Catholic Social Thought, Religious Liberty and Liberal Order

At the heart of Catholic social thought during the past century has been the project of developing a liberal tradition. It was through development of a Catholic liberalism that the Church sought to establish a critical voice within modernity, able to speak the language of modernity while advancing an account of modernity uniquely informed by the Catholic worldview. The longstanding problem of religious freedom played a central role in the formation of this liberal tradition. Church–state separation and liberal religious freedom were long thought to undermine the authority of the Church and the moral structure of society. Reimagining the relationship between law and religion was thus essential to shaping the Catholic Church’s more constructive engagement with modernity.

The Church had long resisted the normative idea of liberal religious freedom in both its individual and societal expressions. Indeed, more than simply resisting, the Church defined its own social and political vision against liberalism. Freeing the state from cooperating with the Church was thought to invite barbarism and moral chaos. As Pope Gregory XVI wrote in the 1832 encyclical Mirari Vos, removing the ‘restraints of religion’ through separation of church and state would bring ‘the destruction of public order’ and ‘ruin in sacred and civil affairs’. Moreover, it is ‘insanity’, Gregory argued, to permit citizens ‘liberty of conscience and worship’ that is ‘restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastic or civil’....