Intense debate over Declaration on Religious Freedom

    At the close of the final session of Vatican Council II in December 1965, the American bishops received a Christmas gift with the passage of the one document that depended the most on their leadership – the Declaration on Religious Freedom.
    Originally, religious freedom was to be the final chapter of the Decree on Ecumenism. However, the topic was considered so important and so disputed that the fathers decided to present it as a separate document.
    To achieve the needed two-thirds majority, it was decided to limit the focus to freedom to choose and practice one’s religion. Many wished the document would have dealt with freedom of expression within the Church. But on the Council’s 50th anniversary, that is still waiting for much needed debate and clarification.
    “What a batting order!” wrote Bishop Robert E. Tracy in his book “American Bishop at the Council.”
Hefty advocates
    It included Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini (Italy), Cardinal Richard Cushing (Boston), Cardinal Paul-Emile Leger (Montreal), Cardinal Albert Meyer (Chicago), Cardinal Joseph Ritter (St. Louis), Cardinal Miguel Da Silva (Brazil) and Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani (head of the Holy Office).
    “I tell you nobody – but nobody – left their seats that day for the two coffee shops,” Bishop Tracy wrote. “Everyone was waiting … for Cardinal Cushing’s debut (in Latin) at the Council, and for Cardinal Ottaviani’s rebuttal.”
    Cardinal Cushing urged that the Church show herself the champion of religious liberty and show “decent respect for the opinion of mankind.” By the time Cardinal Ottaviani rose to oppose, Bishop Tracy had, in his words, “wandered down near the cardinals’ dugout where I could see and hear everything to best advantage.” (The cardinals were seated closest to the papal altar.)
    The opposition in the third session of the council, where the vote was just to accept the schema that favored religious liberty, was so strong that it was doubtful an acceptance vote could be obtained. But Cardinal Giovanni Colombo, who succeeded Pope Paul VI as archbishop of Milan, echoed sentiments the pope had previously expressed as a council father.
    “Unless we pass this schema in principle, there can be no dialogue with men of good will,” he said.
    The schema was accepted, but the issue was so “hot” that the final vote on the Declaration of Religious Freedom was withheld until the last possible moment in the final session. And the debate that preceded the final approval would indicate that the opposition to renewal from the curial group ran deep, and those who opposed it had been out-voted but in no way converted.
    The reason for this intransigence was fear – fear of losing the “most-favored-official-religion-position which Catholicism held by concordat with the national governments of countries such as Italy, Spain and Portugal. This position was bolstered by some cooked-up theology which taught that, since Catholicism possessed the truth, it had the right to restrict other religions in countries where Catholics were in the majority.
    But in countries where they were in the minority, then the Church would tolerate other faiths so that Catholics in turn could practice theirs. I was taught this the year before the council began in the grand aula of the Gregorian University by an Italian Jesuit canon lawyer.
Development in teaching
    Deeper still were imaginary fears that went beyond the actual letter of the declaration. What the curial contingent called “The Group of International Fathers” really feared was admitting that there can be development in traditional Catholic teaching. If that is so, wouldn’t everything be relative? Would it make any difference at all what Christian faith you belonged to?
    Their fears showed how little converted they were to new directions already voted for by the council. Bishop Luigi Maria Carli of Italy asserted that the interpretation of the Bible in the schema on religious liberty was invalid because it contradicted tradition, “which is no less part of revelation than Scripture is.”
    But the council had already decided in the Constitution on Sacred Scripture that tradition could never be something apart from Scripture since it is but the Church’s spirit-guided understanding of Scripture down through the ages. Philosophical positions such as “error has no rights, and freedom of religion depends on whether you are in the majority or the minority” are not revelation – they are man-made errors.
    Other documents besides the Constitution on Sacred Scripture were also quickly forgotten in the debate on religious liberty. Bishop Arriba y Castro of Spain asserted that “the Catholic Church alone has the right and duty to preach the Gospel.” This contradicted the Decree on Ecumenism that the council already had adopted.
    The U.S., Canadian, French, Belgian, German and most British bishops strongly supported the schema. The Americans stressed the pastoral need of passing the Declaration – no great theology, but very true in the eyes of the world. Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York argued that the credibility of the Church in the eyes of nations and non-Catholics was at stake if the council did not defend religious liberty. Cardinal Cushing said that a no vote on the schema would hurt the credibility of the Church in its preaching of the Gospel.
    They were rebutted by Cardinals Ruffini and Giuseppe Siri (of Italy), who spoke of defense of the “true religion” (Ruffini) and of the “divine order” (Siri).
    It sounded like Cardinal John Carmel Heenan of England had been reading Jesuit Father John Courtney Murray, the principal theologian behind the schema, when he summed up these two approaches as one side saying that persons alone possessed rights and the other side claiming that truth is the subject of a right. Cardinal Heenan then convincingly added, “It seems absurd to say that error in itself (or truth in itself) has rights. For rights have their place in persons alone and never in things.”
    The break in the debate came when Bishop Giovanni Urbani, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, speaking in the name of 32 Italian bishops, supported the declaration. (Not all Italian bishops thought like the Roman curia.) Now bishops from countries with concordats like Italy and Germany were voicing their support. Finally, it became apparent that South America would not follow the line set by the Spaniards but would vote with the majority.
UN trip for Paul VI
    Pope Paul VI had an interest in seeing the declaration passed. He had a visit scheduled to speak at the United Nations, and the judgment of the world would be upon him and his Church. He was afraid that a sizable opposing vote would look bad; even a successful delay of the vote would make it look like the Church was against religious freedom.
    After intransigent speeches by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and others, the pope himself finally called for a vote in principle on the text (after which nothing contradictory could be added). The result, 1,997 for and 224 against, surpassed all expectations and was greeted by warm applause.
    The minority had shown itself to be less weighty than all its noise and activity had led everyone to believe. The debate and vote were hailed as “one of the greatest weeks in the history of Catholicism.”
    Pope Paul never did get the complete consensus he wanted. However, the majority considered the Declaration on Religious Liberty a major success of Vatican Council II.
    Father Carville is a retired priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge and writes on current topics for The Catholic Commentator.