Robert E. Cushman - "The Pope, the Council, and Religious Liberty" (October 24, 1965)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(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 |
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