The Video is reserved to the members of his channel, I'll just note the description:
Enjoying Religious Liberty While Condemning It?
In this episode, we take a hard look at a common contradiction: condemning Vatican II’s teaching on religious liberty while fully enjoying the very freedoms it protects.
Critics who accuse Dignitatis Humanae of “heresy” often do so openly, publicly, and without fear of punishment—something made possible because the Church now upholds civil religious freedom. Yet in previous centuries, these same individuals could have been imprisoned, coerced, or even executed for rejecting Catholic teaching.
Enjoying Religious Liberty While Condemning It?
Reason & Theology | 11 Dec. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_TGOPm4Dv4
First of all ... would we?
If I went back to the time of Torquemada and told him, I thought it was right that New Catholics should be prevented from being Judaeo-Christians in the sense of Judaising Christians or from being Crypto-Jews in the sense of not actually Christians at all, would he have started quizzing me on
Dignitatis Humanae? I somehow don't think that is very likely.
Again, some Freemasons would pretend, as I am Geocentric and against the Heliocentric stance of Antipope Wojtyla, "if I had gone back to Galileo's time, I would have been executed for" ... being a Geocentric? I don't think Pope Urban VIII would have used the 1992 speech to convict me of disagreement with Church teaching.
Now, this involves two strawmen at the same time:
- making our stance about disagreeing with the Church rather than about agreeing with a position in the past defended by the Church, therefore pretending, if I had gone back, I would have been for Dignitatis Humanae facing Torquemada or for Heliocentrism facing Urban VIII, because, to those making the claim, my real issue apparently is an allergy to the authority of Paul VI or John Paul II (or by now even prefixing this with "Saint");
- pretending the position against Dignitatis Humanae is "no one should have freedom to express his religious convictions", while the historic position, and therefore the position of those today opposing Dignitatis Humanae was that good Catholics obviously should have a wide range of freedoms to express their religous convictions, like starting a new order (Francesco Bernardone) or homeschooling (basically every aristocrat in those days) or questioning science expertise in favour of the Bible (Galileo wasn't found vehemently suspect for disagreeing with Ptolemy, but for disagreeing with Joshua 10).
Second, is the freedom I'm enjoying in fact dependent on such protection?
Is it even protected by
Dignitatis Humanae?
A man sterilised in Nazi Germany didn't have his testicles and ductus deferentes protected by
Casti connubii. Because the
actual Catholic document wasn't respected by the state. The document was a standing condemnation of that state, as should be, but it didn't have the physical or administrative force outside Vatican City (and Ireland and Spain, possibly) to protect the victims either in Sweden (even when it was issued) or in Germany (from some time after it was issued). In Nuremberg, no Doctors' Trial punished people for having participated in this evil practise, as it should have been done, because Canada, as part of the Commonwealth, and US, also a participant of the victorious allies, both had states that were continuing this practise, caring no whit about the document.
Equally, on another issue, the potential existence of people saved while dying outside the visible boundary of the Catholic Church, Fr. Feeney who denied this didn't enjoy the freedom of speech he did thanks to Pius XII respecting
Dignitatis Humanae, which didn't exist, but thanks to Fr. Feeney living in the US, and therefore enjoying religious freedom as per the jurisprudential interpretation of the First Amendment. From 1953 to 1972, he lived under Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, protecting that amendment. Of these, Nixon was a Quaker, Eisenhower a Presbyterian, Johnson "Disciple of Christ" and only Kennedy was Catholic. He didn't use his presidential platform to get Eugenics legislation repealed, since California ended sterilisation of prison inmates only in 1979. If the US hadn't already had religious freedom, why would we presume he would have introduced it in obedience to
Dignitatis Humanae? Especially, as he was killed in 1963, one hour after the death of C. S. Lewis, if we account for same instant being different clock times in different time zones, and
Dignitatis Humanae only came in 1965. But even if we count the Kennedy influence as one of the things behind
Dignitatis Humanae, he was president only a short time and probably didn't make all that much of a difference to the situation of Fr. Feeney.
On top of that, there are Freemasons who like to limit the freedoms of Catholics, I've been exposed to them in Sweden, and it would just be so welcome for them to start persecuting selected Catholics who don't respect
Dignitatis Humanae, and with people like Michael Lofton around, there may be some willing to throw them under the bus. Not in respect of
Dignitatis Humanae, but for making them respect
Dignitatis Humanae. Not sure if Michael Lofton is one of these, I haven't seen the video. But that he is even making the argument about hypocrisy, much as the Freemasons have done, is too much complicity for my taste. Hence the title of this essay.
