We are, apparently, all in favor of religious liberty; but just what religious liberty is and whence it comes, not many of us seem to know. I am sorry to say that, on the whole, this volume of essays commenting on the celebrated Declaration of Religious Liberty of the Second Vatican Council will not help very much. The nine papers contained in it—four by Roman Catholics, three by Protestants, and two by secularists —tell us something about the authors and their views; but, with some exceptions, they tell us very little that is useful about religious freedom.
The only real exception to this criticism is the initial essay by John Courtney Murray. Father Murray gives a brief but illuminating account of what he calls the legislative history of the Declaration. Three major schemata, he tells us, followed each other from the introduction of the first in November 1963 to the adoption of the third in December 1965. The first schema tried to develop a doctrine of religious liberty out of the conception of “freedom of conscience.” Every man is obliged to follow his conscience, even when this conscience is objectively wrong: “[the disciples of Christ] are to respect and esteem the right and duty of non-Catholics to follow the dictates of their own conscience, even when, after serious and adequate investigation, it errs in good faith.” A mere glance at this formulation is enough to show its points of confusion and its inadequacy as a foundation for religious freedom.
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