The Meaning of the State

"Go to the Radical Party. It is there that you will find the last vestiges of the meaning of the state."
-Charles de Gaulle.

I recently completed reading a biography of Charles de Gaulle, which was just published last year. One of the things that I found fascinating about de Gaulle was that he always had a very exalted view of the state. Now de Gaulle was a traditional Catholic monarchist, like most of the French military in the early twentieth century. France at that time was governed by the Third French Republic, and most French politicians at that time were anticlerical republicans. This put them at odds with the so-called "Jesuit generals," traditional Catholic monarchists in the French military who had been educated mainly in Jesuit schools in their youth. Consequently both sides were often set against each other over the different political issues of the day, most notably the explosive Dreyfus Affair. The two groups began a rapprochement during World War I, when they were forced to work together for the common good of France when the country was invaded and partially occupied by the Germans. After the war, the effect of these different groups working together was that Church and state in France, which had been officially separated in 1905, reached a bearable coexistence.

Given that de Gaulle was a Catholic monarchist who lived in France when it was already under a secular and anticlerical republic, it may seem peculiar that he would have such a high view of the authority of the state. It might seem equally strange that the French military in those days would have been mostly composed of Catholic monarchists. This meant that the French military would be put in the place of defending the secular and anticlerical republic that governed the country in the event of a war, which is exactly what happened when World War I began. But for de Gaulle, if not also for the other Catholic monarchists in the French military at that time, it is possible to separate the state as such from both the constitution of the state and the politicians who work within the context of that constitution. The state is the highest temporal authority in a human society, charged with upholding the common good of all of the people in the society. The constitution is the form of the state itself. One may have different views about the nature of a given state's constitution, or about the nature of political constitutions in general. But this does not have to reflect upon the position of the state itself.

Like de Gaulle, I am also a traditional Catholic monarchist. I recognize that the state has an obligation to legally recognize the Catholic Church as the official religion of the state and form its laws accordingly. I also believe that monarchy is the best political constitution for a temporal state. Consequently, these beliefs put me in an awkward position, living in a time and place where secular republicanism is the order of the day. The 1789 U.S. constitution is, in my view, an especially flawed document in many ways. I absolutely abhor the American civic religion, which among other things regards the constitution as its most important civil sacrament. Unlike most people in the United States, including many Catholic clergy, I refuse to give to the constitution a respect and honor that I consider to be not only misplaced, but in the American case, even idolatrous at times.

Despite my intense dislike of the 1789 U.S. constitution and the beliefs reflected in it, I can nevertheless recognize that the state in general, even if it takes the form of a deficient constitution, is itself worthy of respect and honor. Following Francisco Suárez, the constitution of the state takes its authority from God through the people of the society itself. All power, even civil power, ultimately comes from God; but in the case of political constitutions, it comes through the individual people in the society. Since men cannot survive on their own, they come together to form societies for their common benefit. The state is formed as the institution that they choose to govern them for their common benefit, and the constitution is the form that the state takes. Hence the constitution expresses the common will of the people in the society as to how they can work together for their common good. The common good is greater than the individual good, since it is the good for a greater number of people. As the common good is greater than the individual good, the individual man in the state must subject himself to the authority of the constitution of the state even if he may disagree with its nature. This applies to people like me, or anyone else who may live under a political constitution that he does not support.

While the benefit of a particular constitution to a society is one matter, this does not detract from the legitimate authority of the state itself as the institution responsible for working for the common good of the whole. The state is necessary as the organization of any society. If there is not some kind of order among men, they cannot effectively work for the good, either the common good or their own individual good. Regardless of the nature of the political constitution of the state, the state itself is a positive good for society, and thus deserves the respect and honor of the people in the society who depend upon it for their own benefit. This is also likewise distinct from giving respect and honor to the politicians working in the constitution. Like many or even most people in contemporary Western society, I find politicians to be a disgusting bunch of people. I do not respect and honor the politicians working in the constitution of the state any more than I do the constitution itself. But this is different from the role of the state as such. People can approve or disapprove more or less of the constitution or the politicians that operate within it, but the state is largely another matter.

Charles de Gaulle's views about the role of the state are also in accord with the views of most ancient and medieval philosophers. While different political constitutions might be good or bad, the state itself is, by definition, an institution that is always good. It exists for the common benefit of all of the people in the society. There is a sense in which the ancient and medieval philosophers also referred to the state as a perfect institution. The perfect lacks nothing that is possible to it as what it is. Since the state is the organization of the whole society, and men cannot survive on their own, the society is self-sufficient in the way that an individual man is not. This is the sense in which the society is a perfect thing. The state organizes the society in a way to enable it to be as self-sufficient as possible. This is how the state in its own way is a perfect institution. As the state, by definition, it always good, and in some sense even a perfect thing, it ought to receive the respect and honor of the people in the society. The Church is higher and more important in human life than the state; but the state serves a necessary and positive purpose as well.

The nature of the state as a necessary and positive good is too often overlooked in modern society. Both the contemporary right and left have their issues with the state. The right is hostile to the state because they see it in opposition to the free market, which they falsely consider to be infallible. And while the left does not have these same issues with the state, they have issues with authority in general; and the state by nature is an authoritative institution. In one sense this disregard for the authority of the state is part of the greater moral decay in Western countries. The Church has long said that giving the proper respect to civil authorities falls under the broader interpretation of the fourth commandment, to honor one's father and mother. This precept means that men need to respect legitimate authority, and thus recognize the ways that they depend upon it for their own good. The disregard for the authority of the state falls in with the infantile spirit of rebellion that we find on the left; and with the callous capitalist materialism that we find on the right. Both sides in their own way disregard a moral imperative that is as old as human society itself. While the moral imperative to obey legitimate authority is contained even in the Decalogue, it is of course much broader than that. It is not always, or even strictly, a religious obligation. It is a moral obligation that can be found across different religions and ethical systems. That the state is so disregarded by contemporary people is thus another unfortunate sign of contemporary Western moral degeneracy.

And as I said, to give respect and honor to the state does not have to mean that you necessarily approve of its constitution, still less of the politicians and others that operate within that context. The state can be understood as something different from and broader than both of those things. This was certainly de Gaulle's concern when he told his political associates to go to the Radical Party. While de Gaulle was himself a Catholic monarchist, and the Radical Party was anticlerical and republican, de Gaulle believed it was necessary for his associates to join the Radical Party because the Radical Party was the closest thing that France had to a party of government during the second half of the Third French Republic. That is why he told them that it was there that they would find the last vestiges of the meaning of the state.

