Pope John Paul II on the sin and error of the Inquisiton, which the Church repents for and apologizes for, and which Dignitatis Humanae corrected. __________________________________ 1. I receive with deep appreciation the volume containing the Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Inquisition, organized at the Vatican from 29-31 October 1998 by the Historical-Theological Commission for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000. This Symposium answered the desire I expressed in the Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennium Adveniente: "...it is appropriate that... the Church should become more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling all those times in history when they departed from the spirit of Christ and his Gospel and, instead of offering to the world the witness of a life inspired by the values of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms of counter-witness and scandal" (n. 33). In public opinion, the image of the Inquisition is as it were the symbol of such counter-witness and scandal. How faithful to reality is this image? Before asking for forgiveness it is necessary to have exact knowledge of the facts and to put shortcomings with regard to what the Gospel requires in the context where they are effectively found. This is the reason why the Committee has consulted historians whose scientific competence is universally recognized. 2. For theologians, the irreplaceable contribution of historians contains an invitation to reflect on the conditions and life of the People of God on its way through history. The theologians will be guided by a distinction in their critical reflection: the distinction between the authentic sensus fidei and the predominant mentality in a specific epoch that might have influenced their opinion. The sensus fidei must be asked to exercise the criteria of a level judgment of the life of the Church in the past. 3. This discernment is possible precisely because with the passage of time the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, perceives with ever clearer awareness what she needs in order to conform to her Bridegroom. Thus, the Second Vatican Council was able to formulate the "golden rule" that directs the defence of the truth, which is the task proper to the mission of the Magisterium. "Truth can impose itself on the mind of man only in virtue of its own truth..., which wins over the mind with both gentleness and power" (Dignitatis Humanae, n. 1. This assertion is quoted in Tertio Millennium Adveniente, cf. n. 35). The institution of the Inquisition has been abolished. As I had an opportunity to say to the participants in the Symposium, the children of the Church cannot but return with a spirit of repentance to "the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of the truth" (Address to the International Symposium on the Inquisition Organized by the Central Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, 31 October 1998, n. 4; L'Osservatore Romano English edition, [ORE], 11 November 1998, p. 3). This spirit of repentance, it is clear, entails a firm determination to seek in the future ways to bear witness to the truth that are in keeping with the Gospel. 4. On 12 March 2000, on the occasion of the liturgical celebration that marked the Day of Pardon, forgiveness was asked for errors committed in the service of the truth by recourse to methods not in keeping with the Gospel. The Church must carry out this service in imitation of her Lord, meek and humble of heart. The prayer I addressed to God on that occasion contains the reasons for a request for forgiveness that can also be applied to the tragedies associated with the Inquisition, as well as to the injuries to memory that result from it. "Lord, God of all men and women, in certain periods of history Christians have at times given in to [forms of] intolerance and have not been faithful to the great commandment of love, sullying in this way the face of the Church, your Spouse. Have mercy on your sinful children and accept our resolve to seek and promote truth in the gentleness of charity, in the firm knowledge that truth can prevail only in virtue of truth itself. We ask this through Christ Our Lord" (Prayer for Forgiveness, Day of Pardon, 12 March, II; ORE, 22 March 2000, p. 4). The beautiful volume containing the Proceedings of the Symposium is written in the spirit of this request for forgiveness. As I thank all the participants, I invoke the divine Blessing upon them. From the Vatican, 15 June 2004 JOHN PAUL II vatican.va/content/john-paul…

