Religious freedom is the first primary error of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) in which I intend to show with simplicity and clarity the error itself and how it impacts our world today.
In the introduction to this series, I explained that these errors track the same French Revolutionary errors of liberty, equality, and fraternity. In this essay, I will show the reader how and why Vatican II’s promotion of religious freedom, like the revolutionary right to liberty, is contrary to the teaching of the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church and leads both the faithful and secular world away from Jesus Christ and His Church—jeopardizing the salvation of souls. Yes, it is that big of a deal!
This particular error is often referred to as religious “liberty,” but will be referred to as religious freedom in this essay simply because that is terminology used at Vatican II. For our purposes, the reader should just assume “religious liberty” and “religious freedom” are one and the same.
And while the reader may now expect me to define this concept, that is actually the purpose of this entire essay because it is with the redefinition of religious freedom that Vatican II contradicts traditional Catholic teaching.
A. Traditional Catholic Teaching on Religious Freedom
The first key to understanding the Church’s traditional teachings on religious freedom and the role of the state with respect to enforcing and defending the true Church founded by Jesus Christ is to recognize that the state exists to benefit the common good of society.
A common good is one that cannot be diminished regardless of the number of people that benefit from that good, and there are many common goods in a society. However, the ultimate good for every person is the Beatific Vision (i.e. Heaven), and thus God grants authority to both civil authorities and the Church to aid individuals in achieving that supreme good by promoting and defending the common good within their proper spheres of authority.
While Christ instituted His Church to provide the graces and spirtual guidance to lead men to Heaven, the state also plays an indirect role through its civil laws in guiding man to achieving eternal salvation. It makes sense then why St. Paul would teach that all legitimate human authority comes from God and not from “The People” or the revolutionary “General Will” (Romans 13:1).
The Church Fathers were quite clear on this. St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.), for example, taught:
“It is by acting thus that kings serve God in their royal capacity: if in their kingdom they command the good and prohibit the evil, not only in the things pertaining to human society, but also in those that pertain to the true religion.”[i]
This did not mean that civil or Church authorities could compel anyone into conversion. On the contrary, St. Augustine says the state could not force someone to “be good in spite of his own will,”
“but that, through fear of suffering what he does not desire, he either renounces his hostile prejudices, or is compelled to examine truth of which he had been contentedly ignorant; and under the influence of this fear repudiates the error which he was wont to defend, or seeks the truth of which he formerly knew nothing, and now willingly holds what he formerly rejected.”[ii]
The point being that while the state cannot force someone into becoming a believing Christian, the state certainly can play a role in guarding the social environment, which should encourage its citizens to consider the truths of the faith and guide them towards rejecting error for the salvation of their souls.
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 -1274 A.D.) teaches us in 1266 A.D.:
“[S]ince the beatitude of heaven is the end of that virtuous life which we live at present, it pertains to the king’s office to promote the good life of the multitude in such a way as to make it suitable for the attainment of heavenly happiness, that is to say, he should command those things which lead to the happiness of Heaven and, as far as possible, forbid the contrary.” [iii]
St. Thomas also teaches civil authorities how to respond to evil, which we will see, becomes very important in the discussion on religious freedom in a world dominated by liberal, anti-Catholic governments. He says:
“Human government is derived from the Divine government and should imitate it. Now although God is all-powerful and supremely good, nevertheless He allows certain evils to take place in the universe, which He might prevent, lest, without them, greater goods might be forfeited, or greater evils ensue. Accordingly in human government also, those who are in authority, rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be lost, or certain greater evils be incurred[.]”[iv]
Take note of this idea that evil may be tolerated but never sanctioned. Moving forward in time several centuries, Pope Pius VII who became Pope during the reign of Napolean after the Revolution was pleased that the monarchy was eventually restored but made the following comments concerning the freedom of religion guaranteed in the new French constitution in 1814:
“Not only does it [Article 22 of the Constitution] permit liberty of cults and conscience, to cite the very terms of the article, but it promises support and protection to this liberty and, moreover, to the ministers of what are termed the cults…This law does more than establish liberty for all the cults without distinction, it mingles truth with error and places heretical sects and even Judaism on equal terms with the holy and immaculate Bride of Christ outside which there can be no salvation.”[v]
Pope Gregory XVI in 1832 recognized and condemned the effort of the modernist liberals to essentially canonize the liberty of conscience when it comes to matters of religion, as if all religions were equally efficacious:
“This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it.”[vi]
It is understandable that Blessed Pope Pius IX who faced the forcible loss of the Papal States at the hands of Freemasonic liberal forces, those who rejected the Church’s authority in civil affairs in the name of religious liberty, would forcefully reject liberal notions of religious freedom in 1864. This quote is longer, but extremely important:
