John Paul II on Religious Freedom: Themes From Vatican II

The Thomist 65 (2001): 161-78 JOHN PAUL II ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: THEMES FROM VATICAN II AVERY CARDINAL DULLES, S.J. Fordham University Bronx, New York There is a widespread opinion to the effect that in the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis humanae,1 the Catholic Church belatedly accepted principles that had by that time come to be seen as selfevident in most of the civilized world. Some suspected that the Church was embracing a fundamental principle of the Enlightenment after having opposed it for three centuries. Writing in January 1965, John Courtney Murray maintained that the principle of religious freedom was "accepted by the common consciousness of men and nations. Hence the Church is in the unfortunate position of coming late, with the great guns of her authority, to a war that has already been won."2 Such interpretations might be justified if the Catholic Church had simply repeated what had already been recognized, for example, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. But the reader should not underestimate the essentially Christian and Catholic character of the council's teaching. For a better appreciation of these aspects one cannot do better than to follow the statements of John Paul II over the past thirty-five years. As 1 This declaration, approved on 7 December 1965, will henceforth be abbreviated DH. 2 John Courtney Murray, "This Matter of Religious Freedom," America 112 (1965): 43. Again in his commentary on DH Murray wrote that the principle of religious freedom has long been recognized in constitutional law, so that "in all honesty it must be admitted that the Church is late in acknowledging the validity ofthe principle." See Walter M. Abbott, ed., The Documents ofVatican II (New York: America Press, 1966), 673. 161 162 AVERY CARDINAL DULLES, S.]. a young bishop and, after 13 January 1964, archbishop, Karol Wojtyla took a keen interest in the conciliar declaration. Subsequently , as cardinal and pope, he has continued to celebrate the achievements of Vatican II, applying them to changing situations and interpreting them in the light of his own philosophical and theological perspectives. In his Sources ofRenewal, a book written in 1972 for a synod of his archdiocese of Krakow, Cardinal Wojtyla devoted considerable attention to religious freedom. He has returned to the same theme in a number of his encyclicals, such as Redemptor hominis, Centesimus annus, and Veritatis splendor, as well as in many of his speeches and in his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope. The following quotation from his World Peace Day Message for 1988 is indicative of the importance he attaches to the topic: Religious freedom, an essential requirement of the dignity of every person, is a cornerstone of the structure of human rights, and for this reason an irreplaceable factor in the good of individuals and of the whole of society, as well as of the personal fulfillment of each individual. It follows that the freedom of individuals and communities to profess and practice their religion is an essential element for peaceful human coexistence.... The civil and social right to religious freedom, inasmuch as it touches the most intimate sphere of the spirit, is a point of reference for the other fundamental rights and in some way becomes a measure of them.3 At Vatican II Bishop Wojtyla made no fewer than five interventions on religious freedom, two oral and three in writing.4 Thanks to criticisms such as his, the schema was significantly revised. In the initial stages it was little more than an effort to defend the Catholic Church from the charge of being intolerant. But in the end the document did far more. It set forth the basic principles of a positive theology of religious freedom quite 3 John Paul II, "Religious Freedom: Condition of Peace," World Peace Day Message, 7 December 1987, Origins 17, no. 28 (24 December 1987): 493-94. 4 The numbers I through V in parentheses in my text refer to the following: (I) speech of 25 September 1964 in AS III/2, 530-32; (II) written intervention in AS III/2, 838-39; (III) written intervention in AS III/3, 766-67; (IV) speech of 22...