Does the state have the right to restrict non-Catholic religions?

This is the ninth part of a series on the true nature of human freedom, particularly as expounded in the teaching of Pope Leo XIII.   

The first part discussed man’s natural liberty, by which he is free to choose how he will act. The second part examined man’s moral liberty, by which he freely acts in accordance with his rational nature. The third part explored the ways in which God assists us, so that we might attain moral liberty. The fourth part explained how just laws made by the state can help man to attain true liberty. The fifth part examined the nature of liberalism, and its incompatibility with the Catholic faith. The sixth part treated of the modern error of “separation of Church and state.” The seventh part introduced the question of “liberty of conscience,” and explained the dictum “error has no rights.” In the eighth part we examined whether the state can compel men to enter the Catholic Church. 

This ninth installment considers the extent of the state’s coercive power as regards the public practice of non-Catholic religions. 

We are forced to declare: how far is the world from the order wished by God in Christ, the order that guarantees the only true and real peace…. The exhortation in favor of the Catholic social order, as a factor of pacification, is at the same time an encouragement to true liberty. Because, in the ultimate analysis, Catholic order as an organization for peace is essentially an order of liberty. 

Pope Pius XII, Christmas message, 24 December 1951 

(LifeSiteNews) — This article deals with two very sensitive questions, namely (i) whether it is legitimate for the state to restrict the public practice of non-Catholic religions, and (ii) whether the state can use its coercive power to compel those who have abandoned the Catholic faith to return to their religious obligations. 

Due to the pervasive liberalism of the modern world, many are immediately appalled by the idea that the state could have the power to limit the public expression of religious beliefs or use its coercive authority to compel subjects to fulfil their religious obligations. This arises from the liberal conception of morality, which holds that the free exercise of man’s natural liberty ought only to be restricted when it conflicts with the exercise of the natural liberty of another. When this is not the case, the liberal asserts, man ought to be free to act as he wishes. Hence the liberal refrain, “if it doesn’t hurt anyone else, what’s the problem?” In practice, of course, the liberal only grants the right to exercise this liberty to those powerful enough to claim it, or to select groups on which they bestow their favor. No such right is conceded to those groups in whose well-being the liberal takes no interest. For example, unborn children may be freely killed when they are perceived to obstruct the exercise of unencumbered natural liberty by adults, and the exploitation of the powerless has long been the engine of economic liberalism.  

The Catholic approach to morality is completely different. Indeed, so irreconcilable are the two systems of thought that it is impossible for a person to be at one and the same time a liberal and a Catholic.   

As we have seen in the eight previous instalments of this series, in Catholic moral thought the morality of an act is determined by whether the act is in accordance with right reason or contrary to right reason. Man never has a moral right to act in a manner contrary to the objective order of reality, whether it “hurts anyone” or not (and of course it always does, because sin always harms ourselves and our neighbors). In some circumstances the state can take action to prevent or punish immoral acts, when the common good of society requires it.  

It is important to bear in mind throughout this article, that all the powers possessed by the Church, and by the state, are given by God for the genuine good of those over whom they rule. Power is not given for the purpose of tyranny, self-aggrandizement, or self-enrichment, but rather it is given so that those who exercise it can work for the happiness of their subjects, out of love for mankind. 

The Church works for the eternal happiness of every human being. She knows that in eternity there are only two states: eternal bliss and eternal suffering. Therefore, she acts with urgency to ensure that as many souls as possible may enjoy eternal beatitude with God.   

The state works for the temporal happiness of every member of the society over which it rules and, because every man also has an eternal destiny, the state is obliged to place its temporal sword at the service of the spiritual sword of the Church.^[1] Together they have as their goal the temporal and eternal bliss of every man, woman, and child.  

In Rerum Novarum Pope Leo XIII teaches: 

Rulers should, nevertheless, anxiously safeguard the community and all its members; the community, because the conservation thereof is so emphatically the business of the supreme power, that the safety of the commonwealth is not only the first law, but it is a government’s whole reason of existence; and the members, because both philosophy and the Gospel concur in laying down that the object of the government of the State should be, not the advantage of the ruler, but the benefit of those over whom he is placed.  

