Catholic Social Doctrine: Freedom of Religion and Conscience

4/18/2012

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between "religious freedom" and "freedom of conscience," and what might be called "religious license" or moral libertinism.

"Religious freedom is not a moral license to adhere to error," nor should it be viewed as "an implicit right to error." (Compendium, No. 421) (citing CCC 2108)

Conscience is ordered to the truth and to good, ultimately God who is the source of both truth and good.

Properly understood, therefore, freedom of conscience and of religion "is not of itself an unlimited right." (Compendium, No. 422)

What, then, are the just limits of this freedom?

"The just limits of the exercise of religious freedom must be determined in each social situation with political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority through legal norms consistent with the objective moral order." (Compendium, No. 422)

The "objective moral order" is a reference to the natural law. Therefore, there is no religious freedom or freedom of conscience that would justify a right to breach the natural moral law. Consequently, the just limits of religious freedom or freedom of conscience may include prohibitions of practices against, or offensive to, the natural moral law.

For example, it would not be a violation of religious freedom or freedom of conscience to prohibit polygamy or family intermarriage, human or animal sacrifice, or religions that practiced offensive sexual religious rituals or which advocated assassination, violence, or disobedience to positive laws that were in accord with natural law. It is not a violation of conscience to prohibit homosexual "marriage," or to have laws against abortion.

The reason behind imposing just limits on freedom of religion and of conscience relates to the public order and the common good: "Such norms are required by 'the need for the effective safeguarding of the rights of all citizens and for the peaceful settlement of conflicts of rights, also by the need for an adequate care of genuine public peace, which comes about when men live together in good order and in true justice, and finally by the need for a proper guardianship of public morality.'" (Compendium, No. 422)

Since the natural moral law binds all men regardless of religious confession, and since religious freedom and freedom of conscience find their source in the natural moral law itself, it is reasonable to impose upon all men limits based upon that natural moral law. In other words, religious freedom and freedom of conscience (which are founded on the natural moral law) do not provide freedom or license for beliefs or acts that are contrary to that very same natural moral law.

Finally, the Church recognizes the intrinsic historical and cultural ties that a religious tradition may have with a people, and recognizes that the common good might allow for "special recognition" of that reality. These would be justified because of those particular religions' ties to those countries. But even so, religious freedom and freedom of conscience survive such "special recognition."

Such norms are required by "the need for the effective safeguarding of the rights of all citizens and for the peaceful settlement of conflicts of rights, also by the need for an adequate care of genuine public peace, which comes about when men live together in good order and in true justice, and finally by the need for a proper guardianship of public morality." (Compendium, No. 423)

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Andrew M. Greenwell is an attorney licensed to practice law in Texas, practicing in Corpus Christi, Texas. He is married with three children. He maintains a blog entirely devoted to the natural law called Lex Christianorum. You can contact Andrew at agreenwell@harris-greenwell.com.
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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: religious freedom, religious liberty, human rights, human nature, religion, social doctrine, conscience, Andrew Greenwell,

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1 - 7 of 7 Comments

Robert Duffy
1 year ago
Mr. Greenwell--Thanks, I will definitely have a look at that article!
Juneau Alaska
1 year ago
Andrew Greenwell,

What are the odds a devout Muslim would say you're quite mistaken? I'm sure I can find one. Debating whether fitrah and Natural Law are synonymous or even superficially so is about as useful (to me) as comparing the Elvish language to Klingon.

I say this because I find the concepts of Natural Law and fitrah preposterous and un-evidenced. What's the old saying? Not all religions can be right, but they can all be wrong.

Thanks for the feedback and the chance to provide a different point of view.
Andrew Greenwell
1 year ago
@Juneau
Yes, Islam was left out of the lineup. The concept of fitrah is only superficially alike the natural law. And pulled out from Islam in general, it has similarities. But in reality, you have to understand the concept of fitrah within the overwhelming divine positivism of the shari'a and the occasionalism and voluntarism that is so endemic to mainstream Islam. Since the suppression of the Mu'tazila and the victory of the Ash'ariyya in the 8th century, there is no suggestion of parallel and mutually dignified ways to understand God's will--reason and revelation--in mainstream Islam. Shari'a pretty much elbows substantive reason out. (For example, you could not argue from reason to a traditional Muslim that polygamy or slavery is against the divine law because it contradicts reason, because he shari'a allows it. If the shari'a allows it, there is no appeal to reason.) Reason is used only to implement the shari'a. It is, in a manner of speaking, a slave to the shari'a) Modernly, some Muslims have tried to revive something like Mu'tazilite thought which allows the shari'a to be tempered by reason, but they are often regarded as heretics. As the ʻUmdat al-Sālik wa-ʻUddat al-Nāsik (Reliance of the Traveler) puts it (a1.3-4): "The position of the Ash'aris, the followers of Abul Hasan Ash'ari, is that the mind is unable to know the rule of Allah about the acts of those morally responsible except by means of His messengers and inspired books . . . The measure of good and bad, according to this school of thought, is the Sacred Law, not reason (الشرع لا العقل)."
Andrew Greenwell
1 year ago
@Robert: The article is written to persons of "good will" as the Church typically states it, not necessarily those of the household of faith, or even Christianity. The Church is convinced that the natural law, which is universal, is the means to approach all peoples that do not share our confession. For sure, there's a lot of work that is to be done in this area. A nice start is the International Theological Commission's 2009 document entitled In Search of a Universal Ethic: A New Look at the Natural Law (2009). Unfortunately, there is no official translation in English: the official translations on the Vatican website are only in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. But several intrepid individuals (including myself) and the Catholic Truth Society in England have translated it into English, and these are available on the internet. After I complete my series on the Compendium, I hope to make this document better known to the Catholic laity through a series of articles.
Juneau Alaska
1 year ago
The phrase, religious impulse, inasmuch as it's represented in Hinduism and Plato as the article insists, also sounds exactly like the Islamic concept of fitrah. Interesting that Islam was left out of the lineup.