Two Axes to Grind

One of the things that I despise most in the world is emotivism. Rather than relying on logic and reason, people default to their passions, despite how passions by their nature lack objectivity. As a result, people can come up with some pretty ridiculous ideas based on their completely relative feelings. Such overtures almost always end in some degree of disconnect from reality. The only way they might not do so is completely by accident; in the event that the subject's passions just happen to correspond to an objective reality. But this is the exception to the rule. The rule is that following one's passions as opposed to one's reason is ultimately a recipe for disaster. Look no further than modern Western society to see what I mean. "The heart is deceitful and knows not what it wants." If you do not understand how this is a problem, then you are probably part of the problem yourself.

Regrettably enough, the emotivism in the secular world has gained more than a foothold in the contemporary Catholic Church. Two of the most rotten examples of what I mean are both in theological issues, namely the denial of limbo and opposition to capital punishment. My purpose here is to explain how, as far as I can tell, opposition to these things is grounded mainly in emotivism, with only an increasingly thin veneer of pseudo-intellectualism to try to cover for it.

The denial of limbo is perhaps the worse of these two issues, insofar as most people in the Church are oblivious to it in the first place. This just shows how far the emotivism has gone. Now to be clear, the Church has specified in her sacred doctrine that there are actually two limbos. There is the limbo of the fathers and the limbo of the children. The limbo of the fathers is dogmatic doctrine, and even finds reference in the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. When we confess that Christ descended into hell, we mean that He descended into the limbo of the fathers to harrow the holy souls who were there. These holy souls died in perfect virtue, but were unable to come into beatitude with God because they lacked explicit faith in Christ, insofar as Christ had not yet come. So they waited in the limbo of the fathers until Christ presented Himself to them in order to bring them into beatitude. This is the harrowing of hell that we confess in the two most central creeds of the Church. The limbo of the children is the realm where God sends the souls who died in original sin only. Since there are different kinds of sin, there are different realms to hold the different kinds of sinners. Those who die in mortal sin are sent to the hell of the lost; those who die in venial sin are sent to purgatory; and those who die in original sin are sent to the limbo of the children. The limbo of the children is so called, predictably enough, because the souls who go there all die in infancy. If they lived longer, they would likely have committed mortal or venial sins which would need to be forgiven. In the case of both limbos, the souls sent to these two realms enjoy in those realms the perfect natural happiness that is possible to men, but do not experience the supernatural happiness that comes from seeing God in beatitude. This is because they were deprived of their salvation for reasons outside of their control. Hence they receive perfect natural happiness because they did not personally do anything wrong; but they still cannot come to be with God in beatitude. And since Christ harrowed the souls in the limbo of the fathers, no one is there anymore. But the souls in the limbo of the children remain there for all time. The denial of beatitude is not really a punishment for them, because they do not know that beatitude is possible. You cannot long for some good if you do not know that the good exists in the first place. This is a somewhat brief summary of the two limbos, but is as comprehensive as I can make it.

Since the Second Vatican Council, there has been a tendency to deny the existence of the limbo of the children. A statement from the Vatican several years ago said that we cannot rule out the possibility that children who die without baptism are saved. But this makes no sense on several different accounts. First, salvation is a supernatural act. By definition, it takes man above his nature. This is the literal etymological meaning of the word "supernatural." So men cannot attain to beatitude on their own; they need the help of God to bring them to it. This would have been the case even if there was no original sin. If the first men had died without committing sins, they would still not have been able to go directly to heaven. The state of innocence perfected men on their natural level, but did not take them above it. Keep in mind that the punishment for the original sin was death; so if the first men had not sinned, they would not have died. But if they had been able to die, and they did die, then salvation would still not have been immediately possible to them. They died a natural state, and salvation is supernatural. This is how Francisco Suárez was able to say that even if men had not sinned, the Incarnation would still have been necessary for men to be saved. It would have been necessary because it takes men above their nature, and nothing can rise above itself by its own power; it can only come to things at its own level or beneath it. Second, given that men did sin, we are not even talking about the state of innocence, but a state below that; the state of original sin. If men in the natural state could not come to God on their own, then men in any kind of sin certainly cannot do so. In this sense the grace that God offers to men for men to be saved takes them above their state on two levels: first, above the level of sin to that of God's grace; and second, above the natural state to a supernatural state. So men need God's grace to come to God in beatitude. And the Church has infallibly declared that God grants salvation to none but the baptized; those who have received baptism in water, blood, or spirit. It is also no answer to say that the souls who die in original sin only might be baptized by desire. At best this may be possible for some of them, but not all of them. It must be remembered that baptism by desire is an extraordinary means to salvation. This means it is out of the ordinary. Most of those who are saved receive baptism by water. There is nothing to say that all of those who die in original sin only might have, for that reason, had their sins forgiven from baptism by desire. Third, if it was the case that the souls who die in original sin only were automatically saved, this would be ridiculously unjust to those that have to work for their salvation in life. To die in infancy would be a quick route to heaven, which would effectively screw over anyone that had the misfortune (and then it would be misfortune) to survive infancy.

For these reasons it is clear enough that to deny the limbo of the children does not make any sense. The only conceivable way that people could take such a ridiculous position is that they do not like the thought that all of the sweet little babies might not get to be with God in heaven. They seem utterly to forget that God does not owe salvation to anyone at all. Those who are saved are the exception to the rule. This applies in general. To deny the limbo of the children just adds to the rank error that everyone, or even most people, are saved. It comes from an emotivism of the worst kind.

The other big issue is capital punishment. This one, of course, has been in the news lately, because our theologically illiterate pope has taken it upon himself to amend the 1992 Catechism to say that capital punishment is always inadmissible. It reminds me of how the Soviet Communist Party used to "amend" their published works to suppress how the party doctrine had changed over the years. Apparently Pope Francis thinks he is the successor to Stalin rather than St. Peter.

In any event, the argument for capital punishment runs thus. Justice is to give to all things what they deserve as what they are. The rule of punishment is justice. Hence if you do a certain evil of a given magnitude, the same degree of evil comes back to you for what you did. This is justice. Now the evil that comes back to you is only materially evil. It is actually formally good insofar as it is in accord with justice. This is the sense in which punishment is good; and how punishment, as a material evil, can come from God Who alone is essentially good. So if people commit murder or a crime of comparable severity to murder, they deserve to die. They took a life or did something along those same lines, which means they need to pay back to society with their life. This is the only way they can restore the equality that existed between them and the society that they harmed. This is what, in legal terms, is said to make society whole again. Society cannot be made whole unless the murderer and those like him pay for their crimes according to justice. For which reason capital punishment is not only good, but necessary in society. The only way it would not be necessary is if you had a society where no one murdered anyone or committed other similarly serious crimes. It's a nice dream, but it will never happen. So capital punishment is necessary. These people deserve to die.

