This Vatican II document – ‘The Dignity of the Human Person‘ (1965) – was the Catholic church’s long-delayed declaration of belief in the principle of religious liberty.
This document flatly contradicted the opposing principle – that what the church considers error has no rights – a principle that had enabled the Inquisitions (c. 1184-1834 CE) – courts of religious investigation in some European Catholic countries into activity or teaching considered heretical. Though usually intended to maintain some kind of order in societies where mere suspicion could lead to the summary lynching of suspects, these sometimes imposed verdicts that led even to torture and death. The argument for tolerating a plurality of beliefs was never strongly advanced by Catholic clergy in the era of the church’s greatest political influence.
As late as 1864 Pope Pius IX declared the principle of religious liberty to be mistaken in the Syllabus of Errors, which, in proposition fifteen, condemns the idea that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”
This attitude, combined with the undeniable history of Christian religious oppression over more than fifteen centuries, is a major source of relativism – the postmodernist belief that religion can only be intolerant – and that religious Creeds per se – including the Christian Apostles and Nicene Creeds – can be neither safe nor true.
In clear contradiction Dignitatis Humanae insists that “The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power. “(Article 1)
In response a small minority of bishops at the council rejected Vatican II for this and other reasons. Just 70 bishops voted against Dignitatis Humanae, with 2,308 in favour.
However, for many raised as Catholics – including myself aged 22 in 1965 – this Vatican II document promised a new era in the Catholic Church, one in which the truth of the Gospels could be sought and passed on as the ground of liberty itself.
What follows below is the story of how the church – empowered by Rome from 312 CE – first came to deny the principle of religious liberty and then – in the wake of World War II (1939-45) – to embrace it.
A Timeline of Religious Liberty
in the Catholic Church
Jesus of Nazareth Calls for Servant Leadership
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matt 5:44)
Then Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘What about you, do you want to go away too?’ (John 6:67)
“You know that among the gentiles the rulers lord it over them, and great men make their authority felt. Among you this is not to happen. No; anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant.” (Matt 20: 25,26)
Following his submission to crucifixion by Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Palestine c. 33 CE, Jesus’ followers proclaim his Resurrection – and this becomes the foundational belief of Christianity.
Early Growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire
As Rome expands to its greatest extent, and then begins to decline in power, the Christian movement grows – despite three periods of persecution, the last under Diocletian 284-305 CE.
Christians call Jesus their ‘Lord’, not Caesar – the Roman Emperor – one reason they are regarded with suspicion – and gradually develop the Christian ‘Creed‘ or summary of core belief.
Constantine Wins Power and Legalises Christianity
Following a victory over his rival, Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge near Rome in 312, Constantine is proclaimed Emperor and then claims to have seen (before that battle) a vision of the Christian Chi-Ro symbol – and underneath a scroll with the words ‘In hoc signo, vinces!‘ – ‘In this sign conquer!’. The Chi-Ro becomes the battle standard of his armies – the two Greek letters ΧΡ – Ch in Latin script, the first two letters in ‘Christ’.
Christianity Becomes the Official Faith of the Roman Empire
Constantine legalises Christianity in 313 and, at a council of Christian bishops at Nicaea in 325 formalises core Christian belief in the Nicene Creed.
By 380 CE Christian clergy have replaced the ancient pagan Roman priesthood as the empire’s religious elite.
In that year the Emperor Theodosius I – in the Edict of Thessalonica – makes Christianity the state religion of Rome – which all loyal citizens must submit to, outlawing pagan practice and suppressing heretical Christian sects such as Arianism.
St Augustine Justifies Religious Coercion 408-417 CE
Annoyed by the Donatists, a perfectionist Christian sect, St Augustine of Hippo in North Africa misuses the Parable of the Wedding Feast (Luke 14:15-24) – to align Jesus with religious coercion – in Letter 93 to Vincentius.
The words ‘compel them to come in‘ – given by Jesus to a fictional master (who wants the poor to attend a banquet offered first to wealthy friends who disdain the offer) – are deployed by Augustine in this letter, to serve his argument for forcing the Donatists to submit. He explains later:
“There is just persecution, which the churches of Christ commit against the impious … The church persecutes out of love.” (Letter 185 to Boniface, 417)
As Jesus was arguing in his parable against the presumption of many of his enemies that salvation was theirs by right – and insisting that God especially favours and offers hospitality to the poor – this is a mistaken use of a Gospel text out of context – with horrific historical consequences.
‘Holy Roman Empire’ Deploys St Augustine’s Argument for Coercion
The spreading of Christianity in western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire (c. 476) leads to the emergence of France as a leading power, culminating in the rise of Charles the Great – ‘Charlemagne‘ – from 768 CE.
Around 780 Archbishop Lull of Mainz argues for the forcible conversion of the Saxons, quoting St Augustine on ‘compel them to come in‘.
This contributes to Charlemagne’s campaigns, including the massacre of 4,500 Saxons at Verden in 782 – all culminating in the creation of the ‘Holy Roman Empire‘ – with Charlemagne crowned as Emperor by Pope Leo III in 800.
[Thomas F X Noble, The Republic of St. Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680-825 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984). : Janet L. Nelson, The Frankish World, 750-900 (Hambledon Press, 1996).]
Medieval Inquisitions and Crusades against Heresy
Seen as threatening public order, dissident religious movements such as the Waldensians and the Cathars (or Albigensians) and Hussites are investigated by Inquisitions – religious courts which often draw their rationale for enforcing uniformity from St Augustine’s 5th century argument that Jesus himself had said ‘compel them to come in’. Medieval rulers then enforce these judgements – sometimes brutally by mass killings in Crusades or by judicial executions – in e.g. France, Italy, Bohemia, Germany.