As the power to rule comes from God, and is, as it were, a participation in His, the highest of all sovereignties, it should be exercised as the power of God is exercised – with a fatherly solicitude which not only guides the whole, but reaches also individuals.^[2]   

Sometimes the responsibility of wielding power means that coercive measures have to be taken for the sake of the common good.  

Pope Leo XIII teaches: 

Whenever the general interest or any particular class suffers, or is threatened with harm, which can in no other way be met or prevented, the public authority must step in to deal with it. Now, it is to the interest of the community, as well as of the individual, that peace and good order should be maintained; that all things should be carried on in accordance with God’s laws and those of nature; that the discipline of family life should be observed and that religion should be obeyed; that a high standard of morality should prevail, both in public and private life; that justice should be held sacred and that no one should injure another with impunity; that the members of the commonwealth should grow up to man’s estate strong and robust, and capable, if need be, of guarding and defending their country.^[3] 

Everyone accepts the use of the state’s coercive power in certain areas of life, but modern liberalism has limited its sphere of action, with disastrous consequences that are visible to all of us: abortion, contraception, divorce, pornography, transgender mutilation of children and adults, unjust and degrading economic systems, social and family breakdown, empty nihilistic lifestyles, and most reprehensible of all, that most men, women and children live and die without knowing or loving the God who created them and redeemed them, and they pass into an eternity of separation from the only source of eternal joy. 

This evil and inhumane system was brought into existence, as Pope Pius XI taught, by “the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics.”^[4]  

The state cannot be indifferent to the evils which are afflicting society due to the lack of true religion and worship of the true God. 

Pius XI teaches that at the Last Judgement: 

Christ, who has been cast out of public life, despised, neglected and ignored, will most severely avenge these insults; for his kingly dignity demands that the State should take account of the commandments of God and of Christian principles, both in making laws and in administering justice, and also in providing for the young a sound moral education.^[5] 

And he urged Catholics to meditate upon that Last Day when every rebellion against the Reign of Christ the King will finally be put down.  

“The faithful,” he wrote: 

[B]y meditating upon these truths, will gain much strength and courage, enabling them to form their lives after the true Christian ideal.  

If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire.   

He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ.  

He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God.  

He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone.  

He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God.^[6] 

Therefore, let us put aside any pre-conceived notions – shaped by the pervasive liberalism of our day – that make it difficult to recognize that man has moral obligations to God the Creator and Sustainer of Universe, whom he must worship, not as he wishes, but as God Himself wishes and commands.   

There is no right to the public practice of a non-Catholic religion 

In the previous installment we saw that nobody can be forced to enter the Catholic Church against their will. In the act of faith, the human intellect, under the direction of the will, and assisted by divine grace, assents to the truths of the faith, not because natural reason perceives their truth, but because of the authority of God who reveals them.  

All such internal acts are beyond the competence of human law, as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches: 

Man can make laws in those matters of which he is competent to judge. But man is not competent to judge of interior movements, that are hidden, but only of exterior acts which appear.^[7]  

External acts on the other hand can fall under the purview of the state. 

In the previous article we also saw that the state ought not to interfere unduly in the private life of the individual or the family. As Leo XIII taught: 

We have said that the State must not absorb the individual or the family; both should be allowed free and untrammeled action so far as is consistent with the common good and the interests of others.^[8]  

We can therefore draw a distinction between private acts and our public acts as members of the community of the state. 

Our private acts in the private sphere of individual and family life ought ordinarily to be outside the sphere within which the state will intervene. The exception to this is when private acts gravely threaten the common good. For example, the state can act to protect children from abuse within the family and can act against private groups that seek public harm, such as secret societies and criminal networks. 

Public acts which are harmful to the common good are directly subject to the constraining power by the state. This is something accepted by everyone, as a matter of course, in countless areas of life. However, the ideology of liberalism holds that some of the most important aspects of public life – the public worship of God and the public propagation of religious doctrine – are outside the state’s purview. On the contrary, there are few things more gravely immoral, and more gravely harmful to the common good, than false worship (we are not at present considering the subjective dispositions of those involved) and the spreading of false doctrines, which undermine the true faith and will lead to souls being deprived of the beatific vision of God for all eternity.  

