Robert E. Cushman - "The Pope, the Council, and Religious Liberty" (October 24, 1965)

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	(quiet organ music)	0:05
-	In the name of the Father and of the Son	0:30
	and of the Holy Ghost,	0:33
	amen.	0:35
	But Peter and John answered	0:40
	and said unto them,	0:43
	"whether it is right,	0:47
	in the sight of God,	0:50
	to hearken unto you rather than then unto God,	0:53
	judge ye.	0:58
	For we cannot but speak the things	1:00
	which we have seen,	1:02
	and heard."	1:05
	That will be my text.	1:11
	Whether you can follow its exegesis or not.	1:14
	Increasingly it strikes me	1:21
	that our time is full of contrasts.	1:22
	The affluence of the great society	1:27
	is comfortable and deceptively comforting.	1:31
	It seems to hold out promise of ever more of itself.	1:37
	On the other hand,	1:45
	our time seems interminably out of joint.	1:47
	Collaborates here and collaborates there,	1:52
	hate-infested, strife-torn,	1:58
	imperiled by the sheer unmanageableness of magnitude,	2:02
	and threatened with the incomprehensibility	2:09
	of exploding knowledge that only computers can cope with.	2:12
	It is a time of insurgent forces resident,	2:20
	now and again erupted,	2:25
	latent and then manifest hostilities,	2:28
	and precarious civil	2:33
	and economic orders on able to contain	2:34
	and to direct,	2:38
	the explosive reaction of ancient wrongs,	2:41
	and the age old repressions.	2:48
	It is a time when everybody knows galloping technology,	2:52
	outstrips morally informed intelligence.	2:58
	And the man,	3:03
	distrustful of his real nature and destiny,	3:05
	appears to be the most probable victim	3:12
	of his own machine madness	3:15
	and technological ingenuity.	3:18
	Is it any wonder	3:22
	that we should be hearing obvious eschatological overtones	3:26
	in the songs of Peter Paul and Mary?	3:33
	Whether my daughter and her friends recognize them or not,	3:39
	or that these should become almost evangelistically emphatic	3:44
	in that recent hit refrain.	3:50
	And you tell me over and over and over again, my friend,	3:54
	you don't believe we're on the Eve of destruction.	3:59
	No, we can hardly believe it.	4:06
	The times are too plush.	4:10
	On the other hand, we can scarcely disbelief it.	4:13
	In this limbo of jungle light for intellectual profusion,	4:19
	and spiritual homelessness	4:25
	and expediency politics.	4:28
	I am sure that the whole world seeks for a sign.	4:32
	The whole world does ask,	4:37
	"Watchman tell us of the night,	4:39
	what the signs of promise are."	4:45
	Some part of it at least is not impressed,	4:51
	with the saving value of speaker ban laws,	4:55
	which plays confidence in the suppression of error,	5:00
	rather than the discovery of restorative vision	5:03
	and larger truth.	5:07
	The Megan old line mentality,	5:11
	was long since outflanked by the bill of rights,	5:15
	as long ago as 1791.	5:18
	And the bill of rights	5:22
	is the sanction for a much current agitation,	5:23
	where rights long ago assured,	5:28
	have nevertheless continuously been denied.	5:31
	Some think and not without cause,	5:37
	that this is the era of the angry young man,	5:41
	and in the face of this,	5:46
	many give thanks for such amusing distractions	5:48
	as are supplied by the Beatles.	5:51
	But the Beatles are obviously in protests too.	5:55
	And it is not I think just protest against	5:59
	the high price of haircuts.	6:02
	And then, the students demonstrate,	6:07
	truth it is in part simply self-assertion	6:12
	in the face of overwhelming anonymity,	6:16
	in the nameless labyrinth of vast educational	6:20
	processes and institutions.	6:24
	In part it is righteous indignation,	6:27
	but it is teed off I suspect,	6:31
	by a consciousness of impotence in the face	6:34
	of a general moral vacuum.	6:37
	If I get the pulse of student thinking these days,	6:42
	the students recognize about them,	6:46
	precious little moral and challenging	6:50
	and intellectually commanding leadership	6:52
	in places where it might be looked for.	6:56
