For me, one of the most stimulating debates of recent decades has been the exchange within conservative and traditionalist Catholic circles over Vatican II’s Declaration of Religious Freedom. This was the Council’s statement, often attributed to the influence of the American Jesuit John Courtney Murray, with which the Church relinquished its call for a favored position in its relationship with political authorities.
Probably it is a reach to say that the Church could have held back these cultural forces if it had retained the old pre-Vatican II confessional state status. Some of the countries of Europe with the lowest birth rates and largest Muslim minorities these days are nominally Catholic countries such as France and Italy. But it is not unfair to observe that abandoning the case for the confessional state has left the countries of Europe and the United States more vulnerable to the cultural forces that are moving them into a post-Christian future, into a world where the idea of “remaking all things in Christ” will have as much relevance as it has in Damascus or Calcutta. They have no way to say “no” to the changes brought on by these demographic changes. An arrow is gone from the quiver.
Then again, could it be that the Vatican is able to see things that are not obvious to the rest of us? Maybe so. We will look at this issue from a different angle in next week’s column.
James Fitzpatrick's new novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, is available from our online store. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net.
(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
[Editor's Note: This is the first of a two-part series.]
This was the end of the so-called “confessional state” that was once the norm in the Catholic countries of Europe. In the confessional state, there was an open union between Church and state, based upon the Church’s authority as the representative of Christ on earth. It was thought logical and proper for civil authorities to rely upon the Church’s reservoir of truth in making law.
This is why divorce, abortion and the sale of birth control devices were prohibited in countries such as Spain, Portugal and Ireland for much of the 20th century. The understanding was that the state should help men save their souls by using the force of law to create an atmosphere wherein the temptation to sin would be minimized. The Declaration of Religious Freedom ended all this, as the Church opted for what some at the time called the “American proposition,” the separation of church and state.
The defenders of the declaration insisted that the new relationship would be beneficial for the Church, ending the Church’s affiliation with corrupt governmental bodies that tarnished the Church’s image with the masses. They argued that the Church would be in a better position “to remake all things in Christ” by using its influence to shape the democratic process than by currying favor with the ruling classes, as it had in the days of the Old Regime, the so-called Europe of “Altar and Throne.” The defenders of the declaration did not deny the importance of creating a society that would help its citizens save their souls. They argued that a democratic society would be more likely to achieve this goal than the authoritarian regimes that usually did no more than go through the motions of collaborating with Church authorities.
Critics of the declaration disagreed. The most severe of the critics questioned the very legitimacy of the declaration, arguing that the authorities at the time of Vatican II did not have the authority to declare all the popes who preceded Vatican II to be in error on this matter. Other critics questioned the effect of the declaration more than its validity. They argued that the democratic process could not be trusted to preserve a rule of law acceptable to a Catholic understanding of a virtuous society. This latter group will point to the legalization of abortion, the spread of pornography and the homosexual culture as examples of what happens when the law loses its anchor in the Church’s teachings.
Who is right? I have come to the conclusion that the question is beyond my pay grade. I tend to agree with whichever commentator I read last. For those who want to pursue the debate more fully I recommend We Hold These Truths and More: Further Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition, edited by Donald J. D’Elia and Stephen M. Krason (Franciscan University Press). It provides 16 essays by both defenders and critics of the declaration, including James Hitchcock, Frederick Wilhelmsen, John J. Mulloy, Msgr. George A. Kelly, and L. Brent Bozell.
What interests me just now is something else: a question I would like to put to the defenders of the declaration. Permit me to set the stage: The argument in favor of the declaration is that the democratic process can be trusted more than corrupt aristocrats to create a rule of law based on justice and virtue and to establish societal structures that will help men and women save their souls. I would say that the verdict is out on that proposition. Was France during the reign of Louis XVI a society where it was easier to life a virtuous life than the Eisenhower years in the United States? The vibrant Catholicism of my youth compares favorably in my mind to my image of what life was like for the common man in Paris or Rome in 1750. But I may be wrong. I don’t believe anyone can speak authoritatively on this matter.
My question is what life will be like in the United States and Europe 50 years from now — because of another position taken by the same Church authorities who champion the Declaration of Religious Freedom. We all know that the Vatican and the hierarchy in the United States and Europe have become ardent defenders of the rights of immigrants, calling upon the industrialized countries of Europe and the United States to open their arms to immigration. These days, those immigrants tend more and more to come from non-Christian parts of the world. And they now come to democratic countries where the Church now has no direct position of influence on the legislative process. The majority makes the laws. The majority shapes the society.
Well? How will all things be remade in Christ when Christians become minorities in the countries where they were once the dominant culture-shaping force?
Is it hysterical to think that anything like a minority status for Christians is on the horizon? I don’t think so. Consider an article by Uwe Siemon-Netto, the religion editor for United Press International, in the September 22 issue of The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan’s magazine. Siemon-Netto reports that in Manchester, England, a radical Muslim who does not even speak English has been elected to the city council. In Italy, there are press reports of secret Muslim courts meting out their version of justice inside Italian cities. In the north of Italy, a man accused of a sex crime recently showed up with a hand missing, amputated as punishment. In France some 70,000 young women are being subjected to forced marriages, according to the country’s High Council for Integration (HCI). The HCI also reports that some 35,000 Muslim girls have either been genitally mutilated or are under threat of mutilation in France.
Siemon-Netto cites Michael Radu of the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, who has pointed out that there are now between 12 and 16 million Muslims living in the European Union’s 15 member states, “more than in most Arab countries.” Radu is convinced that the governments of many European countries are now hostages to this voting bloc: “In certain countries, Muslim communities have reached a critical mass, which pushes otherwise lucid politicians to see where their electoral weight lies.” Siemon-Netto adds that France’s five to six million Muslims are “split right down the middle,” with one half seeing “themselves not as Frenchmen but as Muslims,” and that “a substantial segment of young Muslims in the United Kingdom does not identify with Britain but only with Islam.”
