What’s Wrong with the World

Pure, undiluted modernism.

So let me get this straight. Religious liberty, against which the popes thundered all during the 19th century as being lethal to the Church and the salvation of souls (Don’t make me start citing encyclicals.), is now to be considered a fundamentally Christian principle? Is this what you’re selling? What an insult to my intelligence! This is positively Orwellian. If this is Catholicism, then Catholicism is a joke.

From the fact that Christians took a long time to come to favor religious freedom, it does not follow that a moral obligation to respect such freedom cannot be extracted from the sources of revelation, i.e. Scripture and Tradition.

I don't suppose you know that, in the space of one century, the Church moved from approving some forms of slavery to condemning all its forms. Marcel Lefebvre was a member of a religious congregation, the Holy Spirit Fathers, who were and are more adamantly opposed to slavery than virtually any other quarter of the Church. I suppose that's why he never condemned such an obvious development of doctrine, which can be seen as a reversal of a position going back to the early Church.

So when you rad-trad schismatics claim that the development represented by Dignitatis Humanae contradicted what came before, I am singularly unimpressed. You don't object to development of doctrine just because it sometimes reverses past teaching. You just object when it means tolerating non-Catholics. That kind of thing isn't worth taking seriously.

I know I'll regret stepping my toe into this, but here goes. Religious freedom in the tradition is laughably easy. From Theology for Dummies, by Everyone's Favorite Dominican:

ST II-II Q2 a1-10 (esp. a1 resp., a1 ad 3, and a9 resp.)
ST I-II Q6 a1-8 (special attention to a5 and a6)

Not liberating us from discussing development, but pretty clearly setting forth the principles of religious freedom.

thenyssan:

Too bad St. Thomas didn't apply those insights when he advocated persecuting heretics.

What that shows is something that should be obvious across a whole range of issues: sometimes it just does take the Church a long time to grasp and follow the basic impetus of Tradition.

Best,
Mike

Michael

Agreed, although there's a lot more to the story. We have to get into social order and the common good as encompassing the spiritual goods of man, at the very least. What these articles seem to state very clearly is that persecution, coercion, etc. are clearly bad for the unbeliever himself. We have to go further and place that important question in the context of the good of (for Thomas, Catholic) society.

And then we're still just in the background material for settling the question put forward by the SSPX. To me it's a clear ending with a very muddled middle--much like history itself.

thenyssan,
All I can say about your Summa citations is, "You gotta be kiddin' me."

Michael,
I take it by your subject-changing response that you cannot answer my question. That's because there is no answer, of course. For there is not a shred of support in Tradition or Scripture to support the presumed right to religious freedom. That's just a fact. You can either accept it or live in a fantasy world where facts don't matter.

thenyssan:

To me it's always seemed obvious that persecuting heretics was just a pastoral policy. It became possible when the Church first became politically powerful, and ceased being possible many centuries later when the Church lost much of that political power. So the notion that persecuting heretics contributes to the common good was never part of the deposit of faith. It was an opinion that was plausible in a certain context, but which history, along with a developed sense of the dignity of the human person as image of God, has shown to be untenable.

The reason I have so little patience with the SSPX is the same reason I have so little patience with the Küngs and Currans: their brand of Catholicism is so selective and inconsistent. The rad-trads don't object to the development of doctrine in general; if they did, they'd join the Orthodox or become Protestant fundamentalists. They accept distinctively Catholic doctrinal developments such as the filioque (which popes for centuries resisted putting into the ecumenical Creed), the Immaculate Conception (which St. Thomas rejected), and of course papal infallibility. Like the founder of the SSPX, they don't even object to the recent doctrinal reversal on slavery; indeed, he was part of it. What they object to is the developments they happen to dislike. Well, they can dislike them all they want, but that doesn't mean that the pope and the bishops are heretics. It means that the rad-trad schismatics have no sense of irony or proportion.

Best,
Mike

"Doctrinal reversal?" I thought you read and understood Newman. Doctrine does not reverse. Development is not -- cannot ever be -- "reversal". The problem today is that certain deformities, reversals, and undevelopments are being touted as development.

Oh, and please show us the authoritative magisterial teaching that slavery is intrinsically immoral, in all its forms, and never to be tolerated under any circumstances. That's what a reversal looks like. Thank you.

Michael

Still with you (we tend to see eye-to-eye on issues), but I think there's more to it than just pastoral policy. There are principled defenses of that policy, which I take to be incorrect, and those principled defenses must be refuted as well as shown not to be a part of the Church's tradition. But I would add, perhaps where you would not, that those principled defenses raise substantive issues that are not simply wrong. There really is quite a deep issue at stake with important (but not equally correct) voices on all sides of the problem.

I would also join Jeff in calling your phrase "doctrinal reversal" infelicitous. And then remind ourselves that we're getting into too much inside-baseball for W4.

I have to say that, speaking as a heretic, I'm always pleased to hear a Catholic say that he definitely doesn't believe that persecuting heretics is an essential part of his Catholic faith.

Jeff:

Rather than bat the inside baseball back and forth about slavery, we'd do better to have you read John Noonan's book A Church that Can and Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching. Now Avery Dulles showed, in his 2005 First Things review of that book, that Noonan did not establish that the intrinsic evil of involuntary servitude as such has become irreformable doctrine. But if you look at CCC §2414, which reflects statements made by Vatican II and John Paul II, you can see that much is now condemned that was once approved and practiced by churchmen (and women) themselves, including popes. That's what I'm calling a "reversal."

You assert:

Doctrine does not reverse. Development is not -- cannot ever be -- "reversal".

That's way too simplistic. In point of fact, there have been reversals: on usury, slavery, religious liberty, and ecumenism, to name just the most neuralgic. To admit that is just intellectual honesty. What we must nonetheless insist on as Catholics is that no "doctrine"—i.e., no "teaching" of the Church—that has been reversed is one that ever met the Church's own criteria for irreformability. Much of my online apologetical work has been devoted to showing that.

Best,
Mike

thenyssan:

Still with you (we tend to see eye-to-eye on issues), but I think there's more to it than just pastoral policy. There are principled defenses of that policy, which I take to be incorrect, and those principled defenses must be refuted as well as shown not to be a part of the Church's tradition. But I would add, perhaps where you would not, that those principled defenses raise substantive issues that are not simply wrong. There really is quite a deep issue at stake with important (but not equally correct) voices on all sides of the problem.

The work you're calling for—which I hope you don't believe I'm supposed to do in a combox—is not as difficult as you imply. All one needs to show is that the principles cited to justify persecuting heretics do not logically necessitate persecuting heretics. And that's not terribly difficult, because the sort of arguments made for persecuting heretics were of the order of practical not speculative reason. The moral premises of chains of practical reasoning do not, of themselves, logically necessitate any particular course of positive action. They do so only if one assumes certain factual premises, such as that persecuting heretics successfully promotes a certain sort of social good called for by the moral and theological principles in question.

Between Augustine and Pius XII, the majority of churchmen made just such an assumption. Vatican II abandoned that assumption, for reasons that are evident both in history since the Reformation and in the doctrinal tradition as developed in Dignitatis Humanae. Accordingly, no irreformable teaching of the Church was jettisoned. What was jettisoned was a mistaken set of empirical beliefs. And rightly so, as the last several popes have been happy to tell us.

Best,
Mike

Michael:

I didn't mean to redirect your ire at George onto me. I certainly don't expect you or anyone to settle the matter in a combox. I just nettle to get people to elaborate and clarify. I do agree with your position but I'll spend a little more amateur time thinking about your first paragraph of 2:23. By the way, big fan of your on-line work.

Lydia:

Don't remind the papists to hate Protestant heretics and close ranks against you. We get snappish with each other and then all of a sudden an infidel shows up and loses a limb. To the greater glory of God, naturally. :) (don't miss the joke tag, it hides on the internet sometimes!)

Mike:

What we must nonetheless insist on as Catholics is that no "doctrine"—i.e., no "teaching" of the Church—that has been reversed is one that ever met the Church's own criteria for irreformability.

A lot of Catholics Just. Don't. Get. This.

I didn't get it for quite a long time myself.

It is a logically necessary corrollary of the doctrine of infallibility, and of the special conditions required for infallibility, that some doctrines are not infallible.

If we suppose that sometimes, reformable doctrine does get reformed, that is just fine, if perhaps unsettling to folks of a certain temperament (including me).

The alternative is to suppose that in every non-infallible assertion of X, the Church has infallibly asserted the falsity of not-X. Which is to say, it is to suppose that non-infallible doctrines are infallible, a logical contradiction.

What follows is that arguments that say in effect "X would be a reversal of doctrine" carry no water - are literally pointless - until it is first shown that not-X is infallible doctrine. It isn't enough to show or propose that not-X was taught as doctrine.

Always we see these arguments that if the Church (is construed to have ever) taught not-X, then when the Pope says X we can ignore it. Au contraire: until not-X is shown to be infallible, the argument doesn't get off the ground. It may or may not be true that X would be a reversal in some particular case: we can fully stipulate that X is a reversal. But the person making that argument shouldn't bother until he first demonstrates that not-X is infallible.

The other thing that happens often is that we get the "if it isn't infallible I don't have to listen to it" response: the flip side of the same coin. The thing they have in common is non serviam.

Gotta run off for a while, but I would note that "reformable" should not be taken to mean "repealable" or "reversible". If a doctrine (reformable or otherwise) could be something false, then an indefectible Church cannot bind any man to believe it.

If a doctrine (reformable or otherwise) could be something false, then an indefectible Church cannot bind any man to believe it.

Is the proposal that a man cannot be obligated to give assent to a reformable doctrine?

Are we obligated to give assent to reformable doctrines?

Zippy:

It is painfully evident that a lot of Catholics "just. don't. get." the point you've taken. That's why I'm almost a Johnny-one-note about it. The point desperately needs to be taken throughout the Church, and the abysmal state of adult catechesis virtually ensures that it's not going to happen in the parishes. Of course when people do "get it," they say it's obvious. Or so I have found. Sort of like what a prominent Jesuit scholar said about my dissertation--a tome which several prominent philosophers at the time had read when they didn't have to, and liked precisely because they thought it made a point that desperately needed making.

I basically agree with all of what you say, but I'd like to comment further on one point.

You wrote:

The other thing that happens often is that we get the "if it isn't infallible I don't have to listen to it" response: the flip side of the same coin. The thing they have in common is non serviam.

That is true. In fact, such an attitude is precisely what the progs and the rad-trads, both of whom represent a hermeneutic of discontinuity, have toward certain teachings that haven't been formally defined as dogma. That attitude is a terrible plague in the Church.