More from Pietro Pavan, peritus at the council and ghostwriter of John XXIII's Pacem en Terris, on bad interpretations of Dignitatis Humanae. In this section we find strong evidence against those who want to reconcile DH with the past, whether by claiming its a right only afforded over against a non-Catholic state, or whether its claiming the right is only afforded those in good conscience. "UNJUSTIFIED INTERPRETATIONS In the years since the Council, especially in very recent times, doctrinal positions on our theme which were widely held in the preconciliar Catholic tradition have emerged again. I shall mention three of them. The first maintains that only the one who is in the truth, therefore only a Catholic, has an intrinsic or natural right to religious freedom. The one who is not in the truth, that is, non-Catholic, if he has a right to religious freedom, has it only as a positive or legal right, conferred on him by the state for the public good. This right is being granted today by nearly all states because of the typical features that mark the modern era, but it could also lose its validity in some more or less distant future, if the historical situation were to change. The second line being revived is that which claims a pre-eminent juridical position for the Church in civil societies as something demanded by theology and reason. The reason advanced is always the same: only the Church possesses the truth; it cannot, therefore, be put on the same level as other religious bodies. They may have some elements of truth, but they also have others which are false. The third line being resurrected concerns the state. It is being maintained, on theological-moral principles, that the state cannot be anything but Catholic. The basic reason alleged is the same: as individuals are bound to pay homage to the truth, so is the state, in its own way and by means that it alone possesses. And in the religious field the truth is Catholicism. Obviously, we cannot tackle here the many complex problems that these three lines of approach raise in theology, philosophy, and history. We must confine ourselves to a few points. The first concerns the relation between these three contentions and the Council document. It is not hard to understand that the study of these positions should be taken up again and pursued further. It is even understandable that someone might hold as a personal opinion that, on the strictly doctrinal level, only the positions described exhibit an inner coherence of their own. But to start from the assumption that the Council document is valid only to the extent that it squares with these contentions or, more surprising still, to make every effort to show that these contentions find support in the document—this is not acceptable. The document is what it is, and it can only be understood by giving its words the meaning they have in common usage and in the context of the document itself. As for the right to religious freedom, there is no possible doubt that what is proclaimed by the Council is a right which allows of no distinctions; it is exactly the same for everybody, i.e., a universal right which belongs to every human being as a person. Hence it belongs to all the citizens of every civil society: to Catholics and non-Catholics, to Christians and non-Christians, to believers and nonbelievers. As I have explained, it is such because it is grounded on elements intrinsic to personhood, and therefore found in every human being always and everywhere. Moreover, as soon as it became known that this right had been proclaimed, it was in this sense that it was welcomed by the whole world and in all cultural environments. It was welcomed, that is to say, not as a reaffirmation by the Council of the Church's traditional, preconciliar position but as a new stance in regard to individuals, to other religious bodies, and to the civil authorities themselves. Thus every attempt to find grounds in the document for returning to preconciliar positions is useless… …It should be added that if anywhere, in the future, a Catholic state or one calling itself such should be established, there too the Church would have to go on asserting and vindicating the right to religious freedom. She would also have to speak thus with reference to all the citizens of that state, Catholic and non-Catholic, Christian and non-Christian, believers and nonbelievers. The reason is obvious. The right to religious freedom as proclaimed by Vatican II is a fundamental right of the person, and fundamental personal rights belong to the content of the gospel message, which it is the Church's divinely-given mission to preach and put into practice. In that case, someone rather scandalized might object, the Church would be standing up for the atheist's right to remain atheist. Undoubtedly, in the sense that an atheist citizen cannot be compelled by any form of coercion to give up his atheism and profess a religion, whatever it may be. For that matter, recourse to coercion in such a case is not only the violation of a right, it is also nonsensical. The passage from atheism to religious faith cannot be the result of pressures from outside; if it is genuine, it is a profound movement of the spirit, in which two characteristic elements of spiritual life are harmoniously combined, knowledge and love. This experience cannot happen other than freely. -Pietro Pavan, “Ecumenism and Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom,” in Walter J. Burghardt, S.J., ed., Religious Freedom: 1965 & 1975 (New York: Paulist Press, 1976), pp. 7–38.

Online Catholics will protest that you can’t be Catholic and suggest the Church could potentially make these sorts of changes, while Cardinals in good standing openly suggest those very changes in consistory with the Pope.

What is ironic is Catholics getting shocked by this, as if I am going against the Church by having this position, when in reality I am lagging behind the Church here. The Popes welcome pride Mass in the Vatican, something if I were a pastor, I would be uncomfortable with. But part of the reason why I am undecided on the issue, is not only because of the testimony of gay Catholics/Christians, but also because the Church herself, and our last two Popes, have been quite affirming of the ministry of Fr. James Martin and of the broader LGBT-welcoming/affirming movement among Catholics. This is one of many issues where the online Catholics think they are being Catholic, when in reality, the mind of the Church has moved beyond them, and in some ways corrected them.

When I ask traditionalists to find in traditional theology a possibility for the Church to err in the way they claim it is erring today, they often will point to supposed historical incidents of error. But this is not what I was asking. I was asking about where traditional theology actually allowed for such errors. In traditional theology - say, in Bellarmine - you will not find admission that Honorious erred, but a defense and explanation of Honorious, that he did not in fact err. The approach to this question that goes and finds historical incidents of error is the approach of modernists and those who opposed Vatican 1.

