View source for Dignitatis humanae

{{Short description|Catholic Declaration on Religious Freedom}}
{{Italic title}}
{{Social teachings of the popes}}
{{Separation of church and state in the history of the Catholic Church|expanded = documents}}

'''''Dignitatis humanae'''''{{efn|The document is known by its ''[[incipit]]'', the first words of the document in the original [[Latin]] text, as is customary for similar [[Catholic Church]] documents.}}{{efn|{{IPA|la|d̪iɲˈɲiː.t̪ä.t̪is ˈuː.mä.ne}}}} (''Of the Dignity of the Human Person'') is the [[Second Vatican Council]]'s '''Declaration on Religious Freedom'''.<ref>The full text of a translation into English is available from the [https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html Holy See's website] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120211202206/https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html |date=February 11, 2012 }}</ref> In the context of the council's stated intention "to develop the doctrine of recent popes on the inviolable rights of the human person and the constitutional order of society", ''Dignitatis humanae'' spells out the church's support for the protection of religious liberty. It set the ground rules by which the church would relate to secular states.

The passage of this measure by a vote of 2,308 to 70 is considered by many to be one of the most significant events of the council.<ref>"Thus, during the final vote on the morning of December 7 (when the fathers had to choose between a simple approval or disapproval of the last draft), Lefebvre was one of the 70&nbsp;— about 3 percent of the total&nbsp;— who voted against the schema." [http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=857 Marcel Lefebvre: Signatory to ''Dignitatis humanae''], by Brian Harrison</ref> This declaration was promulgated by Pope Paul VI on December 7, 1965.

''Dignitatis humanae'' became one of the key points of dispute between the Vatican and [[Traditionalist Catholicism|traditionalist Catholics]] such as Archbishop [[Marcel Lefebvre]] who argued that the council document was incompatible with previous authoritatively stated Catholic teaching.

==Background==

===Earlier Catholic view===
{{further|Modernism in the Catholic Church|Error has no rights}}

Historically, the ideal of Catholic political organization was a tightly interwoven structure of the Catholic Church and secular rulers generally known as [[Christendom]], with the Catholic Church having a favoured place in the political structure.<ref>{{Cite book|title = A Concise History of the Catholic Church|last = Bokenkotter|first = Thomas J|publisher = Doubleday|year = 2004|location = New York}}</ref> In 1520, [[Pope Leo X]] in the papal bull ''[[Exsurge Domine]]'' had [[Theological censure|censured]] the proposition "That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit" as one of a number of errors that were "either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears, or seductive of simple minds and against Catholic truth".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.papalencyclicals.net/leo10/l10exdom.htm|title=Exsurge Domine|date=15 June 1520}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Swinburne|first1=Richard|title=Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy|date=1992|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780191519529|pages=216|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yhEAPsPQbMUC&pg=PA216|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Beinert|first1=Wolfgang|title=Verbindliches Zeugnis|date=1992|publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht|isbn=9783451236259|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3FPssCvqPkoC&pg=PA196|language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Hoose|first1=Bernard|title=Received Wisdom?: Reviewing the Role of Tradition in Christian Ethics|date=1994|publisher=Geoffrey Chapman|isbn=9780225667394|pages=21|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0gfXAAAAMAAJ|language=en}}</ref>