There are, both in the Church on earth and in the wider world, a lot of misconceptions about capital punishment. People claim that it does not reduce crime to execute serious criminals. That is not the point. Even if this is true, it does not mean that these criminals do not deserve to die. It's called the "justice" system for a reason. It is not there to prevent crime, but to uphold justice in a society. If it does prevent crime, that is all well and good, but not doing so is no reason to say that it does not work or should not be used. Another misconception is that it is hypocritical to kill someone for killing someone. But this conveniently ignores how the murderer took an innocent life, while the state takes the life of someone who did something gravely immoral; and who, by that act, forfeited his right to live in a society. Then there is the nonsense among pro-lifers which is equally absurd. This is the argument that tries to equate abortion with capital punishment. The reply here is the same. Abortion is to take the life of a human being who has done nothing morally wrong, and could do nothing morally wrong for which he could be executed, since the unborn in the womb lack free will. Capital punishment is to take the life of someone who has done something wrong. It is absurd in the highest degree to equate killing an innocent with killing a convicted criminal.

The only argument that holds any possible weight in this regard is the one that says that innocent people might be wrongly convicted and executed. But this argument at best means that capital punishment should be more carefully applied. That makes perfect sense. The justice system would do well to follow Blackstone's formulation: "It is better that ten guilty men go free than that one innocent should suffer." There is also the claim that an execution cannot be reversed, while a man in prison for life can be let out of prison. This one is also rather unconvincing. While it is true that the man who was wrongly convicted of a crime can be set free, he cannot be given back the time he already paid in prison for a crime he did not commit. And one can only imagine the difficulty of rebuilding a life after spending a long time in prison for a crime that one did not commit. Perhaps capital punishment might be the better road to take there after all. In any event, these objections do not show that capital punishment should never be used; they only show that it should be carefully applied, which makes good sense. And that it can be misused does not mean that there is no obligation for justice to still be done. Society is not made whole again unless the murderer or other serious criminals pay for their crimes with their lives. There is no way around it.

As with the limbo of the children, the opposition to capital punishment seems to fall back on emotivism. Where the limbo deniers do not like the idea that the sweet little babies might not see God, the capital punishment abolitionists do not like the idea that someone might have to suffer and die, even if it is for a crime he committed for which he deserves to suffer. In both cases, they are more concerned with their own empty and worthless feelings than they are with objective reality. And needless to say, in the case of capital punishment, I have nothing but contempt for people who had a friend or relative killed, and then choose to debase themselves to call for clemency for the man who might be executed. This is a disgusting display of weakness; and worst of all, they stand in the way of justice when they do it. It was not just the people who knew the dead man who suffered a loss, but all of society. That is the nature of a crime as such. A crime is a public wrong. It involves the whole society, not just those immediately affected by it. So I do not care in the least if the people who knew the victim call for clemency for the criminal. This is not just about them if a crime was committed. In that context, their beliefs or feelings do not count for more than anyone else's in the society.

What these two issues share in common is that in both cases, the people who oppose the things I have mentioned rely on their emotions rather than on objective reality for what they believe, say, or do. That is no way to behave like a human being. God gave you a rational intellect and free will for a reason. Your passions, at best, are only meant to assist you to do what you rationally understand to be correct. If your passions ever lead you in a contrary direction, they are to be ignored, disregarded, and resisted as contrary to the overall good that you are bound by virtue to pursue. Anything else is a failure to be a decent human being.

The Vatican II Settlement

A lot has certainly taken place since the last essay that I wrote commenting on the escalating crisis in the Church. Since then we have seen the Viganò testimony, the pope's non-denial responses to his own cover-ups, and a long list of excuses from complicit prelates in the Church who are, and have been, responsible for the crisis that the Church is now facing worldwide. For the moment, it does not look like the situation is going to improve any time soon; nor did I think that it would. The evil prelates in the Church, Pope Francis and his henchmen, are clearly in the grip of the devil, and they will use all of the power they have amassed in the Church to get their vengeance on anyone who so much as looks at them the wrong way. These are clearly not the people that we can expect to clean up the current crisis, as I already said. It is entirely of their own making. The most that we can expect from these devils is cosmetic changes. Pope Francis has already called for a synod of bishops to meet in February 2019 to address "the protection of minors and vulnerable adults," with no mention made of the ecclesiastical third rail of rampant homosexuality among clergy and seminarians. In other words, the real problem will once again be ignored, just as it was in 2002.

I could go on about the current sexual abuse crisis in the Church and how disgusted that I and other faithful orthodox Catholics have become at the disreputable bastards currently running the Church; but there are plenty of people already doing that. Adding another voice to the milieu would not make much of a difference. I want to call attention to the broader ramifications of the current crisis. Many people have pointed out that the sexual abuse crisis has cut across basically everything else that the Church tries to do. How can people take the Church seriously and consider being received into the Church with all of the sexual abuse that has taken place? How can any faithful Catholic seriously propose to unbelievers that their salvation depends upon being in communion with the likes of Pope Francis and his devils in the clergy? How can the Church claim any moral authority over society when she cannot even clean up her own affairs? This crisis makes basically everything that the Church has to offer seem vacuous, shallow, and ridiculous.

It is obviously not a pretty picture. But it goes beyond that; and there is, I am confident to say, a silver lining in the midst of the dark clouds. What we are seeing right now is not so much the destruction of the Church, either in reality or in the view of contemporary Western societies. It is, in fact, the destruction of the post-Vatican II settlement in the Church.

For those who may think that it is daring of me to link the current crisis to the council, I am not the only one to do this. Many others, most of them orthodox but not traditionalist Catholics, have made this same connection before me. That is why I am confident in what I have to say. I am not, in this case, the only one to see what is taking place. Two different priests that I know, both of them sincere, orthodox Catholics have commented that this crisis basically is the self-destruction of post-Vatican II Catholicism. This means, among other things, that the credibility of the contemporary Church hierarchy, who have insisted for decades on the Second Vatican Council and its reforms, is totally shattered; and that as a result, orthodox and faithful Catholics have no reason to believe them when they make their claims about the supposed necessity of conciliar reforms. This includes the liturgy and everything else that the council did.