This is a translation of an article that Pietro Pavan wrote in the Concilium journal on the topic of Dignitatis Humanae. As a primary influence at the council in drafting the document, and the ghost writer for John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem en Terris, his interpretation is of great weight when evaluating the original intention and meaning of the decree. ____________________ "Throughout the centuries, the Church has reaffirmed repeatedly and always acknowledged, at least theoretically, the right of human beings not to be forced to adhere to the Christian religion; and this for the reason already mentioned, that the act of faith, even though obligatory, can only be elicited freely. For centuries upon centuries, however, Christian civilization did not recognize the right not to be forcibly prevented from externally professing one's own religion when it was not the true religion or the one held to be true. The reason lies in the fact that the recognition of that right presupposed: that human beings had become more conscious of their own dignity, lived and expressed in terms of personal responsibility; that it had become a universal conviction that rights do not directly or formally apply to spiritual values—such as, for example, truth, moral goodness, and justice; that the subjects of rights are only persons, whether physical or moral; that juridical relations are always intersubjective relations, or relations between persons and persons, and not between persons and spiritual values; and the fundamental rights of the person that pertain to the values of the spirit must be conceived as immunity from external coercion, guaranteeing freedom in cultivating and assimilating those values. It presupposed, moreover, that a greater awareness of the dignity of the human person—a dignity conceived as the demand for interior freedom and immunity from external coercion in the exercise of responsibility—would influence the juridical organization and the exercise of civil authority; that is to say, that the "rule of law" (estado de derecho) would come to be conceived and realized, at least to a certain degree and in some manner, and that the rule of law would free itself more and more from the currents of thought from which it had historically emerged—rationalist, immanentist, monist, positivist, historicist, agnostic, and liberal currents—and that it would become clear how, in its essential elements, the State thus conceived can be fully reconciled with the Christian vision of life." academia.edu/178464515/Pietr…

This is a translation of Pietro Pavan's 1964 memorandum to Paul VI on the topic of religious liberty. It provides a window into the thinking of the Church at that time, especially the different ways the minority and majority groups of bishops understood what the Church was going to be teaching in Dignitatis Humanae. academia.edu/178464073/Pietr…

Pietro Pavan, who wrote Pacem en Terris for John XXIII, and who was deeply involved in drafting Dignitatis Humanae at the Council, presented this paper to the Pope during the Council, explaining the minority and majority position among the bishops regarding how to understand and express religious liberty. Important for debates about the meaning of DH, Pavan tells us that it was a minority position that wanted to frame the teaching in terms of mere tolerance rather than a human right for non-Catholics, and that the majority position believed the genuine human right for liberty among even non-Catholics could be explained by reference to Pacem en Terris, and reconciled with prior magisterial teachings by way of historical contextualization. ________________________ “With regard to the substance of the problem, the Fathers agree, it may be said unanimously, on one very important point: religious freedom today must be recognized for everyone; and it is good that the Council affirm and proclaim this. However, concerning the reasons why religious freedom today must be recognized for everyone, the Fathers are fundamentally divided into two groups, though there is a considerable disparity in the number of adherents to one group and the other. Minority Group The doctrinal-pastoral position supported by the minority group can be summarized in three points: a) Religious freedom today must be recognized for everyone: Catholics and non-Catholics; Christians and non-Christians; believers and non-believers. It is appropriate for the Council to affirm and proclaim this. b) Religious freedom can be affirmed as a genuine right of the person only for Catholics. The reason is that only Catholics are in the truth in the religious sphere, while all others are in error; and a right can be founded only upon truth, never upon error. Therefore, non-Catholics cannot possess a genuine right to profess their religion, that is, a false religion. c) Nevertheless, today, at least as a fundamental directive in the social-civil regulation of relations within human coexistence, religious freedom should be recognized or, more precisely, granted also to non-Catholics as a tolerance for reasons of the common good: both the common good of individual political communities and the common good of the entire human family; as well as the common good of individual Catholic communities and of the Universal Church. As regards the authority for their position, the Fathers believe that they can ground their thesis in the Syllabus, in the teaching of Leo XIII, and in the teaching of Pius XII, expressed in his address to Catholic jurists on December 6, 1953. The reference to Pius XII is considered objective, even though it cannot be denied that previously the same Pontiff had opened another perspective on the matter. Majority Group The doctrinal and pastoral position supported by the majority group can likewise be set out in three stages. a) Religious freedom must be recognized for all human beings as a fundamental right of the person: the Council must affirm and proclaim this in clear and unequivocal terms. b) The Fathers vigorously defend their thesis, but they do not wish to adduce intrinsic reasons to demonstrate it: they almost seem to be saying that there is no need to prove what is self-evident. Nevertheless, two reasons repeatedly reappear in their position. Today it is no longer tolerable for Religion to be treated as an element of discrimination among citizens of the same political community; that is, it is no longer tolerated that within the same political community—especially if it is a political community advanced in the economic, social, political, and cultural spheres—there should be citizens who, in the religious sphere, can breathe freely because that freedom is a right recognized as belonging to their person, and citizens who, in the religious sphere, can breathe only through a dropper because their freedom is a concession or a gift. Today more than ever, the Church needs freedom in order to carry out her mission fruitfully in the world. Yet today more than ever, the Church can succeed in defending her freedom with a certain effectiveness when she becomes an advocate and vindicator of human freedom, especially of human freedom in the most critical sphere, which is the religious sphere. The Council cannot fail to pronounce upon religious freedom: given the universal expectation concerning the matter, the disappointment would be profound throughout the entire human family. However, since it must pronounce upon the matter, it cannot affirm and proclaim religious freedom as a right of the person for Catholics and as tolerance for non-Catholics: it must affirm and proclaim religious freedom as a right of the person for everyone; otherwise the reaction throughout the world would be immediate and extremely strong, with negative consequences of incalculable scope. The result of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council would be the opposite of what John XXIII intended when he convoked it. As regards the authority for their position, the Fathers believe that they can ground their thesis in the teaching of Pius XII expressed in his 1942 Christmas Radio Message, and even more so in the encyclical Pacem in terris of John XXIII. But they also believe that their thesis is, substantially, in harmony with the traditional teaching of the Church, and they think that the statements on the matter in the Syllabus and in Leo XIII do not constitute insurmountable difficulties; for, they observe, those statements must be understood within the historical context of the time and, above all, in relation to the errors that the Pontiffs were seeking to dispel.” Taken from Acta Synodalia, volume VI, pars III, pp. 113–122. archive.org/details/ASVI.3/p…

