Religious Liberty or Simple Tolerance?

H.E. Bernard Tissier De Mallerais

The year 1998 marks 400 years since the signing and implementation of the Edict of Nantes by King Henry IV (an ex-leader of the Huguenots, who later [1593] abjured Protestantism in order to secure the throne). The media will pull out all the stops in order to weary and befuddle the people of France and especially the Catholics: Henry IV will be declared a champion of the Rights of Man, while Louis XIV, due to his revocation [1685] of that same Edict, will be labeled as the model of an intransigent return to Catholicism in an effort to bring about religious unity in his kingdom! What are the actual facts of the case?

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685),
painting by Jan Luiken

A High-Priced Peace

On Sunday, July 25, 1593, Henry IV abjured Protestantism in the presence of the Archbishop of Bourges, who absolved him from the censures he had incurred through his heresy. Thus was realized Rome's dual diplomatic goal: the Catholic religion was to be "conserved" and fully restored to its former splendor and dignity throughout the kingdom of France "exactly according to the wishes of Cardinal Sega"¹; but let us be quite clear on this point: that the Catholic religion was to be "conserved" meant that it should be maintained in its former traditional status of the official religion of the kingdom.

But what about the Protestants? What fate was in store for their forms of worship? Henry IV had resolved to prepare and promulgate an edict of pacification granting his erstwhile Protestant co-­religionists full liberty of their cult together with certain other protections. However, by dint of unceasing and pressing Protestant demands, he was constrained to grant them outrageously exorbitant political privileges. The Edict of Nantes was promulgated on April 15, 1598, in the city of Nantes as indicated by its name. The pope straight away protested against such liberty being given over to the Protestant cult, and it was not long before France was to see Protestants constitute, thanks to their "havens" and tolerated political assemblies, a state within the state, together with the starting-up of a "Protestant Republic" which aimed at the overthrow of royalty, together with the pre-eminence of the Catholic Faith, had not Cardinal Richelieu intervened under King Louis XIII.

 

Protective Measures or Abuse of Liberty?

Those articles of the Edict pertaining to religion can be summed up as follows: the Catholic Faith is re-established everywhere that it had been suppressed; the cult known as the "Pretended (or so-called) Reformed Religion" (i.e., Protestantism) was to be freely practiced everywhere it had been established, and, moreover, in two designated localities of each domain (art. III, IX, XI) it is forbidden to attack Protestants from the pulpit (art. XVII), to induce or sway their children (art. XVIII), to disinherit a relative on account of religion (art. XXVI). It is specifically mentioned that the Reformed (i.e., Protestants) are to enjoy all civil and political rights and be eligible for every type of employment (art. XXVII). Obviously, this last open-heartedness was already fraught with danger, but what about those purely political articles? Here they are in brief:

1) The Reformed enjoyed the privilege, and this for a period of eight years (which time limit would later be extended, of course), of keeping strongholds and fortified cities garrisoned at the expense of the king. Thus, Mourrey explains,² Protestants held more than 200 towns and cities, some 70 of which could be easily defended and some, such as La Rochelle, Montpelier, and Saumur, were exceedingly strong.

2) Protestants were allowed to hold periodic provincial assemblies which were kinds of States General (i.e., the assembly of the three estates: clergy, nobles and commons) with delegates at the King's Court.

3) Legal proceedings (lawsuits or court actions) either between Protestants or with Catholics called for mixed courts and instructions (i.e., pretrial investigations). What judgment can an historian or theologian pass on this particular Edict? What theoretical judgment: was it indeed an edict of tolerance or an edict of religious liberty, a forerunner of the so-called French Revolution and, when all is said and done, of that religious liberty clarioned forth at Vatican II? If so, that edict would then have important doctrinal consequences bringing forth a revolution in Catholic doctrine. And what practical judgment are we to pass on that edict? Should King Henry IV have refused all of those privileges demanded by the Huguenots (i.e., Calvinist Protestants) which allowed them to organize themselves politically and militarily while jeopardizing the kingdom's national unity? 