I have said before that I do not deny that the Second Vatican Council was a legitimate ecumenical council, and that the authorities in the Church hierarchy could do what they did. But that they could do it does not mean that they should have, or that what they did was necessarily good. Like popes, ecumenical councils are only guided by the Holy Spirit in a limited way. That the Holy Spirit protects the Church on earth from error does not mean that non-dogmatic statements of the Church are necessarily inspired or free from error. And the Second Vatican Council made no dogmatic statements. Nor did any of the liturgical reforms touch on anything dogmatic, as bad as those reforms were. I have no time for the theory that the new liturgical forms of the Roman Rite are invalid or illicit because of the changes. The changes were surely not for the better, but they did not make anything invalid or illicit.

However, it is nonetheless the case that the credibility of the bishops when they say that these reforms were good or necessary is equally destroyed along with their credibility on everything else. If the bishops in the Church as a whole cannot be trusted with something as necessary as protecting children and adults from homosexual rape by clergy, they cannot be trusted with anything. And the mentality in the Church that led to the reforms led at the same time to the sexual abuse. As Pope Francis once put it: "Let's not be naïve." The reforms in the Church during and after the council, both liturgical and otherwise, were all about tearing down what the Church had built up for so long. If the liturgy, that most sacred of things, is apparently not as sacred as we thought, what else isn't sacred? If the integrity of Church sanctuaries and the rituals of the Roman liturgy are apparently not inviolable, what else is not inviolable? Keep in mind that most of the sexual abuse cases that have come to light in the last sixteen years took place between 1965 and 1974, coincident with the sexual revolution. And the Church was engaging in her reforms at the same time.

Besides the destruction of credibility among the bishops on the liturgical reforms, the other things that have taken place in the Church in the last fifty years are also falling apart. For the last fifty years, the Church has left doctrines "on the books" but then ignored disciplining anyone who taught or did anything against those doctrines. If the bishops could ignore the need to discipline heretical and modernist clergy, it's no surprise that they would do the same with sexual abuse. And when the bishops weren't ignoring the need for urgent action to combat heresy and modernism, they were actively promoting heresy and modernism themselves, along with perpetrating the inevitable sexual acts that go along with such things.

It's all a very bleak picture, no doubt. So where is the silver lining? With the post-Vatican II settlement in the Church falling on its sword, the faithful as a whole can recapture the reality of the Church. There can be a return to tradition and orthodoxy in liturgy and doctrine. The Church can become holier than she was before. She will almost surely be smaller, possibly even persecuted, but she will be better off than she was before. I do not know how or when the devils in control of the Church, Pope Francis and his henchmen, will be dealt with, but obviously I hope it will be soon. When we are ultimately rid of these evil men, the Church can then, slowly, begin to heal herself. There is no doubt that all of this coming out now is from God. Despite how dark it may seem, God is always in control, and He is allowing this painful correction in the Church for her own good, and for the good of all of the individual faithful in the Church. All most of us can do is hope, pray, and continue to do what we know to be right. Ignore the pope and his devils in the hierarchy. Remember St. Paul: "If anyone comes to you, even if he is an angel, preaching a doctrine other than what you have received, let him be anathema." The times are indeed difficult and the Church is surely suffering, but through suffering comes greater virtue.

An Enemy Has Done This

"Master, did you not sow good wheat in the field? Where did the weeds come from? He said to them: An enemy has done this."
-Matthew 13:27-28.

"Do not judge the gods, young man, they have painful secrets."
-Jean-Paul Sartre, The Flies (1943).

Sometimes I have had some difficulty in finding what I consider to be a suitable topic for an essay on here. And sometimes the topic presents itself.

I do not like to comment much on current events in the Church. There are plenty of people out there already doing that; and besides, I believe that good writing ought to have a timeless quality. The effect of the writing itself would not necessarily last very long if the topic of discussion has faded into a distant memory. But the events currently taking place in the Church are too big to ignore, and this is likely only the beginning. Obviously I am talking about the revelation that Cardinal McCarrick is a serial homosexual predator. For those who may have thought that the scandal of sexual abuse in the Church was slowly fading away, this is evidently not the case. The revelation in 2002 that there was a serious problem in the Church with homosexual abusers was terrible enough; but apparently the scope of what was and is taking place in the Church is far greater than what we had expected. We were told by many people that this was just a few bad apples, so to speak. Now it looks as if the problem is far more pervasive than we previously thought. We were told that the liberal media, ever an opponent of the Catholic Church, was distorting the stories to make it seem like things were worse than they are. Now it looks like, if anything, the media did not do justice to the moral and legal sexual crimes being perpetrated by Catholic clergy.

It is not my intention here to expatiate on the details of this affair; there are plenty of other people that are already doing that. For those who want to know more about the actual facts of what has taken place in this whole grim affair, there is no shortage of people willing to tell the stories, and even to do justice to the stories in the process. For my part, I intend to offer several observations that I have made about this scandal, which an ordinary critical mind might have thus far considered. There is surely much more than can be said about all of this than I intend to say; but so far these are the observations that I have made concerning the stories and the details coming forward.

First, this affair is, as I already said, far more pervasive than just a few bad apples. The Cardinal McCarrick story is one of the more horrendous so far, considering the former cardinal's high position in the Church. But the problem is incredibly widespread. The stories first broke in the Boston archdiocese in January 2002, as many will remember; but then it quickly spread throughout the United States and to other countries as well. Boston many have been the epicenter of the sexual abuse earthquake in the Church, but the shocks have been felt all over the world. From Boston to Honduras, from Pennsylvania to Chile, from New Jersey to the British Isles, there has been almost no place that has not been affected by this scandal. Even before the Cardinal McCarrick story broke in June, Pope Francis earlier this year was in the news for trying to appoint as a bishop in Chile a priest who was a close confidant and protégé of a homosexual abuser. The pope apparently knew what was going on, but dismissed the stories as rumors created by leftists and accused the victims coming forward of "calumny." Since the Cardinal McCarrick story broke, there has been another major story coming out of Honduras. The National Catholic Register here in the United States released a story about a letter from seminarians in Honduras complaining about the dominance of homosexuals in the major seminary there. These complaints and the report about them were dismissed as false by Cardinal Maradiaga, a close confidant of Pope Francis. And back here in the United States, we are waiting on the report coming forth in a month or so from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which apparently contains details of thousands of cases of sexual abuse by over three hundred priests in six of the eight dioceses of that state. If there are so many cases in only six dioceses of one U.S. state, you can be sure there are far more elsewhere across the country and around the world. So the story that this is just a series of isolated incidents is simply not true. This is a pervasive problem in the Church.

