"Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Liberty, 50 Years Later"
Nov 1, 2012
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Cosponsored by The Department of History and The St. Thomas More Society
At the third plenary session of Vatican II, Fr. John Courtney Murray said that the issue of religious liberty [is] the American issue at the Council. Yet it took the longest to write, and, after undergoing thousands of comments and corrections over four years, it was signed by Pope Paul VI less than twenty-four hours before the Council was adjourned. This lecture will consider, (1) the reasons for this Declaration on Religious Liberty and the difficulties and debates at the Council, and (2) how the doctrine of religious liberty has fared a generation later.
