The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 274: Social Duty of Religion (2024)

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

The social duty of religion and the right to religious freedom are presented to us in the Catechism. We examine what it means to have respect for other religions and the freedom, within limits, to exercise our convictions. Fr. Mike makes it clear that it is our calling as Christians to evangelize and bring our Catholic Christianity to the public square. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2104-2109. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a Year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 274. We're reading paragraphs 2104 to 2109. of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 274, we're reading paragraphs 2104 to 2109.

As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the Foundations of Faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own Catechism in a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. And you can click follow or subscribe to your podcast app if your podcast app allows you to do that. And if they don't. Wow.

Just wow. If you do, you get daily notifications. And if you don't, you get to hunt for this podcast every single day, what you've done maybe for the last 274 days because you found us. So what we were talking about today is the social duty of religion and the right to religious freedom. There's only a few paragraphs we're looking at. Basically I think there's five, six paragraphs, but in these paragraphs is so much. It is packed with content because one of the things we

recognize is that there is, again the first part, a social duty of religion. The second part, there is every individual exercises, experiences is granted by their creator, the right to religious freedom. So if you look at this even more closely today, there are some complex ideas at the same time. Once we start talking about the social reality of religion, the way it's lived out in our public life, in the public square,

one of the things that can happen is we might have opinions on that already. We might have opinions on how religion is lived out in the public square, how it's carried out in the public square. And this might be something that confirms your opinion or confirms your assumption. It might be something that challenges your opinion

or challenges your assumption. So keep this in mind, the church has to be in the public square. And this is how the church sees itself as being in the public square so as we're talking about today in order to have as Open hearts as possible. Let's ask our father to give us those kinds of hearts as we pray father in heaven We thank you and we praise your name. Thank you so much for bringing us to this date for bringing us to this moment We thank you for bringing us to this day, for bringing us to this moment, we thank you

for bringing us to day 274. Lord God, as you reveal yourself to us in your law, you reveal how we are to live in our private lives, you reveal how we are to live in our public lives. And we ask that you please give us a heart, heart that can be moved in our public lives and heart that can be moved in our private lives. Lord God, let our interior match our exterior and let our actions match our thoughts.

Let our works match our beliefs and unite all of it by giving us a heart that is like yours. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father, in the the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 274. We are reading paragraphs 2104 to 2109. The Social Duty of Religion and the Right to Religious Freedom 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. This duty derives from the very dignity of the human person. It does not contradict a sincere respect for different religions which frequently reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men, nor the requirement of charity, which urges Christians to treat with love, prudence,

and patience those who are in error or ignorance with regard to the faith. 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. 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. 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. 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. Nobody may be forced to act against his convictions, nor is anyone to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience in religious matters, in private or in public, alone or in association with others, within due limits. This right is based on the very nature of the human person, whose dignity enables him freely to assent to the Divine Truth which transcends the temporal order.

For this reason, it continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it. If because of the circumstances of a particular people, special civil recognition is given to one religious community in the constitutional organization of a state, the right of all citizens and religious communities to religious freedom must be recognized and respected as well. The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error nor a supposed right to error, but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, that is, immunity within just limits from

external constraint in religious matters by political authorities. This natural right ought to be acknowledged in the juridical order of society in such a way that it constitutes a civil right. 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. 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.

All right, there we have it, paragraphs 2104 to 2109. I told you, I told you that there's a lot of big ideas in these paragraphs, but they're so good. Okay, last couple of days, I know I was talking fast, getting all ramped up, getting all excited, but let's go back to this. Let's just walk through this as slowly as we need to or as quickly as we can.

Paragraph 2104, what's this reality? The reality is all men, all human beings are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and His church. And we're bound to embrace it and hold onto it as we come to know it. Now that is, I'm just, to pause on that for a second and to realize that we're obligated to seek the truth

that's actually part of what it is to be human a human being is the obligation to seek the truth and to what and To embrace it and hold on to it as we come to know it that that comes from what? It comes from the very dignity of being a human being and that does not contradict the respect that we have for different religions Or or even the duty that we've been given as Christians to share the faith so we recognize this that every one of us are bound to seek the truth and embrace it as we come to know it and part of what that means is whatever truth you've come to to know you've come to discover we're obliged to embrace it now what does this mean?

What it does not mean is it doesn't contradict, as it says here in paragraph 2104, it does not contradict a sincere respect for different religions which frequently reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men. Remember that, we talked about this, how there is a degree of truth in every religion. Every religion that exists has some degree of truth and as

Catholics we get to acknowledge whatever degree of truth exists or subsists in that religion. Nor does it contradict, so first it doesn't contradict sincere respect, it also doesn't contradict the requirement of love, right? The requirement of charity which urges us as Christians to treat with love, prudence and patience those who are in error or ignorance with regard to the faith. To truly believe what we do believe, which is that yes there is truth in all world religions, and at the same time the fullness of truth subsists in the Catholic Church,

that doesn't mean that we no longer respect other religions that don't have the fullness of truth. We respect them and we treat with love and as it says prudence, patience, those who are in error or ignorance with regard to the faith. At the same time, we are all called to share the fullness of truth that we have all received. It says in paragraph 2105, by constantly evangelizing men, the church works towards enabling them to infuse the Christian spirit into the mentality and mores laws and structures of the communities in which they live and this and this is This is so good that even if people don't get converted even if they don't become Christian or don't become Catholic That what the Christian gets to do is the Christian gets to bring