“For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of “naturalism,” as they call it, dare to teach that ‘the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones.’ And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that ‘that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.’[vii]
These contentions that Pope Pius IX condemned are indeed those used to justify the Vatican II conception of religious freedom today. Pope Pius IX in his famous Syllabus of Errors, also issued in 1864, would condemn the following propositions:
“Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”[viii]
“In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.”[ix]
“Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship.”[x]
Pope Leo XIII, perfectly consistent with the quotes previously mentioned had much to say on the topic of religious freedom and separation of Church from the state. For example, he teaches us in 1888:
“Justice therefore forbids, and reason itself forbids, the State to be godless; or to adopt a line of action which would end in godlessness-namely, to treat the various religions (as they call them) alike, and to bestow upon them promiscuously equal rights and privileges.”[xi]
But Leo understood that despite the warning of these prior Popes liberalism made tremendous political gains at the expense of the true faith. What happens if, not unlike the situation we find ourselves in today, a majority of citizens in a state remain heretics and pagans? Leo, quite pragmatically, explains:
“But if, in such circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and this is the only legitimate reason), human law may or even should tolerate evil, it may not and should not approve or desire evil for its own sake; for evil of itself, being a privation of good, is opposed to the common welfare which every legislator is bound to desire and defend to the best of his ability.”[xii]
In other words, consistent with the teaching of St. Thomas, if we face a situation where repressing false religion or false ideas would lead to more evil—perhaps through violence, disorder, or destruction of the Church—then for the sake the common good such evil and error may be tolerated for the time being without approving of such evil or error.
And this is a key point Leo wanted to emphasize. While we may be in a situation where false religion must be tolerated, that does not mean such false religions enjoy the same or equal rights as the Catholic Church, the fountain of Truth. He explains:
“One thing, however, remains always true – that the liberty which is claimed for all to do all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights.”[xiii]
Because the modernist conception of religious freedom, which will be explained in the course of this essay, is contrary to traditional Catholic teaching, it is appropriate to quote Pope St. Pius X, who most thoroughly condemned the heresy of Modernism. In 1906 he wrote:
“That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him.”[xiv]
Many more quotes and proof of the Church’s teachings on the concept of religious freedom and role of the state in civil affairs could be made. But it is fitting to end this survey of the Church’s magisterium with a quote from Pope Pius XI which clarifies the nature of Christ’s kingship over the world. Indeed, it is not just a spirtual kingship, but a temporal one:
“It would be a grave error, on the other hand, to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to him by the Father, all things are in his power.[xv]
In summary, as shown above, the public or constitutional “right” to exercise one’s religious freedom lies only with the faithful Catholic because it is within the Catholic Church that the true faith can be found and outside of which there is no salvation. The role of the state consists of promoting the common good, which must acknowledge man’s earthly and spirtual ends. Because all legitimate authority comes from God Himself who cannot contradict Himself, it becomes the duty of the state to promote and protect the Catholic faith for the sake of the salvation of souls.
The role of the state, of course, is limited to public affairs and forced conversions have always been condemned because the act of faith is an exercise of free will. Thus, while the state cannot force anyone’s private conscience into becoming Catholic, it is the duty of the state to restrict the public expression or exercise of false religions for the common good. And because the common good remains the guiding principle, if restricting the public expression of false religions would cause more harm than good, such false religions may be tolerated but never approved or encouraged. Error, after all, has no rights.
B. Vatican II on Religious Freedom
With this authentic Catholic background in mind, we can now review Vatican II’s key document on the topic of religious freedom, the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae. The full title of the document itself is instructive: Declaration on Religious Freedom on the Right of the Person and of Communities to Social and Civil Freedom in Matters Religious.
As made clear in the title of the document, the key to understanding Dignitatis Humanae is to never lose sight of notion of “right.” The “right” to “social and civil freedom in matters religious.” This notion of “right,” in this context, will be paramount if one is to understand what this Vatican II document attempted to accomplish that did not exist before in the Church.
I warn the reader to keep their eye on the ball here because it is easy to fall for the curve if one is not careful. This is a common tactic (or negligent mistake if one wants to give the benefit of the doubt) throughout most of the Vatican II documents.
1. Article 1 of the Declaration
Here, for example, last minute additions to the Declaration appeared to have appeased many of the bishops who voted to pass it after numerous revisions.[xvi] Article 1 provides, in relevant part,
“First, the council professes its belief that God Himself has made known to mankind the way in which men are to serve Him, and thus be saved in Christ and come to blessedness. We believe that this one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church, to which the Lord Jesus committed the duty of spreading it abroad among all men…
“Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.
