scholarly journals Freedom, Truth, and Human Dignity: The Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom; A New Translation, Redaction History, and Interpretation of “Dignitatis Humanae.” By David L. Schindler and Nicholas J. Healy Jr. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2015. ix + 477 pages. $45.00 (paper).

Horizons ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 448-449
Author(s):  
Nicholas Rademacher
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Dignitatis Humanae ◽  
Grand Rapids

Liberal Democracy and the Right to Religious Freedom

2009 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-635
Author(s):  
Michael J. Perry
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Dignitatis Humanae ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

AbstractThe Roman Catholic Church was famously late to embrace the right to religious freedom. Some have plausibly maintained that when, in 1965, the cardinals and bishops at the Second Vatican Council overwhelmingly adopted the Declaration on Religious Freedom—known by the first two words of its official Latin version: Dignitatis Humanae—the church betrayed one of its most traditional and established theological teachings. The right to religious freedom, according to international law, rests in part on respect for human dignity. Thus there is a prima facie link between the liberal democratic justification and the church's 1965 justification. But, as I will argue, the appeal to human dignity is not a preserve of modern liberal democracy. Indeed, we can imagine a government that limits religious freedom because it wishes to save souls, and this precisely out of a respect for human dignity. A similar view was held by the pre-Vatican II church. Thus the appeal to human dignity is not evidence of a fundamental shift by the church. What then does account for the church's undeniable change of direction? Human dignity by itself cannot provide the fundamental justification for the right to religious freedom. Another ingredient is needed: distrust, born of long historical experience, of government authority to adjudicate questions of religious truth. The church in Dignitatis Humanae accepted this lesson of history, a lesson available to believers of a variety of stripes as well as nonbelievers.

scholarly journals DIGNITATIS HUMANAE, THE FUTURE OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND THE GLOBAL COMMOM GOOD

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 277
Author(s):  
Linda Hogan
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Dignitatis Humanae ◽  
The Future ◽  
Global And Local

ABSTRACT: Our global and local conversations about human dignity and flourishing are shaped by the irreducible plurality of human experience, including religious experience and our political cultures must have the capacity to facilitate intercultural and interreligious exchange. In this context it is more vital than ever that religious traditions, including Catholicism, are to the fore as we go about the business of building a politics focused on the global common good. From the perspective of Catholicism, the contribution of Dignitatis humanae has yet to be properly realised, not only in respect to respect for religious pluralism, but more especially in respect to ethical pluralism.RESUMO: Nossas conversações locais e globais sobre a dignidade humana e a prosperidade são determinadas pela irredutível pluralidade da experiência humana, inclusive a experiência religiosa e nossas culturas políticas devem ter a capacidade de facilitar os intercâmbios interculturais e interreligiosos. Neste contexto, é mais vital do que nunca que as tradições religiosas, inclusive o Catolicismo, estejam em primeiro plano, pois nosso interesse é a construção de políticas centradas no bem comum. Na perspectiva do Catolicismo, a contribuição de Dignitatis Humanae ainda não se realizou adequadamente, não só no que se refere ao pluralismo religioso, mas especialmente no diz respeito ao pluralismo ético.

From Imago Dei to Mutual Recognition: The Evolution of the Concept of Human Dignity in the Light of the Defence of Religious Freedom

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Dellavalle
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
The Self ◽  
Religious Tolerance ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Negative Freedom ◽  
Alternative Proposal

Within the Western tradition the concept of human dignity is related to the idea of human beings as ‘imagines Dei’. Yet this connection does not guarantee any suitable basis for the principle of the defence of religious freedom. Therefore, modern rationalism developed an alternative proposal, centred on the notion of religious tolerance. This approach, however, proves to be as inadequate as the belief-based vision in order to provide for a convincing foundation of a concept of religious freedom understood not only as a ‘negative freedom’ but as an essential element of the self-realization of humans. To overcome the deficits of both approaches, a third understanding is explored in which the experience of faith is recognized as an essential enrichment of social life and ‘tolerance’ is substituted by ‘mutual recognition’, paving the way to a positive acknowledgement of difference.

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