Liberty & Catholicism

The major stumbling block to Protestant-Catholic understanding-- underlying the U.S. Protestant insistence on separation of church and state--is the question of religious liberty. The Roman Catholic record is clear, say Protestants; when in the minority, the church is all for religious liberty, but once in the majority, the church--as in Spain or Italy--sees to it that the religious rights of non-Catholics approach the vanishing point.

Many Catholics maintain that this is indeed the official policy of the church, set forth in the doctrine that error should not enjoy the same rights as truth, and that therefore the church (truth) can only tolerate the propagation of other religions (error) as a necessary evil when the church is not in a position to enforce its claims.

Just published is a Protestant pamphlet that indicates what many followers of Catholic thought have long known: there is a strong trend in modern Catholicism to take a firm stand on the side of religious freedom. The document: a scholarly, footnote-stippled study prepared for the World Council of Churches' Commission on Religious Liberty by Dr. Angel F. Carillo de Albornoz of Paris, a scholar with degrees in theology, philosophy, letters and law. Dr. Carillo was formerly a Roman Catholic but is now an Episcopalian on the staff of the World Council.

Conscience & Error. According to Dr. Carillo's 95-page analysis, the trend is so strong that "it would be an understatement to say that for one book or article in favor of the traditional doctrine, ten have been published defending universal religious freedom." Many of these theologians deal with the problem of giving rights to error by making a distinction between protecting error and the moral obligation to grant freedom of conscience--whether conscience is in error or not. Dr. Carillo quotes German Jesuit Theologian Max Pribilla: "Religious liberty, when it is understood correctly, does not mean the protection of error, but the protection of the erring men who should not be prevented from serving God according to their conscience. Even the erring conscience imposes obligations and acquires corresponding rights. The protection accorded to the erring person in order that he may fulfill his obligations or maintain his rights is good in itself . . . The church itself will therefore be wise to leave God to decide on the state of conscience of people with different beliefs."

Highly Satisfactory. Against those Catholic theologians who assert that the question of religious liberty is not open to discussion by Catholics, the opposite faction contends that the encyclicals, pronouncements and other papal actions often cited by the traditionalists (e.g., the Inquisition, Pius IX's Syllabus) were contingent on specific historical situations, and are therefore subject to revision.

However, since there is no binding papal statement on the subject, the World Council study maintains that it is high time there should be one, "unencumbered," in the words of one Belgian Catholic theologian, "by the philosophical postulates of doctrinal liberalism and rationalism." Concludes Dr. Carillo: "We believe that once this Roman Catholic opinion ceases to be only one of several admitted within Catholic orthodoxy and becomes the official attitude of the church itself, a practical agreement with the Roman Catholic Church on the real exercise of religious liberty in all countries will be possible."

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