You followed up the above observation with the questions:

Is the proposal that a man cannot be obligated to give assent to a reformable doctrine? Are we obligated to give assent to reformable doctrines?

I'd say two things. First, Vatican II (Lumen Gentium §25) called for Catholics to give "religious assent" to doctrines taught authoritatively but without the note of infallibility. Clearly that cannot mean absolute, irreversible assent; such a demand would be impossible as well as arguably immoral. What it does mean, I believe, is that one is to presume the truth of such teachings while admitting that they may be reformable in some yet-to-be-determined respect. Much of Catholic social teaching, it seems to me, is like that.

My other point is closely related to that. Short of formal dogmatic definition by councils or popes, one cannot reasonably expect of rank-and-file Catholics the theological sophistication to distinguish controversial teachings that are irreformable from controversial teachings that are reformable. That's one reason why the requirement of "religious assent" is appropriate. What one can reasonably expect is that theologians will reach some sort of agreement about how to apply the criteria for the infallibility of the ordinary and universal magisterium. Those criteria were tersely stated in Lumen Gentium §25 and applied by then-Cardinal Ratzinger in his 1995 CDF responsum on women's ordination. Clarity and consistency about this are crucial, because if the question what counts as having been infallibly set forth by the ordinary and universal magisterium can only be answered by debatable opinions, then the category itself is effectively empty.

Best,
Mike

It is a logically necessary corollary of the doctrine of infallibility, and of the special conditions required for infallibility, that some doctrines are not infallible.

Zippy,
All Church doctrine is infallible and irreversible. If some teachings of the Church were fallible, there would be no reason to believe that any of them were infallible. For if a subject capable of error were to teach that in such-and-such a case it is incapable of error, what is there to guarantee the truth of that teaching? Therefore, Michael’s and your suggestion that certain teachings of the Church are reversible and others are not is logically baseless.

The question of fallibility and infallibility does not refer to Church teaching but to certain words uttered or written by churchmen, particularly the pope.

Btw,I'm still waiting for an answer from someone, anyone, to the question, "Where in Scripture or Tradition is the right to religious freedom affirmed?" I have a feeling I'm going to be waiting a long time.

"Where in Scripture or Tradition is the right to religious freedom affirmed?"

If you think Jesus or Paul taught a traditional form of Judaism, and not a radical reform of it, it can only be because you think they had the authority to change those traditions. So the question is one of who has authority to make change, not whether freedom from tradition is able to be justified.

George R. writes:

If some teachings of the Church were fallible, there would be no reason to believe that any of them were infallible.

Lydia:

I have to say that, speaking as a heretic, I'm always pleased to hear a Catholic say that he definitely doesn't believe that persecuting heretics is an essential part of his Catholic faith.

Though I enjoy envisioning your tongue in your cheek, I must say that you haven't quite nailed it here. The Church no longer presumes that most Protestants (still less the Orthodox) are "heretics"; most are to be seen as "separated brethren."

For a person to be guilty of heresy, they generally must have been in full communion with the Church, so that one may reasonably presume that they once knew and accepted what the Church teaches definitively and then went on to reject it freely and contumaciously. That presumption, which was reasonable in the case of the original Reformers who left the Church, is not reasonable in the case of people who never were Catholics to begin with. People like you.

It isn't even reasonable in the case of many "cradle Catholics" who leave the Church for (usually) evangelical or pentecostal churches. My experience of such people is the common one: most of them never understood the Catholic faith well enough to be said to have rejected (or accepted) it freely. In fact, the ignorance of many nominal Catholics can be said, in the old language, to be "invincible" (I prefer the term 'inculpable'). Nobody has bothered to instruct them well enough for them to know how ignorant they really are, and therefore they can discern no need to inform themselves, save perhaps by some special grace. They were "processed" through the sacraments and their Catholicism is, or was, largely cultural.

The only people I'm prepared to call heretics are well-educated Catholics who simply deny teachings that they should know satisfy the Church's criteria for irreformability. Most of them are known as "progressives," and most of the heresy is over pelvic issues. Kerry Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi are good examples of non-theologians who are heretics. But even they are only materially so; to be formally a heretic, one must be convicted of same in a canonical trial. For obvious PR reasons, the Church isn't much interested in doing that to lay people these days. It only happens rarely, with errant theologians.

Best,
Mike

Much as I'd love to see something embarrassing happen to Nancy Pelosi, and happy as I am to call her (without tongue in cheek) a heretic, I'm not at all sure that I'd support even in her case encouraging the secular authorities to do something _really_ unpleasant, like burning her at the stake.

I wouldn't either. Giving heretics what they deserve does not inspire love of the truth. :-)

You do recognize, Michael and Zippy, that the skepticism you apply to, say, the Syllabus of Errors could be just as easily applied to Dignitatus Humanae, or indeed all of Vatican II. Did the Council Fathers ever explicitly say they were presenting infallible doctrine? Did they demand that all Catholics embrace religious freedom on peril of their immortal souls, with anathama pronounced on all dissenters? If not, it would seem this is reformable doctrine.

Also, I'd like to turn around Jeff's request and ask when it was that the Church not only allowed the practice of slavery and presumed its continued existence, but taught that opposition to slavery is incompatible with orthodoxy? Many such statements could be made on the issue of religious liberty. It would seem that the two issues are not equivalent, and there is no necessary inconsistency in Archbishop Lefebvre's position.

Before we capitulate to classical liberalism, let us ask if there are any points on which the Tradition unanimously speaks upon which we can base our thoughts. I see three:

1) Forced baptisms are invalid. Therefore, they shouldn't be done.

2) Christ is rightfully king over all mankind, both individuals and collectives. Therefore, the state must explicitly recognize God's sovereignty, enforce the natural law, and protect the Chuch.

3) Heresy endangers people's souls. It should be fought at least as vigorously as things like smoking, lead paint, or racism.

Btw,I'm still waiting for an answer from someone, anyone, to the question, "Where in Scripture or Tradition is the right to religious freedom affirmed?" I have a feeling I'm going to be waiting a long time.

Saith the Lord: "He who is not against us is for us."

Saith the Lord: "He who is not against us is for us."

You're reaching for straws, Bill.

Besides, how do you reconcile that with Luke 11:23? -- "He that is not with me is against me."

Michael and Zippy, while I agree with your main thesis, I am unhappy with the way you sometimes express it. In ordinary parlance, round the house and in the country-side, a Catholic who refers to "doctrine" more or less thinks he is referring to that body of truths that the Church herself thinks of as irreformable. This is a subset of the larger "teachings", some of which are taught without being "doctrine". One of the problems with "teachings" as a category is that they may be taught by this or that person in the Church, but are not found as taught by "THE CHURCH" properly - the Church from time immemorial with Tradition, and through the ordinary Magisterium, for example.

There is some justification for this sort of language. Here is St. Thomas in II II Q5 Article 3:
Now it is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will.

Now, if you wish to use the term "doctrine" in a different (and, probably, more technically correct theological sense), you better explain that or you are going to fail to communicate your meaning to some people, who (like George R) are usually equating "doctrine" with "irreformable".

George R, there are certain Church pronouncements (which I here decline to call "teachings" ) that rested on publicly-given justifications, which pronouncements and said justifications would at this time be rejected by the Church. A pronouncement "punish heretics, even unto death" is not itself a teaching at all, it is a command. True or False are not predicated of commands. However, when the Church gave such pronouncements, she did so with proclaimed justifications. Those justifications amounted to a form of teaching, but did not constitute doctrine in the sense of a justification that springs directly out of general, universal truths so that the conclusion logically must apply always and everywhere. Indeed, the logic of those justifications rested on certain specific cultural conditions. Therefore, the conclusions cannot be taken to be "doctrine" of the Church that apply always and everywhere, as being logically necessary from universal moral principles. When the Church now rejects the conclusions as being not applicable, she does so at least in part because the cultural conditions on which their logic rested no longer obtains.

The Popes themselves, in speaking of the Syllabus, stated that the false teachings there condemned were condemned precisely and particularly in the context of the specific works by the specific authors cited. The condemnation, then, was limited to a very carefully limited understanding of certain catch phrases. Thus, although the Syllabus condemns certain claims about "religious liberty", it does nothing about condemning "religious liberty" understood in a separate and distinct manner than the understanding put forward in the concrete documents in which the Syllabus condemned that expression. So when Dignitatis Humanae defines a kind of religious liberty that means something different from that proposed in the liberal writings and fallacies of Voltaire, the Syllabus has nothing to say about that use of "religious liberty".

Bonald:

I don't disagree with the Syllabus of Errors, as far as I can tell, though it has been a while since I read both DH and the Syllabus. I tend to think that a lot of supposed conflicts reflect limitations in the reader moreso than the text.

Overall I would suggest that:

(1) There isn't anything especially alarming about development of doctrine, including genuine discontinuities or reversals on non-infallible matters. This state of affairs requires Christians to have faith, that is, to trust: to approach the Holy Spirit and the concrete, embodied, real, present, living Church with humility and trust. That is a good thing, since (among other things) doing so develops important virtues.

(2) At the same time I tend to think that a lot less of it (development) happens than meets the eye, and that most readers who see discontinuities most of the time suffer from a lack of imagination. It isn't the spoon that bends, it is you that bends.

One of the problems with the so-called category of assent referred to as "religious assent" is that it seems to be intended to apply to things that the Church intends to put forward as true but not as irreformably true. And, in fact, it is applied to some teachings which seem to bear the same character, today, as other earlier teachings which have in fact been changed: something about the teaching leaves room for a change.

But the process of making that change (if it ever comes) inherently involves some people, particularly teachers and philosophers and theologians, saying "whoa, that there teaching seems to have some issues with it." And that could never happen while they continue to give religious assent to it. So the Church, in making the change to such reformable teachings, seems to approve those teachers and theologians having had doubts about the (eventually changed) older teaching, and expressing those doubts. Which means that the Church seems to approve people NOT giving those teaching religious assent some of the time.

It is completely true that a person like a theologian can express doubts about a reformable teaching without publicly saying "hey, the Church is all wrong on this, and I can proooove it." He can be more circumspect: he can, for example, submit his concerns and thoughts to his bishop, and to the Vatican as a "dubitum", for example. But that doesn't really wash away the theoretical predicament this puts the category of "religious assent" in this context: By putting the question to the Vatican as a dubitum, he is saying not "I assent" nor " I dissent", but rather "I am unable to give assent without further clarification." And withholding assent is not assent.

To me, it almost seems like saying a teaching is in the category of "religious assent" amounts to saying that the teaching holds SOME certain principles, and other uncertain premises, and it is up to the Christian to hold firmly to the certain principles and discern the others carefully without rejecting anything necessary to Christian faith; but leaving the Christian with room to reject (or to remain in doubt about) the uncertain premises without prejudice to his obligation to form his mind according to the teaching of the Church. It is difficult to see why this mental state ought to be called "assent".

