Fifty years after Vatican II, we are now at the point where the council’s contribution to religious freedom can be truly appreciated.  Unfortunately, Dignitatis Humanae has been often (and wrongly) dismissed as the “Americanization” of Catholicism, as though that document merely provides a quite belated endorsement of the right to religious freedom affirmed in the U.S. Constitution and by much of political liberalism.  In reality, the Second Vatican Council articulated a profound understanding of the relationship between religion and politics, so that the council documents remain a rich resource for negotiating the complexities of religious freedom in a pluralistic society.

While it is beyond the scope of this brief reflection to provide a thorough discussion of the council’s contributions on any topic, let alone one as complicated as religion and politics, I would like to draw attention to three key aspects of the conciliar approach that would do much to move forward current debates about religious freedom in a pluralistic society.   

The first point to note is that Vatican II endorsed religious freedom without accepting the privatization of religion.  There has been an explosion of political religion in recent decades, both nationally and internationally, with the result that the idea of religion as a private issue, one irrelevant to public life, is no longer credible.  For those whose understanding of religious freedom was (consciously or unconsciously) predicated on the assumption that religion is or should be confined to interior matters, the stubborn reality of political religion has called into question the viability of religious freedom.  Many are now questioning whether true religious freedom is possible when political decisions are informed by religious beliefs and values. 

Yet Vatican II affirms religious freedom while, at the same time, understanding religion to be a public and social reality that influences all aspects of life, including economics, culture, and politics.  Since humans are thoroughly social beings, Dignitatis Humanae maintains that religious freedom involves the public sharing of religious views as part of the communal search for greater truth and understanding.  This document further contends that religious freedom includes the right to demonstrate the political implications of one’s religious beliefs; a point further developed in Gaudium et Spes’s lengthy discussions of the socio-political and economic institutions in light of the gospel. 

But how, then, is political life not simply the conflict of religious perspectives on the proper ordering of human life and society?  What religious freedom can there be if those with political power ensure that legislation represents their own politico-religious beliefs and conflicts with others’ beliefs?  

A second significant point of Vatican II addresses this with the easily misunderstood—but nevertheless wise—avoidance of the opposite error which, instead of privatizing religion, utterly collapses any distinction between religion and politics.  By insisting that there is a “proper autonomy” of creation such that human reasoning can discern what good governance requires, the council ensures that space is maintained for a pluralistic public debate through which all people can come to agreement (at least in principle) on political matters.  However much religious beliefs have political implications that support and clarify what reason discerns to be essential to human flourishing in society, there is no need for recourse to divine revelation to determine how society ought to be governed.  Instead of the politics-destroying alternative that seek to ban religion from public life and debate or to legislate directly on the basis of religious beliefs, the council advocates a free debate in which all resources, religious and otherwise, are brought into the discernment of which laws and institutions will best foster human flourishing. 

A third (and currently timely) contribution of the Second Vatican Council lies in its recognition that religious freedom is not an absolute right.  This is particularly pertinent to contemporary debates in the United States, such as the “Defense of Religious Freedom” movement in opposition to the Affordable Health Care Act. In contrast to the position of contemporary US Catholic bishops, Dignitatis Humanae maintains that governing authorities have not merely a right but in fact a duty to limit religious freedom if necessary to protect public order, including justice, peace, and the rights of all citizens.  The exercise of religious freedom, as important as it is, does not trump the need to follow laws that serve the common good, especially in matters appropriately regulated by governmental authority.  While every effort should be made to allow for as much religious freedom as is consistent with the public good, religious motivation does not constitute an automatic exemption from following the laws of a society.   

Of course, more nuanced thought is required to determine the extent of religious freedom that can be allowed without violating the public order, just as it is no easy thing to find the “sweet spot” between privatizing religion on the one hand, and collapsing religion into politics, on the other hand.  Vatican II will not answer all of our questions on these matters, but it does chart a course that would allow us to avoid some of the shoals we have not yet learned to navigate.