Fitrah is the theological explanation for why Islamic scholars refer to converts moreso as reverts, since they are just "coming home."

I look forward to Part II.
Robert Duffy
1 year ago
First of all, thank you for this. I thought this was carefully thought out, and clearly delineated, and helped me to think through and understand some things I hadn't gone through before with this much rigor.

I have a question as to your audience though. Was this intended mainly for Catholic audiences, and, what's more, devout Catholic audiences? The question of religious freedom, it seems to me, has all of a sudden become a very relevant topic, for the first time (as far as the United States is concerned) in several hundred years, and for the first time (as far as the west in general is concerned, excluding the USSR) since WWII. By which I mean, don't you think something with more appeal to the reader already estranged from and hostile to Church teaching might be necessary at a time like this?

Specifically, the argument relies heavily (almost solely) on natural law. As far as I understand the issue, natural law is not universally understood in the same way, and in specific cases it can prove ambivalent. While I agree with your use of it in cases like homosexual marriage, I have seen good cases made that, while homosexual marriage is not marriage, the strongest grounds for rejection are not necessarily natural law. To argue from natural law in this way almost amounts to begging the question: it requires that one interlocutor set the definition of what is natural--well, one might say, one natural end of sex is reproduction. Well, what about married cripples? Sterile people? Marriage late in life? Of course the natural law argument can handle these objections--as I said, I agree with it--but because of the necessarily limited scope of natural law--that is, it requires prudence to interpret in the particular case, otherwise we could not address the questions I mentioned above--it is not a sound basis on which to base or limit religious freedom. It is too easily rendered ideological, especially given the fact that different historical epochs have different ideas of what is "natural," and it's got to be hubris to say "we've got the ahistorical god's-eye-view and can be sure now that we've got it right."

Even if natural law didn't have these pitfalls, I think we've got to start philosophizing where the rubber hits the road. Meet our interlocutors at their own questions. Don't submit to their presuppositions, but grant that their concerns are real ones. When religious freedom is genuinely at risk of disappearing, we shouldn't be concerned with delimiting it to what the Catholic tradition, rooted in natural law, says is legitimate religious freedom. We should be more concerned with starting from ground zero to build up a genuine conception of religious freedom with as much objectivity as possible, and without an eye to the particular interests of the Catholic Church. Incidentally, I'm confident that the interests of the Catholic Church would coincide with the conclusions of absolutely rigorous thought about religious freedom, so it's an experiment I'm interested in seeing undertaken (although I'm by no means equal to it myself...)

If your intended audience is people already in the fold and seeking to understand their own faith better, then disregard everything I said except for, thank you for this well thought out article!
abey
1 year ago
God is pure & Holy so is the word to which is the Absolute truth, nothing Hidden, except that man in his corruptions think otherwise. Of all the fruit bearing trees the tree of good & evil was banned & its consequences told, whereas the tree of Life was not banned, but then they fell for the devil's words to man today swimming in a sea of laws & the never ending Karmas but in vain, with no hope & to this in the Love & Mercy of God came the Christ to get man back the tree of life, made for him when all this troubles could have been avoided just by adhering to the word of God, through which word could have said "No" to the devil, for that "No" is to the love of God into the power of resistance & to this is what Jesus says "Just as I overcame, so should you" in the revelations, which is the requirement to the tree of life, except now it comes about in a round about & hard way to the same but at a great loss of time without the slightest of gain to the Truth of overstepping the word of God is not to profit but to loss, the loss of Time again to the understanding that every word from GOD is of such importance to the very question of life & death in the eternal , reflecting the words of Jesus in the temptation "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that Proceeds from the mouth of God." Ask Adam or Eve & they for a sure will confirm it, as no greater witness to this Truth.

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