I had not before noticed Pope Benedict's textual reference to John Courtney Murray in his famous Christmas Address on the hermenuetic for the second Vatican council. Benedict therein spoke of concrete historical situations and the continuity of principles: "Indeed, a discontinuity had been revealed but in which, after the various distinctions between concrete historical situations and their requirements had been made, the continuity of principles proved not to have been abandoned." This statement comes in the context of his discussion about religious liberty. John Courtney Murray, the most important influence leading to the decree of the council, in an article he wrote on the subject (On the Government Repression of Heresy), uses the same language of concrete historical applications and enduring principles: "Historically, however, both in fact and theory, they have had formulations with divergent accents and systematizations with divergent tendencies; and each principle has seen a variety of concrete applications."

The priest benefits from absolving penitents also because it is in hearing the sins of his people that he learns where his homilies and ministerial efforts should be most directed, where his flock needs help most. In this vein, the Pope and the bishops should gather general data from priests around the world on this topic, to help guide the pastoral direction of the Church.

The answer was Pope Francis and Evangelii Gaudium: “There are ecclesial structures which can hamper efforts at evangelization, yet even good structures are only helpful when there is a life constantly driving, sustaining and assessing them. Without new life and an authentic evangelical spirit, without the Church’s “fidelity to her own calling”, any new structure will soon prove ineffective. I dream of a “missionary option”, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.” vatican.va/content/francesco…

Folks debating whether Leo will overturn Amoris Laetitia…. (1) the reduction of AL to a footnote shows an unseriousness, an idolatry of controversy. Have these people even read AL? the Pope is concerned first and foremost with the family; the footnote being simply that (2) it’s no surprise given they only know of the footnote and therefore manifest that they read little to nothing, but in his public speeches, Leo has already explicitly affirmed the footnote several times, highlighting and emphasizing Pope Francis’ pastoral approach for atypical situations which deviate from the norm (3) run from these people - don’t engage with them, let them disappear from your algorithm - and find accounts who are actually conversant with the Magisterium rather than mere controversialists

The new Digger movie is a mix of “Don’t Look Up” and Megalopolis/The Royal Tenenbaums. It’s a bit on the nose in some ways, and the moral messaging is well-trodden and goes as high as good earthly wisdom but no higher. Overall, probably not worth the trip to the theatre, but if you can catch it for free at home one day when you have nothing else to do, it could suffice.

The prophets of doom obsess with Catholic theology but completely ignore what the Church actually teaches. If a person was paying a modicum of attention to what the Vatican has been saying about synodality, they would know that synodality is always couched in relation to primacy, and the need for the higher office to not only listen to their inferiors, but discern whether their voice is coming from God or themselves, is always emphasized. The Angelicum had a conference on Synodality a couple days ago and the risk of a Synodality apart from Primacy turning into Congregationalism was highlighted. youtube.com/live/erh4B3PE3wE…