ABSTRACT
The ongoing salience of Dignitatis Humanae (DH) is evident in debates over the very nature of religious liberty. DH marked a dramatic expansion in the Catholic understanding of the proper scope of religious liberty. Religious liberty is understood as a universal right, as a right that is enjoyed by all men and women regardless of their religious convictions, a right enjoyed by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. The development crystallized in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, and, in particular, in the Declaration which, as George Weigel notes, constitutes nothing less than “the manifesto of the Catholic human rights revolution.” By the 1950s, Catholic teaching was moving rapidly toward the affirmation of what Paul Sigmund describes as “the moral superiority of democratic government and guarantees of human rights.” In the period running from the pontificate of Leo XIII through the Second Vatican Council, however, Catholic social thought underwent an extensive renewal.
