Tensions around religious freedom

Historical-theological analysis of the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae

Abstract

The article presents how the various conceptions on the topic of religious freedom contributed to the process of developing the Second Vatican Council’s Dignitatis Humanae Declaration. The tensions around the way of understanding the meaning of religious freedom are epistemologically grounded in philosophy, theology, and the writings of the magisterium of the Catholic Church, and represented by groups of thinkers whose reflections were between broadening the perspective of religious freedom, considering the dialogue with the modern, secular world, and the demand for ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, or narrowing the understanding of religious freedom to the Catholic sphere and tolerance of other religions. For the development of the theme, this article takes the Second Vatican Council as a fundamental event for understanding religious freedom and is divided into four parts, starting with the pre-conciliar theological philosophical conceptions, then approaching the conciliar debates of the first two periods conciliations, in which the thematic genesis of religious freedom takes place, then, the last two periods emphasizing the tensions around the theme and, finally, analyzes the Dignitatis Humane Declaration in what it presents about the meaning and content of the theme of religious freedom for contemporaneity.