	Hardly do they find it in the college and university empire,	7:00
	and almost not at all in the political one,	7:05
	what they find everywhere on the contrary	7:09
	is institutional aggrandizement	7:12
	self-maintenance and then empire building,	7:16
	whether this exists in the church as it does,	7:20
	or in the university, as it does,	7:24
	or in politics as it does,	7:27
	or in government as it does.	7:29
	It scarcely or less elicits	7:33
	loyalty that commands respect.	7:36
	It is only it seems big with itself,	7:41
	and points to know enabling and open future.	7:45
	So as I dig them,	7:50
	the students see empire building as no viator	7:53
	of a better world.	7:57
	It is rather a cul-de-sac.	8:00
	And students and others recognize a blind alley	8:03
	when they smell one.	8:07
	So they fall into minor skirmishes everywhere	8:10
	with any representatives of the establishment,	8:14
	or things as they are always supposed to be.	8:17
	And perhaps understandably,	8:22
	their frustration is decisively released	8:25
	in protest against an undeclared executive war	8:29
	with no plainly declared ends other than those,	8:35
	they may just possibly read between the lines.	8:39
	Namely containment of the potential enemies	8:43
	of the great and the affluent society.	8:49
	Meanwhile,	8:54
	the thrust of the future is not this	8:56
	and the students perceive it,	9:01
	they surmise it.	9:04
	On the contrary the thrust of the future	9:06
	is acknowledgement of and devotion to the realization	9:09
	of the world's common humanity,	9:13
	under the rule of law.	9:16
	This is what the United Nations stands for,	9:20
	whether it fully knows it or not,	9:23
	whether it fully advances it or not,	9:25
	whether or not it encounters obstacles formidable	9:28
	as it does or not.	9:33
	The United Nations,	9:37
	is the predecessor of the parliament of nations	9:40
	in the Federation of the world.	9:45
	And this, some people surmise today.	9:49
	When we are having they call to live	9:55
	and to live responsibly in an era of agony and uncertainty.	9:58
	In the time of the birth trauma of the one world,	10:06
	whatever it may be,	10:12
	the seeming imperatives of power politics,	10:14
	and they are always hypothetical and never categorical,	10:19
	and if you don't know the difference, then study comp.	10:23
	The agony of our time is that these hypothetical imperatives	10:29
	are grossly at odds with a future,	10:35
	in which the wellbeing of mankind as a whole	10:37
	must supersede the special claims	10:41
	and sovereign prerogatives of individual nation.	10:44
	An attendant feature of our history,	10:49
	which surely intensifies our perplexity	10:53
	is that the age of nationalism is dying	10:56
	in the very moment of the long delayed awakening	11:00
	of emergent peoples to their manifest destiny.	11:03
	In such a time and I say it with utmost soberness,	11:08
	it is hardly distinguished leadership	11:13
	I think in world affairs,	11:16
	for the land of the free	11:19
	and the home of the brave recurrently to be sitting,	11:21
	and to be found in the posture of sitting on the lid.	11:25
	Self-maintenance is not enough,	11:30
	it never was.	11:34
	It is tragically inadequate,	11:36
	and it contradicts our own inner history.	11:39
	And the students rightly perceive it.	11:42
	For many therefore it is a matter of deep gratitude	11:48
	that October 4th just past,	11:52
	Pope Paul VI the spiritual leader	11:56
	of 500 million Roman Catholic Christians around the world.	11:59
	Spectacularly through the ways of his great moral authority	12:05
	behind the United nations,	12:09
	he channel challenged the assembled representatives	12:12
	of over 100 countries	12:15
	to fulfill the manifest obligation	12:18
	of the world organization,	12:22
	to assure peace for the nation,	12:24
	by becoming the vehicle and instrument	12:27
	of enlarging mutual assistance, mutual understanding,	12:30
	and world order.	12:36
	The Pope's moral challenge was a clear voice,	12:38
	submits the clamor of claims and counterclaims.	12:41
	It was a summons to the United nations,	12:46
	to fulfill its mission,	12:49
