The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty

by Michael Treharne Davies

Thorough. Shows how Fr. John Courtney Murray maneuvered the Second Vatican Council to replace the Catholic doctrine on church & State, with a new teaching based on the American Constitution. Covers the defense of the traditional soctrine by Msgr. Joseph Fenton, Editor of The American Ecclesiastical Review.

Appendices with the releveant encyclicals and documents.

Genres: Catholic, Religion, Nonfiction

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1992

About the author

Michael Treharne Davies (1936-2004) was a convert from Anglicanism to the Catholic Church in the 1950s, and was a Catholic writer who authored various works following the Second Vatican Council, in addition to unifying Una Voce America, a conservative group. He went on to compose such works as The Liturgical Revolution, The Order of Melchisedech, Partisans of Error, For Altar and Throne,, and The Wisdom of Adrian Fortescue. Upon Davies' death in 2004, Pope Benedict XVI called him a man of deep faith who was ready to embrace suffering

Reviews

[Jan Górak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clever analysis of one of the most important problems of the Catholic Church today

[Dan DalMonte · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another Davies bombshell, raising questions about modernism in the church that must be addressed. Davies exposes what appears to be a contradiction between traditional Church teaching on religious liberty and that championed by American bishops and Jesuit John Courtney Murray. Whereas Dignitatis Humanity attributes religious liberty as a right based on the dignity of the person, Davies restores traditional teaching about the subordination of religious liberty to truth. Vatican II opened the way for the end of confessional states. Religion was seen as outside of the competence of secular governments. But governments are also creatures that owe their allegiance to Christ the King. Governments have the duty to protect the public good by protecting religious truth. A secular state leads to religious indifferentism, in which no religion is better than any other. But to place the church of Christ on a level with other faiths is a grave insult.