Third, I no know country on Earth, except Franco's Spain, though I might be missing some countries I know less about, where dissenting publically from the Catholic Church became easier in response to
Dignitatis Humanae. Franco's little revenge, so to speak, was to apply it equitably, also to Palmarian Catholics. If anyone from the Vatican wanted to lock them up in mental hospitals or treated as frauds, i e have their assets confiscated and relocated, Franco simply would have told them, "Hey, do you have a problem with
Dignitatis Humanae?"
Meanwhile, a year or two ago, a Sedevacantist priest in Bavaria was shut up in prison for fraud for calling himself a Catholic priest. Implied in this case was, he had got his ordination from a group called
The Old Roman Catholic Church not to be confused with another group of Old Catholics who would seem to lack Apostolic Succession. The prosecutor held that given who had ordained him, he should have called himself an "Old Catholic" priest, despite not being in communion with them, and despite
being in communion with Roman Catholics who, among other things for
Dignitatis Humanae, deny that Vatican II was a valid Council or "Paul VI" a valid Pope. Not doing so, it was argued, was fraud, and as such punishable by the civil authority. Even if he had told all around him how he had got his ordination, even if any Sedevacantist who was either Home Aloner or "Thuc line only" or "Thuc and Lefebvre Lines only" had been given his ample chance to not go to him for Sacraments.
So, no, Michael Lofton is simply wrong in saying that those who oppose
Dignitatis Humanae are enjoying all the freedoms it protects. His religious freedom was denied him, and the ones alerting authorities presumably included people in communion back then with Bergoglio and therefore also Michael Lofton.
Fourth, there is equivocation in saying "Catholic teaching" both about a new teaching and about the teachings that Catholics were required to hold under pain of the Inquisition. I think it was Michael Lofton who told us in one of his videos about the new profession of faith promised by converts, it's from 1990, after my own conversion, and one promise is indeed about
current positions of the magisterium, irrespectively of whether they were nova or not. By contrast, when Galileo was on trial, what he was tried in the name of was Biblical inerrancy, not a new teaching, and applying this to Geocentrism in Joshua 10 was not a new exegesis of Joshua 10. In fact, the principle formulated by Trent session IV states that the positions of the magisterium we have to obey are such that the Church "hath held and now holdeth" and does not explicitate obeying positions one could describe as "hath previously not held, but now holdeth".
Fifth, the religious freedom of the Netherlands has not consistently protected Catholics who were loyal to Spain, has made the Netherlands a less moral country than Spain, and this well before the modern débâcle in the Netherlands, I mean in things like taking interest or taking the Jewish side in Judeo-Christian quarrels, or overdoing "work ethic" (which arguably Nimrod also did at Babel). Even if a Catholic as a private citizen in the Netherlands enjoyed his freedoms, as a civic citizen, he could have reason to deplore some of their side effects (even more so today, I think).
Sixth, it has never been a rule, other than among tyrants, to require a man to praise the régime or to forfeit all and any advantage (in freedoms or other aspects) which it offers. Just as a state with 20 % Protestants not only can, but must tolerate the Protestant error within its borders, though this was not so, when the Protestants were either all ex-Catholics or had ex-Catholic parents or grand-parents, a man must tolerate, not without polemic, but usually without rebellion or insurrection, a state that tolerates too much, unless
either there is a more Catholic claiment to the power,
or this excessive tolerance selectively excludes Catholics or one Catholic from its protection. In a state that needs to tolerate Protestants, one can contract them for state expenses or use their talents in the military (as France did with Turenne, who only converted to Catholicism in 1668), and likelewise, a man needing to tolerate a state that tolerates too much, can still use its police against criminals trying to exclude him from that tolerance selectively. To argue otherwise is like saying Mordechai deserved to die by Persian justice, because he had (implicitly) criticised Haman's excessive sense of respect and dignity, while Haman was a high dignitary of the Persian state.
Seventh, there is no hypocrisy in condemning a system you partially suffer and partially enjoy. Jews tend to condemn Auschwitz. Jews in Auschwitz might have condemned Auschwitz. If they took food from SS and from Kapos and survived, was that hypocritcal? The idea of hypocrisy would rather apply to items or actions, you enjoy doing or consuming yourself, while condemning others for doing and consuming them. If you dance and drink, you are hypocritical for condemning anyone simply because he's dancing and drinking. But if you dance Polonaise at a wedding or at Christmas, and drink with moderation, it might not be hypocritical to condemn someone dancing Lambada every weekend and getting actually drunk. Notwithstanding that the one action pair can in both cases be simplified to "dancing" and the other to "drinking alcohol". But when it comes to systems, or things you undergo, sorry, the term hypocrisy is simply not a good description, even if it's the same item. We don't live in a state because we freely chose to make a social contract.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Cergy
Return of Child Jesus from Egypt
7.I.2026