 

Pacification or Tolerance?

Let us now briefly address the second question, the political question, before answering the first one, that is, the religious question. An historian, one whom no one could even suspect of hostility toward Protestantism, nor of partiality in favor of Catholicism, Jean Guiraud,³ informs us that an historian by the name of Monsieur Hanoteaux, former Minister of Foreign Affairs⁴, has this to say about the Edict:

Its object was not at all the establishment of the reign of peace and of tolerance under a single government, but rather the attribution to one part of the nation of particular liberties and privileges which turned it into an independent body.

One can readily understand, says Jean Guiraud, those difficulties facing the government negotiators who had to record and put that Edict into practice. So, again, we are faced with the question: was the king motivated by some design greater than that of a simple tolerance? To this, we unhesitatingly answer, No, not at all! Henry IV was much too shrewd a politician to underestimate the intrinsic dangers of all of those concessions afforded to the heretics as well as the secret intentions of the Protestants; in yielding, it was in order to bring about an end to civil war, as well as to obtain that twofold public good which he and the pope wished to establish, as we have already seen. Gabriel Hanoteaux explains, moreover, that those really strange liberties afforded to Protestants were in no way a spontaneous concession on the part of Henry IV: prior to the promulgation of the Edict, it was discussed by the Huguenots, article by article, with the king, so that it was, in fact, less of an act of the royal will than a "treaty concluded, following a long debate, with Protestants armed to the teeth."⁵Thus was the king constrained through particular circumstances to accept and institute that which he would not at all have wished to do were it not for these unfortunate circumstances. Such an attitude has a name: TOLERANCE. Indeed, we tolerate unavoidable evil in order to obtain a greater good, or at least to not prevent such a greater good from happening.

That the Edict of Nantes was simply an edict of tolerance and nothing more can easily be shown in the sphere of religion wherein the official religion, that of the king as well as of the state was, as was also true of all of their predecessors, the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church. Protestantism was designated as being the Pretended (i.e., "so-called") Reformed Religion: in other words, it is officially denied the title of true or authentic religion–it calls itself Reformed, Jesus Christ's reformed religion which is simply an unjustified pretension–it is a so-called reformed religion.

 

Does Such Tolerance Mean the Recognition of a Legal Right?

Indeed, so we'll say, but that Edict conceded to that Pretended Reformed religion certain rights which have been enumerated at the beginning of this article. We have seen in particular the right of having pastors in charge of their cult, Protestant schools, Protestant universities, etc., together with the right of Protestants to frequent, if they so wish, existing hospitals, schools and universities, which are all Catholic.⁶ If we were to concede a true right to the Protestants, we would be doing more than tolerating them, we would be approving their false cult, their institutions, their religious organization and, as we have seen, their political organizations as well!

Jean Delumeau, in his article "In Favor of a New Edict of Nantes"⁷ assures us that it (i.e. the Edict) was not a question of tolerance in the 16th-century meaning of the word. He explains:

In the 16th century, the words "tolerate" and "tolerance" had a negative meaning only: one tolerates that which one cannot prevent or avoid. And, he adds, it was not by chance if the word 'tolerance' is not to be found in the Edict of Nantes.

What can be said regarding their two arguments? It is argued that we are not speaking of tolerance, but rather of recognition when, on one hand, concession is extended to an opinion, to a dissident practice and, on the other hand, when the word tolerance is not used in the juridical concession of such right. If it were a question of a simple tolerance, one would say so, and a right would not be given since a right, so it is understood in sound philosophy, can only have that which is good as its object. Now, that which one tolerates, as we have seen, is something evil or wrong! This is the very definition of tolerance: to bear with or endure (unavoidable) wrongs or evils. That is what it meant in the 16th century. That is what it also was in the days of the Emperor Constantine the Great: paganism was tolerated in his empire which had embraced Christianity. And that is the way it was in all Catholic countries up to the time of Vatican Council II: it was a matter of putting up with deviants and their deviances, but not of recognizing their right to deviate! At this point, the question seems to be all muddled up! We will, however, get it all straightened out in the light of the Church's magisterium. First, what has sound philosophy to say on these subjects?

