TOLERANCE. - In common usage it denotes a disposition of the mind and a consequent practical attitude of indulgence and forbearance toward a way of thinking, an action, or a fact, which conflict with one’s own convictions or violate one’s own rights. Therefore, the subject who feels aggrieved does not react, as he might be entitled to do, nor does he outwardly manifest his disapproval, but adopts a benevolent stance, allowing evil and error to exist and bearing their consequences; thus, in its original meaning, tolerance necessarily has as its point of reference evil, whose presence induces one to endure it, for natural or supernatural motives, despite the contrary suggestion of conscience, which condemns evil, and of moral law, which would wish it to be suppressed. When applied to ideas and religious convictions, its proper object is error, which is the evil of the intellect and the soul. One tolerates evil and error, but one does not tolerate good and truth, toward which intelligence and will are drawn by the spontaneous motion of rational nature. More succinctly, tolerance can be defined as a negative attitude toward present or anticipated evil. It consequently includes in its concept the speculative disapproval of evil and error and the practical indulgence toward them and those who commit or embrace them. It thus presupposes a different evaluation of the fact, deduced from the objective order of values, and thereby excludes the equation between good and evil, between truth and error.
In a subjectivist conception, in which every stable criterion of truth loses value, or at least is morally and religiously agnostic, tolerance loses its content and its object, and the word is given a meaning different from the original. In this sense, it either amounts to speculative indifference, a conduct of skepticism, toward all opinions and faiths, or it reduces to a practical attitude that assigns the same value to truth and error as subjective expressions of conscience. In this sense, the term has been used by Catholic liberalism and is still used today by those who adhere to liberal religious agnosticism. In reality, tolerance presupposes an objective inequality, the presence of a positive value and a negative one, to which the latter is granted consideration dictated by motives of prudence. It is not a virtue in itself, but results from the exercise of charity or prudence, not imposed by a norm of law connected with the negative value, but by contingent necessities, which, in a term now common, are usually called hypotheses.
I. GENERAL NOTIONS
Tolerance is in intimate connection with the hypothesis, which is the opposite of the thesis. While the latter is composed of universal principles and enunciates perennial and immutable exigencies, from which emerge moral and juridical norms valid at all times and among all peoples, the former indicates a condition of fact, a contingent political and religious situation, variable in time and space. Whence it is deduced that tolerance does not obey a univocal criterion, but this is deduced from time to time from the objective conditions of the society to which it must be applied. The necessity, more or less pressing, of its application arises from the gap, which often exists, between the thesis and the hypothesis, which tolerance tends to bridge, suggesting a prudential attitude toward evil and error.Every practical science is composed of two moments: in the first, it investigates the universal laws of private or public conduct; in the second, it passes to the application of these to the concrete, to the single case, to a particular situation in which the subject finds himself acting. It does not descend to the last consequences until it has examined the elements that can influence its conduct, creating facilities or impediments. This double movement expresses the distinction between speculative science and casuistry, of which the former formulates the thesis, the latter models itself on the hypothesis. When a conflict arises between the two, the principles of the thesis cannot be applied in full, and thus tolerance intervenes to suggest an adaptation. This can therefore be considered as a practical and prudential solution to the conflict existing on the plane of reality between the law and its full application. Its moral foundation is therefore neither an objective equality of all opinions and all religious confessions, nor the false concept of freedom that recognizes in man the faculty to orient himself as he wishes, nor a particular positive evaluation of the so-called rights of subjective conscience, but solely the necessity of adapting the principle to the possibilities of application offered by concrete life. Tolerance does not deny the principle, which remains the ideal term, but suggests a flexible attitude. Truth and good remain the preeminent values, and error and evil are not placed on the same level as these.
The liceity of such a compromise between principles and reality was founded by ancient writers on prudence, which, as recta ratio in agibilibus, manifests itself in the art of knowing how to adapt to reality, to avoid the greater evil. Practical life in its actual unfolding rests on two pillars: on the ideal, which belongs to the supreme directives of action, and on the real, from which emerge the elements that condition its application. The same criterion of choosing the lesser evil, by which tolerance is guided, was developed by Leo XIII in the encyclical Libertas (June 20, 1888).