Second, almost as disappointing as the sexual abuse cases themselves is the almost total indifference of the Catholic bishops worldwide to try to rectify this problem. Coming to mind right now is Cardinal O'Malley's boiler plate bureaucratic legalese response to the Cardinal McCarrick story. There was not even any sense of compassion for the victims, any outrage about what took place, any anger towards McCarrick, any sense that he needs to suffer punishment for what he did, or that he ought to repent for having destroyed so many lives. But this is more than just inaction on the part of the bishops. As Rod Dreher and others pointed out in the Cardinal McCarrick story, basically everybody knew what Cardinal McCarrick was doing, yet no one bothered to stop him or to speak up about it. Some of them, no doubt, kept quiet because they have their own sexual secrets that they do not want to come to light. Others were intimidated by those in league with Cardinal McCarrick should they dare to speak out against such a prominent person in the Church. While we might be able to have some sympathy for those who were intimidated, not speaking up against such crimes is nevertheless a clear dereliction of moral duty. And no sympathy at all can or ought be given to those who simply do not want to be outed themselves for their own sexual behavior.

Third, what really inflames the anger is the indomitable arrogance of the clergy in the handling (or avoiding the handling) of this whole scandal. The clergy, especially the bishops, have a sense that they are above criticism or reproach because of their order in the Church. Since the clergy in general and the bishops in particular run the Church, they are answerable to no one else in the Church. This is natural enough in any society or institution; there is always some authority beyond whom it is not possible to appeal. It's the old problem of "who watches the watchers." This is not evidence of a constitutional problem in the Church, since all institutions have such issues. If you litigate a case in American federal courts, and the case comes before the U.S. Supreme Court, but the U.S. Supreme Court gets it wrong, you cannot appeal to anyone else. That is the end of the road. They are accountable to no one else. Such situations, for whatever it is worth, are unavoidable. But these unavoidable situations can be easily exploited by evil people for their own personal gain. This is exactly what the bishops and other clergy in the Church have done. They know that the laity cannot do anything against them, so they do not bother to clean up their act or try to rectify the problems in the Church. And they have been taught, as part of their clerical culture, to cover for each other. So if someone was to come forward to complain about sexual abuse or any other bad behavior from clergy, the other clergy would stick up for him. Back in 2002, when this scandal first broke, the U.S. bishops appointed Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma, a practicing Catholic in good standing in the Church, to head a commission to investigate the sexual crimes that had taken place up until then. Governor Frank Keating resigned about a year later, saying he could not solve the problem, because in his view, the bishops were behaving like La Cosa Nostra. The bishops asked him to retract his remark, but to his credit, he stood his ground. There truly is a homosexual mafia currently running the Church.

Fourth, do not for a moment expect Pope Francis to clean up the situation. If the story about the scandal in Chile is any indication, he is as bad as the rest of them. When the victims there came forward to speak about the abuse they had suffered at the hands of Father Karadima, the pope accused them of "calumny" for saying what they did. Then the word came out that the pope actually knew about what was going on, even though he claimed he did not. The victims had presented a letter personally to Cardinal O'Malley about Father Karadima, and Cardinal O'Malley claimed that he gave the letter directly to the pope. Either the pope lied about not getting the letter, or Cardinal O'Malley lied about giving it to the pope. Regardless of whoever lied outright about the Father Karadima letter, it is noteworthy of how quickly Pope Francis went to defend Father Karadima and Bishop Barros against attacks that turned out to be completely true. Even Cardinal O'Malley was surprised about the abrupt response from the pope to the Chilean sexual abuse victims. Yet despite the shock at what the pope had said, and the likelihood that he was publicly caught in a lie about this matter, the pope made no apology for what happened. Many people in the Church like to think that because Pope Francis has a reputation of being "the people's pope," that he will be more likely to clean up the mess. Don't bet on it. He's in league with the rest of them. They are in control of the Church, and will do nothing to change the way things are operating. As Talleyrand said of the French Bourbons: "They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing."

Fifth, one of the major problems in the entire Church that perpetuates this whole crisis is the clericalism. Not only do the clergy of the Church behave with an indomitable arrogance, as I mentioned, but the laity often feed them in their delusions. The attitude that "you can't criticize Father" or "you can't speak badly about the bishops" or "you're being uncharitable towards the pope" all allow for the clergy to continue to get away with what they are doing. Just because they hold high office does not mean that you cannot or should not criticize them when they do wrong. Yet there are plenty of people out there among the laity of the Church that believe that is exactly how this is supposed to work. And they do not just shut down any potential criticism as "uncharitable," they also have endless excuses for what takes place. This goes well beyond simply the sexual abuse, although that is the most egregious example of this phenomenon. Some people in the Church cannot even bear to acknowledge the existence of any bad behavior, sexual or otherwise, as coming from clergy. It's absurd, dangerous, and indefensible behavior. If you do not have even the will to see what they are doing wrong, or if you minimize it with excuses, then you are part of the problem. You are just another corrupt soul in the Church helping the clergy to bring about her ruination.

Sixth, a related phenomenon that does the Church no favors these days is triumphalism; the attitude that the Church can survive anything because she is the Church and she is guided by the Holy Spirit. Both of those things are true, but people use them all too eagerly to overlook the terrible problems gripping the Church. Christ obviously spoke the truth when He said that His words would not pass away, but part of the reason that what He said is true is because of decent faithful living in the world who refuse to tolerate the corruption in the Church. Too many people these days are willing to sit back and let everything fall to pieces because of their overconfidence that the Church will be able to weather this storm. That she may do, but she does need the help of individuals in the Church. And as I said, do not look to the clergy to clean up the mess. They are a huge part of the problem. As Fulton Sheen once said, it will be up to the laity to save the Church, not the clergy. And the Church will not be saved by making excuses, turning a blind eye to crises, or sycophantic treatment of the clergy. The laity need to speak up. They need to pray, they need to act, and they need to stop sitting on the sidelines allowing the rape of Holy Mother Church to take place.

Seventh, that the clergy of the Church over the last fifty years have shown themselves to be utterly untrustworthy in these matters of sexual abuse calls into doubt other things they have said and done. Nowhere is this more apparent than their constant reliance and insistence upon the Second Vatican Council. If so many of the bishops that defended the council over the last five decades claiming that it was the best thing ever are also the ones implicated somehow in the sexual abuse scandal, why should we believe anything they have to say? If they can get the issue of sexual abuse so hideously wrong, then there's no reason to believe all of their pompous and verbose nonsense about the wonders of the Second Vatican Council. Now I am not saying here that the council or subsequent popes were and are illegitimate; far from it. I have no patience for conspiracy theories. But evidently what the council did, however legitimate the council itself, was not to the benefit of the Church. That is largely a separate issue, but the same bishops that glorify in the council are the ones that have consistently either engaged in sexual abuse or worked to cover it up somehow. And as far as trust is concerned, the bishops have made some weak statements about working to regain the trust of the laity, but they have done nothing of the sort. If they ever decide they want to try to regain the trust of the laity, by the time they do, all of us currently living on earth will be long dead. Trust is easily lost, and almost never restored once it is gone. It will be up to future generations in the Church, those yet to be born, to learn to trust the clergy of the Church again.

