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Religious Liberty: Continuity or Contradiction?

by Fr. Bernard Lucien | Translated by John Pepino | Foreword by Alan Fimister

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• Product Code: rlcc
• Publication date: May 15, 2025
• Pages: 134
• Size: 5.5 x 8.5

• $17.95

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  Dignitatis Humanæ · Tradition · Conscience · Magisterium

  Religious Liberty

  Continuity or Contradiction?

   

  Reading Dignitatis Humanæ within Tradition
  Fr. Bernard Lucien · with commentary by Fr. Antoine-Marie de Araujo, FSVF
  Translated by John Pepino, Ph.D. · Foreword by Alan Fimister, Ph.D.

  134 pages 5.5 × 8.5 Paperback & Hardback Foreword by Alan Fimister

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  A thorny question for traditional Catholics, treated with precision, theological seriousness, and a refusal to reduce the debate to slogans.

  The continuity question at the heart of the postconciliar crisis

   

  ✠ OVERVIEW ✠

  Among the problems posed by Dignitatis Humanæ, there are the following: is its principal teaching infallible, or merely the “simply authentic Magisterium”? May a Catholic suspend assent to this teaching, or even refuse it, and if so, under what conditions? And, more importantly, does the Council’s definition of religious liberty contradict the Church’s former magisterium? As Alan Fimister puts it:

  If the faithful and their pastors for over a thousand years held (and they surely did) that the Church had the right to employ coercion and even lethal force to correct erring members of the faithful, and they were in fact wrong, then this claim is completely empty and with it Christ’s teaching that the Church is a city set upon a hill that cannot be hidden, and His promise to remain with her until the end of time (Matt 5:14; 28:20).

  If the teaching of the ordinary and universal or the extraordinary magisterium can and has contradicted itself then this does not mean that the new teaching is true or that the Church has foundered but that Catholicism was never true and we are of all men most to be pitied. The task of reconciling the declaration Dignitatis Humanæ and the previous definitions and tradition of the Church is therefore no trifling matter. Upon it hinges the credibility of Catholicism itself.

  In this compelling study, Fr. Bernard Lucien along with a commentary by Fr. Antoine-Marie de Araujo, FSVF, seek to argue, without doing violence to the text, for a correct interpretation of the central teaching of Dignitatis Humanæ as well as for a correction of its deficiencies. The ongoing debates within the Church about Tradition and the secularist aim to make Christianity politically irrelevant confirm the timeliness of this study.

  Why this book matters

  The question is not merely political. It touches the reliability of the Magisterium, the meaning of conscience, the possibility of doctrinal development, and the relation of Catholic truth to public order.

  The central difficulty

  Does Dignitatis Humanæ contradict prior magisterial teaching, especially the condemnations associated with religious indifferentism?

  Theological precision

  Lucien distinguishes acting “according to conscience” from acting “as one wishes,” a key to the proposed resolution.

  Tradition and development

  The study argues for continuity while openly acknowledging ambiguity, deficiencies, and the need for further clarification.

  A serious debate

  A book for readers who want to understand the question rather than merely choose a partisan formula.

   

  ❦ FROM THE ARGUMENT ❦

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  Weak, equivocal, dangerous, yet not erroneous in its main teaching.

  Sedes Sapientiæ on Dignitatis Humanæ

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  Fr. Lucien and Fr. Araujo argue that it does not.

  Translator’s Note on the central question

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  The expression “acting according to one’s conscience” changes meaning depending on whether one recognizes the human mind’s capacity to know exterior reality.

  Fr. Antoine-Marie de Araujo, FSVF

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  This thesis not only avoids contradiction, but also explains the appearance of contradiction.

  Conclusion

   

  ✦ INSIDE THE VOLUME ✦

  Foreword

  Alan Fimister situates the stakes: the credibility of Catholicism and the reliability of the Magisterium.

  Essay I

  Vatican II and the “Hermeneutic of Continuity”
  The crucial case of religious liberty.

  Essay II

  A Modest Follow-Up
  Clarifications on religious liberty and Vatican II.

  Commentary

  Did Vatican II Contradict Prior Magisterium?
  A solution proposed by Fr. Lucien.

