The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty by Michael Davies

by Michael Treharne Davies

Michael Davies writes that St. Thomas Aquinas summed up the fundamental principle upon which the traditional Catholic teaching of the Church is based in this quotation from the Angelic “Now the end of human life and society is God.” From this fact our author draws the "The State, therefore, has no right to be ‘secular’. It must, as a State, recognize the Kingship of Jesus Christ and do Him homage; and, of course, so act that there is no contradiction between the laws it passes and the laws of God.” This book deals with the right and wrong conceptions of religious freedom. Special emphasis is placed on the weaknesses and confusions of the (non-infallible) Declaration on Religious Freedom of Vatican II, which contains a number of questionable assertions which have greatly added to the confusion of Catholics and others since it was approved by Vatican II in 1965. This makes "The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty" indispensable for any Catholic who is aware of the recent changes in the Catholic Church. Michael Davies is an author of amazing industry and power. Between the years 1976 and 1983, he published Cranmer’s Godly Order (coming this summer from Angelus Press); a two-volume Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre—about an Archbishop unpopular in his time but with views well worth pondering today; Pope John’s Council, Pope Paul’s New Mass, The Order of Melchisedech, Partisans of Error, and Newman Against the Liberals, besides nine pamphlets—all written when he was still quite young, teaching school in England, and supporting a growing family. Today these volumes are as readable and useful as they were then—and uncomfortably prophetic.

Genres: Catholic, Religion, Nonfiction

360 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2015

About the author

Michael Treharne Davies (1936-2004) was a convert from Anglicanism to the Catholic Church in the 1950s, and was a Catholic writer who authored various works following the Second Vatican Council, in addition to unifying Una Voce America, a conservative group. He went on to compose such works as The Liturgical Revolution, The Order of Melchisedech, Partisans of Error, For Altar and Throne,, and The Wisdom of Adrian Fortescue. Upon Davies' death in 2004, Pope Benedict XVI called him a man of deep faith who was ready to embrace suffering

Reviews

[Paul Robinson]

I have read a number of books on religious liberty, and this one has to be the best. This is a difficult topic, and Michael Davies does get into the weeds. At the same time, he does a great job of making the issues at hand crystal clear. You have to be patient and read carefully, but he makes the question as clear as it could possibly be.
I also appreciate the deep research that he did for this book. He shows that there was very strong opposition to Dignitatis Humanae and also tracks the strange history of the document. The fact that it was promulgated is an absolute travesty and a betrayal of Christ the King by His own churchmen. It is like the Apostles abandoning Our Lord in the Garden or on the Cross.
Anyone wanting to learn about the dispute concerning the orthodoxy of Dignitatis Humanae needs to start with this book.

[Jan Górak]

Clever analysis of one of the most important problems of the Catholic Church today

[Rory Fox]

Published in 1992 this is an older book about Vatican II and Religious Liberty. However, part of what gives it an enduring value is that the author was a leading supporter of Lefebvre and the SSPX view of Vatican II as in discontinuity with traditional Catholic doctrine. This means that it is still a much read and cited book, both by those who share his critical position and by members of the mainstream Church who find it a useful summary of the critical view of Vatican II.

In 326 pages the book gives a clear summary of Dignitatis Humanae and the events which led to its publication and approval. There are helpful summaries of the pre-Vatican II position and a summary of the state of the question as it was immediately before the Council. The book outlines the ‘problem of Dignitatis Humanae’ in its two fold aspect of not-clearly affirming the Church’s prior doctrine and secondly of (in places) seeming to be in apparent contradiction with it.

Surprisingly the book only seriously engages with one of the proposed solutions to the problem, ie that of Brian Harrison. The author describes it as the best case and that may well be so. But there are other attempts to explain matters which take slightly different approaches, including the answer sent to Lefebvre himself in response to his Dubia in 1976. It would have been helpful to see the author’s evaluation of why those approaches are not convincing.

Another surprising feature is the amount of focus that the book gives to John Courtney May, the American proponent of Religious liberty and leading figure in the text as Vatican II approved it. Yes he has a historical significance, but the origin of his views and even his opinions about the text are not of overriding significance to the final text. Several hundred bishops asked for amendments and there is very real reason to think that some of those amendments changed the text away from what John Courtney May wanted to see, and even what he acknowledges as being the final meaning of the text. Surely what is important is the final text itself, and the meaning of that text in its totality, not the opinions of one contributor?

When it comes to the text itself there was also an odd disjointedness running through the book. On the one hand it acknowledged accurately that Lefebvre and the bishops opposing the text would have been happy to sign it as an orthodox statement of faith, if the words ‘common good’ had been substituted for ‘public order,’ as the description of what limits a right to religious freedom. That being so, then it is surely irrelevant to mine the text to generate yet further points of disagreement and allegations of unorthodoxy. If the text is otherwise deficient then why was Lefebvre and his group of bishops happy to sign it with that one change? Or are we to conclude that even Lefebvre didn't fully understand the real problem of Dignitatis Humanae?

There was also an oddness in so far as the book implied that the text contradicts the traditional doctrine of the Church, AND that the text itself is contradictory (ie articles 1 and 6 allegedly to some extent canceling each other out). If the text is really contradictory then that would make it meaningless, as contradictions cannot express a meaning. And if the core issue in the text is meaningless, (ie contradictory) then how can the text of Dignitatis Humanae contradict the traditional doctrine of the Church? There seems to be a gap in the argument at that point.

Overall, this is a significant presentation of the critical case which rejects the orthodoxy of Dignitatis Humanae, but it is not an unproblematic presentation as there are a number of issues which it leaves unresolved.

[Dan DalMonte]

This is another Davies bombshell, raising questions about modernism in the church that must be addressed. Davies exposes what appears to be a contradiction between traditional Church teaching on religious liberty and that championed by American bishops and Jesuit John Courtney Murray. Whereas Dignitatis Humanity attributes religious liberty as a right based on the dignity of the person, Davies restores traditional teaching about the subordination of religious liberty to truth. Vatican II opened the way for the end of confessional states. Religion was seen as outside of the competence of secular governments. But governments are also creatures that owe their allegiance to Christ the King. Governments have the duty to protect the public good by protecting religious truth. A secular state leads to religious indifferentism, in which no religion is better than any other. But to place the church of Christ on a level with other faiths is a grave insult.