It is this incalculable harm to the common good which is the basis of the state’s right to prevent the public practice of non-Catholic religions and to prevent the propagation of religious error. For this reason, the state may, and often ought, to use its coercive power to prevent such things as: non-Catholic rites of public worship, the construction of non-Catholic places of worship, the public preaching of false religions, and the publication of heretical or immoral books.   

For as Pius XII taught:  

[T]hat which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has no right to exist, to be spread, or to be activated.^[9]

Papal condemnations of religious liberty 

This doctrine is a difficult one for many Catholics to accept, because it conflicts so strongly with what our modern societies have insisted we regard as good.   

Therefore, it may be helpful to show how consistently the Roman Pontiffs have condemned the error that men have the right to the public practice of false religions.  

Pope Pius VI (r. 1775-1779) condemned the religious liberty promoted by the French revolution in Quod Aliquantum:  

It is with this end in view that they establish, as a right of man in society, this absolute liberty, which not only assures the right of not being disturbed in regard to his religious opinions, but which also grants that license of thought, of writing and even shamelessly publishing on the subject of religion whatever the most unruly imagination might suggest. This monstrous right nevertheless appears to the Assembly to result from the equality and liberty which are natural to all men. But what could there be more outrageous than to establish among men this equality and this unbridled liberty which will snuff out reason, the most precious gift that nature has given to man, and the only one which distinguishes him from the animals?^[10] 

Pope Pius VII (r. 1800-23), condemned Article 22 of the French Constitution, which permitted liberty of worship. In Post Tam Diuturnas he taught:  

Another subject of sorrow which painfully affects Our heart and, We confess, torments Us with extreme anguish and despondency, is the 22nd article of the constitution. Not only is the liberty of worship and of conscience permitted, but, to use the very words of this article, support and protection are promised to that liberty and to the ministers of those so-called denominations as well.^[11]

Pope Gregory XVI’s (r. 1830-1846) condemnations of “liberty of conscience” and “liberty of worship” have already been cited in a previous article.  

Pope Pius IX (r. 1846-78) when he promulgated Quanta Cura in 1866, expressly sought to follow the example of his “predecessors” who, with “apostolic fortitude,” had constantly: 

[R]esisted the nefarious enterprises of wicked men, who, like raging waves of the sea foaming out their own confusion, and promising liberty whereas they are the slaves of corruption, have striven by their deceptive opinions and most pernicious writings to raze the foundations of the Catholic religion and of civil society, to remove from among men all virtue and justice, to deprave persons, and especially inexperienced youth, to lead it into the snares of error, and at length to tear it from the bosom of the Catholic Church.^[12] 

These errors have the effect: 

[T]hat that salutary influence be impeded and (even) removed, which the Catholic Church, according to the institution and command of her Divine Author, should freely exercise even to the end of the world — not only over private individuals, but over nations, peoples, and their sovereign princes; and (tend also) to take away that mutual fellowship and concord of counsels between Church and State which has ever proved itself propitious and salutary, both for religious and civil interests.^[13] 

The following erroneous propositions were among those condemned:   

1. [T]he best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones.^[14]
2. [T]hat is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.^[15]
3. [L]iberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.^[16] 

And he issued a warning that has been realised in our day:  

[W]here religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force.^[17]

In The Syllabus of Errors, the same Pontiff condemned, among others, the following propositions: 

1. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.^[18] 
2. Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship.^[19]
3. Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and the minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism.^[20] 

The teaching of Pope Leo XIII 

In this series, we are focusing in particular on the teaching of Leo XIII. In his encyclical Libertas he treats of false liberty of worship. He writes:   

This kind of liberty, if considered in relation to the State, clearly implies that there is no reason why the State should offer any homage to God, or should desire any public recognition of Him; that no one form of worship is to be preferred to another, but that all stand on an equal footing, no account being taken of the religion of the people, even if they profess the Catholic faith.^[21]   

But this is morally unacceptable, as we have already shown, especially in Part VI of this series. For, as the Supreme Pontiff continues:  

