Day Five of the Fortnight For Freedom
Fortnight For Freedom is a national campaign beginning June 21 and ending July 4 sponsored by the U.S. Catholic Bishops for teaching and witness in support of religious liberty. Each day during this fortnight we will feature a quote from the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty. Please reflect upon these important teachings and share them with others.
There is a further consideration. The religious acts whereby men, in private and in public and out of a sense of personal conviction, direct their lives to God, transcend by their very nature the order of terrestrial and temporal affairs. Government, therefore, ought indeed to take account of the religious life of the people and show it favor, since the function of government is to make provision for the common welfare. However, it would clearly transgress the limits set to its power were it to presume to direct or inhibit acts thatare religious.
Declaration on Religious Liberty
(Dignitatis Humanae), no. 3
December 7, 1965
Excerpts from The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, SJ, General Editor, copyright © 1966 by America Press, Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2012, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC. All rights reserved.
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