	and to be an inspiring light amidst our globe,	12:51
	but the Pope's mission and message	12:57
	was also in the broadest sense,	13:00
	a daring ecumenical venture.	13:03
	Its aim as John K Jessup wrote last week,	13:07
	in "Life" magazine, was not just to expand Christendom,	13:13
	but to link Christendom with mankind.	13:18
	This is surely an extension of the ecumenical thrust	13:22
	of the current Catholic reformation.	13:27
	It was John the XXIII,	13:30
	who in the greatness of his Christian charity,	13:32
	viewed as did John Wesley,	13:35
	the whole world as (indistinct).	13:39
	Ecumenism is not just Christian unity	13:43
	or aspiration after it,	13:46
	it is the community of mankind under God.	13:49
	It's political and humanitarian counterpart.	13:54
	You can find if you will look engraved on stone	13:58
	near the entrance of this campus,	14:04
	the words read	14:07
	"above all nations is humanity."	14:09
	At a minimum this is what Paul VI meant to affirm	14:14
	in New York.	14:19
	Jessup is right, the Pope spoke for the nascent sense	14:21
	of oneness of the human nation.	14:26
	So divided still,	14:29
	but so obviously interdependent	14:32
	that mankind must have a common destiny	14:35
	or none at all.	14:40
	It is the vision of the one human nation,	14:44
	that the United nations must surely struggle tirelessly	14:48
	to establish,	14:53
	in the abiding structures of international order.	14:55
	As in fact,	14:59
	this one human nation exists already	15:01
	in the divine plan of the world.	15:07
	Plus I think it was the Pope's message	15:12
	an ecumenism of the world,	15:17
	not just to please the acoustical ecumenism,	15:20
	but the reunion of mankind under the fatherhood of God,	15:24
	this is his concern.	15:29
	And I think nothing is plainer than	15:31
	that the principle instrument of this reunion,	15:34
	faulty and fallible as it is,	15:38
	is the United Nation.	15:41
	Thus, that cardno was not quite wrong,	15:44
	nor simply whimsical,	15:49
	who commented that the Pope practically canonized,	15:51
	the United nations.	15:55
	We need to recover we Protestants.	15:58
	The understanding that so-called secular powers	16:01
	are not separable from the divine purpose,	16:05
	even if they suppose they are by definition	16:09
	or if they presume so to be.	16:13
	We need to understand that the work of God is not alone	16:17
	the work of his church.	16:22
	In New York I think I perceive a magnificent new venture	16:25
	on the part of Roman Catholicism.	16:31
	The Pope's visit was a profound effort to align the church	16:34
	with the world,	16:39
	and the agonized,	16:42
	but common search for the one humane world,	16:43
	the world of our common humanity under God.	16:49
	So I see behind the papal visit to the United Nations,	16:56
	a far more magnificent risk,	17:01
	that I believe John K Jessup quite takes note of	17:04
	in last week's "Life" magazine.	17:09
	There was really,	17:13
	but a small risk,	17:14
	in calling for the vote of the Vatican council	17:16
	on religious Liberty, September 21st,	17:19
	among many observers of the council.	17:24
	I stated months ago that when the vote was finally taken,	17:27
	the declaration would be overwhelmingly adopted,	17:31
	it was 10 to one.	17:35
	Nevertheless, it is true	17:39
	that Paul VI could not usefully carry his message	17:42
	to the United Nations on the unity of mankind.	17:46
	While the issue of religious Liberty	17:51
	remained publicly unsettled in the council.	17:54
	So he called for the vote,	17:58
	and broke through the foot dragging	18:01
	of the powerful minority.	18:03
	Perhaps,	18:07
	just perhaps,	18:10
	you do not fully comprehend yet	18:12
	that on that day of September 21st,	18:15
	in the year of our Lord, 1965,	18:18
	a very ancient order of things,	18:23
	at least in principle passed away.	18:27
	In principle, the era of Constantine	18:31
	over 1600 years of it	18:35
	passed away.	18:38
	It was the era of the official establishment	18:40
	of the Christian religion.	18:43
	The declaration of religious Liberty	18:46
