority in a country and that it disregards the right to religious freedom when Catholics are in the majority.

Bishop De Smedt described religious freedom positively as “the right of a human person to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of his own conscience.” Negatively, it could be described as “immunity from all external force in those personal relationships with God which are proper to the conscience of man.” Bishop De Smedt expressed the view that the entire matter could be discussed, voted upon, and approved before the end of the second session. “We shall work day and night,” he declared.

Cardinal Leger, of Montreal, pointed out that, while the schema on ecumenism concerned the unity of Christians, religious freedom was a doctrine which concerned all religions; it should therefore not be a chapter of the schema on ecumenism, but should constitute a separate schema.

On the following day. Cardinal Meyer, of Chicago, expressed a contrary view. The question of religious freedom, he said, was intimately bound up with both theoretical and practical ecumenism, and he therefore urgently requested that the text be retained as Chapter 5 of the schema on ecumenism. On this point, he said, “I think I express the view of many bishops, especially from the United States."

In view of the considerable opposition to Chapter 5, the Moderators I postponed the vote on the acceptability of the chapter as a topic of discussion.

Cardinal Bea was the last speaker at the final General Congregation of the second session, on December 2, 1963. Obviously aware of the discontent fomented by some bishops and periti who were wrongly blaming conservatives for holding back the vote, he stated in deliberate and solemn tones that the only reason why the chapter had not been debated was I that time had run out. There was “no other reason,” he asserted. And he repeated this for all to hear. “I think we should be grateful to the venerable Cardinal Moderators for wishing to give ample opportunity for discussion of the three fundamental chapters,” he said.

“The new prophets of doom and gloom,” as they were subsequently called by a bishop in an anonymous article in America after the second session, had made charges of “obstruction, foot-dragging, dirty pool in the committee,” in explaining why the chapter on religious freedom had not come up for discussion. By way of rebuttal, the bishop cited Cardinal Bea’s reason that time had simply run out, adding that nobody present could seriously say that there had been a filibuster.

In point of fact, however, there had been “foot-dragging” and “obstruction.” Those responsible—by their own admission—were the Moderators.

Cardinal Suenens made the admission on Sunday, December 1, 1963, the day before Cardinal Bea’s speech in the Council hall. In a lecture at the Pontifical Canadian College, he said that the Moderators could have insisted that Chapter 4, on the Jews, and Chapter 5, on religious freedom, should be voted on, but they had decided against it. He explained that the Moderators believed that, after a cooling-off period and after the issues had been aired in the press, the two chapters would stand a much better chance of acceptance. The Moderators intended, he said, to present the two chapters for a vote early in the third session.

True to their word, the Moderators introduced the discussion on religious freedom on September 23, 1964, nine days after the opening of the third session. Bishop De Smedt again presented a report, and said that in the interval between the second and third sessions no fewer than 380 written observations and amendments had been submitted by Council Fathers, and that these had been “most carefully examined by the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity.” The new text still needed to be perfected in many points, he said, “since religious freedom, as you all know, has never been treated at an Ecumenical Council.” The revised text was no longer presented as Chapter 5 of the schema on ecumenism, but as an independent declaration.

Three American cardinals spoke on that first day of debate. The first was Richard Cardinal Cushing, of Boston.

Speaking “in the name of almost all the bishops of the United States,” he said that “the declaration on religious freedom in general is acceptable.” He expressed the hope that amendments would make the text even stronger, rather than weaker. It was of the greatest importance, he said, that the Church in this declaration should “show itself to the entire modern world as the champion of liberty—of human liberty and of civil liberty—specifically in the matter of religion.” He also said that “the substance of the doctrine as we have it here is true and solid, and is most appropriate for our times.”

Cardinal Ritter, of St. Louis, called religious freedom a natural right of every man, one of the aspects of natural human freedom, a truth that was certain, and one that was limited only by the common good of society. However, he took exception to the proofs for religious freedom set out in the text, saying that they did not have the same simplicity, clarity, and certainty as religious freedom itself. He therefore asked that all argumentation be omitted from the declaration, since the nature of a declaration was simply to declare, and not to prove. The more simple and brief the document was, he said, the more effective it would be. There was a danger, moreover, that the Council Fathers, in rejecting the arguments proposed, might also reject the declaration itself. He therefore petitioned the Moderators to hold two distinct ballots on the two issues.

Cardinal Meyer, of Chicago, said that the declaration should be accepted, since it reaffirmed the teaching of recent popes, clarified traditional doctrine, and was especially needed at this time, when men greatly desired a statement from the Church encouraging religious freedom. By affirming the innate freedom of the person, he said, the Church would show that true religion consisted in the free and generous subjection of the individual to the Creator. This affirmation was essential, moreover, for a fruitful dialogue with non-Catholics. It was also a necessary prelude “if anything else that we have to say is to be accepted by the world.”