[See e.g. R.I. Moore, The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe (Harvard University Press, 2012)]
Pope Innocent IV Authorises Torture of Suspected Heretics
In 1252 CE – in the Instruction Ad Extirpanda – Pope Innocent IV authorises Inquisitors to torture heretics, calling the latter ‘murderers of souls’. The torture is not to lead to ‘loss of life or limb’. Secular authorities must enforce any judgement, under penalty of excommunication.
St Thomas Aquinas Agrees with St Augustine on Coercion
In his Summa Theologiae, II-II, Question 10, Article 8, St Thomas Aquinas adopts St Augustine’s reading of Luke 14:23 – ‘compel them to come in‘ – as a theological warrant for coercion of former believers who have turned to what the church deems heretical.
This embeds Augustine’s precedent in Catholic scholastic theology, making tolerance of coercion part of ‘orthodox’ Catholic teaching.
European Exploration, Imperialism and Enslavement
In an era of European global exploration and expansion after c. 1450, St Augustine’s formula of ‘compel them to come in‘ is invoked to justify enslavement of Africans and coercion of indigenous peoples in foreign lands, including the Americas.
This extends to forced conversions and suppression of indigenous religions. Augustine’s idea that some humans are ‘runaways’ from God’s service is used to justify chattel slavery, with masters seen as agents who bring runaway slaves back to Christian obedience.
[e.g. Toni Alimi, Slaves of God: Augustine and Other Romans on Religion and Politics (Princeton University Press, 2024)]
The Spanish Inquisition and Oppression of the Jews and Muslims
Recently unified under Ferdinand and Isabella Spain launches a campaign to force Jews and Muslims to conform to Catholicism, with the Inquisition under the Dominican priest Torquemada expelling or oppressing those who don’t conform.
Yet again St Augustine’s adaptation of a Gospel parable to justify coercion in 408 is deployed by the Spanish Inquisition for the same purpose at the beginning of the modern era.
[e.g. Henry Kamen’s The Spanish Inquisition and Edward Peters’ Inquisition.]
Reformation and Counter Reformation Go to War for Uniformity
Following the religious revolt of Martin Luther in Germany in 1517, European Christians go to war for different versions of Christian belief – and St Augustine’s misuse of St Luke is deployed in John Calvin’s Geneva as well as in Catholic France and Spain to justify the attempt to impose religious uniformity within state territories
In England this attempt proves futile by the 1700s – and this boosts a Europe-wide anti-clerical Enlightenment that is turning to Science, rather than to the Bible, for intellectual conviction.
[e.g. Arnoud S. Q. Visser Reading Augustine in the Reformation: The Flexibility of Intellectual Authority in Europe, 1500–1620]
A Secularising Enlightenment Asks Questions of Religious Intolerance
Greatly boosted by the publication of Isaac Newton’s ‘Principia‘ in 1687, and alienated from religious fervour by the European Wars of Religion 1517-1714, a movement of opposition to Christian clergies and belief begins, eventually named Secularism – putting all churches under pressure to justify intolerance.
‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’
An era of secular Revolution, beginning in England’s American colonies in 1775 and in France in 1789, undermines the principle of divine right monarchy and advances the cause of secularism – challenging the established power of clergies.
Clinging to an ‘old order’ of church-state alliance and divine right monarchy, the Catholic Church comes under pressure – especially in Italy where the rise of Italian nationalism threatens and weakens papal power and prestige.
Pope Pius IX Condemns the Principle of Religious Freedom
In the Syllabus of Errors (1864) Pope Pius IX rejects the idea that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”
Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt …”
This Catholic historian could not accept the cruelty of the Inquisitions, or the tendency of some historians to overlook the cruelties of popes who sanctioned them.
In 1887 Acton penned a famous letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton:
“I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men…Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”
Two 20th C. World Wars greatly weaken European Christian Empires & Clergies
Scandalised by church-state imperial unions that had failed to prevent appalling 20th C wars, many in Europe and the US turn to secular liberalism. Church-state unions mostly fall apart and clergies mostly lose political power.
By the 1960s secular liberalism has hugely undermined the conviction that religious belief should be – or can be – enforced by the state.
Vatican Council II 1962-65 Opts For Religious Liberty
The 2,300 + bishops of a church that has expanded globally since 1450 – but been greatly weakened politically – meet in Rome to ‘update’ the church.
Among other reforming documents they agree – almost unanimously – Dignitatis Humanae – which declares that “The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power.“
The document makes no mention of the contrary positions of St Augustine of Hippo in 308, bolstered by St Thomas Aquinas c 1265, in a long era of state empowerment of Christian clergy – or the obvious historical lessons.
Pope Francis Returns the Church to Servant Leadership
“Let us never forget this! For the disciples of Jesus, yesterday, today and always, the only authority is the authority of service, the only power is the power of the cross.
As the Master tells us: ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave’ (Mt 20:25-27).
It shall not be so among you: in this expression we touch the heart of the mystery of the Church, and we receive the enlightenment necessary to understand our hierarchical service.”
Pope Francis to the bishops of the church, 2015.
Writing to Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández on July 1st, 2023 – Newly appointed head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith – originally known as the Inquisition, Pope Francis says:
“The Department that you will preside over in other times came to use immoral methods. They were times where, rather than promoting theological knowledge, possible doctrinal errors were persecuted. What I expect of you is undoubtedly something very different.”
This marks the first time a pope has explicitly used the term immoral to describe the methods of the Inquisition.
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