“Over and above all this, the council intends to develop the doctrine of recent popes on the inviolable rights of the human person and the constitutional order of society.”
The argument of those who want to defend the orthodoxy of this Declaration insist that everything that comes after Article 1 must be interpreted through the lens of Article 1, that is, in light of traditional Catholic teaching.
What is curious about these seemingly[xvii] traditional statements set forth in the first article of the Declaration is that it concludes with the statement, “over and above all this, the council intends to develop the doctrine of recent popes on inviolable right of the human person and the constitutional order of society.”
And so, even if we accept that Article 1 insists the Council does not intend to change the traditional doctrine on religious freedom, Article 1 concludes that the Council does intend to “develop the doctrine of recent popes on the inviolable rights of the human person and the constitutional order of society.”
This is an ominous warning, perhaps unintentionally, because the Modernist’s idea of “development” tends to, in fact, mean “change,” and that is exactly what ends up happening in the Declaration despite the comforting preamble in Article 1.
Presumably, Article 1 could have concluded without this last sentence, but it did not. And that is because, of course, the Declaration was to serve a purpose beyond just restating what everyone already thought was Church doctrine. So, what is new?
2. Articles 2, 3 and 4 of the Declaration
The answer comes in the very next two sentences:
“This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits (emphasis added).”
The emphasized portion restated above is what the Council intends to teach that is “new.” In summary, it is the idea that “all men” have a “right” to religious freedom such that they cannot be forced to act contrary to his own beliefs, not just privately, but publicly.
Before I show you how this is new, or different, than what came before in Catholic social teaching, we must continue on our journey through the Declaration to make sure we understand what the Council is really intending to teach.
Article 2 goes on to say,
“The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right.”
This paragraph is relevant because it reemphasizes that this “right” we are speaking of has its foundation in the dignity of the human person, and therefore must be recognized in the constitutional law of a nation. What type of “right” is based on the essence of a human person that is protected in the highest civil laws of the land, namely the constitutions?
Those with American sensibilities will immediately recognize that the Declaration is talking about “natural rights.” A natural right, from a post-enlightenment (liberal) point of view, is an inalienable claim to something which is inherent to everyone by their very nature as a human being, and one which no human (civil) government can infringe upon.
Proceeding along this same theme, we see that the Council intends to make it clear we are not just talking about guarding one’s private conscience from coercion, but religious freedom also includes the right to act on those personal beliefs publicly:
“The social nature of man, however, itself requires that he should give external expression to his internal acts of religion: that he should share with others in matters religious; that he should profess his religion in community. Injury therefore is done to the human person and to the very order established by God for human life, if the free exercise of religion is denied in society, provided just public order is observed. (Article 3).
To put some meat on the bone here, the Declaration then goes into specific acts that must be protected as part of this concept of religious freedom. For example, Article 4 teaches that all persons, regardless of which religion they profess, must be free to publicly teach their creed in addition to establishing educational, cultural, charitable and social organizations.
3. Article 6 of the Declaration
Underlying the purpose of the entire Declaration, of course, is an attempt to instruct the world on what the role of government should be with respect to religious freedom. Perfectly consistent with its attempt to incorporate classically liberal (i.e. American) notions of natural right into Church teaching, the Declaration provides in Article 6:
“If, in view of peculiar circumstances obtaining among peoples, special civil recognition is given to one religious community in the constitutional order of society, it is at the same time imperative that the right of all citizens and religious communities to religious freedom should be recognized and made effective in practice.
“Finally, government is to see to it that equality of citizens before the law, which is itself an element of the common good, is never violated, whether openly or covertly, for religious reasons. Nor is there to be discrimination among citizens.”
Essentially, the Declaration here recognizes there may be occasions where a particular religion, such as Catholicism, may be officially recognized by the government. But, if this be the case, then the other religions not officially recognized must be afforded their right to publicly profess their faith.
This is because the Declaration adopts the notion that all citizens, and by extension their particular religion beliefs, must be treated equally under the law. The Declaration does not explain how a government might give special recognition to one religious sect, while treating the other religious sects equally.
At the end of the day, it is evident that the Council intends to teach at minimum that all religions share the same right to religious freedom, and that government must play a role in ensuring those equal public rights are maintained.
4. The Public Order Limitation
Now, it would be unfair and inaccurate to ignore the fact that the Declaration does limit the extent to which one may exercise this religious freedom, but it is not the type of limitation which is intended to necessarily promote the Catholic faith.