This is about all that I can say on this matter at the moment, and it surely is a lot. As I said, the Cardinal McCarrick story is likely only the beginning of the storm. Other people, such as Steve Skojec, have said this already; and I am inclined to agree. I might have more to say in the future once more details emerge, particularly after the report from Pennsylvania is released. If I can offer some advice to the long-suffering and despondent laity of the Church, it would be this: do not give up hope. The picture now is as dark as its ever been, but now is not the time to abandon the Church. Truly there is never a good time to abandon the Church. But right now especially, she needs all of the help that she can get. I do not know how or under what circumstances control of the Church will be wrested away from the homosexual mafia, but the time will come. The guilty will be punished in this life or the next. God will not be mocked. Until that time comes, we need to hope, pray, and work to try to sort out this mess to restore the Church that we love.

Extremes of Sin

It's a popular trope for people these days in the Church to say that "we are all sinners," and then they often rush to the bottom to efface themselves more than anyone else. While it is true, of course, that all ordinary men, anyone other than Christ and Mary, are fallen and are sinners, there are some misconceptions about the nature of Christ's statement that we are to "go and sin no more." This precept is not meant as hyperbolic or as a general unobtainable point which the faithful ought to seek, but to which we can never actually obtain. St. Thomas mentions in the Summa Theologica that it would be to no purpose for God to command the impossible of men. So when Christ said, "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect," He meant exactly that. Moral perfection is possible to men in this life, though it is doubtless very difficult.

Perfection is the state where a thing lacks nothing that it can have for what it is. In the sense that all ordinary men suffer from the consequences of the original sin, no one is perfect in everything that we do. Even if we try our best, we still commit errors. But this does not mean that we cannot totally avoid sin while we live. Sin is an act that is lacking in due rectitude. Something that can be present in the act is not present. This is the sense in which sin is a kind of imperfection. All sins are imperfections, but not all imperfections are sins. In some sense a sprained ankle or lactose intolerance can be called imperfections; something that can be present in the subject is not there. This is an imperfection. But obviously neither of these things involves sin of any kind.

As far as sins are concerned, it is indeed possible for men to live without sin entirely; to live without relapsing back into sin and departing from God's grace and virtue. This involves habits. If people develop virtuous habits, they can avoid the contrary sins. Surely this is difficult for men, but it can be done. It is difficult because it takes men above their sinful state. Things cannot rise above themselves by their own power; they can only attain to things at their own level or beneath it. As sin takes men above the fallen state, it involves in some sense a movement contrary to nature. But it is possible to men insofar as the order of virtue is the order of nature, and men can act in accord with their nature. Their own nature is not above itself, since this would mean that it was contrary to itself, which makes no sense. So they can rise above sin to proper virtue; but there is difficulty because the upward movement is in some way contrary to nature. If the virtues directly bring the subject closer to God, as in the case of the theological virtues, they require the help of God to obtain that end. As God is above men, no man can come to God solely by his own power. God has to infuse His grace and virtue in the man for the man to come to Him.

So while living in perfect virtue is difficult, it is not just an empty admonition when Christ tells the faithful to "be perfect." He actually means it as such. But too many people take the statement that "nobody is perfect" as meaning that moral perfection is not at all possible in life. This is simply not true. It's not only a misstatement to say in this context that "nobody is perfect," too often it serves as a bromide to assuage one's own guilty conscience. People in life can attain to moral perfection, and some even do.

Yet there is also a contrary issue to what I have said thus far. People misunderstand the nature of sin, thinking in some cases that the category of sin, so to speak, is much broader than it is. As said, sin is defined as an act that is lacking in due rectitude. Personal sins (leaving aside the original sin) can be either mortal sins or venial sins. For a sin to be mortal, it requires grave matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent. Grave matter means that you desire the created good more than God Himself. This makes the sin to be mortal rather than venial. Venial sin is when you desire the created good more than you should, but not more than God.

Too often people think that these three categories for mortal sin fall, as it were, on the same level, or operate in the same way. They think that any one of the three categories can be subtracted from the act in order to make the act a venial sin rather than a mortal sin. But this is not how it works. Grave matter makes the distinction between mortal sin and venial sin; but full knowledge and deliberate consent operate different from grave matter. Technically you can only give deliberate consent if you have full knowledge. If you give deliberate consent to an act thinking the act is other than it really is, you did not give deliberate consent to the objective act as such. Your consent can be deliberate in the sense that you did the act without hesitation; but the lack of full knowledge about what you did does not mean you formally did what you seemed to do. There is a distinction between the material and formal aspects of the act that is done. The material aspect is what is done; the formal aspect is how it is done, which is the intention. If I intend to do A but do B thinking that B is A, then B is materially done, but not formally done, since I intended A when I actually did B. If I intended B as A, then I cannot be held responsible for doing B as such, since I thought it was A. This is the way that full knowledge and deliberate consent operate.

Since the formal aspect of the act done determines culpability for the act, that refers to the intention, which is the deliberate consent; and by extension, the full knowledge which is requisite for there to technically be deliberate consent in the first place. But if you do not know that what you do is objectively wrong, you are not held responsible for doing it. In other words, you cannot just subtract either full knowledge or deliberate consent to turn a mortal sin into a venial sin. If you do something objectively wrong without knowing it to be such, it is not only not a mortal sin, it is not even a venial sin. It is simply an error. God does not punish men for errors; He punishes men for sins.

There are some scrupulous people that agonize over whether they may have committed a sin either "by accident" or "without knowing it." Well, if you did not know that it was a sin when you did it, it's not a sin. It may be an error, but it is no sin at all, either mortal or venial. God punishes people only for what they know they did wrong.

God may be strict in requiring perfect virtue from men, but He's not unreasonable. He does not hold men to account for things they didn't know that they did wrong. This would be blatantly contrary to God's perfect justice. To think that God would punish men for such things is practically to despair of God's justice and not to trust in God's essential goodness. And God wants men to be saved. He is not waiting to catch men on a technicality in order to send them to hell. If God knows all things, He knows when you know that you did something wrong. Only then will you be punished for what you did. Only then is it necessary to repent of what you did to avoid being punished for it.