Tolerance, in conformity with the immediate object to which it refers, can be religious or civil: the former concerns opinions on matters of faith and religious confessions, the latter properly political ideologies and the forces operating within the State. Nevertheless, it is often customary to call civil the tolerance of the State toward religious confessions. It is well, however, to adhere to the more common division, noting how with regard to religious tolerance one also distinguishes between dogmatic tolerance and practical tolerance, of which the former concerns revealed truth and has as its subject solely the Church. The exercise of tolerance can concern the individual in his private conduct, the supernatural society, and the civil society. On each of these subjects a word must be said.
II. RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE ON THE PART OF THE CHURCH
It is always licit and even obligatory for every Christian, provided he maintains in his soul intact faith without dangerous compromises with error, to be toward all who err of inexhaustible benevolence. He must hate evil and error, but he must love those who commit and embrace it and profess II. This obligatory tolerance rests on two grounds. He is, first of all, obliged to respect the right to the free search for truth, which every man possesses by virtue of his rational nature, and moreover he is bound to observe the precept of charity toward all. If, according to Christ’s commandment, he must be disposed to love even his enemies, all the more must he cherish the same disposition toward those who err or commit evil. The conduct of the individual can be summed up in the following phrase: intolerance toward error and evil considered in themselves, broad and welcoming tolerance toward those who err.In the supernatural society founded upon the common bond of faith, dogmatic tolerance is not possible. The mission of the Church and its very reason for existing consist, in fact, in the jealous guardianship of the deposit of revealed truth, whose integral acceptance is an absolute condition for salvation. The tolerance of error, which may insinuate itself in a subtle or open manner within the framework of revealed doctrine, would constitute for the Church a failure in its divine mandate to teach all nations what Christ has taught and commanded, an internal corruption that would, if it were possible, strip it of its supernatural seal. This, however, does not prevent the Church, by making use of the counsels of prudence and conforming to the precept of charity, from temporizing or waiting for the error to dissipate of its own accord and for the erring to return to the truth. Only when obstinacy is proven does it decide to resort to spiritual sanctions, to preserve the unity of faith and prevent contagion. Nor, when extreme cases compel it to resort to punitive measures—which today are reduced to the separation of the heretic and the denier from communion and to certain disabilities (can. 167 § 1, n. 4; 731 § 2; 762, n. 2; 795, n. 2; 985, n. 1; 1240, n. 1 § 2; 1453 § 1; 1470 § 1, n. 6; 2314 § 1, n. 1-2 § 2; 2315, 2316, 2339, 2372, etc.)—does it use violence against freedom, since its act is nothing other than the ratification of a separation already voluntarily effected by those who persist in error.
Its attitude is even more lenient toward those who were born into schism or heresy (can. 1070 § 1; 1099, etc.). Although by virtue of the Baptism they have received they are subject to it, the Church does not exercise this right toward them. Nevertheless, in order to restore the unity willed by Christ, it cannot enter into transactions with the religious confessions to which they belong, yielding ground on the frontiers of dogmatic truth. On this point, tolerance gives way to intransigence. Dogma is a solid whole, from which it is not permissible to remove even a single splinter. Toward unbelievers, as long as they have not freely accepted the Christian faith, the Church has no power other than that communicated by Christ to announce the revealed truth to all nations (cf. can. 87, Mt. 28:19; Mk. 16:15-16; Lk. 24:47). In the exercise of this ministry, two principles sustain its action. The acceptance of faith is a free act, which in no way can be extorted by coercion. Can. 752 prescribes that an adult cannot be baptized unless he is *sciens et volens*, and can. 1351 that he cannot be forced against his will to accept the Catholic faith. These prescriptions derive from the principle enunciated by St. Thomas Aquinas, who develops a thought already adumbrated by St. Augustine (Serm. 112, 8; *Contra Cresc.*, III, 55), according to which belief is an absolutely free act, *quia voluntatis est*. Having affirmed the absolute freedom to believe for unbelievers, St. Thomas adds that it is lawful to prevent them from opposing the religious faith with blasphemies, perverse counsels, and persecutions; that is, he denies the freedom to harm, emphasizing the social aspect of the right (*Summa Theologiae*, II-II, q. 10, a. 8).