 

Tolerated Cults and Recognized Cults

We would first of all like to firmly establish the principle of the legitimacy of tolerance as well as to show that there exist tolerances without the name which are, however, indeed pure tolerances and not the recognition of a legitimacy before God and the Church. It will then be easier to understand that such was the situation of Protestantism in France following the Edict of Nantes.

Secretary of the Holy Office, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, in a remarkable and memorable address,⁸ went deeply into the question and came up with solid answers using quotations from pontifical writings. Following are some of the points he touched upon:

The Church also recognized the state of necessity in which members of governments of Catholic states can find themselves: that of conceding, for very grave reasons, tolerance to other cults. Pope Leo XIII teaches: "Certainly if the Church judges that it is not permissible that various kinds of (false) divine cults enjoy the same rights as does the true religion, yet she does not condemn the heads of state who, either for the sake of a greater good to be gained or for a greater evil to be avoided, patiently in practice tolerate such cults having their place in the city" (Immortale Dei, Acta Leonis XIII, vol. V,p.141).

But such tolerance does not include freedom of propaganda which constitutes a source of religious troubles and discord flying in the face of a tranquil and unanimous possession of the truth and religious practice in Catholic countries such as Italy, Spain and others.

Referring to Italian laws regarding "admitted cults," Pope Pius XI wrote:

Tolerated, permitted or admitted cults: we have no intention of entering into questions of words. Moreover, the question can be elegantly resolved when a distinction is made between the statutory text and the purely legislative text: the former, more theoretical and doctrinal and wherein is to be found the word "tolerated"; the latter, intended for practice and where are simply to be found the terms "permitted or admitted," so long as one acts fairly, let it be clearly and faithfully understood that the Catholic religion, and it alone, is, according to the statute and treaties, the state religion together with the logical as well as juridical consequences of such a situation regulated by constitutive rights.

Quite obviously, the Edict of Nantes is a purely legislative text, an act of royal power regulating a case in particular, in a well-defined situation and without bringing into question the (unwritten) fundamental law of the kingdom, nor its relations with the Catholic Church. Totally and necessarily different would be a statuary document such as a constitution or a concordat in which we must carefully distinguish, through the use of different terms, the meaning of the words "rights" and "simple tolerance."

Therefore we would say to M. Delumeau, the absence of the word "tolerance" in the Edict of Nantes brings no grist to your mill; neither does it allow you, in itself, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Edict with all the magnificent pomp and splendor envisaged and expected by your co-religionists!

 

Rights and Tolerance

Pope Pius IX and Pope Leo XIII have clearly established the fact that a tolerance does not constitute a right if these terms are considered by their objects, seeing that tolerance has something bad or evil as its object, while a right has something essentially good or better as its object.

Pope Pius IX teaches:

When particular circumstances so demand, we may tolerate an exception, a "bending" of the rule whenever it is admitted in view of avoiding yet greater evils; however such an exception must not be elevated to the dignity of rights, since there can never be any right contrary to the eternal laws of justice.

Says Pope Leo XIII:

While conceding rights only to that which is true and honest, the Church is not, however, opposed to that tolerance which the government believes must be used concerning certain things contrary to truth and justice in view of avoiding a greater evil or the obtaining or conservation of a greater good.¹⁰

So here we have three firmly established principles regarding the problem of tolerance, three solid and very general bases valid for all deviations, dissidence, for any party or sect, for all error or calamity that particular circumstances oblige us to bear rather than wishing to prevent or eradicate them. Here are the three basic principles:

1) That which is to be tolerated is some evil or something bad.

2) It is legitimate toleration in order to avoid a greater evil or to obtain some greater good.

3) Tolerance does not give anyone a right to do evil.

 

Natural Right and Positive Right

Nevertheless, the third above-mentioned principle needs to be further clarified for it is only too evident that a legislative disposition favoring an exception to the rule, such as the open and public practice of a dissident cult, could, when all is said and done, confer certain civil rights to dissidents. It is at this point that a distinction must be made between natural rights and positive rights, a shade of difference which seems to escape Monsieur Delumeau.