Cardinal Silva Henriquez, of Santiago de Chile, speaking in the name of fifty-eight Latin American bishops, said that the great value of the declaration “consists in its being issued not as a chapter in some schema, but as an independent declaration intended for all mankind.” That, he said, was one of the “special reasons why we approve of the text.” There could be no real ecumenical movement in Latin America, he added, until non-Catholic Christians became aware of “our sincere recognition and defense of this fundamental liberty.”

The next speaker was Cardinal Ottaviani. He said that the declaration stated a principle which had always been recognized, namely, that no one could be forced in religious matters. But the text was guilty of exaggeration in stating that “he is worthy of honor” who obeys his own conscience. It would be better to say that such a person was deserving of tolerance or of respect and charity. “The principle that each individual has the right to follow his own conscience must suppose that that conscience is not contrary to the divine law,” he asserted. There was missing in the text “an explicit and solemn affirmation of the first and genuine right to religious freedom, which objectively belongs to those who are members of the true revealed religion.” Their right was at once an objective and a subjective right, he said, while for those in error there was only a subjective right.

The Cardinal said that it was “a very serious matter” to assert that every kind of religion had the freedom to propagate itself. That would “clearly result in harm for those nations where the Catholic religion is the one generally adhered to by the people.” He also said that an Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church could not ignore the fact “that the rights of the true religion are based, not only on merely natural rights, but also, and to a much greater degree, on the rights which flow Cardinal Ruffini, of Palermo, pointed out that, although there was only one true religion, the world was in darkness and error, and consequently tolerance and patience must be practiced. Distinctions must be made in the text, lest the Council should appear to endorse religious indifferentism and to say no more than had the United Nations in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. From certain statements in the text, he said further, it would seem that a state was not entitled to grant special favors to any one religion; if that were the case, then the papal agreements with Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the Dominican Republic would require revision.

Cardinal Quiroga y Palacios, of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, called for the complete revision of the text. From its style and language, its dominant preoccupation appeared to be to favor union with the separated brethren, without sufficient consideration of the very serious dangers to which it thereby exposed the Catholic faithful. The text was filled with ambiguities, he charged, new doctrine being favored at the expense of traditional doctrine, and the Council was being invited to give its solemn approval to that liberalism which the Church had so often condemned.

Jose Cardinal Bueno y Monreal, of Seville, Spain, said that the entire text was pervaded by a twofold ambiguity. Only the Catholic Church had received Christ’s mandate to teach all nations. Objectively speaking, no other religious doctrine had the right to propagate itself, he said. In the social sphere, every freedom was subject to limitations, and these derived from the rights and freedoms of others, and from the requirements of law and order. The right to preach one’s religion was valid, he maintained, as far as those who freely chose to listen were concerned, but not in relation to those who did not wish to listen. Those who were unwilling to accept the propagation of false religions or harmful moral teaching were undoubtedly entitled to demand that such public propagation not be allowed.

Bishop Smiljan Cekada, of Skoplje, Yugoslavia, pointed out that religious freedom had become the principal social problem for millions of men, because many countries were under the influence of Communism. He proposed that the Second Vatican Council should request the United Nations to remind public authorities throughout the world of their obligation to respect the religious freedom of all men and all groups.

As the first day of discussion on religious freedom came to an end, it was clear that it was not a matter which could be rushed through the Council.

On the following day, Cardinal Konig, of Vienna, said that the declaration was altogether acceptable as it stood, but he maintained that it should not keep silent regarding the tragic fact that nations existed where no religious freedom was enjoyed.

Cardinal Browne, of the Roman Curia, stated that the declaration could not be approved in its existing form. Archbishop Parente, also of the Roman Curia, made the same point, on the grounds that the rights of God were subordinated in the text to the rights of man and human liberty. It was an unfortunate suggestion, he said, that the Church should make use of its extraordinary teaching authority in a Council to proclaim absolute religious freedom.

Father Aniceto Fernandez, Superior General of the Dominicans, maintained that the text required complete revision because it was too naturalistic.

Bishop Carlo Colombo, chairman of the theological faculty of the major seminary of Milan, said that the declaration on religious freedom was “of the greatest importance,” not only because of its practical consequences, but also and perhaps above all because of the judgment that would be passed on it by the well educated. They would look upon it as a key to the possibility of dialogue between Catholic doctrine and the modern mentality. He called for the further development and improved organization of the doctrinal content of the text, especially in regard to references to the fundamental principles of Catholic doctrine on religious freedom. Basically, he said, the text was making “a new application of unchangeable principles.” Considerable importance was attached to Bishop Colombo’s words, since he served as Pope Paul’s personal theologian.

Immediately after this address, the discussion on religious freedom was closed by a standing vote. Nevertheless, at the next General Congregation, four more speakers addressed the assembly on this point in the name of seventy or more Council Fathers. All spoke out strongly in favor of the text, saying that a simple declaration on religious freedom was not enough. They insisted that the doctrinal foundations for religious freedom should be included in the text.

At this point the discussion on religious freedom came to an end, and once again the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity set about preparing a new revision, its third draft. There would also be a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth, before the document would be ready for promulgation.