As seen with the quotation cited from Article 3 above, the Declaration makes several references to the need to maintain “public order.” Interestingly, this is the same phrase used in the French revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man. But what, exactly, does “public order” mean? No precise definition is given to us, but the Declaration gives us examples of what would fall under the umbrella of “public order.” Article 7 explains:
“[Governmental] action is to be controlled by juridical norms which are in conformity with the objective moral order. These norms arise out of the need for the effective safeguard of the rights of all citizens and for the peaceful settlement of conflicts of rights, also out of 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 out of the need for a proper guardianship of public morality. These matters constitute the basic component of the common welfare: they are what is meant by public order.”
We can gleam what the Council intended concerning “public order” by the examples given. Public order means the state must peacefully resolve conflicts, maintain the public peace, and guard public morality. Seemingly, the Council means that the state may impose restrictions on the exercise of religious freedom in order to maintain civil order—that is, to keep people from injuring one another.
What is obviously clear from a plain reading of the Declaration, however, is that while it recognizes certain limits on religious freedom, those limits are not in any way intended to promote a Catholic state or nation, but a neutral peaceful state, wherein all religions can equally operate freely without fear of government intrusion or harm by others in the same community.
5. Summary of Dignitatis Humanae
In summary, the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae claims to leave traditional doctrine untouched but then “develops” Church doctrine concerning religious freedom by discovering a new “right” to religious freedom that is inherent to the dignity of the person, and applicable to every human being in the same way a natural right is under modern liberal constitutional codes.
Significantly, this new right to religious freedom teaches that because every person must be free to exercise their own individual conscience concerning their religious beliefs, which includes not just the exercise of religion privately, but publicly as well, the state cannot impose any public measures that would require an individual to perform religious acts nor can the state prohibit religious acts in furtherance of those beliefs.
The only exception to this broad right to religious freedom are public limits designed to maintain public order, or preserve the peace, effectively to protect citizens from physically or economically harming one another. Nothing in the Declaration promotes or suggests the Catholic political state is the ideal state or one which should be favored at the expense of other non-Catholic religions even though they are false.
C. Catholic Tradition vs. Vatican II on Religious Freedom
The primary underlying difference between the traditional Catholic teaching on religious freedom and that put forth in the Vatican II documents, especially the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, is how the Church should understand the role of the state in matters concerning religion.
More specifically, this difference involves the role of the state in matters concerning the public exercise of religion, particularly with regard to restricting false religions in the public forum. Significantly, the difference does not lie with understanding the state’s role in relation to the exercise of religion in a private or internal forum.
As shown very clearly above, the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church prohibits the forced conversion of individuals to the Catholic faith and acknowledges that true conversion must be free and voluntary beyond the touch of any civil government authority. This is also common sense.
And so, the crux of the question boils down to what the role of the state should be concerning restrictions on the public exercise of religion. Any other attempt to conflate the question into the private sphere or internal forum is misleading, creates straw men easily torn down, and tends to lead one to incorrectly believe Vatican II did not attempt to change Church doctrine.
The traditional Catholic doctrine clearly indicates the state owes a duty to God and therefore a duty to restrict public religious acts that could harm the common good. The common good of society requires the state to recognize the true Church, founded by Jesus Christ, and His kingship in civil society. One cannot promote the common good while at the same time endorsing acts that lead souls to hell. Public religious acts that contradict this truth, or lead souls away from the Church, can and should be restricted, unless prudence dictates otherwise.
What would be examples of such restrictions? Of course, the civil laws must implement the natural moral law found in the Ten Commandments. Prohibitions against murder (including abortion), contraception, fornication, sodomy, stealing, and fraud would certainly fall within the civil government’s duty to prohibit.
But the Ten Commandments also include other duties towards the true God for the salvation of souls. This could involve civil laws that restrict the dissemination of books or media that claim the Catholic Church is false or that other non-Catholic religions are true (to protect the 1st Commandment). Restrictions on publicly taking the Lord’s name in vain (to protect the 2nd Commandment) or operating businesses on Sunday (to protect the 3rd Commandment) would also fall under the purview of civil government, according to traditional Catholic doctrine.
Such civil laws would be valid under traditional doctrine because they tend to guide the community against committing grave sins that harm the common good and jeopardizes souls, while at the same time does not coerce the same members of society into accepting the Catholic faith against their will.
The Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, on the other hand, teaches every person, regardless of what faith they profess, maintains a natural right to act freely in the public forum concerning matters of religion. Civil governments must, therefore, recognize the right of each person to publicly profess and exercise false religions.