The second principle consists in the preservation and defense of the customs, traditions, and ethnic and linguistic peculiarities of unbelieving peoples, provided they contain nothing contrary to natural law, revealed truth, or the proper worship of God. As an example of this constant directive in the development of missionary apostolate, one may cite the instructions that St. Gregory the Great gave to St. Augustine, whom he sent to the British Isles. He advises not to destroy pagan temples but to consecrate them to the worship of the true God, and permits the retention of local usages and traditional festivals, provided they are purified of any idolatrous significance (cf. G. Cappello, *Gregorio I e il suo pontificato*, Salerno 1904, pp. 33-37). The same concept was expounded by Pius XII in the encyclical *Summi Pontificatus* (20 October 1939) and in the more recent one on missions of 2 June 1951. In a Christian society, as St. Thomas Aquinas had already clearly enunciated (*Summa Theologiae*, II-II, q. 10, a. 8), the rites of unbelievers may be tolerated, always for the principle of the lesser evil dictated by prudence.
III. RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE ON THE PART OF THE STATE
The question of religious tolerance on the part of the state presents a rather more complex issue, already obscured by the agnostic ideology of liberalism and confused by those Catholic currents which have yielded to its allure, accepting its conclusions. The thesis still upheld by the latter is encapsulated in the following propositions. Before civil authority in the temporal order, all religious confessions are equal, and all must be granted the same freedom of life and propagation, applying the democratic criterion of juridical equality. The state must consequently adopt toward them a superior attitude of impartiality and indifference, without granting any privileges or special treatment. The old distinction between thesis and hypothesis must be regarded as anachronistic and outdated, and thus tolerance must be understood as the recognition of the juridical parity of cults and the granting of the same freedom to each, independently of its content of truth or error. The thesis just outlined, insofar as it concerns religious freedom, has been expressly condemned by Gregory XVI (*Mirari vos*, 15 August 1832; Denz.-U., 1614), by Pius IX in propositions 77-79 of the *Syllabus* (Denz.-U., 1777-79), and by Leo XIII in the encyclical *Libertas* (20 June 1888), and this alone would suffice to set it aside as contrary to Catholic thought. It will not, however, be out of place to mention the more recent arguments by which it has been sought to update II. It is asserted that the true religion can be understood in an objective and in a subjective sense. In the former, only the Christian religion is true; in the latter, that which each person in good faith considers to be true.It is further argued that conscience is the proximate norm of morality, which must always be followed, even when in error, lest one fall into moral fault. Therefore, whoever has an invincibly erroneous conscience must conform his conduct to it, and since a duty corresponds to a right, he possesses the faculty to assert it before the state, which must respect and protect II. Moreover, modern civilization, as distinguished from the ancient and medieval, is marked by the emphasis placed on subjective values. On the other hand, the state does not possess the means to implement a policy of favor toward the true religion in the objective sense, since in its political action it is guided by natural criteria, which do not allow it to distinguish true from false religions. It has no recourse but to adopt an impartial stance toward all confessions, granting them the same freedom. Furthermore, the state, by its end, is called to operate on the merely human plane, and not on the transcendent plane, which belongs to the true religion, concerning whose truth it is not its office to inquire, and thus, once again, it has no recourse but to treat all confessions in the same manner. The objection that arises against this solution of the problem of religious freedom from ecclesiastical teaching is then overcome by the application of a historical criterion, by which a distinction is drawn between what is essential to the Christian message and what is merely a temporary reflection. To this reflection belong the Syllabus of Pius IX (8 December 1864), the teaching of Leo XIII (especially in the cited encyclical *Libertas*), and the common Catholic tradition, born under the influence of the political conditions of the Middle Ages and elevated by the writers of that time to the status of thesis.
The common doctrine remains firmly anchored, however, on the following propositions, whose exposition will enable one to weigh the value of the reasons on which an attempt is made to base the new thesis on religious freedom. The first proposition concerns the right to the free search for truth. This is a right inherent in the rationality of the human person, which prevents the State from interfering in the individual’s conscience, especially in religious matters. Man cannot believe except willingly, according to the words of St Augustine (cf. De libero arbitrio, I, 6, 14). The State can only facilitate the personal attainment of truth by removing obstacles and cooperating in its diffusion. Tolerance has no application in this sphere, since where a right exists there is also the duty of respect.
