{{short description|Historic Catholic concept}} "'''Error has no rights'''" ({{Langx|la|Error non habet ius}})<ref>{{Cite web|date=October 2, 1978|title=Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sPtQAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Error+non+habet+ius%22|publisher=H. Böhlaus Nacht.|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_a7vCAAAQBAJ&q=%22Error+non+habet+ius%22&pg=PA255|title=Conscience: An Interdisciplinary View: Salzburg Colloquium on Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities|first1=G.|last1=Zecha|first2=P.|last2=Weingartner|date=December 6, 2012|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=9789400938212|via=Google Books}}</ref> is a historical Catholic and traditionalist Catholic concept. It asserts that it is the responsibility of governments to suppress non-Catholic religions as they do not have a right to express publicly any religion outside of Catholicism which should be the only religion allowed by the State, but had the right to privately profess and practice any religion. Alternatively, it asserts that while non-Catholics had civil or political rights, there is no theological toleration for such religious beliefs.<ref name=pat>{{cite book |last1=Patrick W. Carey |title=Orestes A. Brownson: American Religious Weathervane |date=2004 |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing |isbn=9780802843005 |page=255}}</ref><ref name=dan>{{cite book |last1=Daniel Agatino |title=Mere Catholicism: Faith in the Third Millennium |date=2018 |publisher=Sunbury Press |isbn=9781620066850 |page=245}}</ref> While it was still the official position of the Catholic Church in the 1950s, it was repudiated<ref name="nyt" /><ref name="1979P">{{cite journal|last1=Pawlikowski|first1=John T.|date=1979|title=Human Rights in the Roman Catholic Tradition: Some Theological Reflections|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23564895|journal=Selected Papers from the Annual Meeting (American Society of Christian Ethics)|language=en|pages=145–166|doi=10.5840/selpapasce19797|jstor=23564895|url-access=subscription}}</ref> or superseded<ref name="Whitehead" /> in the Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965 by ''Dignitatis humanae''.
It is also argued, based on the interpretation that the moral right to error is distinct from the legal right, that this principle was not superseded by ''Dignitatis Humanae''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ronald J. Rychlak |title=American Law from a Catholic Perspective: Through a Clearer Lens |date=2015 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=9780810889187 |page=101}}</ref>
== Principle == This principle states that non-Catholics must not have any civil or political rights and do not have the right to express publicly any religion outside of Catholicism, however they had the right to privately profess and practice any religion; moreover, this principle states that Catholicism should be the only religion allowed by the State.<ref name="Hertzke">{{cite journal|last1=Hertzke|first1=Allen D.|date=2005|title=Roman Catholicism and the Faith-based Movement for Global Human Rights|journal=The Review of Faith & International Affairs|volume=3|issue=3|pages=19–24|doi=10.1080/15570274.2005.9523222|s2cid=144921864}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite journal|last1=Pawlikowski|first1=John T.|date=1989|title=Catholicism and the Public Church: Recent U.S. Developments|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23559453|journal=The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics|volume=9|pages=147–165|doi=10.5840/asce198999|issn=0732-4928|jstor=23559453|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last1=Grasso|first1=Kenneth L.|last2=Hunt|first2=Robert P.|date=2005-12-01|title=Dignitatis Humanae and the Catholic Human Rights Revolution|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/15570274.2005.9523220|journal=The Review of Faith & International Affairs|volume=3|issue=3|pages=3–10|doi=10.1080/15570274.2005.9523220|s2cid=143611920 |issn=1557-0274|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
It was also argued that the principle meant that although error had no rights, people in error had rights.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jay Newman |title=On Religious Freedom |date=1991 |publisher=University of Ottawa Press |isbn=9780776603087}}</ref><ref name=dan/> In this interpretation, the state only suppresses those errors which are a danger to public safety rather all things it identifies as errors.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eugene J. McCarthy |title=Parting Shots from My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life |date=2004 |publisher=Fulcrum Publishing |isbn=9781555915285 |page=28}}</ref> It is also suggested that it was a rejection of theological<ref name=pat/> or moral right rather than a legal right.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Michael J. White |title=Partisan Or Neutral?: The Futility of Public Political Theory |date=1997 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=9780847684540 |pages=148–9}}</ref>
Catholic theology prior to Vatican II held that the ideal was a confessional state unified with the Catholic Church, with the reasoning that the Catholic Church's revealed truth would lead to "perfect justice", and if the state allowed error to be expressed, it would detract from this.<ref name="1979P" /> The underpinning of this preference for an absolutist confessional state was the view that error had no rights, and that non-Catholics could or should be persecuted.<ref name="1979P" /><ref name="review">{{cite journal|last1=FitzPatrick|first1=Paul|date=2013|title=Review of Catholicism and Democracy: An Essay in the History of Political Thought|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24635791|journal=The Furrow|volume=64|issue=10|pages=573–576|issn=0016-3120|jstor=24635791}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{cite book|last1=Russell|first1=Frederick H.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EZYVf8h6YekC&q=Augustine+religious+persecution&pg=PA23|title=The Just War in the Middle Ages|date=1975|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-29276-4|page=23|language=en}}</ref> According to this traditional view, people who were not members of the Catholic Church did not deserve any civil and political rights because they were deemed to be in error.<ref name=":0" />
To put it simply, the principle flowed "from a whole series of theological and political premises: that individuals are obligated to embrace religious truth; that Catholicism is the one true religion; that religious liberty is to be understood as an empowerment, as the moral right of individuals to profess and practice their beliefs; that 'total care' of the common good [...] is committed to the state; that religious truth is an integral element of this good; and that the state's total care for the common good thus encompasses the care of religion".<ref name=":2" />
