Depending on whether one’s ‘spective’ is ‘pro’ or ‘retro’ sixty years can be either a long or short time. To borrow Oscar Hammerstein’s lyric: “I am of the latter brand”. It seems to me just yesterday when in the early 1960s two giants, both named John, shifted the course of the world: the Jesuit theologian, John Courtney Murray and the now canonized pontiff, Pope John XXIII.
Fr. Murray’s celebrated book, “We Hold These Truths” published in 1960 established the until-then generally rejected claim that Catholicism and American democracy were compatible. He championed religious freedom, a concept then still novel to mainstream Roman Catholicism. However, with prescience he also saw how privatized religion could give way to secularism under which the once moral consensus of the American culture would fade and respect for human dignity dwindle.
In 1963 Pope John XXIII, the ‘caretaker’ Pope elected because he was expected not to rock the Barque of Peter, issued his encyclical “Pacem In Terris”, in which he affirmed the Church’s belief in natural rights, including the right to worship, and called for international and inter-religious cooperation for the codification of these rights: “ It even involves the cooperation of Catholics with men who may not be Christians but who nevertheless are reasonable men, and men of natural moral integrity” (157). The Pope also convened the Second Vatican Council in 1962. Not surprisingly Fr. Murray attended as a peritus (expert). Two of the sixteen resulting conciliar documents were “Dignitatis Humanae” and “Nostra Aetate”. Both called for religious freedom and mutual respect among religions.
The message of “Dignitatis Humanae” is summarized in its statement: “Wherefore every man has the duty, and therefore the right, to seek the truth in matters religious in order that he may with prudence form for himself right and true judgments of conscience…”(3). With regard to other religions “Nostra Aetate” states: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men” (2).
The yeast warmed up by the wisdom of Fr. Murray and Pope John six decades ago is leaven which today continues to rise. In the face of dehumanizing relativism and secularism men and women of good will of all faiths call for genuine and fruitful fraternity. Though perhaps not named by many as such the leaven of the Gospel is animating a universal collaboration in the recognition of human rights and human dignity. Consider this declaration in the 2019 Abu Dhabi declaration signed by the Grand Imam of Al-Ashar and Pope Francis, “The Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together”:
“This Declaration, setting out from a profound consideration of our contemporary reality, valuing its successes and in solidarity with its suffering, disasters and calamities, believes firmly that among the most important causes of the crises of the modern world are a desensitized human conscience, a distancing from religious values and a prevailing individualism accompanied by materialistic philosophies that deify the human person and introduce worldly and material values in place of supreme and transcendental principles”.
Before the time of the two Johns such collaboration was rare. Today believers of all faiths link arms in defense of human dignity and freedom of religion. Has sixty years been a long time or a short time for the dough to rise? Who dares to second guess the Baker?