Of Human Dignities

Authors

Mark L. Movsesian, St. John's University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Notre Dame Law Review

Publication Date

2016

Volume

91

First Page

1517

Abstract

(Excerpt)

Dignitatis Humanae: “Of Human Dignity.” The Second Vatican Council’s 1965 declaration on religious liberty must have seemed a triumph—an exclamation mark signaling the success of a decades-long project, begun during the Second World War, to restore human rights to the center of Catholic social teaching. In wartime addresses, Pope Pius XII had called for recognition of human rights, based in human dignity, as the foundation for a stable peace. In 1963, Pope John XXIII had made universal human rights, including religious liberty, part of the Magisterium. The project had had effects outside the Church as well. In 1948, largely as a result of Catholic influence, the United Nations had adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights with human dignity at its core. That declaration contained a ringing endorsement of religious liberty: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

How different things looks now. True, numerous treaties protect human rights; international organizations monitor their enforcement. Conventional wisdom holds that human rights, including religious liberty, are universal. Yet, as Allen Hertzke writes, “[d]espite considerable progress since the passage of the Universal Declaration, only a minority of people on earth enjoys the kind of religious freedom called for in international covenants.” According to a recent Pew Survey, “some 70 percent of the world’s 6.8 billion people live in countries with high restrictions on religion.” One cannot know, of course, what the situation would be like without them. But there is little evidence that either the Universal Declaration or Dignitatis Humanae have done much to secure, as a practical matter, the universal vision of religious freedom they contemplate.

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