Natural rights spring from the very nature of things; and divine positive rights, which flow from Divine Wisdom, are grafted on to those natural rights. Such, for example, are the rights of the Catholic Church to be officially recognized by the state as being the one and only True Religion, as well as being the official State Religion.

Positive rights flow from human will. We have an example of this as civil law, and its prescriptions apply or clarify the prescriptions of natural and Divine law to a given society.

So, whenever the State is obliged to tolerate a dissident cult, it in no way at all recognizes a natural right to the followers of such a cult, while it may concede them a civil right of not being prevented in practicing their cult: in short, it amounts to a civil immunity, a negative civil right of not being hindered or prevented from the private practice of their particular religious persuasion.

In our opinion, no one has ever better summed up this all-important distinction than Fr. Baucher in his article "Liberty" found in the Dictionary of Catholic Theology.¹¹ Following is his brief overview, so rich in its impeccable theological concision:

In decreeing tolerance, the legislator is not at all expected to concede to dissidents a right or a moral faculty of practicing their cult, but only the possibility of not being troubled in the exercise of their particular cult. Although no one has the right to do evil, one still is free of not being prevented from doing evil, unless a just law prohibits this from happening for sufficiently justifiable reasons.

There is, therefore, in the speculative order, a twofold distinction to be made: affirmative right and negative right. We have the natural and affirmative right (also negative) of publicly practicing the true cult of the true God (which is that of the Catholic Religion); Protestants (for example) have only and simply the civil and negative right of not being prevented from practicing their cult in an external way. This right is a genuine right although, before God, it recognizes no legitimacy to such deviation which is only tolerated and simply protected through legislative disposition; it is, therefore, a very relative right: relative to the power giving it: i.e., the civil power and not God or nature. It is also relative to its object, which is only an immunity in respect to all constraint, public or private, which would aim at preventing the tolerated action.

We can now set forth the fourth principle which we have found:

4) Tolerance can, nevertheless, grant civil immunity; this right constitutes neither a natural right, nor the approval of evil.

 

Limits to Tolerance

If tolerance is but a positive right and not a natural right, it follows that it is not valid in a general way and in all circumstances. Whenever the State tolerates such and such dissidence, it is always with the hope and wish of bringing a remedy of some sort to such a deplorable situation and, thanks to that peace due to tolerance, the State will have the opportunity, sooner or later, of eliminating such dissidence.

Tolerating Protestantism in France in 1598 did not mean tolerating it in aeternum (i.e., forever)!

If the particular circumstances leading to dissidence should happen to change, for example, following the conversion of a notable part of the dissidents, the king (or government) would be free to countermand the free exercise of the cult of the few remaining dissidents. That civil law guaranteed by tolerance remains always strictly relative to those circumstances which gave rise to dissidence in the first place.

Pope Leo XIII writes:

That tolerance of evil which pertains to the principles of political prudence must be vigorously circumscribed by the limits required by its raison d'etre, that is to say for the sake of State security. This is why, if such tolerance should prove to be harmful or injurious to the security of the State, or should it become an even greater evil for the State, the consequence then would be that it should not be permitted due to the non-existence of the hoped-for good.¹²

The benefit of tolerance is therefore essentially precarious as well as revocable and the Protestants of 1685, at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, were not necessarily justified in insisting upon the upholding of that 87-year-old Edict.

King Louis XIV's prudent statesmanship alone, clarified and backed up by the weighty opinion of the French episcopate or that of Rome, could have persuaded the king to maintain the Edict which had already, through the years, been reduced through many restrictive measures or, on the contrary, to suppress it altogether. Leaving the debate concerning the revocation aside, we simply wish to affirm that, in itself, the king did have the right to revoke the Edict if and when the particular circumstances had changed.

Let us now, therefore, set out yet a fifth principle regarding tolerance:

5) Tolerance is strictly relative to the circumstances justifying or legitimatizing it.

