Catechism of the Catholic Church: "The social duty of religion and the right to religious freedom2104 "All men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and his Church, and to embrace it and hold on to it as they come to know it."26 This duty derives from "the very dignity of the human person." ...2105 The duty of offering God genuine worship concerns man both individually and socially. This is "the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ."30 By constantly evangelizing men, the Church works toward enabling them "to infuse the Christian spirit into the mentality and mores, laws and structures of the communities in which [they] live."31 The social duty of Christians is to respect and awaken in each man the love of the true and the good. It requires them to make known the worship of the one true religion which subsists in the Catholic and apostolic Church.32 Christians are called to be the light of the world. Thus, the Church shows forth the kingship of Christ over all creation and in particular over human societies.332108 The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error,37 but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint ... 2109 The right to religious liberty can of itself be neither unlimited nor limited only by a "public order" conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner.39 The "due limits" which are inherent in it must be determined for each social situation by political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority in accordance with "legal principles which are in conformity with the objective moral order."40 http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a1.htmPope Ven. Pius XII, Ci Riesce: "Could it be that <in certain circuмstances> He would not give men any mandate, would not impose any duty, and would not even communicate the right to impede or to repress what is erroneous and false? A look at things as they are gives an affirmative answer. Reality shows that error and sin are in the world in great measure. God reprobates them, but He permits them to exist.
Hence the affirmation: religious and moral error must always be impeded, when it is possible, because toleration of them is in itself immoral, is not valid <absolutely and unconditionally.>Moreover,
God has not given even to human authority such an absolute and universal command in matters of faith and morality. Such a command is unknown to the common convictions of mankind, to Christian conscience, to the sources of Revelation and to the practice of the Church. To omit here other Scriptural texts which are adduced in support of this argument, Christ in the parable of the cockle gives the following advice: let the cockle grow in the field of the world together with the good seed in view of the harvest (cf. <Matt.> 13:24-30).
The duty of repressing moral and religious error cannot therefore be an ultimate norm of action. It must be subordinate to <higher and more general> norms, which <in some circuмstances> permit, and even perhaps seem to indicate as the better policy, toleration of error in order to promote a <greater good.>Thus
the two principles are clarified to which recourse must be had in concrete cases for the answer to the serious question concerning the attitude which the jurist, the statesman and the sovereign Catholic state is to adopt in consideration of the community of nations in regard to a formula of religious and moral toleration as described above.
First: that which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has no right to exist, to be spread or to be activated.
Secondly: failure to impede this with civil laws and coercive measures can nevertheless be justified in the interests of a higher and more general good.Before all else the Catholic statesman must judge if this condition is verified in the concrete—this is the "question of fact." In his decision he will permit himself to be guided by weighing the dangerous consequences that stem from toleration against those from which the community of nations will be spared, if the formula of toleration be accepted. Moreover, he will be guided by the good which, according to a wise prognosis, can be derived from toleration for the international community as such, and indirectly for the member state.
In that which concerns religion and morality he will also ask for the judgment of the Church. For her, only He to whom Christ has entrusted the guidance of His whole Church is competent to speak in the last instance on such vital questions, touching international life; that is, the Roman Pontiff."
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/ci-riesce-8948Soviet Premier Gorbachev: "
Gorbachev, who once said the collapse of the Iron Curtain would have been impossible without John Paul II, [and the religious liberty Christians suffering under Communism in the Soviet Union successfully asked for and obtained]
said the pope condemned communism the first time the two met in 1989, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall" https://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/04/03/pope.gorbachev/
Topic: Must Obey Pope Even if He Says Black is White (Read 9207 times)