Tony:

I think your last paragraph accurately characterizes the logical status of many teachings to which "religious assent" is called for. A good example is the current teaching on capital punishment.

On that score, the doctrinal development to which we ought to give unqualified assent is John Paul II's claim that mere retributive justice is insufficient to warrant recourse to the death penalty. Such recourse must be "necessary" to protect society from the aggressor. But the line between necessary and unnecessary cannot be drawn with doctrinal certainty. What some see as necessary, others see as merely expedient, and still others as actually counterproductive. Reflecting JP2's view, CCC §2267 says: "Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically non-existent." That is to some extent a matter of opinion and therefore does not require unqualified assent.

There are many other examples, but that is enough to illustrate what I find sound in your point.

Best,
Mike

Giving heretics what they deserve does not inspire love of the truth.

Plus, it has the unfortunate side effect of killing off most of the weak heresies, and thereby allowing the very strongest to thrive.

I really don't have time to get into this, but I can't take it anymore. Everyone, please please, stop talking about forced baptisms, burning people at the stake, etc. Contrary to what so many people seem to think, that is not what the controversy over Dignitatis Humanae has ever been about. That is not what the pre-Vatican II popes were defending. That is not what was allegedly changed at Vatican II.

What the issue was and is about is this: In the specific circumstances where a country already has a Catholic majority and where social peace would not be dramatically threatened, is it best, all things being equal, for the state officially to recognize the Catholic Faith and to protect it by curbing the public proselytizing activity of non-Catholics? Forced conversions are not what is at issue -- the Church has always condemned that. What non-Catholics do in private or in their own houses of worship is not at issue. It is only public behavior of a sort designed to proselytize -- in particular, to convince Catholics to leave the Church -- that is at issue. And it is not a question of whether the state must always curb this behavior, but whether it may do so under certain circumstances and whether under even more specific circumstances it is best for it to do so.

The pre-Vatican II popes taught clearly and consistently, for centuries, in statements clearly intended to bind the conscience of the faithful on a matter of principle, and in documents of very high authority, that as a matter of principle the state may do this, and they condemned the contrary view. In particular, they condemned the liberal view that it is somehow intrinsically unjust to curb the public proselytizing activity of heretics. They did not say that the state must always curb it. They simply condemned the view that the state may never do so even in principle.

Now, did Dignitatis Humanae really teach this liberal view that the pre-Vatican II popes condemned? Left-wing dissenters like Hans Küng, sedevacantists like George R., some SSPX types and some neo-conservatives say that it did. As I have noted here before, writers like Fr. Brian Harrison and Thomas Storck say that it did not, and I agree with them. Indeed, DH itself explicitly claims to "preserve intact" the older teaching. And since what we have is a very long and well-established line of authoritative papal teaching to balance against what is really just a line or two of DH, where the dogmatic status of DH is itself not clear, it is very hard to see how anyone can justify the claim that DH somehow rubbed out everything that had been said before. Certainly, given the standard Catholic understanding of how the "development" of doctrine works, the Harrison-Storck continuity interpretation has a strong presumption in its favor.

It is true that that interpretation is not as well-known or widely discussed as the claim that DH reversed past teaching, but logically and theologically that means exactly zip. And the reason it is not widely discussed is, I think, not mysterious: Most people in our liberal, pluralistic age, including most "conservatives," find the teaching of the pre-Vatican II popes embarrassing, and would like to consign it to the memory hole. But the Church has never repudiated it -- again, even DH itself claims to preserve it intact -- even if she has stopped talking about it.

And that is the problem. What is needed is a precise, authoritative statement from the Church -- from the CDF or in a papal encyclical, say -- on the precise meaning of DH and of prior teaching, and on how they fit together. We have not had that. We have had only vague statements, including statements to the effect that there has been no change in principle but only in application. But what we have not had is a statement about how specifically to reconcile DH with past teaching where some people, on both the left and the right, claim there is a conflict.

I think that we are going to see a statement on this within the next decade or so, because the doctrinal talks that the Vatican has entered into with the SSPX are in large part about this very issue, and the question needs to be clarified at long last. And I predict that something like the Harrison-Storck position is going to emerge as the official interpretation.

In any event, Michael's talk about the Church "unlearning" error and "reversing" itself is, I think, totally unjustified, as well as rash and irresponsible. It gives aid and comfort to left-wing Catholic dissenters, to Protestant critics of the Catholic view of the Magisterium, and to sedevacantists like George R. At the very least Michael owes us an account of what specifically is the doctrinal error the Church is supposed to have "unlearned" (the effrontery of the claim is breathtaking). As with so many other commenters on this issue, all we get is rhapsodizing about religious liberty without any explanation of what exactly religious liberty is. The impression is left that the pre-Vatican II popes wanted to burn heretics and force people to be baptized well into the late 1950s, and that only DH saved us from this. The liberal bona fides of the commenter are thereby established, but at the same time a calumny against the pre-Vatican II Church is reinforced and serious doctrinal issues are muddied.

Well, but Ed, my impression is that the Church definitely did encourage the active persecution of heretics a long time ago. I saw some pretty bloodthirsty quotations from the Fourth Lateran council around here a few months ago. I disagree on the proselytizing thing anyway, but those quotations as I recall them (don't have time to look them up, but I'm sure George R. has them ready to hand) sounded like a lot more anyway than just, "Oh, hey, what you do in private is your business, but if you try to get Catholics to become Protestants, we'll fine you."

Re: this line: "The liberal bona fides of the commenter are thereby established etc.": In fairness, I should have made it clear that I would not say that Michael is merely trying to "establish his liberal bona fides." I am sure he is sincere.

I'm not denying that, Lydia. I'm just saying that that is not what was at issue in the 19th or 20th centuries, and that it is theologically sloppy and dishonest for people to discuss the controversey over religious liberty, the teaching of the pre-Vaticn II popes, and Dignitatis Humanae as if it had to do with that. It doesn't.

Mike, I agree with your placing the current approach on capital punishment in that category, but doubt with whether the dividing line between the certain principles and the uncertain premises is found with JPII's thesis in the part to which we must give unfailing assent. I cam across a great discussion of this problem over at Disputations, here:

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3510257&postID=8216707356043401470&isPopup=true

The biggest point there that I would re-iterate is this: the bishops (speaking only of bishops who want and are trying to be totally faithful to the Magisterium) themselves are tripping backwards and forwards in explaining the import of this teaching and generally contradicting each other. Which makes one doubt that a single understanding is clearly THE definitive thought with regard to JPII's thesis.

But this is only one off-topic example.

You're reaching for straws, Bill.

Damn, George, you asked for something and I gave you something. Offer the wretch assistance and this is my reward.

Have you caught Jesus contradicting himself?

In any event, Michael's talk about the Church "unlearning" error and "reversing" itself is, I think, totally unjustified, as well as rash and irresponsible.

And to top it off, Michael chides traditionalists for adhering to a "hermeneutic of discontinuity". Priceless.

Zippy:

(1) There isn't anything especially alarming about development of doctrine, including genuine discontinuities or reversals on non-infallible matters. This state of affairs requires Christians to have faith, that is, to trust: to approach the Holy Spirit and the concrete, embodied, real, present, living Church with humility and trust.

If the Church is fallible, why should we trust it? We should rather be suspicious of it, lest we be deceived.

Regarding what Ed said, the problem with DH is that it teaches that there exists a right to religious liberty -- not an absolute right, perhaps, but a right nonetheless. This is opposed to the Holy Scriptures, perennial Church Teaching, and common sense. There is just no way around it. Under the old teaching, the Catholic ruler had the right to not only suppress all non-Catholic religions, but even to expel all non-Catholics from his lands, if he saw fit. This is clearly no longer the case. Even a perfunctory reading of DH should allow one to recognize in it the same spirit that the popes thundered against all during the 19th century.

George:

If the Church is fallible, why should we trust it?

When did she tell us that?

Like I said, individual men are fallible. The Church and her teachings are always true -- forever.

The Church tells us that only certain of its teachings and practices, which meet certain special criteria, are infallible. Should we trust the Church when She tells us that?

Is that teaching infallible? Reformable? Or is it reversible and possibly false?

Jeff:

The teaching on infallibilty is itself an infallible doctrine from Vatican Council I.

I'm going to wade into this mess with hip boots on and try to do a little theorizing (it's what I do). Granted that Christian (specifically Catholic) doctrine develops is true, the more important question and the thing that seems to be dividing people, here, is how a doctrine can develop in a true sense. At the risk of dumbing down Newman, I'd like to consider a toy universe with exactly one doctrine, which I call the Triangle Doctrine: a triangle will be the area enclosed by the connecting of dots with the coordinates, (1,1,1), (2,3,1), and (3,1,1). Now, this doctrine can be changed in at least four ways. The first three are direct changes. Let's call them A, B, C. The fourth way is indirect. Let's call it A'.

Method A: let Z ---> -Z. The points are now (1,1,-1), (2,3,-1), and (3,1,-1). In other words, the doctrine is exactly the same, but the negative of the original.

Method B: suppose the triangle is fuzzy such that we cannot exactly tell that the dots are at (1,1,1), (2,3,1), and (3,1,1), but a sharpening function gradually makes the exact location of the points more clear.

Method C: suppose that the triangle bifurcates making two triangles, one above and one below the Z axis.

Method A': the point 2 and 3 are found to be really 3 and 5, so. although the shape stays the same, the area is twice as large.

There may be other methods of developing the triangle doctrine, but I'll avoid a lecture on group theory, since the triangle in the Triangle Doctrine is not meant to be a mathematical object, but a simulacrum for purposes of discussion so I can talk to myself in the combox, since I doubt anyone else will be interested.

Method A seems to be the case that Michael is presenting. The doctrine of slavery seems to have started out at 1, but has been moved to -1 with more understanding.

Method B seems to be George R.'s position. Doctrine stays in the same position, only getting sharper with time.

Method C is the case when something like slavery (say) admits of multiple instantiations, some of which are positively accepted and some of which are negatively accepted. Such might be the case with Capital Punishment.

Method A' is an interesting case in which parts of the doctrine become better understood leading to a new relationship with some of the pre-existing parts. This might have been the case with slavery.

I don't know if any other types of development of doctrine can occur, but the Triangle Doctrine is a nice toy universe to explain them.

The Chicken

I'll have to re-read the V-I docs, but my understanding was that this definition pertained only to papal infallibility, not ecclesiastical infallibilty. There is an allusion to the "doctrine of faith" being infallibly preserved by the Church, but it doesn't imply that some doctrines are infallible and others are not.

