Dignitatis Humanae
The Second Vatican Council’s declaration on religious freedom, promulgated on 7 December 1965. It declares that the human person has a right to be free from coercion in religious matters, a right founded on human dignity.
Article 2 states the teaching: every person has a right to religious freedom, meaning immunity from coercion by individuals, groups or any human power, so that within due limits no one is to be forced to act against his own beliefs, in private or in public, alone or with others. The right rests on the dignity of the person and is to be recognised in civil law.
Article 1 sets the limits of the claim. The council professes that the one true religion subsists in the Catholic Church and says that religious freedom concerns immunity from coercion in civil society, so that it leaves untouched the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies toward the true religion. See the Second Vatican Council.
Cited in
- 1962 to 1965, firm date