Likewise, later on, when King Louis XVI (in 1787) went back on Louis XIV's decision and signed a new Edict of tolerance in favor of his Protestant subjects and, restoring their civil statute which his great-great grandfather had judiciously repealed, he was again guiding himself on new circumstances wherein he understood that there were still some Protestants in his kingdom but who no longer constituted a threat to national unity. He could conclude that, under these particular conditions, tolerance would bring about a higher good, that is, the goodness of order which is civil society for everyone.

We are indeed edified by the fact that tolerance in favor of Protestantism in France in the 19th and 20th centuries did not come about through the Revolution, but rather through the offices of a good Catholic king (i.e., Louis XVI)! This constitutes the undeniable proof that a real immunity regarding religious matters does not at all need the "Rights of Man Without God" (invented by Freemasonry) of 1789, nor of that 1965 Declaration on Religious Liberty in order to be effectually guaranteed to dissidents, in view of the common good both of the Church and State. The wisdom of the Church, together with the prudence of a genuine Catholic head of state, is quite sufficient.

 

The Common Good, the Supreme Rule of Civil Tolerance

These reflections lead us to the crowning, if you will, of the doctrine governing the civil tolerance of religious as well as of other deviations. In fact, we may well ask what is the rule which allows us to measure–for such is the act of any standard or rule–to measure or to weigh whether the desired good we hope to attain by tolerating some evil is greater, or if the evil we wish to avoid by tolerating a present evil is less than the desired good.

Indeed, it will be the virtue of prudence which will be called upon to weigh the pros and cons and will consult the judgment of the Church, and which will finally decide in favor or against tolerance and dictate the required practical dispositions as conditions warrant. But the virtue of prudence seeks to embrace, as much as possible, to that measure, to the just proportion between good and evil or between two evils in balance. Is this not, therefore, also the virtue of justice and, to be precise, of political justice to exercise prudence in this way? Also, does political justice not have the common good as its goal?

Therefore when all is said and done, it is temporal common good of the State indirectly subjected to the well-being of the Church and of souls, as it should, which must determine if there be reasonable cause in favor of tolerating dissidents' public manifestations of their cult(s) and in what measure they should be tolerated. The same rule regarding the common good will also determine whether there be solid grounds for prohibiting such public expression of dissident cults. There is absolutely no doubt that, in itself, evil must be shunned by individuals, and repressed by the authority, whether of the family or the state. However, in hard fact, in everyday practice, God Himself, in His rule over mankind, does permit evil to be done and tolerates it, showing us that we, also, may tolerate some evil; and this was explained by Pope Pius XII in a famous address¹³ of which the following constitutes the outstanding passage:

Is it possible that in certain determined circumstances, that God gives men no commandment, imposes no duty nor does He even give any right to prevent and repress that which is false and erroneous? A good look at reality shows that error and sin are, in great abundance, seen everywhere in this world. God reproves them, yet He permits their existence in our midst. From this, it can be affirmed that religious and moral error must always, whenever possible, be prevented because tolerating it is, in itself, immoral. Such a sweeping affirmation cannot, in an absolute and unconditional sense, be valid. It is to be noted that God has not given such an absolute and universal precept to human authority: neither in the realm of the Faith, nor in that of morals. Such a precept is not to be found in the common conviction of men, nor even in the Christian conscience, nor in her sources of revelation, nor in the practice of the Church. Moreover, we do have in Holy Scripture a text referring to this question wherein Our Lord gave us this admonition (Mt. 13:30). Suffer both (i.e., cockle and the wheat: both good and evil) to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: Gather up first the cockle and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into my barn. The duty of repressing moral and religious deviations cannot, therefore, constitute a norm of ultimate action. It must be subordinate to higher and more general rules which, in certain circumstances, permit and may perhaps even appear the better part, that which is to not prevent error with a view of promoting a greater good.

