Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae and the June Battle of Flags

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Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae and the June Battle of Flags

Robert Morrison | June 4, 2025

Were it not for Dignitatis Humanae, there would be no supposed theological justification for this demand that human dignity requires us to refrain from questioning the “transness” of those claiming to practice the Catholic Faith. Thanks in large part to the defenders of Vatican II, though, Fr. Martin and the New Ways Ministry can insist that Catholics ought to celebrate Pride Month in recognition of the human dignity of the Catholic LGBTQ community.

As reported by LifeSite, Fr. James Martin recently shared his opinion about why Catholics ought to celebrate “Pride Month”:

“Can Catholics celebrate Pride Month, when the LGBTQ community marks its place in society? . . .  Can they do this when pride is one of the traditional seven deadly sins? Isn’t it wrong to show pride? First, it’s important to remember that there are (at least) two kinds of pride. The first is the satisfaction that can come from your own accomplishments. This can turn into vanity, which is something to avoid. . . . So the first kind of pride can be a threat to humility, to discipleship and to the spiritual life overall. But the second kind of pride is a consciousness of one’s own dignity. And that’s closer to what Pride Month is meant to be for the LGBTQ community: a recognition of the human dignity of a group of people who have, for centuries been, treated with contempt, rejection and violence.”

So whereas Martin acknowledges that there is a concept of sin, he asserts that Pride Month is sinless because it is based on recognizing the human dignity of the people within the LGBTQ community. He also opined that Pride Month is complementary to the celebration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

“Another objection is marking Pride Month during the same month that Catholics celebrate the Month of the Sacred Heart. But, as I see it, the two are complementary, not contradictory. The Sacred Heart teaches us how Jesus loves; Pride Month reminds us whom Jesus invite us to love today.”

Thus, if we are to take Fr. Martin’s views at face value, we would have to conclude that God wants us to love the LGTBQ community by celebrating the human dignity of its members. As discussed below, this is entirely consistent with Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae. As a preliminary matter, though, Martin’s views invite us to review what the Catholic Church actually teaches about how the Sacred Heart of Jesus calls us to love today.


Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and True Catholic Love

Fr. John Croiset summarized devotion to the Sacred Heart as follows in his 1691 book, The Devotion to the Sacred Heart:

“From what has been said so far, it is easy to see what is meant by the devotion to the Sacred Heart: by this devotion we mean the ardent love which we conceive for Jesus Christ at the remembrance of all the marvels which He has wrought to show His tender love for us, especially in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is the miracle of His love; we mean the keen regret which we feel at the sight of the outrages which men commit against Jesus Christ in this adorable Mystery; we mean the ardent desire which presses us to leave nothing undone to make reparation for these outrages by every possible means. That is what we mean by devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and that is what it consists in.” (p. 55)

So we love Jesus for all that He has done to show His great love for us; and we do all we can to make reparation for the offenses that people commit against Our Lord, particularly offenses against Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. As all Catholics with the use of reason should know, receiving Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin is undoubtedly high on the list of most evil outrages against the Sacred Heart. Accordingly, an important component of reparation to the Sacred Heart involves opposition to any sinful lifestyles that naturally promote sacrilegious Communions.

Fr. Croiset also wrote of the necessary dispositions for devotion to the Sacred Heart, including a great horror of sin:

“As the end of devotion to the Sacred Heart is none other than a very ardent and tender love for Jesus Christ, it is evident that to have this devotion one must be in the state of grace, and have an extreme horror of every kind of sin incompatible with this love. The Sacred Heart being the source of all purity, nothing sullied can even enter It. Whatever we may say or do for His love and for His glory, if we do not live in the state of grace, is devoid of supernatural merit.” (p. 97)

We can see from this that one of the greatest conceivable offenses against the Sacred Heart of Jesus would be for apparent shepherds of the Catholic Church to encourage Catholics to remain in a state of mortal sin. Conversely, one of the greatest acts of love and reparation to the Sacred Heart would be to charitably encourage souls to abandon the sins that keep them from remaining in the state of grace.

