have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity.
Thomas Jefferson
Father John Courntey Murray
John Courtney Murray
Modern Apostle of Religious Freedom
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So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, When just the art of being kind Is all this sad world needs. [Ella Wheeler Wilcox] |
[The first words of the first page of the Introduction, page i] I cannot write about the killing of the Quakers without the surprised excitement of discovery. Kill Quakers for God's sake? Kill them in America at the very beginning of America? Kill them in Boston in the Cradle of Liberty at the direction of the General Court of Massachusetts?
"Of all the violences and hatreds of humankind, that based on religion has been the most injurious, not because of the intensity of feeling and ferocity of execution it has engendered -- mere political ideologies have done greater damage in these respects -- but because of the harm it has done religion itself, mocking its mandates, denying its duties, perverting its purpose. None, I dare declare, is more hateful to God."
"That religion has caused many acts of violence and perpetrated many hatreds is a datum of history. So has sex. Humankind cannot do without sex; sex cannot be eliminated in order to eliminate its attendant evils. No more so can religion. For the evils, at least for most of the evils that religion brings, a sovereign remedy exists -- free exercise!"
"Free exercise -- let us as Americans assert it -- is an American invention."
The American experience of religious freedom is truly the lustre of our country -- and that light has been reflected round the world.
John Courtney Murray was the most significant American Catholic theologian of the twentieth century. His writings on pluralism and "the American experiment" helped overcome nativist doubts about the place of Catholics in American democracy.
Ellsberg lauds the importance of the quietly revolutionary impact of [Murray's] contribution to Catholic thought.
It was in the Declaration on Religious Freedom emerging from Vatican II that the church committed itself to religious freedom as a principle rooted in the dignity of the human person. Thus, the church was not simply upholding its own freedom from state interference, but renouncing any interest in imposing its faith on others: 'One of the key truths of Catholic teaching ... is that man's response to God by faith ought to be free, and that therefore nobody is to be forced to embrace the faith against his will.'
It was widely acknowledged that this document was the principal contribution of the American church to the teachings of Vatican II. With little exaggeration, it could be said that this teaching was the particular contribution of one man, John Courtney Murray, to Catholic teaching. Thus, he lived to see the complete vindication and fulfillment of his life's work. He died less than two years later on August 18, 1967.
The lustre of our country - religious freedom, America's sublime contribution to the world.
The poor are rich in faith - frontier populism and the recurring "group insanity" of gospel religion
Christian Intolerance - dangers of a muscular Christianity
Desiderius Erasmus - History should have listened (but didn't)
Judge Learned Hand - a government that trusts individuals
Noah Feldman helps build a bridge - Secularism and Faith-values oddly need each other!!