I've always thought of doctrine as falling under the protection of ecclesiastical infallibility. Is that incorrect? That the Church of Christ cannot bind any man's conscience to believe something false - to believe a "doctrine" that might be repudiated someday - strikes me as a key feature of the Church's indefectibility.

Regarding what Ed said, the problem with DH is that it teaches that there exists a right to religious liberty -- not an absolute right, perhaps, but a right nonetheless.

Yes, but it's not enough to go around shouting "religous liberty, religious liberty" the way almost everyone on every side of this issue does, either to endorse it or to criticize it. The expression has become little more than a rhetorical weapon, a cipher onto which partisans can project what they want. As a result, most of what is written on this topic these days is, IMHO, crap. What matters is what precisely is meant by the expression in any particular context, and very few try to be very precise.

I have explained what the pre-Vatican II popes meant to condemn when they condemned "religious liberty": the view that it is intrinsically unjust to curb the proselytizing activity of heretics. I have also said that I agree with the Harrison-Storck view that DH does not endorse religious liberty in a sense at odds with the pre-Vatican II popes, i.e. that it does not endorse a natural right on the part of heretics never to be curbed in their proselytizing activity. So what did it mean to affirm?

As Harrison has argued, what the Vatican II fathers had in mind was the oppression being suffered by religious groups of every sort under communism. They wanted to affirm that even non-Catholics who were being persecuted for practicing their religions were in some sense having their natural rights violated. That is to say, DH intended to teach that when a Muslim (say) is prevented by a communist state from exercising his religion, this amounts to a violation of his natural rights insofar as qua human being he has a natural right to pursue the worship of God, and thus in this sense has a right to religious liberty, even if in practice his exercise of his right is marred by various doctrinal errors. The existence of the errors doesn't entail that the oppression he suffers under no longer counts as a violation of his natural rights.

Now, there is more to it than that, but that is part of the point. This issue is far more complicated and nuanced than most people suppose -- so much so that even Lefebvre initially went along with DH and only had second thoughts later. But too many people have a stake in the view that DH contradicts past teaching -- most people (liberals, some neo-conservatives) because they don't like the older teaching and want to be able to say that the Church has repudiated it, and other people (namely some traditionalists) because they are invested in the claim that Vatican II taught error.

I disagree with both views. I would say that Vatican II neither taught error nor taught anything as novel vis-a-vis religious liberty as most people think. Certainly those who claim that it is just "current Catholic teaching" that the pre-Vatican II popes were wrong, or just "traditional Catholic teaching" that there is no sense at all in which we have a right to religious liberty, are just blowing smoke.

The Triangle Doctrine also has the advantage of being non-sectarian. Anybody can play along.

That being said, it seems that one difference between Method A and Method B is the idea of fixed points. This raises two questions: 1) are doctrines composed of fixed points or can they change as long as the change does not compromise the one necessary (but perhaps hitherto misunderstood) truth of the doctrine and 2) how can one know that one has arrived at a definite state in any part of the doctrine? Can Z = 1 become Z = -1 without changing the necessary truth of the doctrine? Are only those two states possible? If a doctrine can be reversed, why not half-reversed? The Triangle is still a triangle if Z = {Z | -1

Clearly, God did not mean such a tangle in the formation of doctrine, since doctrine must be understandable, in at least a general sense, by everyone, since one cannot be commanded to obey something that is totally incomprehensible.

George R.'s method (Method B) has the advantage of simplicity and is generally to be preferred as being the way in which doctrine develops, in my opinion, but Method C or Method A' might be sufficiently close to Michael's idea so as to be compatible with George R.'s method depending upon the specific doctrine. In any case, it seems to me clear that Method A and Method B have serious epistemological differences.

Again, just talkin' to myself.

The Chicken

Again, just talkin' to myself.

Then let me join the conversation.

This raises two questions: 1) are doctrines composed of fixed points or can they change as long as the change does not compromise the one necessary (but perhaps hitherto misunderstood) truth of the doctrine and 2) how can one know that one has arrived at a definite state in any part of the doctrine? Can Z = 1 become Z = -1 without changing the necessary truth of the doctrine? Are only those two states possible? If a doctrine can be reversed, why not half-reversed?

1) No. A doctrine, from the way are describing it, is the relationship between points. Those points emerge separately from each social arrangement. 2) You cannot know in some grandly abstract sense (the equilateral triangle is perfect beyond compare says the egalitarian), you can only know that a certain triangle is best suited for a particular problem.

Ed and Jeff:

When I see words such as 'breathtaking' and 'priceless', I smell over-reaction, which is usually based on verbal misunderstandings. I'm neither a Küngian progressive nor a Lefebvrist traditionalist. My general theological goal is to find myself with the present pope in what Fr. Neuhaus called "the vital center" of the Church, where the "hermeneutic of continuity" is indeed regnant. That's my goal here too. With that understood, let's proceed to specifics.

I do not believe that Dignitatis Humanae jettisoned any "doctrine" of the Church, if by that term you mean a proposition taught by the Church as belonging to the deposit of faith and calling for the assent of faith. I was using the term in a looser sense to mean any "teaching" of the Church, for the Latin doctrina just does mean a proposition or body of propositions taught. The Church has never said that everything "taught" by the bishops, or even by popes, is protected from error by the Holy Spirit. At a conciliar level, the Church herself has specified that she teaches infallibly only under certain conditions. Specifically papal infallibility was only defined in 1870 by Vatican I, which said that under certain (specified) conditions, the pope enjoys "that infallibility with which Christ willed his Church to be endowed." In Lumen Gentium §25, Vatican II reiterated that and went to say a bit about the conditions under which the episcopal college as a whole teaches infallibly, especially by exercising what theologians call its "ordinary magisterium." No doctrine meeting such conditions was denied by DH, nor did anything DH say logically entail such a denial.

But it is undeniable fact that, for centuries, many theologians, bishops, and popes "taught" that, in some cases, public heresy and other non-Catholic teaching should be suppressed with physical punishments administered by "the secular arm." That position, argued for by Thomas Aquinas and conveyed to secular rulers by papal bulls, was a pastoral judgment premised on the belief that such a policy was necessary to protect the spiritual "common good." That is the "teaching" I believe the Fathers of Vatican II abandoned, if only by clear implication. They did so by virtue of abandoning the view that the spiritual common good can be well served in such a manner. But that view was never part of the deposit of faith. It was a pastoral judgment the occasion for which only arose in the 4th century, when the Church gained political power, and became academic when the Church lost most of her grip on the levers of state--a process that began during the Protestant Reformation, was resisted mightily until the loss of the Papal States, and has now largely completed itself.

Yet the clear reversal of judgment involved can in no way be presented as a corruption of the deposit of faith. When John Paul II said, and Benedict XVI repeats, that the Church only "proposes" and does not "impose," they are simply drawing the natural conclusion of a long process of development in the Church's pastoral consciousness. That development is also reflected in Unitatis Redintegratio, the decree on ecumenism, and Nostra Aetate, the "declaration" on the Church's relation to non-Christian religions. I have never doubted that such developments square with Tradition. Unfortunately, there are people on both the Right and the Left who do doubt it.

Many on the Right, i.e., traditionalists, think DH fails in key respects to make its continuity with irreformable doctrine clear. And Ed is right that some theologians, devoted to a hermeneutic of continuity, are intent on disambiguating both history and DH to exhibit such continuity. The Harrison-Storck approach is one such attempt. My objections to that approach are not to its strategy or motivation but to its selection and handling of certain details. I much prefer the approach being taken by my friend Thomas Pink of the University of London; though he's not yet ready to publish his massive tome, Tony and I have read enough of it to be impressed. I find it conceptually more thorough and historically more honest, as a hermeneutic of continuity, than the Harrison-Storck approach. I have clashed with Fr. Harrison before about other development-of-doctrine issues, and I don't think he's outdone himself on this issue.

As I study the history of doctrine, I become more and more convinced of what Zippy said in a comment above:

There isn't anything especially alarming about development of doctrine, including genuine discontinuities or reversals on non-infallible matters. This state of affairs requires Christians to have faith, that is, to trust: to approach the Holy Spirit and the concrete, embodied, real, present, living Church with humility and trust. That is a good thing, since (among other things) doing so develops important virtues.

Best,
Mike

I was using the term in a looser sense to mean any "teaching" of the Church, for the Latin doctrina just does mean a proposition or body of propositions taught. The Church has never said that everything "taught" by the bishops, or even by popes, is protected from error by the Holy Spirit.

Michael, this is an important clarification. I'm not a theologian. I use doctrine in the sense used by the Church's common communication to the laity in English. In that sense, of the volumes and tomes promulgated by the Church over the centuries only a fraction can be said to be doctrine.

The Church repealed the mandatory Friday abstinence, the approval of physical punishments for heresy, etc. These are not reversals of doctrine in common English parlance.

Other teachings of a theological nature - for example that of Limbo - never rose to the level of doctrine to begin with. Limbo is an inference drawn from doctrine, an inference that may be right or wrong. The danger of disbelieving in Limbo is not that of rejecting a doctrine of the Church, but of rejecting its supporting doctrines: Original Sin, the necessity of Baptism, the existence of Hell, the doctrines of grace, and so forth.

We differ, it seems, only insofar as you take certain very recent changes in prudential judgement and discipline to be wonderful things and wholly consistent with what has gone before. Forgive me if I also suspect that you would like all Catholics to view these novelties as having the same weight as "doctrine" - hence your choice of words - and therefore refrain from questioning their wisdom.

Jeff:

Forgive me if I also suspect that you would like all Catholics to view these novelties as having the same weight as "doctrine" - hence your choice of words - and therefore refrain from questioning their wisdom.

I don't think that what you call "novelties" have the same weight as what you call "doctrine." I do think that most of Vatican II's pastoral initiatives were sound and overdue. I could name many that haven't come up in this thread, and I shouldn't if it is to stay manageable, so I won't. The real issue is development of doctrine in your sense of 'doctrine', i.e. teachings meant to bind the consciences of the faithful.

In that sense of term, Vatican II did develop doctrine in several areas. The two areas of greatest practical consequence are (1) how baptized non-Catholics are ontically related to the Church--specifically the notion of "imperfect communion"; and (2) the nature and ends of marriage as expounded in Gaudium et spes and incorporated into canon law. Trads don't have much enthusiasm for those developments either. In fact, (1) is a major if not the major issue on the table in the current Roman talks with the SSPX. But I think the developments in question are not only logically consistent with binding doctrine that was handed down, but express the perennial truth with deeper insight than before.