However, during the same period, the Catholic Church condemned the [[Regalism|Regalist]], [[Gallicanism|Gallican]] and [[Caesaropapism|Caesaropapist]] heresies that aspired to a State, under the pretext of its Confessionality, with inherent rights to intervene in religious matters (such as the [[Conversion to Christianity|Conversion]] of people or the repression of [[Heresy]]) that were typically a protest of the [[Ecclesiastical jurisdiction|ecclesiastical Jurisdiction]]. So, the Church rather defended the [[Augustinianism|Augustinian]] and [[Thomism|Thomist]] doctrine which stated that, only by concession of the [[Universal power|Spiritual Power]] of the [[Papacy]] (considered of a higher order according to the [[Doctrine of the two swords]]), is that a Christian Government could use its Temporal Power in such matters, so that the [[Civil authority|civil Authority]] then could represses heresy or [[apostasy]] (if and only there was a [[Just war theory|just cause]], something that only the Papacy could determine), but teaching as [[Magisterium|magisterial]] doctrine that it was not an inherent right of the State to be an institution with religious faculties, and therefore, the Church strongly condemned the Christian rulers who, during the [[European wars of religion|European Wars of Religion]], abused such concessions of the Church with the [[Patronato real|Patronato]] (or usurped the powers of the Catholic ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, as in the case of countries that embraced the [[Protestant Reformation]] and founded [[National church|national Churches]] controlled by the State, such as the [[Anglicanism|Anglican Church]] whose head was the [[King of England]]) in order to violate the rights of people who were not attached to the true Church, who according to the [[Holy See]] should be treated with compassion and called to correct themselves so that they return to [[Orthodoxy]] (not be brutally repressed without respect for a [[Presumption of innocence]]) while also condemning rulers who wanted to repress or ignore the rights of non-Christians, such as [[Muslims]] or [[Jews]], who were not under the jurisdiction of Christians because they were in a different religious communion, and therefore even outside the jurisdiction of the [[Inquisition]].<ref name=":0">https://isidore.co/misc/Res%20pro%20Deo/Nova%20et%20Vetera/The%20Interpretation%20of%20Dignitatis%20Humanae:%20A%20Reply%20to%20Martin%20Rhonheimer%20(Thomas%20Pink).pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=August 2025}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=The punishment of crimes belongs to civil magistrates only insofar as those crimes are contrary to political ends, public peace, and human justice; but '''coercion with respect to those acts that are opposed to religion and the salvation of the soul is essentially a function of the spiritual power [the power of the Church]''', so that the authority to make use of temporal penalties for the purposes of such correction must have been assigned in particular to this spiritual power.|author=[[Francisco Suárez]]|source=Defensio Fidei Catholicae adversus Anglicanae Sectae Errores}}

In short, the Church reserved for the Clergy the right to judge the religious conscience of souls to determine who was a Heretic and how to deal with them judicially (reserving the most severe penalties for repeat [[Heresy|heretics]] or those who admitted to being [[Apostasy|apostates]] publicly), while the State did not have such Prerogatives by themselves, but by the grace of the true Church of Christ (the [[Holy See]]), which also did not consider it morally acceptable to interfere with the conscience of non-Christians that lacked of [[Baptism]], these having to be respected in their condition as natural non-Christians (according to [[Jus gentium]] and [[Natural law]]) and to have the freedom to profess their religion among their communities (such as the [[Ghetto]]s) as long as they do not [[Proselytism|proselytize]] what the Church understands as false religions whose expansion would endanger [[Salvation in Christianity]] (the Church then leaning towards defending Catholic Unity, which involved religious Uniformism at a political level, and so Catholic political supremacy in societies with a Catholic majority).