[T]o justify this, it must needs be taken as true that the State has no duties toward God, or that such duties, if they exist, can be abandoned with impunity, both of which assertions are manifestly false. For it cannot be doubted but that, by the will of God, men are united in civil society; whether its component parts be considered; or its form, which implies authority; or the object of its existence; or the abundance of the vast services which it renders to man.^[22]  

He continues:  

God it is who has made man for society, and has placed him in the company of others like himself, so that what was wanting to his nature, and beyond his attainment if left to his own resources, he might obtain by association with others. Wherefore, civil society must acknowledge God as its Founder and Parent, and must obey and reverence His power and authority. Justice therefore forbids, and reason itself forbids, the State to be godless; or to adopt a line of action which would end in godlessness-namely, to treat the various religions (as they call them) alike, and to bestow upon them promiscuously equal rights and privileges.^[23]  

The existence of God and many of his attributes can be known by the light of human reason, as can our fundamental duties towards Him. Therefore, all human beings, individually and collectively, must worship Him. And if human beings are to worship him collectively, they must be doing so by means of one religion, and they must necessarily seek to ensure that that religion be the true one.  

Therefore, Leo XIII continues:  

Since, then, the profession of one religion is necessary in the State, that religion must be professed which alone is true, and which can be recognized without difficulty, especially in Catholic States, because the marks of truth are, as it were, engravers upon it. This religion, therefore, the rulers of the State must preserve and protect, if they would provide – as they should do – with prudence and usefulness for the good of the community. For public authority exists for the welfare of those whom it governs; and, although its proximate end is to lead men to the prosperity found in this life, yet, in so doing, it ought not to diminish, but rather to increase, man’s capability of attaining to the supreme good in which his everlasting happiness consists: which never can be attained if religion be disregarded.^[24] 

False worship and the propagation of false doctrine is harmful because it leads to souls being deprived of eternal life. It also does incalculable harm to the life of the state, and to the true liberty of subjects. Therefore, the pope concludes this section as follows: 

All this, however, We have explained more fully elsewhere. [In the encyclical letter Immortale Dei, which we considered here.]  

We now only wish to add the remark that liberty of so false a nature is greatly hurtful to the true liberty of both rulers and their subjects. Religion, of its essence, is wonderfully helpful to the State. For, since it derives the prime origin of all power directly from God Himself, with grave authority it charges rulers to be mindful of their duty, to govern without injustice or severity, to rule their people kindly and with almost paternal charity; it admonishes subjects to be obedient to lawful authority, as to the ministers of God; and it binds them to their rulers, not merely by obedience, but by reverence and affection, forbidding all seditious and venturesome enterprises calculated to disturb public order and tranquillity, and cause greater restrictions to be put upon the liberty of the people.   

We need not mention how greatly religion conduces to pure morals, and pure morals to liberty. Reason shows, and history confirms the fact, that the higher the morality of States; the greater are the liberty and wealth and power which they enjoy.^[25] 

And our modern times show that when the state abandons true religion and true moral principles, its liberty, wealth and power decline.  

Or as Pope Pius XI bluntly expressed it: 

The fool who has said in his heart ‘there is no God’ goes straight to moral corruption, and the number of these fools who today are out to sever morality from religion, is legion. They either do not see or refuse to see that the banishment of confessional Christianity, i.e., the clear and precise notion of Christianity, from teaching and education, from the organization of social and political life, spells spiritual spoliation and degradation.^[26] 

The state may coerce those who have abandoned the Catholic faith 

In the above section we have seen that the Catholic Church teaches that the state can prevent the public exercise of non-Catholic religions when the common good requires it. We now consider the question raised in the previous installment, and there left unanswered, as to whether the state can use its authority to coerce those who have abandoned the faith to fulfil their religious duties.   

We have already established that there can be no such coercion for those who have not been baptized. Over them, the Catholic Church neither possesses, nor exercises, any direct authority. She respects their free will, and urges them by her preaching to accept the salvation offered by Jesus Christ.  

However, once a person is baptized, they become subject to her authority. They remain under her jurisdiction even if they separate themselves from membership of the Church, by public heresy, public schism or public apostasy, or if they are separated by the Church by full excommunication. 

Therefore, we must make an important distinction between being a subject of the Church and a member of the Church. 