Best,
Mike

Ed,
I think you may be equivocating with the term “religious liberty.” Yes, one could define religious liberty as “the right to freely worship;” and nobody in the current controversy would deny such a right. The controversal definition, however, is this one: the right to freely worship as one sees fit. This is the “right” that the pre-Vatican II popes denied, and DH affirmed. For the pre-Vatican II popes (all the way back to St. Peter), one has the right to freely worship only as God wishes to be worshipped. See the difference?

Btw, your suggestion that DH was intended as an anti-communist document is somewhat amusing. Those poor council fathers, they aimed their guns at the Russian gulag and accidentally(?) blew the Catholic State to kingdom come. Oh well, they tried.

Mike, that's a good point: in teachings up through Pius XI at least, the Church repeatedly stated that the primary end of marriage (and of sex) is children, and the current Church insists that the primary ends of marriages (and of sex) are children and the unity of spouses. Aside from the fact there there is a certain concern with intellectual coherence in claiming 2 distinct "primary ends" for something - seems kind of fractured - it certainly presents a challenge to continuity. I am pretty sure the challenge can be met (that is, I think I have an explanation), but one is not surprised that trads are troubled by the change. But it is obvious that this change is not something that clearly opposes the former teaching as being contradictory.

MC, is this change an instance of B, or of C, or of A'?

George, DH does NOT affirm a right to worship as one sees fit, simply. It does qualify the right. Broadly and generally, it insists that all the rights implied under "religious freedom" are limited by the obligation to observe due responsibility to others. It is, then, a right in the context of social interaction and limited by the rights and needs of society. Therefore, nothing in this precludes the possibility of the state interfering if some person is worshiping in a manner that adversely impacts the rest of society. DH rather affirms this obligation of the state.

The two areas of greatest practical consequence are (1) how baptized non-Catholics are ontically related to the Church--specifically the notion of "imperfect communion";

This is a good example of authentic development when understood properly. Dominus Iesus clarifies the limits of this development. (I'm kind of liberal as trads go.)

and (2) the nature and ends of marriage as expounded in Gaudium et spes and incorporated into canon law.

Not so sure about this one. The only thing contained in Gaudem et spes not also found in places like Casti Connubii is what seems to be a raising of the unitive purpose of marriage to equality with the procreative. But this equality is only implied, not explicit. The interpretation of equality, at least, is probably responsible for the post-conciliar explosion of annulments. The unitive dimension has a subjective element that many associate with the "quality" of a marriage, so we have marriages being annulled for sexual incompatibility and whatnot. Legitimate development? Call me skeptical.

Aside from the fact there there is a certain concern with intellectual coherence in claiming 2 distinct "primary ends" for something - seems kind of fractured - it certainly presents a challenge to continuity...MC, is this change an instance of B, or of C, or of A'?

It is an example of C, the bifurcation of aspects of a doctrine.

The Chicken

Jeff:

The only thing contained in Gaud[i]em et spes not also found in places like Casti Connubii is what seems to be a raising of the unitive purpose of marriage to equality with the procreative. But this equality is only implied, not explicit. The interpretation of equality, at least, is probably responsible for the post-conciliar explosion of annulments. The unitive dimension has a subjective element that many associate with the "quality" of a marriage, so we have marriages being annulled for sexual incompatibility and whatnot. Legitimate development? Call me skeptical.

The development here consists in recovery rather than innovation. In Ephesians 5, e.g., Paul speaks of marriage as a "mystery" signifying the relation between Christ and his Church. There and elsewhere he recalls Christ's dictum that the two are "one flesh" --the fact that forms the basis of the sacramental sign. That's the sort of thinking behind the "new" emphasis on the mutual self-gift of the spouses. In fact, Paul has nothing explicit to say about the importance of procreation in marriage. We may assume he took that as a given. What he stressed was the supernatural significance of marriage.

The old and the new emphases can be easily reconciled once we realize that procreation is precisely an end of marriage, not the object of consent in the exchange of marital vows. People can and ought to promise to be open to children, but the sacramental nature and validity of any particular marriage does not depend on its producing children. The recent development consists in recovering and emphasizing what couples promise when they marry as the Church understands marriage.

The 1917 code of canon law defined the object of consent as those acts which are naturally fit for procreation. That's what follows if procreation is the primary natural end of marriage, which it is. But the code said nothing either about the covenant of mutual self-gift, in which the love of the couple consists, or about the supernatural significance thereof. The 1983 code, however, does. Canon 1055 §1 reads:

The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of their whole life, and which of its own very nature is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children, has, between the baptised, been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.

Canon 1057 §2 thus defines "matrimonial consent" as

...an act of will by which a man and a woman by an irrevocable covenant mutually give and accept one another for the purpose of establishing a marriage.

So the object of consent is that "irrevocable covenant" by which the couple "give and accept" one another. That's the mutual self-gift of love. Of course that entails consent to the acts specified by the 1917 Code, but the 1983 Code goes beyond that to highlight what's sacramental about such a commitment.

What needs to be recognized is that procreation, though clearly the primary natural "end" of marriage, is not its primary supernatural end. The latter is to signify the relationship between God and his people, and that consists in what the new code, following Gaudium et spes, says. The primary natural end is thus subsumed by the primary supernatural end without being sacrificed by it.

Best,
Mike

I just read DH again – a veritable tissue of sophistries. The writers of that document must have had no intellectual self-respect whatsoever. If that’s Catholicism, I’m with Voltaire: “Ecrasez l’infame!”

Mike,

1. For a Catholic to insist that the Church has "reversed" herself on centuries of moral teaching -- not merely changed the application of a principle but repudiated the principle itself -- and therefore had to "unlearn" centuries of grave moral error, is no small thing. Especially when alternative interpretations of the situation are available and the Catholic in question rejects them. As I said, such a position gives aid and comfort to dissenters, Protestant critics of the Catholic view of authority, and sedevacantists. So, even if your position were correct -- which it is not, and (I think) cannot be, consistent with Catholicism (because I think you understate the authority and significance of the older teachings in question) -- you would still be wrong to present it as if it were flatly the Church's view of her past teaching, as opposed to presenting it as Liccione's controverisal but (he thinks) perfectly defensible and orthodox view of the Church's past teaching. It is your glibness that offends, and that makes the "overreaction" charge ring hollow.

2. I don't know why you are so impressed by Noonan, but he is hardly gospel. As Cardinal Dulles pointed out in his review of Noonan's book in First Things, Noonan is very sloppy in his treatment of the slavery issue:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Development+or+reversal%3f-a0137012153

and he is sloppy on religious liberty too, as this review points out:

http://www.acton.org/publications/mandm/mandm_review_84.php

3. Your position seems to be, in effect: The Church has never reversed herself on a matter of irreformable moral principle; so, in all these cases where it seems obvious that she has in fact done so, that just shows that the teaching wasn't really irreformable after all. Now, naturally I agree that there are cases where the Church has changed something but where, contrary to what critics allege, the change was not really a change to a teaching ever presented as irreformable, or was a change only to application but not to principle, or involved discipline rather than doctrine.

But the examples you and people like Noonan like to bring up -- religious liberty, slavery, usury, torture, capital punishment and the like -- are not like that. They all concern matters of basic moral principle reiterated many times over the centuries, in authoritative documents, and in some cases reflected in scripture. So, for that reason your position is open to the following objections:

(i) It commits a "No true Scotsman" fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman)

(ii) It confirms (with respect to some of these issues) the false Protestant claim that the Church claims the authority to nullify scriptural teaching

(iii) It makes "current" teaching as open to doubt as the teaching it claims has been rejected, since if the Church was wrong for centuries about basic moral principles, it might be wrong now

(iv) It renders the Catholic understanding of the development of doctrine and the "hermeneutic of continuity" legalistic, vacuous, and arbitrary: "If we decide it's traditional, then it's traditional, even if it contradicts what we've always said in the past." This is sheer Ockhamite nominalism and voluntarism, not Catholicism. It turns the Magisterium into O'Brien from Orwell's 1984.

This is why I say your position is rash and irresponsible. Again, it might be different if you had presented it is "Mike Liccione's position," but you didn't. You presented it, matter-of-factly, as if it were what the Church teaches.

And yes, of course the devil is in the details, so that to make these charges stick we would have to go case by case vis-a-vis all the topics mentioned (religious liberty, usury, etc.). But that is all the more reason for you to be more tentative and sensitive to the serious potential problems with your position than you have been.

4. Re: the remark of Zippy's you quote, well, yes, of course we should have faith etc. What's your point? That we shouldn't challenge views we think are theologically dangerous but just sit back and let God sort it out? Presumably not, since you practice apologetics yourself.

5. I will read Thomas Pink's book with interest when it appears.

Ed:

I think you're making this issue more complicated than it really is. As Catholics, we're both committed to holding that whatever changes in Church teaching may have occurred, they cannot have logically entailed negations of doctrines that are irreformable. That's because the set of irreformable teachings is co-extensive with the set of teachings that have been infallibly set forth by either the ordinary or the extraordinary magisterium. So what, exactly, are we disagreeing about?

Addressing me, you write:

Your position seems to be, in effect: The Church has never reversed herself on a matter of irreformable moral principle; so, in all these cases where it seems obvious that she has in fact done so, that just shows that the teaching wasn't really irreformable after all. Now, naturally I agree that there are cases where the Church has changed something but where, contrary to what critics allege, the change was not really a change to a teaching ever presented as irreformable, or was a change only to application but not to principle, or involved discipline rather than doctrine.

But the examples you and people like Noonan like to bring up -- religious liberty, slavery, usury, torture, capital punishment and the like -- are not like that. They all concern matters of basic moral principle reiterated many times over the centuries, in authoritative documents, and in some cases reflected in scripture.

This is the heart of the matter. I hold that the changes in the specific areas you cite are ones that satisfy the criteria you describe in the first paragraph above, whereas you doubt that. Instead, you categorize them as "matters of basic moral principle reiterated many times over the centuries, in authoritative documents, and in some cases reflected in scripture." So you seem to believe that the changes which Noonan, I, and many other scholars allege have occurred are ones that, if they really occurred, would logically entail negations of irreformable moral principles. If you didn't think that, you would not say that my position is "inconsistent with Catholicism," which is a polite way of saying "heretical."

To be sure, I see that you do qualify that stance a bit:

...of course the devil is in the details, so that to make these charges stick we would have to go case by case vis-a-vis all the topics mentioned (religious liberty, usury, etc.). But that is all the more reason for you to be more tentative and sensitive to the serious potential problems with your position than you have been.

But the problem with that criticism is that I did not assert, and of course do not hold, what you think my position entails. You have insinuated, without actually asserting, that my position logically entails denying doctrines satisfying the criteria for irreformability, even though no Catholic who holds my position actually thinks it does. So, what we're really disagreeing about is how to formulate and identify just which past moral teachings do, in fact, count as irreformable.

