Catholic Church versus the State and religious freedom
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15633/ps.2291Keywords:
Church, State, religious freedom, concordat, spiritual and temporal powers, Dignitatis HumanaeAbstract
The relations between the Church and the State have always been quite strained. This article distinguishes six stages in the history of church‑state relations, as illustrated by means of six schemata. Pope Gelasius I in his letter dated 494 speaks about a perfect state of balance between the spiritual authority and the temporal power, whereas a Papal bull issued by Boniface VIII in 1302 affirms the grandeur of Roman authority. In 1590, Bellarmin tries to restore equilibrium in church‑state relations. However, the situation changes drastically with the French Revolution and the subsequent elimination of God from the public sphere. The French Concordat of 1801 contains an unprecedented article in which the Pope calls upon French bishops to resign. It is Leo XIII who renews the Gelasian dualism, laying the foundations for the doctrine of ‘the two perfect societies’, namely the Church and the State. The Lateran Treaty concluded between Pius XI and Mussolini in 1929, which led to the foundation of Vatican City, constitutes a real turning point in the whole history of concordats. Vatican Council II and its Declaration Dignitatis humanae on religious freedom (1965) leads to a major change in church‑state relations, together with the peaceful fall of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989–1990, a real Copernican revolution in the field of religious law, still in force in these countries. It can be observed that since the 1960s concordats have been concluded not only in greater numbers than before but also in greater serenity.References
Ardura B., Le Concordat entre Pie VII et Bonaparte, 15 juillet 1801. Bicentenaire d’une réconciliation, préface de G. Cholvy, postface de L.-M. Billé, Paris 2001.
Bourgine B., La déclaration Dignitatis humanae et la liberté religieuse en 2014, « Revue Théologique de Louvain » 45 (2014), p. 533–561.
Bouthillon F., La naissance de la Mardité : Une théologie politique à l’âge totalitaire : Pie XI (1922–1939), Strasbourg 2001.
Gonnet D., La liberté religieuse à Vatican II. La contribution de John Courtney Murray sj, Cogitation fidei n° 183, Paris 1994.
Joassart B., Histoire de l’Église. Période contemporaine, cours polycopié de l’IET, 2014–2015, Bruxelles.
La liberté religieuse dans le monde. Analyse doctrinale et politique (Actes du Colloque d’Aix‑en‑Provence du 21–22 avril 1989), dir. J.-B. d’Onorio, Paris 1991.
Le Saint‑Siège dans les relations internationales (Actes du Colloque d’Aix‑en‑Provence du 29–30 janvier 1988), dir. J.-B. d’Onorio, Paris 1989 (Éthique et Société).
Minnerath R., L’Église catholique face aux États. Deux siècles de pratique concordataire, 1801–2010, Paris, 2012
Minnerath R., L’Église et les États concordataires (1846–1981). La souveraineté spirituelle, Paris 1983 (Thèses).
Portier Ph., L’État et les religions en France. Une sociologie historique de la laïcité, Rennes 2016 (Histoire).
Pottier B., La déclaration de Vatican II sur la liberté religieuse, 50 ans après, dans : Secularisation & Europe, éd. J. Van Reeth, B. Pottier, H. Sławiński, F. De Rycke, Betsaida–Kraków 2017, p. 333–348.
Sévillia J., Quand les catholiques étaient hors la loi, éd. Perrin, Paris 2005 (Tempus).
Siebenrock R., Theologischer Kommentar zur Erklärung über die religiöse Freiheit «Dignitatis humanae », dans : Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil (t. 4), Freiburg–Basel–Wien 2009 (20051), p. 125–218.
Symboles et définitions de la foi catholique, éd. H. Denzinger‑Hünermann, Paris 1996.
Tihon P., Deuxième Partie : l’Église dans Histoire des dogmes, III : Les signes du Salut : Les sacrements. L’Église. La Vierge Marie, par H. Bourgeois, B. Sesboüé, P. Tihon, Paris 1995, p. 339–561.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