  Appendix

  Dignitatis Humanæ
  The Declaration on Religious Liberty, translated by Michael Pakaluk, Ph.D.

  For traditional Catholics

  This book speaks directly to readers troubled by the apparent contradiction between Dignitatis Humanæ and earlier teaching, without dismissing the gravity of the problem.

  For theologians and serious readers

  It offers a disciplined, text-centered contribution to an unresolved quaestio disputata, rooted in classical moral theology and the meaning of conscience.

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  An important contribution to a difficult Catholic debate

   

  A book for those who want to think with the Church, honor the demands of Tradition, and understand why the problem of religious liberty cannot be treated lightly.

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  Praise for a difficult Catholic question

  Endorsements for Religious Liberty

  Continuity or Contradiction?

   

  Reading Dignitatis Humanæ within Tradition
  Fr. Bernard Lucien · with commentary by Fr. Antoine-Marie de Araujo, FSVF

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  Theologians, philosophers, and Catholic writers commend this volume as a serious contribution to one of the most difficult questions raised by the Second Vatican Council.

  Magisterium · tradition · conscience · public order

   

  ✠ ENDORSEMENTS ✠

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  The question of religious liberty is no longer a matter of interest only to political philosophers. By the ambiguity of its teaching, the Second Vatican Council elevated the issue to one that concerns all Catholics inasmuch as it touches on the consistency and reliability of the Church herself in her official teaching. Fr. Lucien’s work makes an important contribution to resolving the question in favor of that consistency and reliability.

   

  —Dr. John Joy
  author of On the Ordinary & Extraordinary Magisterium: From Joseph Kleutgen to the Second Vatican Council

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  Many Catholics have been disturbed by an apparent contradiction between the teaching of the Vatican II declaration on religious liberty Dignitatis Humanæ and more than one document of the prior magisterium. As a result several writers have offered competing solutions to this apparent contradiction. This present work consists of three essays with two by Fr. Bernard Lucien setting forth his own carefully argued approach. And until one particular solution gains more widespread acceptance as the most probable answer to this difficulty, it is good that theologians and philosophers continue to study and debate this important question that goes to the heart of the Church’s ability to know and define truth.

   

  —Thomas Storck
  author of Foundations of a Catholic Political Order

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  Fr. Bernard Lucien is considered one of the best French traditionalist theologians. His explanation of religious liberty has three merits in my eyes: it is simple and clear; it is based on the literal meaning of the text of Dignitatis Humanæ, and it displays a truly traditional spirit. Let us hope that, thanks to this publication, it will receive greater recognition.

   

  —Fr. Louis-Marie de Blignières
  founder, Fraternity of St. Vincent Ferrer, Chémeré-le-Roi, France

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  This book makes an original and valuable contribution to the debate on religious liberty. It deserves to be read by all who wish to understand Dignitatis Humanæ and the duty of human societies “toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”

   

  —Fr. Thomas Crean, O.P.
  co-author with Dr. Alan Fimister of Integralism: A Manual of Political Philosophy

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  Father Lucien began studying the conciliar declaration Dignitatis Humanæ in order to demonstrate its incompatibility with traditional teaching. This search for truth, however, led him to reverse his previous position and to find a way out in full agreement with classical moral theology.

  Analyzing the differing concepts of “conscience” occurring in Western thought since Aquinas, he concluded that the “liberty of conscience and cult” condemned by the nineteenth-century popes was something much more radical and sweeping than the right to religious freedom affirmed by Vatican II.

  While some of us who have reached the same conclusion have arrived at it by a rather different path from Fr. Lucien, giving more attention to the “due limits” to religious freedom affirmed by DH, his work is a serious contribution to this quaestio disputata that deserves the attention of every theologian.

   

  —Fr. Brian W. Harrison, OS, STD
  author of Religious Liberty and Contraception

  Continuity

  A defense of the Church’s consistency and reliability in her official teaching.

  Clarity

  A simple, text-based explanation of a notoriously difficult conciliar question.

  Debate

  A contribution to a living theological discussion that still demands careful study.

  Tradition

  A genuinely traditional reading of Dignitatis Humanæ and the problem of conscience.

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