On that score, it's important to note that the Magisterium has never formally specified just what, in past formulations of teaching on the topics in question, is in fact irreformable. So the question which we ought to say are irreformable is to some extent a matter of opinion. In this respect, those topics are unlike women's ordination or abortion: during the 1990s, John Paul II and then-Cardinal Ratzinger made clear that the teachings on women's ordination and abortion are indeed irreformable. Yet your belief that the changes I've alleged in other areas would be changes in irreformable doctrine, if in fact they occurred, is an opinion with less magisterial support than mine to the contrary. For I hold simply as a Catholic that whatever changes have occurred cannot be reversals of irreformable teaching, according to criteria of irreformability propounded by the Church herself.

What this controversy makes painfully clear is a point I made in a comment that I addressed to Zippy:

What one can reasonably expect is that theologians will reach some sort of agreement about how to apply the criteria for the infallibility of the ordinary and universal magisterium. Those criteria were tersely stated in Lumen Gentium §25 and applied by then-Cardinal Ratzinger in his 1995 CDF responsum on women's ordination. Clarity and consistency about this are crucial, because if the question what counts as having been infallibly set forth by the ordinary and universal magisterium can only be answered by debatable opinions, then the category itself is effectively empty.

All I'm sure of in advance is that, as such clarity and consistency emerges, nothing that's been taught in the past will end up both magisterially certified as irreformable and reversed. I'm sure you agree with that. And that's why I think you've made all this more complicated than it needs to be.

Best,
Mike

Mike,

Some of the principles in question I think are irreformable; others, maybe not. We’d have to go case by case. But it’s not just a matter of irreformable doctrines. The Church is wary of any reversal, because the issues are typically very complex and have all sorts of potential unforeseen ramifications, even where a principle might not be irreformable. Furthermore, on some issues the line between reformable and irreformable principles might not always be clear. An issue might involve all sorts of complex principles, some of which are irreformable and some of which are not, and they need to be very carefully disentangled. That is why the Church is always very cautious, and why there has always been a presumption in Catholic theology in favor of continuity.

Take the religious liberty issue. You apparently think that the older principle was not irreformable. Suppose you are right. It doesn’t follow that the Church has in fact reversed herself on this issue, and it certainly doesn’t follow that she has taught that she has reversed herself. Quite the opposite in fact: Dignitatis Humanae itself takes pains to say that it preserves the older teaching intact. Pope Benedict XVI, in his 2005 address on this subject, emphasizes continuity rather than reversal. It is true that neither DH nor the pope has explained the continuity to everyone’s satisfaction, but that is beside the point. The point is that they did not say “We’ve reversed ourselves; deal with it.” Rather, they said “We have not reversed ourselves. We’ve just applied the same principles to new circumstances.”

Now, surely that puts the burden of proof on someone who claims that a reversal has actually happened, especially if that person claims (as a Protestant or a dissenter or a sedevacantist does not) to be faithful to what the Church has said in recent years. More than that, surely what DH and Benedict themselves have said positively favors “continuity” interpretations over “reversal” interpretations. So, at the very least, no Catholic faithful to the Magisterium should simply insist flatly that the Church has “reversed” herself, “unlearned” error, etc., much less insinuate that she has herself claimed that that is what she has done. Exspecially if he is going to accuse others of favoring a "hermeneutic of discontinuity."

Re: heresy, I was not merely being polite. The specific issues in question are complex enough that it would be rash, to say the least, to accuse anyone of heresy. As I said, I just think your own statements themselves have been rash and irresponsible.

Ed,

Rather than arch my back against the charge of being "rash and irresponsible," I point out first that I agree with a lot of what you've been striving to uphold. What I disagree with in your latest comment appears in the example you use: what happened to teaching about religious liberty.

The point is that they did not say “We’ve reversed ourselves; deal with it.” Rather, they said “We have not reversed ourselves. We’ve just applied the same principles to new circumstances.”

Now, surely that puts the burden of proof on someone who claims that a reversal has actually happened, especially if that person claims (as a Protestant or a dissenter or a sedevacantist does not) to be faithful to what the Church has said in recent years. More than that, surely what DH and Benedict themselves have said positively favors “continuity” interpretations over “reversal” interpretations. So, at the very least, no Catholic faithful to the Magisterium should simply insist flatly that the Church has “reversed” herself, “unlearned” error, etc., much less insinuate that she has herself claimed that that is what she has done. Exspecially if he is going to accuse others of favoring a "hermeneutic of discontinuity."

As a matter of historical fact, it's quite evident to me and many others—not just by deduction from DH, but also in light of statements and actions by the popes since—that the Church's hierarchy no longer holds that the common spiritual good is well served by aiming to employ the state's legal monopoly on coercion to suppress heresy and punish heretics. That, and only that, is the "reversal" I claim has occurred. But as I've said before, that does not negate any "basic moral principle" traditionally held and taught by the Church. It negates a particular way of applying such principles in historical circumstances that no longer obtain, and it does so by acknowledging what also seems evident to me, namely that the old political policy, even if it could be revived, didn't and wouldn't well serve the spiritual common good. Now Catholics who disagree with such a change, and want to go back to the old policy, are by no means heretics for that; nobody is a heretic just for rejecting a change in pastoral policy. I just think they're wrong. The Pope and most of the bishops also think they're wrong.

Accordingly, the burden does not lie with me to show that the reversal I claim has occurred has in fact occurred. It has, undeniably. The burden does not even lie with me to show that it negates no irreformable doctrine. For I've already shown how the actual reversal in question is not a reversal of any moral precept at all, but only of an empirical belief that once supported one way of applying such precepts.

Best,
Mike

Mike,

You seem to me to be shifting ground now. Up to now the issue, as I followed it, was about whether this or that doctrine, teaching, or principle -- whether irreformable or reformable -- has been "reversed." Now you're implying that the issue has only ever been about changes in the contingent or prudential application of a doctrine, teaching, or principle, and not the status of the doctrine, teaching, or principle itself. And, of course, everyone (you, me, Jeff, George R., et al.) all agree that such prudential judgments have changed. In particular, we all agree that Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, et al. do not think that the power of the state should in practice be employed today to curb heresy etc. Totally uncontroversial. But if that's all you ever meant, why didn't you make it clear 61 comments ago?

Maybe this will help clarify things once and for all. As I have said, what the pre-Vatican II popes consistently affirmed was the following teaching, which for ease of reference I'll label principle (P):

P: In a country with a Catholic majority, it can in principle be just for the power of the state to be used to curb the proselytizing activity of non-Catholics for the purpose of preventing them from leading Catholics away from the Faith.

Now, do you maintain that this teaching itself (not its application, but the actual principle itself) was "reversed" by Dignitatis Humanae and/or by some other authoritative statement from the Church?

Liberals, sedevacantists, some SSPXers, and some neo-conservatives say it has been. Harrison, Storck, and I say it has not been. What say you?

Michael,

If the recent change in the approach to religious liberty were merely pastoral and empirical, how does this apply to slavery? It does not seem that slavery is as pliable a concept. To say that it should no longer be acceptable because it would not serve the spiritual common good means: a) at some point it did serve the spiritual common good and b) the basic nature of societal relationships have changed. It is not clear exactly how that societal leap happened, however, since pretty much the political scene still uses the same theories going back to Plato as they do, today, with perhaps a bit more experience. Experience does teach, but exactly when did the Church gain enough experience and what kind of experience to realize that slavery was no longer an option? Experience, it seems to me can soften a doctrine, but not negate it. Indeed, it is possible to find historical instances of papal announcements both allowing and condemning certain aspects or instances of slavery within twenty-five years of each other, such as during the period 1435 - 1460. One pope found that certain aspects of slavery did serve the spiritual common good, while another found that others did not. One might argue that under our current understanding of man in the world, slavery should never be allowed, but this is a far from an iron-clad statement that it never will be, again.

Is slavery an intrinsic evil that the Church merely tolerates or tolerated during a certain period for the common spiritual good? If it can do this with slavery as an intrinsic evil, why can't it do that with any intrinsic evil?

That is the question that haunts me. Can a pope sanction something that is intrinsically evil? There is irrefutable evidence that some popes have sanction slavery. The first rule of moral theology is that one may not do evil that good may come of it.

This seems very confusing to me. It would have been much better if Pope John Paul II had made a statement about slavery that were similar to his statement on the death penalty. Pope John Paul II did not, however, himself define slavery as intrinsically evil, but included it in a laundry list from Gaudium et Spes, 27. Now, if Vatican II were a pastoral council and not a dogmatic one and defined no new dogma or doctrine, then either this statement is a statement of merely pastoral use or if it defines an intrinsic evil then it must be a doctrinal statement. If it is a doctrinal statement of an intrinsic evil, then it has an obligation to show the pedigree of the doctrine.

In fact. GS does NOT define slavery as an intrinsic evil. What it says, very clearly is that it is making a practical judgment:

"27. Coming down to practical and particularly urgent consequences, this council lays stress on reverence for man; everyone must consider his every neighbor without exception as another self, taking into account first of all His life and the means necessary to living it with dignity,(8) so as not to imitate the rich man who had no concern for the poor man Lazarus.(9)

In our times a special obligation binds us to make ourselves the neighbor of every person without exception and of actively helping him when he comes across our path, whether he be an old person abandoned by all, a foreign laborer unjustly looked down upon, a refugee, a child born of an unlawful union and wrongly suffering for a sin he did not commit, or a hungry person who disturbs our conscience by recalling the voice of the Lord, "As long as you did it for one of these the least of my brethren, you did it for me" (Matt. 25:40).

Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator."

Nowhere do I read that they are denying the possibility of slavery, but rather saying that it is not acceptable in this time. There is no pedigree given to their list. Thus, I do not see how Pope John Paul II can use this passage to say that slavery is an intrinsic evil. It is a list for the time of the Council.

It also seems clear to me that the idea of religious freedom was also a notion for a day and time. As GS continues:

"28. Respect and love ought to be extended also to those who think or act differently than we do in social, political and even religious matters. In fact, the more deeply we come to understand their ways of thinking through such courtesy and love, the more easily will we be able to enter into dialogue with them.

This love and good will, to be sure, must in no way render us indifferent to truth and goodness. Indeed love itself impels the disciples of Christ to speak the saving truth to all men. But it is necessary to distinguish between error, which always merits repudiation, and the person in error, who never loses the dignity of being a person even when he is flawed by false or inadequate religious notions.(10) God alone is the judge and searcher of hearts, for that reason He forbids us to make judgments about the internal guilt of anyone.(11)"

It seems to me that, again, far from changing the nature of religious liberty, the Council permitted it as a pastoral necessity. It seems to me that neither in slavery nor religious liberty was there a negation of the old ways and not even a particularly deep analysis of the issues. Rather, it seems to me (God forgive me for saying it) to be a document of limited historical scope giving advice for a time that only seems to contradict past teachings, but rather permits practical applications of toleration for a time and season so as to encounter the world and hopefully show it Christ.