Theologian Joachim Salaverri S.J. defines the terms as follows: 

A subject is said to be someone who is under the social power of another. 

A member is… that which is united to some organic body as an integral part of it.^[27] 

Thus, public heretics, schismatics, apostates and excommunicates remain under the social power of the Church, even though they no longer share in her membership. 

The Catechism of the Council of Trent explains this point further: 

Heretics and schismatics are excluded from the Church, because they have separated from her and belong to her only as deserters belong to the army from which they have deserted. It is not, however, to be denied that they are still subject to the jurisdiction of the Church, inasmuch as they may be called before her tribunals, punished and anathematized.^[28]  

St. Thomas distinguishes this group of non-believers from those who have never had the faith:  

[T]here are unbelievers who at some time have accepted the faith, and professed it, such as heretics and all apostates.  

These, he teaches: 

[S]uch should be submitted even to bodily compulsion, that they may fulfil what they have promised, and hold what they, at one time, received.^[29] 

Pope Pius VII affirmed this distinction in Quod Aliquantum, the papal condemnation of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in France.  

Let us examine now the word liberty under another aspect. Let us see clearly the distinction to be made between men who always have been outside of the Church, such as the Jews and the infidels, and those who subjected themselves to the Church by the baptism they received. The former need not be coerced to profess the Catholic faith whereas the latter it is necessary to force.^[30] 

A twentieth century theologian, Rev A. Bernard, commenting on this passage of Pope Pius VII writes:  

The pope meant that liberty is not an end in itself and what is important is only to make good use of it. The Church does not believe it has the right to intervene for those who are not connected at all to the Catholic faith; the Church wants to respect their liberty and, if possible, the zeal to guide and illuminate it. But for those connected to the Church by the sacraments received or by promises, the Church has the right to intervene, not to violate that liberty but to call it to order: the Church acts in this case like a society towards its members, like a motherland towards its own children.^[31] 

Thus, those who have had the faith, and abandoned it, are in a different category to those who have never known it. Heretics, schismatics and apostates may be compelled to return to the faith which they have betrayed, and may be punished if they do not. This is the basis of the laws against heresy which have at certain times existed and been implemented in Catholic states. At some periods of time this has resulted in the death penalty being applied to those who have persisted in heresy. This is because of the grave threat that heresy can pose to the common good, especially when it is a new heresy emerging among a Catholic populace. Such coercion is not a violation of liberty, because moral liberty is the use of natural liberty in accordance with reason.  

A state which permitted its people to be seduced away from the only path to salvation, would be a state which was neglecting its responsibilities. However, it should be noted that recourse to capital punishment by Catholic states has been rare and has generally been reserved for cases where the propagation of heresy threatened grave harm to the whole community. It should also be noted that history shows that while the Church possesses jurisdiction over all the baptized, she has generally not supported measures by the state which treat with severity those born in heresy. She has restricted her severity for those who have known the true faith and have not only abandoned it but have attempted to seduce others into doing the same.   

Religious liberty vs. religious tolerance 

While the Church possesses jurisdiction over all the baptized, and while the state has the power to suppress the public practice of non-Catholic religions, this does not lead, and historically speaking has generally not led, to the establishment of persecuting states. 

This is because the existence of a power, and its use, are two distinct things. We may think of the difference between the fullness of the power theoretically held by a father and the way in which a good and loving father actually uses that authority to seek his children’s good. The exercise of his power to discipline and punish must be regulated by right reason. If it is not, he sins.   

In a similar way, the use of the state’s coercive power must also be restricted by right reason. The state must always seek the common good of the community over which it rules, and this of course includes all of those who do not practice the Catholic faith.  

Laws prohibiting the public practice or propagation of non-Catholic religions ought to be imposed and enforced when they would promote the common good, and they ought not to be imposed when doing so would harm the common good.   

