Dignitatis Humanae, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on religious liberty, remains one of the most debated texts in modern Catholic theology. Its teaching raises urgent questions: Is the Council’s doctrine on religious liberty an infallible teaching or an act of the “authentic Magisterium”? May a Catholic suspend or withhold assent, and under what conditions? And most critically, does the Council’s treatment of religious liberty contradict the Church’s earlier magisterium?
As Alan Fimister observes, if the Church had taught for more than a thousand years that she possessed the right to employ coercive measures over the baptized—and if that teaching was in fact wrong—then the credibility of the Church’s witness and Christ’s promises would be gravely undermined. The coherence of Catholic doctrine, and the Church’s claim to be a sure guide throughout the ages, hinges on answering these questions.
In this study, Fr. Bernard Lucien, with commentary by Fr. Antoine-Marie de Araujo, FSVF, provides a careful, text-faithful interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae. The authors argue that the apparent contradiction between Vatican II and the prior magisterium is not substantive, and they propose a coherent reconciliation that preserves both the integrity of tradition and the legitimate insights of the Council. At a time when debates over continuity and doctrinal development remain intense—and when secular culture seeks to marginalize Christianity—this work offers clarity, depth, and a path toward understanding.
About the Authors
Fr. Bernard Lucien was born in 1952 and entered the seminary at Écône in 1972. He was ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1978. Early in his career, he published works arguing that Vatican II’s teaching on religious liberty contradicted earlier papal teaching, especially that of Gregory XVI and Pius IX. On Christmas 1991, through what he attributes to a grace of God, he underwent a profound change of mind and later published a public retraction in 1992. He subsequently regularized his canonical status and was incardinated into the Archdiocese of Vaduz (Liechtenstein) in 2004 by Archbishop Wolfgang Haas.
Since then, he has taught Thomistic theology in seminaries and houses of formation and authored several theological works for both specialists and lay readers, including The Sacred Theology for Beginners and the Initiated series.
Fr. Antoine-Marie de Araujo, FSVF, who provides the commentary in this volume, was born in 1979 in Geneva to a Swiss mother and Argentinian father. He earned a master’s degree in Classics at the University of Fribourg, contributed to a scholarly edition of Jean Bodin’s Six Books of the Republic, and later discovered a deep affinity for the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. This led him to enter the Fraternity of Saint Vincent Ferrer in 2010, where he was ordained a priest in 2019. He serves as secretary of the Fraternity’s quarterly review Sedes Sapientiae and has authored and edited various theological articles, including two English-language issues of the review. When not studying for his licentiate, he preaches to students and enjoys hiking with scouts.