Would someone help me to flesh this out, better, since I do not believe that my analysis is correct, since there seems to be no consistency in what I read in the historical record.

The Chicken

MC:

There are a lot of moles in this patch of land. I hope this isn't the place for some whack-a-mole.

Consider CCC §2414:

The seventh commandment [!] forbids acts or enterprises that for any reason - selfish or ideological, commercial, or totalitarian - lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought, sold and exchanged like merchandise, in disregard for their personal dignity. It is a sin against the dignity of persons and their fundamental rights to reduce them by violence to their productive value or to a source of profit. St. Paul directed a Christian master to treat his Christian slave "no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, . . . both in the flesh and in the Lord."

Does that sound to you like it was just intended for our time? I admit clarification is needed: the tenth commandment, in both the Exodus and Deuteronomy versions, presupposes the existence of slavery among the Hebrews, which is never condemned in the Old Testament as an intrinsic evil. And the wording of §2414 itself does not establish that every form of involuntary servitude is intrinsically evil. Good thing too: if it were, then penal servitude for even five minutes would be a grave crime. But if you read about the history of slavery in what is broadly termed "Christendom," you will discover that most churchmen until the 20th century saw nothing wrong just with owning, buying, or selling slaves. The Jesuits of Maryland owned plenty of them until 1830, when they sold their slaves for economic reasons. The cruelties of the New World slave trade had drawn papal ire, to be sure, and not only papal ire; but slavery as such was never condemned in the language you read in the paragraph above. It was authorized and practiced in various forms by churchmen themselves, including popes.

It seems to me that, again, far from changing the nature of religious liberty, the Council permitted it as a pastoral necessity.

If you read Dignitatis Humanae carefully, not just Gaudium et spes, I think you'll find stronger language than that. The Council was not saying: "If we had the power, we'd gladly crush the heretics by force; but since we don't have the power, we'll have to make nice to them." It's pretty evident, at least to many, that what they were saying was that crushing the heretics by force was never the way to secure the virtue of faith or the social benefits of faith.

Best,
Mike

It's pretty evident, at least to many, that what they were saying was that crushing the heretics by force was never the way to secure the virtue of faith or the social benefits of faith.

Mike, I don't quite think you can read that conclusion into DH and the current documents, not so far as to say it was wrong to use coercion to suppress heresy back in 1500. The principle remains in place, under current teaching, that the state has the authority to use coercion to support the common good, including the good of truth, and of the God-ordained rite of worship.

It remains in principle possible that a person can damage the common good by his teaching heresy in such a way that a greater good is achieved by state suppression than is achieved by tolerantly overlooking his error. In today's pluralistic society, such conditions are virtually impossible, but in other conditions (such as a state where all parties are Catholic), they are not impossible. A person who was raised well as a Christian and then as an adult rejects the truth of the Gospel on his own authority, and who insists on teaching others (including children) to reject it not on account of truths to which he has greater access (in his own mind), but on account of willful defiance, is not treating his fellow citizens in a manner respectful of the common good of truth, and the state could RIGHTLY step in and suppress his false teaching. This principle was taught before Vatican II, and is upheld in DH, and is not rejected by CCC or other sources.

Tony:

I'm disappointed that I have to work hard to convince some fellow Catholics that the Church no longer thinks it morally acceptable to crush heresy by physical coercion. If I didn't understand the underlying, in-house concern--which nobody outside conservative Catholic intellectual circles shares--I'd be utterly dispirited. You really do seem to be attributing to Vatican II the judgment that we'd still smash the heretics if we could. Just think about how that sounds to most people, including most Catholics.

The Council of Trent did imply, as you do, that coercing people to fulfill their baptismal promises is morally acceptable in principle. That is arguably de fide. But it does not thereby follow that physical coercion brought to bear by the state is, or even ever was, the best instrumentality for doing that. There's always excommunication, firing, etc; in other words, following St. Paul in consigning certain people to Satan temporarily for the good of their souls and others'.

That said, the desirability of physical coercion employed by the state only follows if it is also objectively the case that the public common good is effectively served by such means. But how are we to know that? Even if such a prudential judgment were at one time defensible in certain circumstances--the Albigensian situation comes to mind--no such judgment belongs to the deposit of faith, because it's just not the sort of judgment that could, even in principle, count as belonging to the deposit of faith. It's essentially a matter of opinion, like the judgment that capital punishment is "necessary" in some cases to protect the common good. Hence, the fact that the Church no longer professes such an opinion does not involve rejecting any proposition belonging to the deposit of faith.

Best,
Mike

Mike,

You keep talking about "smashing" heretics. I spoke only of "curbing proselytzing activity," and I did so deliberately, to avoid being sidetracked by these inflammatory medieval-type examples you keep wanting to drag us back to, and which the 19th and early 20th century popes were not fundamentally interested in when they spoke about religious liberty. We're just talking about ordinary censorship here, the kind you might have seen in the 1950s. Not burning anyone at the stake or the like, just "Sorry, you can't run that anti-Catholic TV program here in this Catholic country," etc. And we're also not even talking about whether such censorship is a good thing in practice all things considered. We're just talking about the very narrow question of whether the principle in question, the principle I labeled (P) in my previous comment, is something DH or some other Church document has "reversed." In particular, what we want to know -- or what I want to know, anyway -- is whether you think (P) has been actually repudiated by the Church. Not whether you think the Church no longer thinks it a good thing to suppress heresy through state power, even in a gentle way (fines, or whatever), in practice -- we all agree that she no longer thinks this, so please don't remind us of that yet again. Has she, in your view, repudiated even the principle?

I look forward to hearing your answer.

Ed:

Let's start with the specific principle you've asked me about. I don't think the Church now teaches that the state's curbing "proselytism" by non-Catholics is, or would be, immoral. For reasons I shall state below, such a teaching would be misguided, even apart from the question what's been taught in the past. But I do think most churchmen would now say that the state's trying to censor erroneous religious ideas is typically counterproductive.

One has to be careful with the word "proselytism." It's become a hot-button word--unlike, say, "evangelization" or "preaching"--used for any religious activity that the speaker or writer happens to think exerts undue influence on people who don't belong to the religion of the "proselytizer." Thus Muslims accuse Christians of proselytizing in Pakistan; the Orthodox accuse Catholics of proselytizing in Russia; and Catholic bishops in Latin America accuse some Protestant sects of proselytizing Catholics. I've been accused on Facebook of "proselytizing" just for presenting arguments for the Catholic faith to non-Catholics. When I was a graduate student under James F. Ross, a Catholic, I was accused of "proselytizing" for doing the same with my non-Catholic fellow students. Accusations of proselytism have gotten out of hand. Of course, if and when it's true that religious advocates are exerting undue influence on prospective converts--say, by brainwashing, bribery, or physical threats--then I'd say the state has a positive duty to curb that. But that applies to Catholics using such techniques as much as to non-Catholics. And I think the Catholic bishops would agree as a body.

On a more general level, you criticize me thus:

You seem to me to be shifting ground now. Up to now the issue, as I followed it, was about whether this or that doctrine, teaching, or principle -- whether irreformable or reformable -- has been "reversed." Now you're implying that the issue has only ever been about changes in the contingent or prudential application of a doctrine, teaching, or principle, and not the status of the doctrine, teaching, or principle itself. And, of course, everyone (you, me, Jeff, George R., et al.) all agree that such prudential judgments have changed. In particular, we all agree that Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, et al. do not think that the power of the state should in practice be employed today to curb heresy etc. Totally uncontroversial. But if that's all you ever meant, why didn't you make it clear 61 comments ago?

The following proposition is what I claim has been repudiated:

(P1) In general, the state is obligated to use force to prevent the public advocacy of erroneous religious ideas, and to punish such advocacy when it occurs.

I called P1, or what is logically equivalent to it, a "doctrine" or "teaching" because it was in fact taught by the Church for centuries. It is a logical conclusion of a chain of practical reasoning, one of whose premises is that such state action is, in general, both necessary and useful for protecting the common good. The Church no longer accepts that premise. As a logical consequence, a proposition once taught by the Church, i.e. P1 or some logical equivalent, has been "reversed."

That said, to deny P1 is not to deny that there can be some forms of public advocacy of erroneous religious ideas that the state does well to suppress or punish. But I don't think it can any longer be argued that, according to the Church, those forms should be suppressed or punished for the reason that the ideas advocated are incompatible with Catholicism. If and when they should be suppressed or punished, that will be because the advocacy in question involves activities that are wrong for reasons other than their being incompatible with the specifically Catholic faith. I mentioned one example: the sort of "proselytism" in which people are targeted for conversion by means that can be judged immoral. The CCC, I believe, covers that by condemning means that "coerce rational minds."

Apropos of this thread's general topic, I'm coming to see the main difficulty is that we've now got a whole set of moral doctrines in the Catechism according to which certain practices are condemned for the most part but are not presented as intrinsically evil, such as slavery, capital punishment, civil limitations on religious liberty, and so forth. I've noticed that people have a lot of difficulty with such a category.

Best,
Mike

I'm disappointed that I have to work hard to convince some fellow Catholics that the Church no longer thinks it morally acceptable to crush heresy by physical coercion.

You don’t have to convince me, Mike. I’m sold.

But there’s the problem. The Church now considers immoral what she once thought was allowed, and not only allowed, but even praiseworthy, nay, even the moral duty of the civil ruler. But the Church is supposed to be the teacher and guardian of moral truths. How could she take for good what was actually evil?

Moreover, how did the Church finally learn that suppressing heresy was evil? She had to be scolded by liberals and freemasons for decades until it finally sank in. How humiliating. But now she is on board with the heretics, the Jews, the freemasons, and the liberals. She has admitted the error of her ways and has begged their forgiveness. But how is it that the infidels have taught the bride of Christ how to behave? Excuse me, but shouldn’t be the other way around?

Might it not be, just maybe, that the bad ol’ Church had good, moral reasons for acting the way that she did? Certainly she had reasons. What were they? Were they principled? Were they unprincipled? Was she tempted by worldly things? Money? Power? You say that the Church acted this way because she thought it was beneficial to the common spiritual good. But this is vague and generic. What specifically was the Church trying to gain and prevent by these actions, and why? Why did the Church use to look on heresy with such horror? Why did she used to consider a heretic to be worse than a murderer? And why does she now seem to be scarcely worried about it at all?