=== Late modern pre-Conciliar teaching ===
Following the [[French Revolution]], the Papacy had found itself in a bitter clash against [[liberalism]] and revolutionary ideas: harsh [[Anti-clericalism|anti-clerical]] measures such as the [[Civil Constitution of the Clergy]] had drawn harsh condemnation from the [[Holy See]].<ref>[[Pope Pius VI]], ''[[Quod aliquantum]]'', 1791</ref> The [[Magisterium]] was particularly concerned with the rise of [[indifferentism]] and [[relativism]] and the ideas of [[religious pluralism]] and [[freedom of conscience]] were seen as expression of both and were strongly rejected by several Pontiffs.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Pope Leo XII |author-link=Pope Leo XII |date=1824 |title=Ubi Primum |url=https://www.papalencyclicals.net/leo12/l12ubipr.htm |access-date= |website=Papal Encyclicals |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Pope Gregory XVI |author-link=Pope Gregory XVI |date=1832 |title=Mirari Vos |url=https://www.papalencyclicals.net/greg16/g16mirar.htm |access-date= |website=Papal Encyclicals |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Pope Pius IX |author-link=Pope Pius IX |date=1864 |title=Quanta Cura |url=https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9quanta.htm |access-date= |website=Papal Encyclicals |language=en}}</ref> Thus, the Catholic Church condemned religious freedom (as how was defined the concept by [[Liberal philosophy]]) as a heresy during the Papacy of [[Pope Pius IX|Pius IX]] with the encyclical [[Quanta cura]], and this condemnation was reaffirmed with the [[Syllabus of Errors]] (a compendium of heretical propositions condemned by the [[Magisterium|Magisterium of the Church]]). Both condemnations were a continuation of a long series of reactionary condemnations against the [[Modernism in the Catholic Church|Modernist Heresy]] and [[Religious liberalism|Liberal Theology]] that had arisen since the end of the 18th Century, in which was relevant the opposition of the Church to the "philosophical innovations" of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] (as well as to the [[Secular state|secular States]] that emerged from the [[Age of Revolution|Atlantic Revolutions]]) under the argument that political Liberalism, through the right to [[Freedom of religion|Freedom of worship]], encouraged [[Indifferentism|religious Indifference]] and forced [[Secularization]] that violated the political duties of Catholic societies to defend religious practice and Christian values in the [[public sphere]] (reducing religious life to a purely private matter, which was considered to endanger [[Salvation in Christianity]] and would only lead to Dechristianization through an increase in [[Cultural Christians|non-practicing Catholics]]), as well as for violating the socio-political rights of the Church in the face of the [[Anti-clericalism|Anticlerical]] policies of the [[Secularism|Secularists]] (who also sought to promote religious Minorities and the expansion of Irreligious population, as well as trying to convince the civil power to intervene against the ecclesiastical jurisdiction to increase the power of the state and seize church properties).<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=SOLER |first=Carlos |title=La continuidad del magisterio sobre libertad religiosa: la interpretación de ''Dignitatis humanae'' en su contexto histórico |url=https://dadun.unav.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/7326bc36-3955-4307-a0ea-e5c87c9de3e9/content |journal=Scripta Theologica |volume=47 |pages=459–482 |doi=10.15581/006.47.2.459-482 |issn=0036-9764|doi-access=free }}</ref> 

In this context of hostility between Catholics and Liberals in politics due to irreconcilable differences about [[Philosophy of Law]], the Church would strongly condemn the right to [[Freedom of religion|Religious Freedom]], but only as was formulated by liberal ideologues such concept (being open a possible aceptance in the future under different [[definition]]s), which was understood under the heretical proposition that "''all religions (or all Christian confessions) are equally true and valid"'' on which liberal jurists based their definition of Religious Freedom. However, this never implied that the Church sought to deny the rights of people who were by birth non-Catholic people (because in the eyes of [[Natural law|Natural Law]] and [[Jus gentium|Ius gentium]], they had a right to accept or reject Catholic Doctrine according to the [[good faith]] of their hearts), only to affirm that, as a consequence of the [[Catholic Faith]] being considered the only [[Religious exclusivism|true religion]], the rest of the religious positions by [[Logic]] couldn't have the same rights as the Catholic faith in the [[Political system|political order]] (if and only if the political society confessed the Catholic faith, so that being ruled by a Catholic ruler), arguing that [[error has no rights]], and so the Church sought to call on Catholic Rulers (in a historical context where most governments still were [[Confessional state|confessional States]]) to not alter those [[Relations between the Catholic Church and the state|historical relations]] of Catholic supremacy in the political sphere, because for the [[Holy See]], Rulers with a sincere Catholic faith had a duty to condemn the [[Separation of church and state|Separation of Church and State]] (as understood by liberals) as a heresy, and not be badly influenced by liberal preaching arguing that the abolition of the privileges of the Catholic Church was necessary to achieve "public peace" (that there would be no political division in the state if the political differences between confessionalities were no longer recognized, aspiring to equalize them all before the law).<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> [[Pope Leo XIII|Leo XIII]], [[Pope Pius XI|Pius XI]] and [[Pope Pius XII|Pius XII]], while reiterating traditional Catholic teaching, had also argued that "every man in the State may follow the will of God and, from a consciousness of duty and free from every obstacle, obey His commands"<ref>{{Cite web |last=Pope Leo XIII |author-link=Pope Leo XIII |date=1888 |title=Libertas Praestantissimum |url=https://www.papalencyclicals.net/leo13/l13liber.htm |access-date= |website=Papal Encyclicals |language=en}}</ref> and that "laws which impede this profession and practice of Faith are against natural law".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Pope Pius XI |author-link=Pope Pius XI |date=1937 |title=Mit Brennender Sorge |url=https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius11/p11brenn.htm |access-date= |website=Papal Encyclicals |language=en}}</ref> [[Pope John XXIII|John XXIII]] had made a distinction between "error as such" and the person in error, who preserves his dignity.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Pope John XXIII |author-link=Pope John XXIII |date=1963 |title=Pacem In Terris |url=https://www.papalencyclicals.net/john23/j23pacem.htm |access-date= |website=Papal Encyclicals |language=en}}</ref>

