Over at my other parish blog, Adult Faith Enrichment Coordinator, and Coordinator of the diocesan Amazing God program has posted something about religious freedom that you might like to read. Here is a brief excerpt:
“Dignitatis Humanae”
Vatican II Declaration on Religious Freedon
“Context and Perspective”The history of the council’s Declaration on religious freedom is extremely complex. Much of the controversy associated with the document was due to the widely perceived view (especially held by European and Latin American bishops) that the council was being asked to consider a genuine change in church doctrine, a movement away from what had been taught by both Pope Pius IX and Pope Pius X in their battle against “Modernism”. In fact, according to John Courtney Murray, S.J., the prime architect of this document, the question of the development of doctrine was the “issue under all issues” at the council.
The Declaration on Religious Freedom reflects the council’s effort to interface the rich doctrinal heritage of the church with the realities of a new and different world. The Catholic Church in the 1960s was coming to grips with a new self-consciousness as a world church and could no longer envision itself under the old model of Christendom under the rule of a single, unified empire.
“Dignitatis Humanae” begins with the recognition of the increasing awareness of the dignity of the human person, and the aspiration of people to exercise fully their own judgment in matters of faith, free of coercion and excessive restrictions on their actions. Therefore, the right to religious freedom is…
Continue reading at the Parish Blog of St. Edward the Confessor.
Filed under: Dignitatis Humanae, Parish Blog of St. Edward the Confessor, Religious Freedom, SJ, Vatican II