You say that the basic principles of the Church have not changed. I say that they definitely have changed, because only different principles can be the cause of the Church condemning what it once practiced. If only conditions and situations have changed, the Church would not declare her past actions to be morally unacceptable, but only no longer effective. But if her principles have changed, what are these new principles -- and where did they come from?

George:

Since I don't think of you as Catholic any more than I think of Hans Küng as Catholic, my points were not addressed to you, and would be a waste of time if they were.

Best,
Mike

Mike,

Sorry, I'm still not clear. Your initial remarks made it sound like you were agreeing that P has not been repudiated by the Church. But then you seem to gloss these remarks by saying that the Church allows that the state may curb proselytizing that involves "brainwashing, bribery, or physical threats." But that is not the sort of thing that is at issue. I gave as an example censorship of an anti-Catholic TV program -- let's suppose it's not a polemical one either, but a mild and scholarly one -- and I made it clear that the motivation was simply to keep Catholics from being drawn away from the Faith, and not merely to put a halt to violent methods.

So, what I still don't know is whether you think that the Church has ruled that out even in principle. In other words, it seems to me that you still have not answered my question about whether the Church has repudiated the specific principle I mentioned earlier, viz:

P: In a country with a Catholic majority, it can in principle be just for the power of the state to be used to curb the proselytizing activity of non-Catholics for the purpose of preventing them from leading Catholics away from the Faith.

I'm not asking about practice; let's suppose for the sake of argument that there is good reason never to put P into practice. What I want to know is whether you think that the Church has repudiated P itself, and not merely the application of P in real-world states.

Furthermore, your P1 seems to me to be a red herring, because if the qualifier "In general." The 19th and 20th century popes never said that in general the state should suppress public advocacy of heresy; they allowed that toleration might be called for as a practical policy in some concrete circumstances. What they rejected was the claim that the state may never, even in principle suppress such advocacy in the interests of protecting souls. In other words, what they condemned was the rejection of principle P, not the rejection of P1.

Ed, the debate here is about whether what the Church teaches now is logically compatible with what she taught in the past. I adduced my P1 as an instance of a proposition she taught in the past. The ordinary magisterium taught P1, or its logical equivalent, during the Middle Ages and Counter-Reformation. It has now been repudiated. You haven't really denied that. Instead, you insist on talking about what "the 19th and 20th century popes" taught. Now as you recognize, if only implicitly, they had already retreated from 'P1'. So I hadn't set out to address the issue you seem to think is more important. That's why I don't quite get why you think the issue you think is so important is one that I should think so important. But given that it's important to you, I should think my previous comment logically entails my answer.

The Church has not condemned your P as morally unacceptable "in principle." Were she to have done so, she would have to say that P calls for action that's intrinsically evil. And that cannot be inferred from Dignitatis Humanae or any other recent statements of the Magisterium. The most that could be inferred is that, for the most part, efforts by the state to censor erroneous religious ideas are a bad idea.

Best,
Mike

Mike,

The reason principle (P) is important, and the reason I emphasize it, is that the debate over whether DH reversed the teaching of the popes of the 19th and 20th centuries is essentially a debate over the status of (P). When people say that Vatican II contradicted or reversed past teaching on religious liberty -- whether to celebrate this alleged event (liberals, some neo-conservatives) or to bemoan it (sedevacantists, some SSPX types) -- what they are talking about is (P). So, when you have insisted that the issue of religious liberty provides an example of where the Church has "reversed" herself and "unlearned" error, and have said that this was a reversal on actual teaching, principle, or doctrine (even if reformable doctrine) and not merely a reversal of prudential judgments, I quite naturally wanted to know what you had to say about (P).

Now, you have finally told us that you do not think the Church has repudiated (P) in principle. I'm glad, because she hasn't repudiated it in principle, and it would be a big deal if she had done so, since (P) has been affirmed by a long line of popes. Even if someone wanted to say that (P) is reformable doctrine, it is a very big deal if a Catholic tells us that "for centuries pope after pope affirmed and re-affirmed very vehemently a moral teaching that was in fact in principle wrong." That's not the sort of thing one can toss off with "Oh well, it was reformable teaching anyway, so don't worry about it." Non-Catholics see that, quite understandably, as a pathetic ad hoc dodge, and it is not plausible anyway to hold that the Catholic understanding of the Magisterium is consistent with the idea that the Holy Spirit would allow the Church to teach a fundamental moral error of principle, and not just of practice, for centuries.

I am still puzzled, though, because you have said you disagree with the Harrison-Storck view of this issue, and yet the Harrison-Storck view is essentially just that the Church has not rejected (P) but has instead only changed her prudential teaching about it. They say more than that, of course, but that is what they focus on because they are concerned to rebut those liberals and traditionalists who claim that the Church has reversed herself on a matter of moral principle. So, what exactly is your beef with them, then, if you agree with them on this issue?

I am also puzzled by the fact that when pressed earlier about development of doctrine -- doctrine, not prudential judgments -- you insisted that the developments in question involve "reversals" of past doctrine, including where religious liberty is concerned, and that it was "simplistic" to think otherwise. Now you are saying that in the case that everyone actually argues about vis-a-vis religious liberty, the church didn't really reverse herself on doctrine after all, only in prudential judgments. What gives?

Maybe now you'll say "It's only P1 I'm saying the Church reversed." But when did the Church ever teach P1 in the first place as a doctrine, even a reformable one? You may claim that in the middle ages she acted practically as if P1 were true, but that is irrelevant. When people say that the Church has reversed herself on doctrinal principle, what they mean is that actual statements of doctrine have been repudiated. For example, they say (falsely in my view, but this is what they say) that actual statements from papal encyclicals on religious liberty are contradicted by DH. That's the sort of thing we should be talking about if we're considering the issue of whether doctrine (even if reformable) has been "reversed" or "unlearned."

See, I'm demanding precision on this, and, if I do say so myself, I am right to do so, because (as I keep saying) it is a very grave thing for a Catholic to say, indeed to insist (as you have) that the Church has "reversed" herself and "unlearned" error on doctrine and not just on practice. If you are going to insist on this "reversal of doctrine" stuff (even reformable doctrine) then you had better be prepared to give specifics, and it shouldn't be puzzling why someone demands them of you. On the other hand, if you are going to un-dig your heels on the "reversal of doctrine" claim, then I am glad, but you could have cleared that up 72 comments ago.

Yes, and to go further than Ed's remarks, let me ask this, Mike: is there a distinction between saying on the one hand

(P1) In general, the state is obligated to use force to prevent the public advocacy of erroneous religious ideas, and to punish such advocacy when it occurs.

when the "in general" and the "is obligated" goes together with a pre-existing assumption of underlying conditions, such as (a) a Catholic state, and (b) a body of Catholics mostly ill-educated, and (c) a situation where common public instances of advocacy of erroneous religious ideas occurred with efforts that were undue influences, taking advantage of the ignorant, putting false words in other's mouths, etc.

And on the other hand:

(P2) In principle, the state is obligated to use its powers to defend the common good, and that one aspect of the common good can be found especially in the truth about religion, and that offenses against this good can require direct state intervention when other goods are not thereby gravely damaged.

Surely it is easy to see that your expression of P1 above is an instantiation of the larger principle P2, limited to certain situations. And that a rejection of P1 as being applicable is not a rejection of the general principle P2.

Ed,

Part of what you're asking me to do is build a scholarly case that the Magisterium taught P1 when I said it did. I didn't think that would be necessary, especially in a combox, since the literature establishing as much is vast. My chief criticism of the way Noonan makes the case in his book is that he doesn't document it nearly as copiously as he could have. If you want to examine the case, start with Noonan and continue by consulting Tom Pink, who's done a lot more work in this area than I have. I'll give you his email privately if you want.

Another part of what you're asking me for, though, is conceptual. Thus even granted that P1 was a proposition set forth for centuries by the Church, you want me to establish that it was "doctrine" as opposed to a prudential judgment. My answer is this: P1 was doctrine in the broad sense of "teaching," but it was necessarily reformable doctrine, because it was the conclusion of a chain of practical reasoning one of whose premises was that coercion of the sort called for well served the common good. That premise was indeed a prudential judgment, and the Church has now repudiated it. Hence, it follows that the Church has reversed P1, which was logically dependent on such a judgment. But P1 was a doctrine in the sense of 'doctrine' I've been using.

Now if you insist on using the term 'doctrine' in a more technical sense, a sense in which no teaching logically dependent on a prudential judgment counts as doctrine in that sense, I'm not averse in principle to giving you that. But Ludwig Ott supplies the sort of technical vocabulary you're looking for; according to him, a proposition that I'd say is logically equivalent to P1 was "common doctrine." But of course the set of common doctrines and the set of irreformable doctrines are not coextensive. So I don't see that much hinges on this verbal issue.

What is important, I believe, is noting that the development of Catholic moral doctrine as it stands today has yielded up a number of moral precepts which condemn certain sorts of action for the most part but do not classify them as intrinsice malum. I cited a few of them in my previous comments, but there are others, especially in the social teaching of the Church. Now one might want to say that all such precepts are reformable, because the implicit qualifier 'for the most part' signals underlying prudential judgments that can legitimately vary in many cases. I'm not sure about that. It's possible that moral propositions of the form 'Actions of sort A are wrong for the most part' are, or will turn out to be, irreformable without its thereby following that any particular action of sort A is itself evil. A Catholic state's banning "proselytizing" of Catholics by non-Catholics might well be an instance of action of a sort that's wrong for the most part but not intrinsically so. Sort of like war or capital punishment.

Best,
Mike

Tony:

I like your suggestion of P2. One could make a case that P2 still stands as doctrine, but that today, the number of cases in which "other goods are not thereby gravely damaged" are rare enough to be practically negligible. I wonder what Tom Pink would say about that.

That said, I think we need to be extremely circumspect about adducing propositions in political philosophy as irreformable doctrine.

Best,
Mike

Mike,

All of that simply makes my point for me. The interrelationship between principles and prudential judgments on this issue is so complex that it is, as I have said, "rash and irresponsible" for a Catholic loyal to the Magisterium to insist (as you have) that the Church has "reversed" herself or "unlearned" error vis-a-vis a doctrinal matter and not merely in prudential judgments, and to assert (as you have) that those who claim otherwise are being "simplistic."

Well Ed, I explained what I believe is the relevant relation between doctrine and prudential judgment in this case, and offered a heuristic for handling similar cases. If you don't like the way I used the term 'doctrine', that is your prerogative. But I don't think the way I used the term is theologically out of bounds. And if it isn't, then my conclusion can hardly be called "rash and irresponsible." So I maintain my position. It isn't all that controversial.

Best,
Mike