==Vatican II and religious freedom==

===Third session (1964)===
The debate on a separate Declaration on Religious Liberty was held on September 23&nbsp;– September 25, as promised by Pope Paul the year before. However, in October an attempt was made by the Curial party to return this declaration to review by a special commission, which contained many hostile members and was outside the jurisdiction of the [[Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity]].<ref>"It was suddenly announced that the document on Religious Liberty would be handed to a new commission for revision&nbsp;– a commission that included some of the most moss-backed of the moss-backed conservatives (to borrow a phrase from Archbishop Connolly!), including Archbishop Lefebvre, who later established the schismatic Society of St. Pius X." [http://www.stjames-cathedral.org/Prayer/vatican2-4.htm Vatican II, Part 4: The Third Session] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070904074425/http://www.stjames-cathedral.org/Prayer/vatican2-4.htm |date=September 4, 2007 }}, Corinna Laughlin, St. James Cathedral, Seattle</ref> Protest by bishops to Pope Paul resulted in the declaration staying under Unity with a different working commission which reviewed and amended it.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,897340,00.html |title=Roman Catholics: Cum Magno Dolore |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=October 23, 1964 |quote=The bishops' letter apparently proved effective. In interviews with Bea and Frings, Paul VI agreed that the Christian Unity office would bear the major responsibility for revising the two declarations, said also that the bishops themselves could decide whether a fourth session was necessary.}}</ref> 

===Fourth session (1965)===
This re-revised text was approved by the council on October 25, with only minor amendments allowed afterward (including some disliked by Murray). The final vote was taken and the declaration was promulgated at the end of council on December 7, 1965. The claim by some that this overwhelming majority was due to intense lobbying by the reformist wing of Council Fathers among those [[prelate]]s who initially had reservations or even objections.<ref>''Der Rhein fliesst in den Tiber: eine Geschichte des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils'', Wiltgen, Ralph M., [[Feldkirch, Vorarlberg|Feldkirch]]. Lins. cop. 1988. p. 316</ref>

==Traditionalist Catholic reception==

=== {{anchor|Society of St. Pius X critique}}Society of Saint Pius X ===
The [[Society of Saint Pius X]] (SSPX) rejects in particular point 2 of the ''Dignitatis Humanae'' (taken up again in no. 2108 of the [[Catechism of the Catholic Church]]) which states: "The right to [[religious liberty]] is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error, but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities. This natural right ought to be acknowledged in the juridical order of society in such a way that it constitutes a [[civil right]]."<ref name="Courrier de Rome" /><ref>{{cite web |title=What Are Catholics to Think of Vatican II? |url=http://www.sspx.org/sspx_faqs/q6_vaticanII.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110307190118/http://www.sspx.org/sspx_faqs/q6_vaticanII.htm |archive-date=7 March 2011 |access-date=3 May 2011 |website=SSPX.org}}</ref>