So what are those "higher and more general rules" which regulate the repression or the tolerance of evil or error in society? Such rules are the common good, as we have pointed out, in the indirect service of the ultimate supernatural end of man and therefore indirectly subordinated to the good of the Church and of souls, and in particular to the well-being of the Faith as well as the communion of all men in that true Faith, which is certainly, here below, an eminent social good if not the supreme social good in this world.

A sixth principle concerning tolerance can be spelled out as follows:

6) Tolerance, just as the repression of evil and error in society, is regulated by the common good, which, in turn is subordinated to the well-being or good of the true Faith.

 

Sometimes It Is Better to Let Well Enough Alone

Let us get all of this in proper order so as to distinguish that which in itself springs from the very nature of things and what that nature of things does per accidens, as St. Thomas says: it gives rise to circumstances and motivates human conduct. Thus do we see that in itself the Faith will have more to gain through repression of heresy and prohibition of dissident cults, but in fact in may be that a certain tolerance of those deviations by civil authority, backed by the Church's wise counsel, will prove more favorable to the free propagation of the Faith as well as the return of the dissidents to the fold of the Church. We are all well aware that the dragonnades (i.e., the persecution [1681-5] of the Huguenot Protestants under Louis XIV by dragoons–mounted infantrymen armed with carbines–quartered in Protestant cities and towns) did not succeed in endearing the Catholic Church in the eyes of Protestants, while the extreme measures resorted to at the time of the Revocation (1685) did not always end up making sincere converts, but quite the contrary, often produced many hypocrites, that is to say, false converts who remained Protestant in heart and conviction.

It is very difficult to judge whether the State could tolerate the evil of such so-called "conversions" for the sake of a regained religious unity. In retrospect it would seem that other less draconian and more gradual methods would have produced, without such harm and damage, the communion of the whole French nation to the true Catholic and Apostolic Faith. Once again, however, the Revocation (1685) of the Edict of Nantes is an historical event that we cannot judge without having readily available all of the precise and pertinent data afforded by historical science. This was not, in truth, the object of this brief bit of research wherein the author simply intended to shed new light on the true notion of tolerance as well as the principles regulating it.

 

Liberal Platitudes

Following this, we would like to conclude by inviting Monsieur Jean Delumeau, future president of the National Organization of the fourth Centennial of the Edict of Nantes, to meditate on the principles of a sound philosophy of law and theology which we have set forth in the light of the Church's Magisterium. Magisterium–alas! this will prove to be difficult for him since he rejects this precious light because of his Protestant disposition and frame of reference–such a meditation, nevertheless, would help him avoid confusing the Edict of Nantes with what is commonly known as the Separation of Church and State, which first raised its ugly head during the Revolution (1795 and 1905) as well as indiscriminately mixing the Revocation with Muslim fundamentalism! Such liberal platitudes have long ago proven to be historical philosophical errors.

 

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Translated for Angelus Press by Jean Fournier from Bulletin Saint Jean Eudes (Aug. 1998), published by the Society of Saint Pius X's St. John Eude priory in Caen (Gavrus), France.

 

Footnotes:

1. Fernand Mourrey, "La Renaissance." Histoire generale de I'Eglise.

2. p. 444.

3. "L'Ancien Regime," Histoire partiale, histoire vraie, v. 3, 1st part (Paris: Beauhane, 1916), p. 13.

4. Gabriel Hanoteaux, Histoire du Cardinal de Richelieu, I, 528.

5. Loc. cit. Guiraud, p. 15.

6. Cf. Jean Guiraud, op.cit., pp. 7-8

7. Revue Reforme, October 1997, p. 2

8. Allocution at the Pontifical Atheneum of the Lateran, March 3, 1953.

9. Pius IX, Letter Dum Civilis Societas, February 1, 1875 to M. Charles Pervin.

10. Leo XIII, Encyclical Libertas, June 20, 1888.

11. DTC, vol. 9, col. 701.

12. Libertas (in the Interior Peace of Nations), Papal documents edited by Solesmes (Desclee 1962), No. 221.

13. Allocution Ciresce to Italian jurists, December 6, 1953, PIN No. 3040. We have put some terms in order to show what liberals choose to cover up when quoting this text.