Hermeneutics and the Second Vatican Council's Teachings: Establishing Roman Catholic Theological Grounds for Religious Freedoms in Relation to Islam. Continuity or Discontinuity in the Catholic Tradition?

Abstract

This article examines how the hermeneutical traditions within Roman Catholicism can be employed to address a question regarding Catholic views on the religious freedoms that should be accorded to Islam in any society. The key Catholic documents examined originate from the Second Vatican Council. This particular question was not the focus of the key documents inspected, but those documents can be applied to this question. The first part of the article examines the complex hermeneutics involved in reading Council documents. The second part of the article examines the way in which the ‘Declaration on Religious Liberty’ can be applied to the question of Islamic religious freedoms. The article also attempts to show that the Council's teachings were a real development in Catholic teaching and were also continuous with an earlier stratum of tradition. Attention is given to the serious debate within the Catholic Church regarding the claims made in this document.