Why Religious Freedom Is Not Enough – About

Catholics in the United States are currently observing the Fortnight for Freedom, a 14-day period of prayer and political action that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (the sponsor of the Fortnight for Freedom) calls “a great hymn of prayer for our country.” It is perhaps the most widespread demonstration of public and political advocacy on behalf of the Catholic Church in the United States in my lifetime, and yet, as much as I hope that the Fortnight for Freedom will lead to (among other things) the end of the Obama administration’s contraception mandate, I feel compelled to strike a discordant note.

Far from being our “first freedom”—a phrase drawn from some of America’s Founding Fathers and used extensively by Catholics during the Fortnight for Freedom and the debate over the HHS mandate—”religious freedom” may well be our last. Underlying the phrase is the idea that religious freedom or “freedom of conscience” is the liberty upon which all other liberties build. George Washington famously said that there can be no law without morality, and no morality without religion. And yet those who quote Washington in support of religious freedom forget that, in the context of his time, religion meant Christianity, and, indeed, a fairly narrow range of Christian denominations.

In the context of the Catholic Church, the current use of the phrase “religious freedom” is even more problematic. Both traditionalists and the supporters of the “spirit of Vatican II” (as opposed to those who see Vatican II in the light of a “hermeneutic of continuity”) claim that Vatican II endorsed a departure from traditional Catholic teaching on the question of religious freedom. They argue that Dignitatis Humanae, the council’s declaration on religious freedom, implicitly endorsed the moral freedom to be in error—which is, of course, the current secular understanding of the phrase.

And yet Dignitatis Humanae states clearly that that is not the case:

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.

Dignitatis Humanae did represent a shift for the Catholic Church, but it was a shift in approach. Whereas, throughout much of her history, the Church could demand that the secular authorities recognize her as the repository of the truth “all men are bound to seek” and to grant her a privileged place in society for that reason, in an increasingly secular world that views truth as merely instrumental, such a demand is likely to be met with scorn.

And yet the Church knows that (in the words of Dignitatis Humanae:

• God Himself has made known to mankind the way in which men are to serve Him, and thus be saved in Christ and come to blessedness.
• [T]his one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church, to which the Lord Jesus committed the duty of spreading it abroad among all men.
• [A]ll 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.

What is the best way, in the face of an increasingly secular—and even hostile—world, to maintain the Church’s right to preach the truth of Christ, to assert her standing as the fullest repository and defender of that truth, and to aid all men and women in their search for that truth? By demanding that all governments, including those openly hostile to religion, recognize the right of religious freedom.

Here in the United States, the common use of the term “religious freedom” in political discourse seemed to dovetail nicely with the council’s shift in approach. And yet there was a problem, which should now be clear: Dignitatis Humanae does not see religious freedom as a moral freedom to embrace error, while the same phrase, as used in American political discourse, does.

The danger is that the Catholic understanding of religious freedom expressed in Dignitatis Humanae would get swallowed up by the political and secular understanding. And that, I would contend, is precisely what is happening when Catholic laymen—and even Catholic priests and bishops—discuss religious freedom as our “first freedom”—that is, as a political freedom, which underlies political rights, rather than as a spiritual freedom of both man and the Church, which both precedes and rises above any political freedoms or rights.

Both understandings of religious freedom can be seen at work in the Fortnight for Freedom. It began on the vigil of the Feast of SS. John Fisher and Thomas More, men who gave their lives for the Faith when the English state overstepped its bounds; it ends on July 4, Independence Day, which has become identified with the right of all to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, however the latter may be defined—even without regard to the truth.

As Catholics in the United States take part in the Fortnight for Freedom, we must keep this distinction clear in our minds. True religious freedom can be found in the example of the great martyrs of the Faith; the political concept of religious freedom, however, is more likely to end in freedom from religion—imposed by force, if necessary.

Related Material:

• Fortnight for Freedom: Defending the Rights of the Catholic Church
• Dignitatis Humanae