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.