The SSPX's claims its doctrine comes from the teachings of [[Pope Pius XII|Pius XII]] and [[Pope Leo XIII|Leo XIII]]. They claim that Pope Pius IX, in his encyclical ''[[Quanta cura]]'' (1864), while admitting the tolerance of error on the part of public authorities, stated that the right to freedom of public expression and dissemination could not be recognized for those religions that did not serve the truth, such as the Catholic religion. They also state that Leo XIII, in his encyclical ''Libertas'', explained that [[Error has no rights|a false religion has no right to spread]].''<ref name="Courrier de Rome">{{Cite web |last=de Lacoste |first=Bernard |date=2025-09-24 |title=De multiples contradictions |url=https://laportelatine.org/formation/crise-eglise/nouveau-magistere/de-multiples-contradictions |access-date=2025-10-05 |website=La Porte Latine |language=fr-FR}} </ref>''

Archbishop [[Marcel Lefebvre]] cited ''Libertas'' as one of the fundamental reasons for his difficulties with the Second Vatican Council. It remains a focus for attacks from Traditionalists in the 21st century.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Egan|first1=Philip A.|title=Philosophy and Catholic Theology: A Primer|date=2009|publisher=Liturgical Press|isbn=9780814656617|pages=56|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-gmvvzTWIX8C&pg=PA56|language=en}}</ref>

The Society of St. Pius X criticized how ''Dignitatis humanae'' approached religious freedom with an argument from history:<ref>{{Cite web |date=December 3, 2012 |title=Religious liberty contradicts Tradition |url=https://sspx.org/en/religious-liberty-contradicts-tradition |website=District of the USA}}</ref>  

{{Quote|The saints have never hesitated to break idols, destroy their temples, or legislate against pagan or heretical practices. The Church&nbsp;– without ever forcing anyone to believe or be baptized&nbsp;– has always recognized its right and duty to protect the faith of her children and to impede, whenever possible, the public exercise and propagation of false cults. To accept the teaching of Vatican II is to grant that, for two millennia, the popes, saints, Fathers and Doctors of the Church, bishops, and Catholic kings have constantly violated the natural rights of men without anyone in the Church noticing. Such a thesis is as absurd as it is impious.}}The Vatican's position that the SSPX must acknowledge ''Dignitatis humanae'' and ''[[Nostra aetate]]'' as authoritative remained {{as of|2017|April|lc=y}} a key point of difference between the two.<ref>{{cite news |date=17 April 2017 |title=Pope Francis' Approval of SSPX Marriages Offers Hopeful Step to Unity |url=http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-francis-approval-of-sspx-marriages-offers-hopeful-step-to-unity |work=National Catholic Register}}</ref>

=== Interpretation in continuity ===
The interpretation of the document, according to the [[Hermeneutics of the Second Vatican Council|Hermeneutics of Continuity]], is that the [[Second Vatican Council]]'s defense of [[Freedom of religion|religious freedom]], along with other concepts commonly associated with the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights|Charter of Human Rights]] (the latter developed according to liberal ideologies condemned by the [[Magisterium|Magisterium of the Church]]), is a defense that ''is always given as long as they are subordinated to [[natural law]] and the [[common good]]'', not understanding them as [[subjective right]]s that allow a false right to believe in error (maintaining the condemnations in [[Quanta cura|''Quanta cura'']] and the ''[[Syllabus]]'' against [[Indifferentism]] as well as the [[Catholic social teaching|social teaching]] for Catholic Rulers to protect [[Political catholicism]]), but as objective rights where there are duties of every State to protect the rights of the human person to believe in the true religion.<ref name=":1" />