God Himself tolerates evil for the sake of the greater good, as St. Augustine teaches:  

God Himself in his Providence, although infinitely good and almighty, does permit, nevertheless, some evil in the world, either to permit a greater good or to avoid a worse evil. It is fitting, in the government of nations, to imitate the One who governs the world. Furthermore, being powerless to stop all particular evils, the authorities of man must allow many things to go unpunished which will be, and justly so, reached by the vengeance of divine Providence.^[32] 

In the same way, teaches Leo XIII, “the Church” with “the discernment of a true mother” and “while not conceding any right to anything save what is true and honest” does not “forbid public authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or preserving some greater good.”^[33]  

However, he continues: 

[I]f, in such circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and this is the only legitimate reason), human law may or even should tolerate evil, it may not and should not approve or desire evil for its own sake; for evil of itself, being a privation of good, is opposed to the common welfare which every legislator is bound to desire and defend to the best of his ability. In this, human law must endeavor to imitate God, who, as St. Thomas teaches, in allowing evil to exist in the world, ‘neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills only to permit it to be done; and this is good.’ This saying of the Angelic Doctor contains briefly the whole doctrine of the permission of evil.^[34]

The practical implications of this for the toleration of non-Catholic religions is as follows: 

The Church, indeed, deems it unlawful to place the various forms of divine worship on the same footing as the true religion, but does not, on that account, condemn those rulers who, for the sake of securing some great good or of hindering some great evil, allow patiently custom or usage to be a kind of sanction for each kind of religion having its place in the State. And, in fact, the Church is wont to take earnest heed that no one shall be forced to embrace the Catholic faith against his will, for, as St. Augustine wisely reminds us, ‘Man cannot believe otherwise than of his own will.'^[35] 

Tolerance of evil is however a concession to man’s sinfulness, not an ideal to be pursued. For modern man “tolerance” is a good in and of itself, for the Catholic Church it is good or evil insofar as it leads towards, or away from, the common good. Pope Leo XIII teaches:  

But, to judge aright, we must acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further is it from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the motive of good is wanting.   

And although in the extraordinary condition of these times the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of providing for the eternal salvation of mankind.  

One thing, however, remains always true – that the liberty which is claimed for all to do all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights.^[36] 

The tolerance shown by the Catholic Church and the Catholic state, as loving parents towards their children, is a tolerance of evil for the sake of a greater good. In this it differs markedly from the tolerance of liberalism which leads to the promotion of evil and to the persecution of good.  

Pope Leo XIII notes: 

And as to tolerance, it is surprising how far removed from the equity and prudence of the Church are those who profess what is called liberalism. For, in allowing that boundless license of which We have spoken, they exceed all limits, and end at last by making no apparent distinction between truth and error, honesty and dishonesty. And because the Church, the pillar and ground of truth, and the unerring teacher of morals, is forced utterly to reprobate and condemn tolerance of such an abandoned and criminal character, they calumniate her as being wanting in patience and gentleness, and thus fail to see that, in so doing, they impute to her as a fault what is in reality a matter for commendation.^[37]  

And, of course, the liberal rarely shows tolerance to the institution which stands fully against their toleration of evil:   

But, in spite of all this show of tolerance, it very often happens that, while they profess themselves ready to lavish liberty on all in the greatest profusion, they are utterly intolerant toward the Catholic Church, by refusing to allow her the liberty of being herself free.^[38]  

The doctrine of Leo XIII was repeated in more recent times by Pope Pius XII: 

The duty of repressing moral and religious error cannot therefore be an ultimate norm of action. It must be subordinate to  higher and more general norms which in some circumstances permit, and even perhaps seem to indicate as the better policy, toleration of error in order to promote a greater good.^[39]

However, tolerance of a false religion is never the same thing as to recognize a moral right to practice that religion. It is always a concession made to achieve a greater good. Hence, religious tolerance by the state is quite distinct from the assertion of a right to religious liberty.  

Religious liberty is the assertion that everyone has a moral right to practice any religion of their choice, without regard for whether it is true, but only for whether it infringes upon the “rights” of others. 

Religious tolerance is shown by the state towards the public practice of non-Catholic religions, when it judges that such tolerance is necessary for achieving its end, which is the happiness of the people over which it rules.  

And the Church shows tolerance in order that all men might one day be united with Christ in His Mystical Body: 

The bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth… And I have given thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles: That thou mightest open the eyes of the blind, and bring forth the prisoner out of prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. (Is. 3, 6-7)