Consequently, under this Vatican II system for example, a civil government could not ban the distribution of heretical documents, or potentially restrict the sale of satanic goods on Sunday if someone happens to profess a belief and worship the Evil One.[1]
Indeed, how could a government prohibit such activities if everyone, due to their dignity as a human person, maintains a natural right to “give external expression to his internal acts of religion” and “profess his religion in community?”
It is true that the Declaration does not necessarily limit the government’s ability to restrict activities such as murder, fraud and stealing. The exception allowing for the state to maintain “public order” is recognized as discussed above. But maintaining the safety of personal bodies and bank accounts does not necessarily translate to protecting the soul from harm and corruption.
At the end of the day, the Declaration creates a Jeffersonian wall between Church and state that is a far cry from traditional Catholic doctrine that recognizes the role civil governments play in protecting souls and guiding them towards Heaven, not Hell.
D. Impact on the Modern Culture
We now must ask ourselves, why does this error concerning the Church’s teaching contained in Vatican II matter? Does this impact our daily lives and world? The answer is absolutely it does!
One cannot claim to believe that Christ is King and at the same time accept Vatican II’s notion of religious freedom. They are two, incompatible and mutually exclusive concepts.
The notion of living in a “pluralistic” society implies that people from different backgrounds must learn to live with each other in order to avoid constant warfare, division and violence. This notion straight out of the Hobbesian playbook is, practically speaking, true because the Hobbesian ideology has been imposed on the world.
The Church recognizes this practical reality when it teaches that in modern day society, controlled by the liberal worldview, it becomes necessary to tolerate false religions to avoid greater evil for the benefit of the common good.
On the other hand, the explicit error contained in Dignatis Humanae and laced throughout the Vatican II documents, that everyone maintains the natural right to religious freedom, contradicts the Truth in that it necessarily results in the rejection of the social Kingship of Christ.
The proof of this is easy to see when we consider what happened to the Feast of Christ of the King as originally implemented by Pope Pius XI in 1925. As previously discussed in a prior essay, this feast day was not just moved to a new date from the end of October to the last Sunday before Advent but was entirely replaced with a modernist version that removes the concept of Christ’s authority in civil affairs.
The real impact of this false teaching on religious freedom is that the world, including millions of Catholics, believe that the Gospel and Christ’s social teachings can be ignored in public policy and only retain relevance in our personal private lives.
With the promotion of this error, Catholics are implicitly trained to become non-judgmental and apathetic when it comes to topics such as “no fault” divorce, ubiquitous contraceptive use, immodest entertainment, and anti-Christian teaching institutionalized throughout the public school system—just to name a few.
Consequently, Vatican II’s concept of religious freedom contributes to a political ecology that is boldly anti-Christ. As demonstrated above, it has no basis or foundation in Catholic social teaching and provides an unlimited supply of toxic fuel to those who reject Christ and all of Christianity, even if done so unintentionally.
If the Catholic Church is ever going to play a role in bringing Christ to the world once again, for the common good and salvation of souls, rejecting Vatican II’s notion of religious freedom is a first and fundamental step.
[1] Some may recognize restrictions on selling goods on Sunday as American “Blue Laws,” which were not constitutionally prohibited. But the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the First Amendment is narrower than even what Dignitatis Humanae calls for!
[i] St. Augustine, “Four Books in Answer to the Grammarian Cresconius,” Retractions, Chap. 51 §56.
[ii] Herbert A. Deane, The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), 194.
[iii] St. Thomas Aquinas, De regno, Chap. 16, 115, available at: https://isidore.co/aquinas/DeRegno.htm.
[iv] Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II of II, Q. 10, Art. 11, available at https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3010.htm.
[v] Letter to Msrg. De Boulogne, Bishop of Troyes (1814)(quoted in Davies, Michael. The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty, 56 (2015).
[vi] Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, 14 (1832).
[vii] Pius IX, Quanta Cura, 3 (1864).
[viii] Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, 15. (1864).
[ix]Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, 77. (1864).
[x] Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, 78. (1864).
[xi]Leo XIII, Libertas, 21 (1888).
[xii]Leo XIII, Libertas, 33 (1888).
[xiii] Leo XIII, Libertas, 34 (1888).
[xiv] Pius X, Vehementer Nos, 3 (1906).
[xv] Pius XI, Quas Primas, 17 (1925).
[xvi] See Davis, The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty, 169-179, for a discussion on how the inclusion of certain phrases in Article 1 of the Declaration, particularly references to “traditional Catholic doctrine” and the moral duties of “societies toward the true religion” satisfied many conservatives including Fr. Brian Harrison who defends the orthodoxy of the Declaration.
[xvii] I say “seemingly” because even reference to the one true religious subsisting in the Catholic Church is problematic, but that must be addressed in a later article on ecumenism.