The conclusion changes when one passes from private life to public life, in which every subjective right remains limited by the exigencies of the common good and the juridical order that protects II. Once it is recognized, therefore, that the State is incompetent to interfere in private beliefs, one must also recognize its faculty to impose limits on the exercise of freedom, so as to coordinate its use with the common good. This principle is adopted by all modern positive legislations, even the most liberal ones, which have never sanctioned an unlimited right to freedom, but have subjected it to restrictions, often derived from the general criterion of common morality. The same Charter of Human Rights of the United Nations has proclaimed the right to freedom in a conditional manner.
The second proposition common to Catholic doctrine concerns the faculty of the State to regulate the social manifestations of freedom, including religious freedom. The third determines the modalities of this legitimate intervention.
The action of the State is based on and regulated by law. To determine, therefore, what its concrete attitude should be in religious matters, it is obliged to investigate on which side justice lies, in order to protect II. Now justice is rooted in truth and always accompanies it, whereas error is devoid of II. The State must consequently protect the truth, which it can in no way place on the same level as error, and therefore safeguard the true religion, whose particular treatment cannot be regarded from the standpoint of privilege, but must be considered as a strict duty of justice. Once these principles are established, it is easy to see how morally and juridically illegitimate is an attitude of superior indifference towards all religious confessions and how inconsistent is the affirmed juridical equality of all cults. Such a thesis presupposes agnosticism, on the contrary.
To strengthen the preceding conclusion, there is added, as Leo XIII already noted in the encyclical *Libertas* (20 June 1888), the duty of the State, as such, to render public worship to the true God in the manner established by Him, for the execution of which it must necessarily abandon the attitude of neutrality towards all confessions. The arguments expounded have an autonomous value on the plane of pure rationality; revelation confirms them with two dogmatic points, from which Catholic speculation cannot depart without denying itself. In the first place, it is a revealed dogma that the true religion is one and unique, and that this note belongs only to the Christian religion, founded on the divine message of Jesus Christ, the revealer and redeemer. In the second place, it is likewise a dogma that the one true religion is organized in a visible and transcendent society, the Catholic Church, to which it is necessary to belong for salvation. Once this is established, to affirm the juridical equality of all cults and even to assign to the Catholic State the office of maintaining a superior neutrality towards all the religions present and active within it is impossible. The Catholic State, as the supreme ecclesiastical magisterium has invariably taught, has the duty of justice to protect and assist the Church, facilitating its mission of moralization and sanctification. Nor does it thereby infringe the democratic principle of equality. Apart from the fact that objective equality does not exist between the true religion and false ones, erroneous is the interpretation when it disregards the necessary proportion that the application of the principle requires in social life, which grades favours according to the objective relevance of the subjects and their greater or lesser contribution to the common good. The adoption of a leveling equality would be contrary to justice, since it would deny the natural hierarchy of rights.
Nevertheless—and this is the fourth proposition common to Catholic doctrine—the rights of the true religion and the duties of the State towards it do not preclude the application of the principle of tolerance towards other confessions. The respect for individual freedom in the search for truth and the right to conform one’s conduct in the sphere of private life to one’s personal religious opinions, even if manifestly erroneous, must be maintained even in the Catholic State. In the social sphere, where its action is directly exercised, it is not forbidden to grant a more or less wide freedom to error, not because the erroneous and subjective conscience has any right to assert itself in public life, but because of the exigencies of the common good, to which authority is compelled, in order to avoid the greater evil, to adapt the application of theoretical principles. Nothing prevents tolerance from expressing itself in juridical protections towards other cults, which may even extend to the granting of legal equality, if the hypothesis so requires, in order to obtain the peaceful coexistence of citizens. Protection and legal equality do not of themselves imply a judgment of evaluation. It must be noted, however, that in the application of the principle of tolerance it is not possible to establish a univocal rule, but the measure must be deduced from time to time from the factual conditions in which each single society finds itself and from the more general tendencies of the age. Tolerance is an extremely flexible attitude, which adapts itself to all the sinuosities of the terrain on which political authority operates, and does not neglect the orientations of the thought of a given period of civilization. It becomes rigid only when faced with practices, associations and confessions which are contrary to the common principles of morality and the good of the community. It may be affirmed that at the present time, when man has acquired a particular sensitivity towards whatever may appear contrary to the freedom of conscience and his personal dignity, the State must handle the question of religious freedom with the utmost prudence, showing itself tolerant towards other cults without, however, dis