So while Christ appears to give men a tall order in calling for perfect virtue, and in some ways actually does, it still must be borne in mind that God does not hold men to account for what they do not know they did wrong. Such acts are, at worst, errors, but certainly no sins. You cannot just subtract randomly one of the three categories from a mortal sin to make it a venial sin. If deliberate consent and/or full knowledge is not there, the act might not be a sin at all. If it was objectively wrong, and you find out later on, don't do it in the future now that you know. But also don't worry about what was done. If you didn't know, it was not a sin at all.

Phenomenology of Beatitude

For a while now, I have been developing an interest in phenomenology, which is the study of phenomena, the way that things are perceived by the conscious subject. As part of this interest, I've recently been reading Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit. While difficult at times to understand what Hegel is saying, the book is nevertheless fascinating to me, much like Heidegger and Sartre, whom I've also read. Having read those two authors, it seemed only natural that I should take on Hegel as well, considering the tremendous influence he has had on both of them, and on much of subsequent nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy.

In the Preface to Hegel's book, he mentions how the way for things to be known is to consider the object as subject; this is one of the ways that Hegel uses his famous triads, the best known of which is the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Subject and object are contraries; and the process of knowing comes about through their union. Hence the subject, who understands, can thus be considered the thesis; the object the antithesis; and the knowing as the synthesis. Hegel makes it the purpose of his book to fully explain this process in much greater detail.

But his statement about seeing the subject as object caught my attention as notable from a theological point of view. When the subject knows the object, the subject forms an image of the thing known in the mind of the knower. Hence if you know (for example) a ball, there is not actually a ball literally within your mind; it is the image of a ball. This concept is the basis for the famous painting "The Treachery of Images," which depicts a pipe, and under it, the caption reads (in French) "This is not a pipe." The point is that it was an image of a pipe, not an actual pipe. The like is the case when we know things. We know things by image; but the thing itself remains what it is, outside of our minds.

Yet the state of beatitude is actually rather different. Beatitude is when the subject comes to see God as God is, and is thus united to God. Since God alone is essentially good, God can only be known as essentially good; and if He is thus known, it is impossible not to love Him as such. The good is the proper object of love. Hence the subject is united to God such that he cannot possibly depart from God. To depart from God, were this possible, would require him to choose a lesser good over God. But since he sees God as God is, and knows that God is greater than all other things, he knows it would make no sense to choose anything over God. So the union with God in beatitude is permanent. It cannot be lost. The subject retains his free will in beatitude, but nevertheless never departs from this perfect union with God.

The union with God, however, is more than just a vision of God Himself. God Himself comes to be in the mind of the knower in His essence. When the subject knows created natures, he forms an image of the created nature in his mind; this was already said. But to know God in beatitude, God actually is present in His essence in the mind of the knower. It is not an image of God in the mind, but rather God Himself. This is the nature of beatitude; the nature of what it means to have a perfect union with God in eternity.

This relates to Hegel as follows. If God unites Himself to the subject in this way, then God (the object) becomes one with the subject. In other words, the subject becomes the object. This does not mean that the subject ceases to be who he is. It does not mean that the subject is "dissolved" into God, insofar as he ceases to be who he is. He remains who he is, and thus is essentially distinct from the Divine essence. Yet since he is united to God, he not only sees God, but sees things as God. And these things, in a sense, are one and the same. God perfectly sees all things in His own essence, such that His understanding of Himself is the same as His essence. Since God does all things perfectly, when He knows Himself, He does not merely form an image of Himself in His own mind; His understanding of Himself is His very essence Itself. Now if the created nature is united to God in beatitude, he not only sees God and sees all things in God, he sees all things as God sees all things. This is the sense in which seeing God and seeing things as God are one and the same. Hence the statement: "God became man so that man might become God."

This can also be experienced in life to an imperfect degree. The state of deification is when the subject is united to God, but does not see God as God is in his own intellect. When God is known in beatitude, He is in the intellect of the knower. But God can also enter the soul directly in life, without going through the intellect, so that God is with the subject, but the subject does not see God as God is. He knows God is with him, but his knowledge of God is imperfect. He still knows God "as it were through a glass in a dark manner." Yet insofar as he is united to God, he can have an imperfect experience not only of seeing God in higher contemplation, but also of seeing things as God sees them. This is a participation in God, however imperfect, and is meant to prepare the subject for the perfect participation that comes from God in beatitude.

I may have more observations about this as time goes on. As yet, I am still reading The Phenomenology of Spirit. I believe that I have not really made any errors in what I have said here, theologically or phenomenologically. Only time will tell what the future may hold. For now, this is the first major observation that I have made reading Hegel. Hopefully more such interesting observations will arise over time.

Rights and Wrongs

One of the more controversial documents from the Second Vatican Council is Dignitatis Humanae, which speaks about the issue of religious freedom. Now it may come as a surprise to many Catholics to know that there is no such thing as a "right" to believe in anything that you want. As St. Augustine of Hippo famously and succinctly put it, "Error has no right to exist." To better understand what this means, it is important, as always, to start with first principles, which in this case, means to go to the definitions of the words that we use in order to make sense of what we are saying. The word that needs to be understood here is "right." St. Thomas Aquinas defines a right as the establishment of some kind of equality for the purpose of upholding the common good. The state, as the lawful authority set over a society, is entrusted with organizing and regulating society for the sake of the common good. Thus a "right" is recognized by the state as benefitting the people in the society, and doing this not just individually, but also collectively. For something to be a right, it has to benefit the common good.

It is important to realize the significance of what is said with the definition given of a "right." A right establishes some kind of equality among the people in a society for the sake of the common good. But it is the case that the "common good" for a society, at least to some degree, can vary based on the particular circumstances of the society itself. In some cases, what is good for one society might not also be good for another. In which case the rights of the people change based on their circumstances. Thus the nature of rights as such is circumstantial. There is no such thing as an "inherent" or "inalienable" right if we follow the definition given by Aquinas. Rights are based on the here and now of a society. That being said, there are some conditions in society that are the same for all societies, because those things relate to aspects that are inherent in human nature as such. So the "right" in such cases is always to be upheld. But this does not mean that a "right" by its nature is inherent or inalienable; it means that the circumstances are constant, and thus the right is always to be upheld. So the claim made, for example, by modern peoples (including the U.S. Founding Fathers) about "inalienable" rights is false. There is no such thing as "inalienable" rights. Insofar as Church documents or prelates in the Church speak of "inalienable" rights, it must be taken in the context of the definition of a "right" given by Aquinas. Either that, or the documents or the prelates of the Church have no idea what they are speaking about.