==History== For centuries, the Catholic Church maintained a close connection to the State and used state coercion (such as the Inquisition) to punish people whom they deemed to be heretics.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Ames |first1=Christine Caldwell |date=February 2005|title=Does Inquisition Belong to Religious History?|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=110 |pages=11–37 |doi=10.1086/ahr/110.1.11|doi-access=free}}</ref> In practice, while often persecuted, non-Catholics in Catholic-majority countries were sometimes tolerated, often either because of the personal sensitivities by members of the clergy, or out of hope of converting people to Catholicism.<ref name="1979P" />
In 1832, Pope Gregory XVI released the encyclical {{lang|la|Mirari vos}}, which rejected freedom of the press, religious liberty, and separation of church and state as based on indifferentism. Liberty of conscience, Gregory wrote, was "a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Carey |first1=Patrick W. |title=American Catholics and the First Amendment: 1776–1840 |journal=The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography |date=1989 |volume=113 |issue=3 |pages=323–346 |jstor=20092357 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20092357 |issn=0031-4587}}</ref> The arguments condemning freedom of religion were reiterated by Pius IX in his 1864 encyclical ''Quanta cura'' and the attached Syllabus of Errors.<ref name="review" />
The "error has no rights" principle was still the official position of the Catholic Church in the 1950s.<ref name="Hertzke" /> At the time, the implementation of the "error has not rights" principle made it so that in Latin America and Southern Europe, where Catholics had power, Protestants suffered religious persecutions as they had no rights due to their religious choice.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kuzmič|first=Peter|title=To Suffer with Our Lord: Christian Responses to Religious Persecution |date=December 2004|url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15435725.2004.9523192|journal=The Brandywine Review of Faith & International Affairs|language=en|volume=2|issue=3|pages=35–42|doi=10.1080/15435725.2004.9523192|s2cid=145623036 |issn=1543-5725|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
==Superseding== The American Catholic theologian John Courtney Murray worked throughout the 1950s to reconcile Catholic teachings with religious pluralism and democracy. His ideas encountered significant resistance from more traditional-minded Catholics, but were supported by bishop Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, at Vatican II. John Courtney Murray's ideas were eventually included in the Vatican II reforms as the ''Declaration on Religious Liberty'', a.k.a. ''Dignitatis humanae'' (1965).<ref name="Hertzke" /><ref name="nyt">{{cite news |last1=Cogley |first1=John |title=Freedom of Religion; Vatican Decree Supplants Ancient Doctrine That 'Error Has No Rights' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1965/12/08/archives/freedom-of-religion-vatican-decree-supplants-ancient-doctrine-that.html |accessdate=21 September 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=8 December 1965}}</ref><ref name="Whitehead" /> According to this view, further elaborated upon, yet consistent with prior Church teaching, in Dignitatis Humanae, people do have rights even if they are considered in error.<ref name="Whitehead" /> "[<nowiki/>Joseph C. Fenton's] most important public controversy was with the Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray over the latter's unorthodox interpretation of church teaching on church-state relations. Murray's dissenting position was adopted in the Declaration of Religious Freedom at Vatican Council II in 1964, and Fenton's positions have been eclipsed".<ref>{{Cite book |last=White |first=M. Joseph |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/diocesanseminary0000whit/page/333/mode/2up |title=The Diocesan Seminary in the United States: A History from the 1780s to the Present |date=1989 |publisher=Univ. of Notre Dame Press |isbn=0-268-00865-5 |pages=333 |chapter=Part III: Roman direction, 1910 to 1962 – 14. Catholic University Reform and Influence |oclc=260209337}}</ref>
''Dignitatis humanae'' keeps the theological premises of the "error has no rights" principle, but "implicitly modifies the political theory underlying it. To begin with, it distinguishes between the common good in toto and that 'component' of this good which is entrusted in a 'special' manner to the state, affirming that the care of the common good devolves not upon the state alone, but 'upon the people as a whole, upon social groups, upon government, and upon the Church and other religious communities ... in the manner proper to each'. Secondly, it distinguishes between the moral and juridical dimensions of religious liberty, between the question of our obligations toward religious truth, and the question of the role of the state in enforcing these obligations. Finally, it brings into play the whole subject of the implications of our dignity as persons—as beings who possess intelligence and freedom—for the pursuit of religious truth and ordering of human social life".<ref name=":2" />
After Vatican II, some Catholic leaders, such as Cardinal Józef Glemp and part of the Spanish Church hierarchy, still sympathized with the older "error has no rights" approach. However, they realized that it was inconsistent with developments in the world at large and therefore supported counter-proselytization rather than legal restrictions on non-Catholic religions.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Anderson |first1=John |title=Catholicism and democratic consolidation in Spain and Poland |journal=West European Politics |date=2003 |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=137–156 |doi=10.1080/01402380412331300237|s2cid=153688457 }}</ref> Some traditionalist Catholics such as Society of St. Pius X have rejected the Vatican II reforms, especially their teaching on religious liberty.<ref name=Whitehead>{{cite journal |last1=Whitehead |first1=Kenneth D. |title=Martin Rhonheimer, Changing the World: The Timeliness of Opus Dei |journal=Catholic Social Science Review |date=2012 |volume=17 |pages=298–301 |doi=10.5840/cssr20121724|doi-access=free }}</ref>
==See also== * Accommodationism * Integralism * Religious pluralism * Religious tolerance * Theological notes
==References== {{Reflist|2}} Category:Catholic theology and doctrine