The truth that we know it the truth that we know into the public square truth that we know it, the truth that we know into the public square. This is actually the social duty of religion is to recognize that, I mean let's give an example, it's an example you've heard a thousand times. The reality that all human beings are created equal and endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights. Okay, that idea, that notion came from Christianity as its roots in Judaism of course, but that reality came from Christianity, as its roots in Judaism, of course, but that reality came from Christianity. And so the way in which we view other people,

the view of the human person, that was the gift, one of the many gifts, that Christianity brought to this world. Until Judeo-Christianity brought our faith to the public square. There was no civilization that I know of at least, no civilization that had a widespread understanding that every human being, every human life was worthy of respect in an intrinsic way. Now you could have a village that would say, yeah we respect all of our our villagers here, people who belong to this village,

but not necessarily the people who belong to the next village. What we have in Christianity, bringing our religion to the public square, is truth, right? Goodness. And that's what we're called to do. We have to do this. We're meant to infuse the Christian spirit into the mentality and mores, laws and structures of the communities in which we live. So that's the social duty of Christians is to respect and awaken in each person the love of the true and the good. That's our social, have you ever heard about this?

The social duty of each Christian is to respect and awaken in each person the love of the true and the good. What it requires us to do, it requires us to make known the worship of the one true religion which subsists in the Catholic and the good. What it requires us to do? It requires us to make known the worship of the one true religion which subsists in the Catholic and apostolic church. And that is, that comes from Jesus. Why? Because Jesus is the one who said, you are the light of the world. And because of that we get to actually just shine before the world. We're not going to force anyone into this

because the next paragraph says that, nobody may be forced to act against his convictions, nor is anyone to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience and religious matters, private or public, alone or in association with others. So we believe in religious freedom. At the same time, let's keep this in mind, the last clause on this first sentence in 2106 is within due limits. This is very important. There are actual limits according to natural reason, like right, according to natural law.

There are limits when it comes to the exercise in private or in public of one's convictions. For example, let's just jump there. If someone were to say, well, my convictions are that the person in the house next door to me needs to be sacrificed, like actual sacrifice, I need to kill them and that's what my religious convictions say you would say Oh, no, then you must be restrained from that because there are limits to the exercise of religious freedom Does that make sense? One of the things you might hear people say is something along the lines of error has rights

when we say when we highlight the fact that We have to advocate religious freedom, so basically, I'll defend your right to be wrong. So you're saying, oh, error has rights? And the answer to that is no, error does not have rights. People have rights. So I can defend another person's right to be wrong. I'm not defending the wrong, I'm defending them, right?

Does that make sense? Because we have to recognize also as the catechism goes on to highlight this, it highlights the fact that there is no such thing as a right to do a wrong. This is just really important for us to understand. There is no such thing as a right to do a wrong. I can follow my conscience as my conscience reveals this to me and I have that religious freedom to be able to do that Again, but it's not unlimited and that is incredibly important It says this in paragraph 2108 the right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error Nor a supposed right to air member error does not have rights people have rights But it's rather a natural right of the human person

to civil liberty, that is, immunity within just limits from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities. This is so important. You have immunity from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities, again, within just limits. Now, I think this paragraph 2109 is, I mean, it

highlights the fact that the church has existed through millennia obviously and in so many different political climates and contexts, kingdoms and nations and states and all these different kind of places because it does say this. It says 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. 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. So, yes, there is a way in which the common good factors in to the limits that are placed upon religious freedom. Now, it doesn't say anything about the reality that sometimes in the course of history, there are nations or kingdoms or states that have sponsored a religion.

Right. They've embraced a particular religion and say, okay, this is Catholic Lithuania or, or this is Protestant Switzerland or something like this. And if you're from Lithuania or Switzerland and you don't like those titles I'm just saying that there have been times in the course of life right course of human history When there is a nation that has endorsed or sponsored or embraced one particular religion paragraph 2107 addresses this is the last thing before we conclude for today a lot of big ideas paragraph 2107 says if because of the circumstances

of a particular people, special civil recognition is given to one religious community in the constitutional organization of a state. So, right, so here's Canada, we love Canada. Here's Canada that says, we're gonna make Buddhism, the national religion of Canada, or Hinduism, the national religion of Canada. So ifism, the national religion of Canada. So if they decide to do that,

because there is some special circumstance, the right of all citizens and religious communities to religious freedom must be recognized and respected as well. So even if Canada became Hindu, they would have to at the same time still respect the rights of the Buddhists and the atheists and the Jewish people And the Christian people and you hear I'm saying so I love this the church is highlighting the fact that yes

There have been and are nations that are largely say for example Turkey it's largely Muslim the catechism saying what we believe is, well, Turkey can be a Muslim country if it wants. They at the same time have to respect the religious freedom of all Christians who live in Turkey or all Jews who live in Turkey. Like that's what they must also be doing. Does that make sense? Tomorrow we get to talk about the next part of this first commandment, which is you shall have no other gods before me. Today, what do we get? We got to talk about the social duty of religion. We have to bring our Catholic Christianity into the public square.

We have to, because Catholicism is God's gift to the world. I mean, is that bold to say that? Is that arrogant to say that? I don't think so. But if God himself established a religion, then why would we keep it to ourselves? If this is true and this is good and this is beautiful, then we have to bring it to the public square.

That is the social duty of religion. And we affirmed today, and hopefully we made it clear, the right to religious freedom, which is good and it's true, but it's also limited within reason, according to the common good and the natural law. Hope all that made sense. Tomorrow, we're looking at superstition and idolatry and divination and magic.

It is gonna be a great day. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name's Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.