How Vatican II Debated Religious Freedom

The article looks back at the "history" of religious freedom in the Catholic milieu from the end of World War II to the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, identifying a decisive shift in thinking on democracy and the values that sustain it. It then examines more closely some key phases in the process that stretched from the moment when the thorny question of religious freedom was put on the conciliar programme by the Secretariat for Christian Unity in October 1960, at the demand of the World Council of Churches, to the last public session of Vatican II, December 7, 1965, when the text of the Secretariat received the official sanction of the conciliar assembly and was promulgated by the Pope. The article then points out the wide gamut of demands, expectations, fears and theological horizons that Vatican II opened up.