Catholic Priests & Religious Freedom
By David Yeagley
4-16-2002
The current, hideous sex scandals in the Roman Catholic Church have caused an American ideological crisis: is the Church above the law? Most Americans would answer No, but the conduct of the Church bishops indicates the Church may think Yes.
The Council of Nicæa (325 AD) declared priests “infallible” in office. The efficacy of the office cannot be abrogated by the sins of the officer. The Second Vatican Council (1963) proclaimed the same infallibility regarding Church dogma (teachings). For example, the homosexual priest, who teaches that homosexuality is “wrong,” does not invalidate the teaching.
According to American society and law, however, child molestation is a crime. If the Church suggests exemption for priests, then the question must be asked, how does the Church regard the Constitution of the United States? What is the Church’s teaching about religious freedom?
I asked these questions back in New Haven, Connecticut, first during my education, then on my job.
America was born out of resistance to European oppression which often involved the Church. Freedom of religion, as espoused on our First Amendment, meant freedom from Catholicism. My Yale professor Sydney Ahlstrom wrote “A fierce tradition of anti-Catholicism...is one of Puritanism’s most active legacies to Anglo-American civilization.” A Religious History Of The American People (Yale, 1974).
The early Americans had fresh memories of intolerance. Many people had suffered persecution for refusing loyalty to the Pope, or to state governments loyal to the Pope.
Today, the Vatican has issued ecclesiastical statements which seem to preclude any such future persecution. The Documents of Vatican II (Eerdmans, 1975) extols religious freedom. “This right of the human person to religious freedom must be given such recognition in the constitutional order of society as will make it a civil right.”
I practiced ‘religious freedom’ as a resident counselor in St. Francis Home for Children, a Catholic institution in New Haven. A variety of children came there: Italian, Irish, black, Catholic, Protestant, Jehovah’s Witness, and occasionally a Jewish kid would show up. I tried to provide religious opportunities for each child, according to his background. I took Jewish kids to synagogue on Friday nights.
I wrote the Archbishop of Hartford, commending the Children’s Home for its freedom of religion. I cited the Documents on religious freedom. The Most Reverend John F. Whealon (d.1991) wrote back with special thanks. However, he refined my interpretation of the Documents, saying my citation “refers primarily to the freedom of religions to operate in the face of government.” In other words, religious freedom is of concern only when it’s being denied to Catholics.
Like any other religion in America, the Catholic Church declares religious freedom is a “constitutional right,” yet only to justify itself. But did ‘refugee’ Protestants writing the Constitution have Catholicism in mind? Yet, each “foreign” religion brought here, beginning with Catholicism, has appealed to the Constitution in a self-serving manner.
Complete freedom of religion was never the teaching of the Roman Church. Pope Pius IX (1792-1878), famous for the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (December 8, 1854), declared in an Encyclical of August 15 of the same year: “The absurd and erroneous doctrines or ravings in defense of the liberty of conscience are a most pestilential error—a pest, of all others, most to be dreaded in a state.”
In his Syllabus of Errors, Pope Pius anathematized any who believed that “the ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government,” or, that “the Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power.” (1861). He spoke of the integral and inviolate nature of the political power belonging to the Church.
Does the Catholic Church stand for religious freedom or not? Yes, when not in a position of political authority, but No when in control of the state?
My wild Comanche ancestor Bad Eagle was once captured and made Spanish Catholic. He died a Catholic, in 1906. But later the whole clan became American Protestant. So, religious freedom is precious to me, even if it makes my religion just one among many. Jacob Neusner said “Generic religion evades responsibility,” and that people in a pluralistic society tend to privatize religion. Religious Studies And Theology (1992). Yet, it’s the price one pays for freedom.
I believe in the American Constitution, which allows me to worship ‘according to the dictates of my own conscience.’ I’m not sure the Roman Church or any other religion, wielding state authority, would grant such freedom.
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