Review article
Liberty of Religious Belief and Relationship towards Believers of Other Faith Affiliations
Mato Zovkić
orcid.org/0000-0002-4856-3916
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Abstract
In the introduction, the author announces that he wants to present the Council teachings and post-conciliar guidelines on the relations of Catholics towards other Christians and followers of non-Christian religions, and suggests that the term “libertas religiosa” translates as “religious freedom” because of the institutional and communal aspect of such freedom. He then shows how the Council has shifted the emphasis from the truth, which according to the traditional teaching has rights, while the fallacy can only be tolerated for the sake of the greater good, to the human person that does not lose its fundamental dignity even when they belong to the wrong religion. For the need for a dialogical relationship with “others” at the level of bishops’ conference, diocese and parish, he mentions CD 16:4, OT 19:2 as well as implementation guidelines from 1970 to 2010, especially Dei Verbum No. 43, 46, 117-120. He proposes that Christian and Muslim experts, governed by their religious leaders, publish a book for their own believers entitled “Islam for Christians” and “Christianity for Muslims”, and that Catholic priests provide pastoral support to their believers who live in mixed marriages. He ends with four questions which the priests and other pastoral workers should answer for themselves.
Keywords
Second Vatican Council; religious freedom; human dignity of other Christians and non-Christians; relations; Conciliar guidelines; post-conciliar implementation documents; bishops’ conference; diocese; parish; pastoral workers; the responsibility of believers for the world
Hrčak ID:
116151
URI
Publication date:
12.2.2014.
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