You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, May 8th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm. We will be discussing “The Church as Political Authority in Dignitatis humanae and Centesimus Annus” by Michael Joseph Higgins from the Fall 2025 issue entitled “Authority” (Volume 52.3).
Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
In “The Church as Political Authority in Dignitatis humanae and Centesimus annus,” Michael Joseph Higgins examines the Church’s role in the political order by attending closely to the internal logic of Vatican II’s “Declaration on Religious Freedom” and its subsequent development in John Paul II’s social teaching. Against liberal readings, which restrict the Church’s role to the purely private sphere or that of civil society, and integralist proposals, which collapse ecclesial authority into political governance, Higgins argues that the Church exercises a genuine political authority precisely by proclaiming the truth according to which political life is to be ordered, without directly managing or administering the political order itself.
Higgins begins with Dignitatis humanae, emphasizing that while the document affirms a real right to religious freedom, it also insists that this right is not absolute. The state may regulate external expressions of religion when required by just public order, which includes not only peace and the settlement of competing rights, but also public morality. Crucially, Dignitatis humanae teaches that such regulation must conform to the “objective moral order,” the principles of which the Church is divinely tasked to “declare and confirm with her authority.” Although these principles flow from human nature and are in principle accessible to reason, Higgins argues that the document implies that only the Church can guarantee full and certain access to the moral order as a whole.
This implication becomes explicit when Dignitatis humanae is read in light of Gaudium et spes, which teaches that the truth of human nature is fully revealed only in Christ. Since the Church is the authoritative teacher of the truth that is Christ, the Church alone can disclose the fullness of the moral order by which political authority must be guided. The state, therefore, can fulfill its responsibility to regulate religious freedom justly only insofar as it receives this truth from the Church.
Higgins then turns to Centesimus annus, where John Paul II extends this logic to democracy and the economy. Authentic democracy, the pope argues, is possible only when political life is guided by a true conception of the human person, a conception revealed in the mystery of the Incarnate Word and entrusted to the Church. The Church thus contributes not merely to civil society, but to the political order itself, by offering the truth that makes freedom, justice, and authentic political forms possible. In this way, Higgins concludes, both conciliar and post-conciliar teaching point toward an understanding of the Church as a political authority: not one that governs by force, but one that governs by truth.
We will meet in the Kateri Room located at St. Michael’s Church, 240 Hemlock Street, Waterloo, Ontario. Use the east side parking lot and enter by the rear doors. Walk up the stairs. The Kateri Room is on your right before you enter the church proper.
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.