	is in principle disestablished,	18:49
	and with it,	18:53
	the largest segment of Christendom,	18:54
	ventured forth into the unknown future	18:58
	of ultimate risk,	19:02
	supported hence forth only by faith	19:04
	in the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.	19:07
	And it's truth and capacity to win its own way.	19:12
	This is the magnificent risk,	19:18
	which a minority of Catholic bishops	19:21
	made every possible effort to avoid and debate.	19:24
	But this ultimate risk Paul VI forced,	19:31
	and the council over an overwhelmingly approved.	19:36
	It was I think,	19:41
	the most powerful blow,	19:44
	at the policy of institutional self-maintenance,	19:47
	which has been struck since Luther's reformation in Germany.	19:53
	And it is it's legitimate successful.	19:59
	We Protestants in America,	20:05
	who since 1620,	20:09
	and 1791,	20:12
	have been accustomed to disestablishment of religion,	20:15
	do not easily comprehend the contrary European tradition,	20:19
	which survives today in diverse forms and modes	20:25
	in very different places.	20:29
	Hardly also do we Protestants understand	20:33
	that Liberty of worship,	20:37
	according to the dictates of conscience	20:39
	was not in principle conceited by the greater part	20:43
	of Christendom,	20:46
	until September 21st just past.	20:47
	This is true,	20:53
	however, axiomatic it is that the Pilgrim fathers	20:55
	cross the trackless sea to enjoy	20:59
	and vindicate that right more than 400 years ago.	21:03
	What then is affirmed in the declaration	21:09
	on religious Liberty?	21:12
	It is I think,	21:15
	just about what Luther acted upon and championed,	21:18
	namely the Liberty of the Christian man.	21:23
	This is Liberty from all cohesion	21:28
	and freedom to be answerable,	21:32
	to raise an unconscious law	21:35
	in this judge of religious duties and commit convictions.	21:38
	It is the Liberty to be responsible to God only.	21:44
	It is however, the Liberty of responsibility.	21:48
	It is not to remember Saint Paul, the Liberty of license.	21:53
	This Liberty says the declaration	22:00
	is grounded upon human dignity,	22:03
	as this dignity is known both by reason	22:06
	and by the revealed Word of God.	22:10
	And since this Liberty is grounded upon human dignity,	22:14
	it is not confined to the Christian man at all.	22:19
	In point of truth it belongs to man as such,	22:23
	whatever his religion.	22:27
	For he is man under God.	22:29
	It was this standpoint too,	22:33
	that had to be secured by the declaration of the council,	22:36
	before Paul VI could carry his message of universal peace	22:41
	to the nations.	22:46
	For with this standpoint has been banished once for all,	22:48
	the age old presumption	22:54
	of all political,	22:57
	and ecclesiastical absolutisms namely this,	22:59
	that possession of presumed truth	23:04
	or presumed possession of the truth	23:08
	also gives the right to enforce the presumed truth	23:12
	upon others.	23:16
	With this insidious claim and presumption,	23:20
	modern political totalitarianism	23:26
	of every kind,	23:30
	has despoiled man's dignity	23:32
	in our generation,	23:35
	by obliterating his freedom and suppressing his conscience,	23:38
	in declaring for the inviolable right of all man,	23:43
	to discharge the obligations of conscience,	23:47
	according to the dictate of conscience under God.	23:51
	The Catholic church is finely and decisively relinquish	23:55
	the claims historically inherent	24:00
	an established religion.	24:04
	It has done so at least in principle.	24:06
	In this advocation of right,	24:12
	may be seen I believe that	24:15
	a refreshing reaffirmation of the dignity of our,	24:18
	of man,	24:22
	of the light of reason,	24:24
	and of the probity of the human conscience under God.	24:26
	With such a declaration of rights	24:31
	and therefore the dignity of man,	24:33
	Paul VI in an unprecedented way,	24:36
	had his feet shod	24:42
	with the preparation of the gospel of peace.	24:44
	He could now speak peace unto the nations,	24:49
	but at what magnificent risk	24:52