Blessed Columba Marmion elaborated on this latter point in his Christ, the Life of the Soul:

“To love is to ‘wish good’ to someone, says St. Thomas; but every specific good is subordinated to the supreme good. That is why giving God, the Infinite Good, to those who do not know Him, by instructing them, is so pleasing to God. It is the same with praying for the conversion of unbelievers, of sinners, that they may arrive at faith or recover divine grace.” (p. 462)

If we truly love our neighbor, we must want them to abandon sin so that they may “arrive at faith or recover divine grace.” We know from this that anyone purporting to be a Catholic who encouraged others to remain in sin would actually be spreading hate rather than love.

As we can read from the words of Fr. Martin, though, he has essentially arrived at the exact opposite position — his views are an inversion of the Catholic truths expressed so well by Fr. Croiset, Dom Marmion, and every other Catholic who has written accurately on the topic.


Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae as the “Theological” Foundation of Fr. Martin’s Error

As we can read in his September 1965 intervention read at the Second Vatican Council, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre expressed concerns that the Declaration of Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae, could lead to the inversion of Catholic teaching that we see today from Fr. Martin:

“The dignity of the human person is acquired by observing the divine law. He who despises the  divine law thereby loses his dignity. Do the damned still preserve their dignity in hell? It is impossible to speak with veracity of liberty, of conscience, of the dignity of the human person except by reference to divine law. This observance of divine law is the criterion of human dignity. Man, the family, civil society, possess dignity in the measure in which they respect the divine law. Divine law itself indicates to us the rules for the right use of our liberty. Divine law itself marks out the limits of constraint permitted to the authorities established by God. Divine law itself gives the measure of religious liberty.” (from Archbishop Lefebvre’s I Accuse the Council!, p. 64)

Once human dignity is divorced from observance of divine law, then those who promote sin will clamor for men to celebrate the dignity of their sinful lifestyles. Tragically, the passage upon which Archbishop Lefebvre commented in his intervention remained largely unchanged in the final version of Dignitatis Humanae:

“The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. . . It is in accordance with their dignity as persons — that is, beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility — that all men should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth, once it is known, and to order their whole lives in accord with the demands of truth. However, men cannot discharge these obligations in a manner in keeping with their own nature unless they enjoy immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom. Therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature. In consequence, the right to this immunity continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it and the exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed.”

Although this language from the Conciliar declaration speaks of the need for people to seek the truth, it also states that their human dignity is not impaired by their failure to seek truth. Moreover, the declaration makes the astounding claim that human dignity requires that those in error “enjoy immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom.” If we read this to mean that a person cannot be forced to become Catholic, it is obviously true. But the Vatican II architects drafted this language to be broad and ambiguous enough to mean that we cannot attempt to persuade those in sin to abandon their sinful lifestyles — such would be impermissible psychological coercion.

We know from sixty years of painful experience that the defenders of Vatican II cannot admit that the declaration’s language could possibly leave open the interpretations about which Archbishop Lefebvre warned. However, we merely have to read the way in which the New Ways Ministry attacked Francis’s Dignitatis Infinita (for being disrespectful to transgender people) to see that Archbishop Lefebvre was exactly right:

“Exploring our transness and living our trans lives in response to a moral or spiritual conviction is a part our search for and response to (what we have found to be) truth. In this respect, it is part of the process whereby we pursue a morally dignified life, in accordance with our nature and obligation as free beings. Moreover, the Church also teaches that we cannot exercise our freedom in accordance with our nature and duty if we are coerced in doing so. And this is the case even if human freedom might also need to be ‘freed’ to stop it making mistakes in that search. This is the principle that underpins the Church’s affirmation of religious freedom (Dignitatis Humanae, §2) – which applies even to bad and/or mistaken people.”

Were it not for Dignitatis Humanae, there would be no supposed theological justification for this demand that human dignity requires us to refrain from questioning the “transness” of those claiming to practice the Catholic Faith. Thanks in large part to the defenders of Vatican II, though, Fr. Martin and the New Ways Ministry can insist that Catholics ought to celebrate Pride Month in recognition of the human dignity of the Catholic LGBTQ community.

But Catholics do not have to surrender this battle of June flags. Even those who want to continue defending Vatican II can oppose the anti-Catholic errors that the Council’s architects promoted through their ambiguous passages. However, this requires Catholics to speak truth in the face of wicked lies. The reality is that Fr. Martin is directing hate speech against the Sacred Heart of Jesus and those souls for whom He shed His Precious Blood. The best way for us to love Fr. Martin and those who share his views is to charitably insist that they stop lying, and encourage them to make reparation for their sins.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!