Theologizing of a Christian Human Rights and the Roman Catholic Church After the Second Vatican Council
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Stephan P. Leher Trilogy I Theologizing of a Christian Human Rights and the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council innsbruck university press MONOGRAPHS innsbruck university press Stephan P. Leher Trilogy I – III Theologizing of a Christian Human Rights and the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council Stephan P. Leher Institut für Systematische Theologie, Universität Innsbruck Diese Publikation wurde mit finanzieller Unterstützung des Frankreich-Schwerpunkts sowie des Vizerektorats für Forschung der Universität Innsbruck gedruckt. © innsbruck university press, 2021 Universität Innsbruck 1. Auflage Alle Rechte vorbehalten. www.uibk.ac.at/iup ISBN 978-3-99106-051-2 DOI 10.15203/99106-051-2 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Stephan P. Leher Trilogy I Theologizing of a Christian Human Rights and the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council Acknowledgements I want to say thanks to Monika Datterl for her significant help producing a well- organized typescript that could smoothly pass through the production process. I would like to express my gratitude to her for her firm and discreet expert advice throughout the editorial stages of the project. Her arguments were always consistent and committed getting the best results possible. 2 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................. 5 Bible Editions......................................................................................................... 14 References ............................................................................................................ 14 Notes ..................................................................................................................... 15 1 “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” ...................... 16 1.1 Sentences present the facts of the cases .................................................... 18 1.2 The function of language is picturing the world ........................................... 27 1.3 Sense and two-valued logical truth ............................................................. 32 1.4 From the two-valued logic to a three-valued logic ....................................... 38 1.5 The individual person spells out the grammar of what is good. ................... 48 1.6 Wittgenstein and religious belief .................................................................. 53 1.7 From logical truth to communicative competence........................................ 75 1.8 Qualities of speech-acts and the social realization of dignity ....................... 83 1.9 Identification of a claim by the participants in the speech-act ...................... 90 1.10 Claims to validity and the condition of validity .......................................... 98 1.11 Human rights as validity-condition for dignity ......................................... 105 1.12 The social realization of dignity as condition for the validity of claims .... 118 References .......................................................................................................... 125 Notes ................................................................................................................... 128 2 “The way you use the word ‘God’ does not show whom you mean – but, rather, what you mean” (Wittgenstein 1980b. 51e) ............................................................ 129 2.1 Pictures of stars, atoms and persons ........................................................ 129 2.2 Faith-sentences by women, men and queer show what they say ............. 139 2.3 The historic picture of Catholic faith-sentences ......................................... 165 References .......................................................................................................... 195 Notes ................................................................................................................... 199 3 3 The sign of Jonah............................................................................................. 202 3.1 Nostra Aetate: In our time .......................................................................... 202 3.1.1 The Catholic Church acknowledges its Jewish origin and Go’d in other religions ............................................................................................................ 202 3.1.2 Assessing the text of Nostra Aetate, conflicts of interests, values and norms 220 3.1.3 Conclusion .......................................................................................... 236 3.2 Dei Verbum ............................................................................................... 238 3.2.1 The Council on its way to the word of Go’d ......................................... 238 3.2.2 The third intercession studied as the first reception of the Council ..... 260 3.2.3 The fourth session and conclusion of the Second Vatican Council ..... 271 3.2.4 Assessing the text of Dei Verbum, conflicts of interests, values, norms and laws 283 References .......................................................................................................... 316 Notes ................................................................................................................... 322 4 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 323 References .......................................................................................................... 332 Index of Subjects .................................................................................................... 333 Index of Persons ..................................................................................................... 337 4 Introduction From 1962 to 1965 Roman Catholic bishops from 116 countries, more than the then membership in the United Nations, convened in Rome for the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) (Pabel 2012). Vatican II was the first global council of the Catholic Church and with up to 2,500 bishops attending the public sessions in the aula of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, it was the largest meeting ever held in the history of the world (ibid.). The Catholic Church at that time found itself embedded in a world that in the wake of World War II suffered from the instabilities of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The two super powers were fighting fiercely for zones of interest, trying to win over the emerging independent states of Africa and Asia to their respective sides, while nuclear destruction threatened mankind as a whole (ibid.). For the first time in the history of the Catholic Church Vatican II gave African bishops presence and visibility on a world stage. At 38% of attendance European bishops were still overrepresented, while 10% came from the United States of America, 21% from Latin America, 20% from Asia and 10% from Africa (Wittstadt 1995: 510). The important historian of Vatican II, Giuseppe Alberigo, assesses the mutual influences of society on a council and of a council on society (Alberigo and Melloni, 1995–2001: 5:623). He claims that Vatican II was an event of the Catholic Church that aimed to work for peace, justice and unity of the whole world in understanding her relation to humanity as one of friendship (ibid.). My book assesses this event and its claim to work for peace, justice and unity of the whole world by investigating the realization of Human Rights as the validity condition for this claim to the validity of peace, justice and unity. I accept Alberigo’s imperative that understanding Vatican II as a global event constitutes the possibility condition for investigating the texts produced by the Council (ibid. 646). Therefore, the five tomes of Alberigo’s history of Vatican II constitute my reference for the historic physiognomy of the event (Alberigo and Melloni 1995–2001). My prime source for the hermeneutics of the contemporary interpretation of the documents of Vatican II constitutes the most comprehensive theological study of the matter, that is the five volumes of Herder’s Theological Commentary of Vatican II (Hünermann and Hilberath 2004–2006). 5 Introduction In the twenty-first century, religion and the manifestations of religion are creating a rising consciousness for the indisputable association between religion and violence. The social situation of millions of women, men and queer in the private and public sphere is characterized by violence in the name of religion. (Rather than the letters LGBTQI as acronym, I shall use the expression “queer” to include all non-heterosexual and gender variant people on the grounds of their non-normativity). Civil wars within states and violent war-like conflicts between states are a sad and common phenomenon in the globalized world. Academic and popular books, national and international conferences and meetings, discussions in the media and scholars from multiple disciplines, journalists and writers concentrated in the last decade on the relationship between religion and violence. Critics of religion claim that religion is a major factor in widespread contemporary violence, while defenders of religion claim that religion is able to overcome violence by peace building, constructing sustainable environments and bringing reconciliation to the conflicting parties (Aslan and Hermansen 2017). In this context, the subject matter of my book