	to cease and desist	24:55
	from all that in European history,	24:58
	was almost taken for granted as the right	25:01
	of established religion.	25:06
	Is this not indeed bringing the church up to date	25:09
	in the modern world?	25:14
	Now many things may be said concerning the declaration	25:18
	on religious Liberty,	25:21
	we shall be hearing	25:24
	them and of them,	25:26
	for many years,	25:29
	as the meaning and the import unfolds	25:31
	in life and action.	25:35
	One or two implications I can mention in closing.	25:38
	First, it seems to me	25:43
	that the Catholic church has in the declaration,	25:46
	invited modern man,	25:51
	to take a loftier view of his own nature.	25:54
	It has addressed the spirited modern man,	25:59
	often profoundly distrustful about his nature	26:03
	and his destiny,	26:07
	where the word of faith, of hope, and of cheer.	26:08
	It has called him to repossess and reaffirm	26:13
	his God given dignity.	26:19
	It has itself affirm confidence in man,	26:22
	not an ingenious toolmaker,	26:26
	but man as the image of God.	26:29
	Lastly it is not,	26:34
	self-determining autonomous man	26:35
	that is reaffirmed here in the declaration.	26:40
	Not man who makes the law for himself	26:43
	and who in the end knows no law, but himself.	26:46
	It is quite another man.	26:51
	It is a man under God.	26:54
	Under higher command made responsible	26:57
	by the notices of conscience,	27:00
	in the measure that he heats them.	27:03
	Without attention to such notices or heedless of them,	27:06
	modern men have progressively lost a sense	27:12
	of their own identity,	27:16
	and they are with the meaningfulness of their own existence.	27:19
	But secondly,	27:24
	when men reaffirmed their dignity	27:26
	by accepting responsibility,	27:28
	in conscientious action,	27:31
	they also reaffirm,	27:34
	reliable and trustworthy community among themselves.	27:37
	Freedom under God is the basis of honest	27:43
	and abiding community.	27:47
	And Christians think there is no other.	27:49
	So indeed with the declaration adopted,	27:53
	Paul VI could speak peace unto the nations	27:56
	for peace and (indistinct)	28:01
	where men mutually accept responsibility for one another	28:03
	under responsibility to God.	28:09
	Its basis is a mutual acknowledgement	28:13
	of a higher obedience.	28:17
	And the declaration therefore invites all man	28:20
	to accept this obedience,	28:23
	as their human calling.	28:26
	It is a magnificent risk	28:31
	and on September 21st 1965,	28:36
	the Catholic church revised after centuries,	28:41
	it's answer to the question of Peter and John,	28:46
	which was,	28:51
	whether it is right in the sight of God to hearken unto you	28:53
	rather than unto God, judge ye.	28:58
	On that day,	29:03
	September 21,	29:05
	the second Vatican council accepted the answer of Luther,	29:08
	unless I am vastly mistaken.	29:14
	A man is ultimately responsible,	29:18
	and answerable only to God,	29:22
	in so far as he is conscientiously engaged	29:26
	in dialogue with God.	29:31
	This is a magnificent risk,	29:34
	but it is the risk of Christianity itself.	29:37
	Amen.	29:43
	Let us pray.	29:45
	(coughs)	29:48
	oh God,	29:55
	receive these frail words,	29:56
	forgive where they may fail in truth.	30:00
	And in thy wisdom,	30:05
	make us wise,	30:08
	unto the wisdom which is in Christ our Lord.	30:11
	Now,	30:16
	unto God's gracious care I commit you.	30:19
	The Lord bless you and keep you.	30:24
	The Lord make his face to shine upon you	30:26
	and be gracious unto you.	30:29
	The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you	30:31
	and give you peace.	30:36
	Amen.	30:39

Item Info

Title:

Robert E. Cushman - "The Pope, the Council, and Religious Liberty" (October 24, 1965)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4gq6w37d

Date:

October 24, 1965

Speaker:

Cushman, Robert E.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0310
ref5825_p08
uachapelsermaud
duke:628362
dcrau002308
ark:/87924/r4gq6w37d
baa5aadb-df73-407f-8299-b251b48b912f

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