Thus, it is inferred that ''Dignitates Humanae'' considers implicit that a [[Christian state|Christian State]] has commitments to safeguard the salvation of souls (aspiring to Catholic unity) and to avoid apostasies or the spread of [[Heresy in the Catholic Church|heresy]]. Therefore, its emphasis of the document (already assuming the above ''a priori'' in the [[Sacred tradition|Tradition of the Church]]) aims to make explicit that a [[Civil authority|secular Government]], to be legitimate in view of the [[eternal law]] and the [[Natural order (philosophy)|natural order]] (even if it were a non-Christian State), should allow the right for all human person to be able to search for the true religion, instead of imposing [[Secularism]] or [[State atheism|State Atheism]] on the one hand, as well as imposing [[Forced conversion|Forced Conversions]] or a [[Sacerdotal state|Sacerdotal State]] on the other hand.<ref name=":1" />

On the contradictions some see between ''Dignitatis humanae'' and [[Pope Pius IX]]'s ''[[Syllabus of Errors]]'', the SSPX has argued that:{{Quote|the religious freedom condemned in the ''Syllabus of Errors'' refers to religious freedom looked at from the point of view of the action of the intellect, or freedom respecting the truth; whereas the [[freedom of religion]] guaranteed and encouraged by ''Dignitatis humanae'' refers to religious freedom looked at from the point of view of the action of the will in morals. In other words, those who see in these different expressions a change in teaching are committing the fallacy of univocity of terms in logic. The terms "freedom" refer to two very different acts of the soul.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Brian Mullady|title=Religious Freedom: Homogeneous or Heterogeneous Development?|journal=The Thomist|url=http://www.thomist.org/jourl/1994/941aMull.htm|year=1994|volume=58|pages=93–108|doi=10.1353/tho.1994.0044|s2cid=171194888|access-date=3 May 2011|archive-date=13 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170313172455/http://www.thomist.org/jourl/1994/941aMull.htm|url-status=dead|url-access=subscription}}</ref>}}

==International Theological Commission, 2019==
On 21 March 2019, [[Pope Francis]] approved the publication of a document produced by the [[International Theological Commission]] called "Religious freedom for the good of all: Theological approach to contemporary challenges". It attempts to update ''Dignitatis humanae'' in the light of the increasing diversity and secularization seen since the Council: "the cultural complexity of today's civil order".<ref>{{cite news | work= [[Commonweal (magazine)|Commonweal]] | title = A Postscript to Dignitatis Humanae | url= https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/postscript-dignitatis-humanae | date= 9 May 2019| access-date= 10 May 2019 | first= Massimo | last= Faggioli}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | access-date = 10 May 2019 | title= La Libertà Religiosa per il Bene di Tutti, Approcio Teologico alle Sfide Contemporanee | publisher= International Theological Commission, Subcommission on Religious Freedom |language= it | via= [[Holy See]] | url= https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20190426_liberta-religiosa_it.html }} The official text is available only in Italian.</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Catholicism|Christianity}}
* [[Relations between the Catholic Church and the state]]
* [[Christian state]]
* ''[[Res publica Christiana]]''
* ''[[Quanta cura]]''
* ''[[Mirari vos]]''

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
<!-- Before adding a link to this section, please discuss it first in the talk page (see "Further reading & External links" section) making sure that any link is within the letter and spirit of both WP:ELNO and WP:ELREG.  Thank you.

 -->
*Stüssi, Marcel (2012). ''Models of Religious Freedom: Switzerland, the United States, and Syria by Analytical, Methodological, and Eclectic Representation'', 375 ff. {{ISBN|978-3643801180}}<!-- Before adding a link to this book, please make sure that such a link is not in breach of either WP:ELNO or WP:ELREG -->

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
*[https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html Holy See: Archive: Documents of the II Vatican Council: ''Dignitatis humanae''] (full text in English)
{{Second Vatican Council}}

[[Category:Documents of the Second Vatican Council]]
[[Category:Documents of the Catholic Social Teaching tradition]]
[[Category:1965 documents]]
[[Category:1965 in Christianity]]