Much political discourse today focuses on the issue of "rights," and the political right has bought into the notion of "inalienable" rights as much as the left. This is especially the case when people speak of a "right to life" concerning issues like abortion and euthanasia. Now there is a right to life, but that right, as a right, is still circumstantial. Rights as such can only be circumstantial. But the context within which there is a "right to life" is always constant in and across societies, insofar as it is opposed to justice to deprive an innocent man of his life. Note well: the Church has always and will always recognize the right of a society to deprive a guilty man of his life. There is no substantive logical argument that I have yet heard that says capital punishment is immoral. It is nothing more than emotional posturing, and it obscures the true nature of rights in a society. Worst of all, much of it is done by the bishops themselves, who have drank the Enlightenment poison, either knowingly or unknowingly, and thus departed from what the Church actually teaches on these matters.

Having thus established the nature of a right, and fleshed out the consequences thereof, it is possible to examine the so-called "right" of religious freedom. Remember that a right is the establishment of some kind of equality for the purpose of upholding the common good in a society. But no good can come from a society treated truth as being on the same level as error, which it would do if the state were to treat all religions as equal. This would benefit nobody. It would also be a slap in the face to God, denigrating the truth of the Divine revelation as if it was just some private opinion rather than an objective fact. Since there is no good that can come from treating truth and error on a par with each other, there is no right of someone in a society to believe things that are erroneous. That includes false religions. Believers of false religions have no right to believe as they do.

All the same, it is still the case that people cannot be compelled, by the state or any other power, to come into the Church. A sincere conversion is a free conversion; a forced conversion is a contradiction in terms. Thus if there are people in a society that are not in the Church and have no intention of coming into the Church, such people are to be left alone. Neither the Church nor the state can coerce them into the faith. Virtue is only possible because of free will. Thus for a conversion to the faith to be virtuous, and thus to benefit the individual, it must be freely done. To take away the freedom to come to God in this way is to deprive the individual of the opportunity to become better, and thus a happier person. Since the state is there to work for the good of society, to help make people happy, the state cannot force conversions any more than the Church or any other institution. But this does not mean that people who practice false religions can or ought to do so publicly. Dignitatis Humanae makes the claim that they should be given this right. But that is, and only can be, at best, a prudential judgment of the state. It may be acceptable in some cases to allow for public displays of false religions; but then it may not be. It ultimately depends upon the case.

The case of heretics is still different. A heresy is a false belief, contrary to the established doctrine of the Church, believed by someone who is already in the Church. The Church can discipline heretics in any way that she wants, because these people have already made a commitment to be in the Church, yet failed to live up to what they promised to do by their baptism. If the state recognizes the Church as the state religion (as she should), and thus forms her laws in accord with Catholic ethics, the state can also discipline the heretic for what he does against the Church. The state depends upon the Church to give form and substance to her laws. An attack against the Church, like a heretic who denies a doctrine that he is bound to believe, attacks the state at the same time; and the state rightly punishes those that compromise her authority. As many saints have remarked, this can even be punishment by execution, if necessary. To destroy the soul is worse than to kill the body, because the soul is more important than the body. Thus to harm the soul by heresy can be treated as a crime even worse than murder. And the state rightly executes murderers.

Something may also be said here about the necessity of the state to recognize the Church as the state religion, and to form her laws accordingly. Laws are inherently moral precepts. Both laws and morals are defined as precepts governing human behavior. It is the same thing; the only difference is that a law can be upheld with force. Thus the bogus claim made by some leftists that "the government isn't there to legislate morality" is contradictory and retarded. Laws are moral precepts. Things like murder and rape are illegal because they are immoral. There is no way around that. Even the most left-wing law professors out there will tell you as much. So the state rightly enforces moral precepts through its laws; that's what it means to legislate. If the government isn't legislating morality, it's not legislating at all; and legislation is what the government does. Insofar as the state needs morals to back up its laws, it needs some moral code as the basis of those laws. That can technically be any religious or philosophical system out there. But it makes sense to say that the state would not want just any religious or philosophical system; it would want the correct one, so as to bring the greatest benefit to the people. Hence the necessity of the Catholic Church as a state religion. Now it is indeed possible to dispute the veracity of Catholic doctrine; but that is another discussion altogether. Suffice it to say here that the state needs some sort of moral code to back up its laws; and most moral codes are philosophical or religious. Thus the need for a state religion. But if the state tries to separate morals from laws, it commits a monstrous absurdity. The laws are then what they are just because that's what the rulers say they are, which is tyranny. That is the consequence of secularism. Either what you get is tyranny, or the state makes up its own civic religion to fill the moral vacuum that it created for itself (like in the United States).

All that I have said thus far is actually in accord with the contents of Dignitatis Humanae. I read the document carefully at least five times on different occasions. Dignitatis Humanae never asserts that there is a positive right to believe in false religions. The document, quite carefully in fact, makes a point to always speak in negative terms. It does not say that you "can" believe what you want; it only says that the state cannot tell you that you "cannot" believe it. Thus the individual has no positive right to believe in false religions, because error has no right to exist. It is only that the state cannot tell you that what you believe is false. And in some sense that is true. However, the difference between what Dignitatis Humanae says and what the Church had hitherto practiced is that Dignitatis Humanae makes a prudential judgment. The Church can enforce belief on her members for their own good; they committed to obey the Church authorities when they were baptized in order for them ultimately to be saved. And the Church can tell the state what to do if the Church is acknowledged as the state religion. Church and state do not exist in parallel vertical categories; one is horizontally set over the other. The Church is set over the state. But what the Church simply says in Dignitatis Humanae is that the Church chooses not to use her authority over the state to compel people in what they believe. It does not say that she cannot do so. She can do so, as she did in the past. Whether this prudential judgment is a good idea is another matter; but it is a prudential judgment. It is certainly not a change of doctrine, because such things are not possible in the Church. As it has been said, the Church doesn't do "paradigm shifts."

In order for the people in the Church to better understand how the Church relates to the state, it is necessary for them to realize the correct ways that such documents like Dignitatis Humanae can be addressed; and what the nature of rights are in general, since this impacts the nature of a "right" (if you will) to believe in certain things. It would also benefit many traditionalists (like SSPX) to see that Dignitatis Humanae, despite its flaws, does not represent a rupture in the doctrine of the Church. It is not an easy document to understand; and it is written in the unnecessarily vague and syrupy language of the Second Vatican Council. But it is possible to find an orthodox interpretation of the document itself, admittedly despite some difficulty.

For more information on theses, I highly recommend the 1885 encyclical of Pope Leo XIII entitled Immortale Dei. Pope Leo XIII does an excellent job squaring away freedom of conscience with how error has no right to exist.