The Reverend Dr. John Courtney Murray | |
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| Born | (1904-09-12)September 12, 1904 |
| Died | August 16, 1967(1967-08-16) (aged 62) |
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| Alma mater | Boston College Gregorian University |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | Ateneo de Manila, Jesuit theologate Woodstock, Maryland |
| Main interests | Theology |
| Notable works | We Hold These Truths |
| Notable ideas | Dignitatis humanae |
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John Courtney MurraySJ (September 12, 1904 – August 16, 1967) was an AmericanJesuitpriest andtheologian who was especially known for his efforts to reconcileCatholicism andreligious pluralism and particularly focused on the relationship betweenreligious freedom and the institutions of a democratically-structured modern state.
During theSecond Vatican Council, he played a key role in persuading the assembly of the Catholic bishops to adopt the Council's ground-breaking Declaration on Religious Liberty,Dignitatis humanae.
John Courtney Murray was born inNew York City on September 12, 1904. In 1920, he entered the New York province of theSociety of Jesus after attendingXavier High School. He studiedClassics andPhilosophy atBoston College. He obtained hisbachelor's andmaster's degrees in 1926 and 1927, respectively. After graduation, he traveled to thePhilippines, where he taughtLatin andEnglish literature at theAteneo de Manila.[1]
In 1930, Murray returned to theUnited States. He was ordained aRoman Catholicpriest in 1933. He pursued further studies at theGregorian University inRome and in 1937 completed adoctorate insacred theology.[1]
After his return from Rome to the United States, just before the beginning ofWorld War II, he joined the Jesuit theologate inWoodstock, Maryland and taught Catholictrinitarian theology. In 1940, Murray still fully supported the Catholic doctrine that there was no salvation outside the Church.[2]
In 1941, he was named editor of the Jesuit journalTheological Studies. He held both positions until his death.[1]
As representative of theUnited States Conference of Catholic Bishops and consultant to the religious affairs section of theAllied High Commission, he helped draft and promote the 1943Declaration on World Peace, aninterfaith statement of principles forpostwar reconstruction. He successfully promoted a closeconstitutional arrangement between the restoredGerman state and theChurch, which included the sharing of tax revenue with the churches.
By 1944, Murray's endorsement of full co-operation with othertheists led many Catholics to complain that he endangered American Catholic faith, which then recommended minimal co-operation with non-Catholics for fear that lay Catholic faith would be weakened.[2]
Similarly, Murray advocated religious freedom and pluralism as defined and protected by theFirst Amendment of theUS Constitution, which contradicted Catholicdoctrines of church-and-state relations before Vatican II.[2]
"Pluralism, therefore, implies disagreement and dissension within the community. But it also implies a community within which there must be agreement and consensus."[3]
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His background and training suggest a heavily-theoretical bent, but Murray became a leading public figure, and his work dealt primarily with the tensions betweenreligion and public life. His best-known book,We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (1960), collects a number of his essays on such topics.[4]
In 1951 to 1952, after a lectureship atYale University, he collaborated on a project withRobert Morrison MacIver ofColumbia University to assessacademic freedom andreligious education in Americanpublic universities. Ultimately, the proposal argued for public aid toprivate schools and for sympathetic exposure of religious faiths inpublic schools. The project was both nationally influential and personally formative, as it deepened Murray's understanding of and esteem for Americanconstitutional law.[citation needed]
In his increasingly public role, several Americanbishops consulted Murray on legal issues such ascensorship andbirth control. He argued against what he saw as the reactionary and coercive practices of some Catholic bishops and instead advocated participation in substantive public debate, which he suggested offered a better appeal to public virtue. Instead of civic coercion, he argued, presenting moral opinions in the context of public discourse enabled Americans to deepen their moral commitments and to safeguard the "genius" of American freedoms.
From 1958 to 1962, he served at theCenter for the Study of Democratic Institutions and appliedjust war criteria toSoviet-American relations.
Throughout the 1950s Murray promoted his ideas in Catholic journals where they received heavy criticism from the leading Catholic thinkers of the day.Msgr Fenton was the most prominent of those that opposed Murray as Murray's line was much closer toAmericanism, which had been condemned byLeo XIII. Murray had the advantage of being friends withClare Boothe Luce, the US ambassador to Italy and the second wife ofHenry Luce, the prominent magazine magnate. Murray's ideas were featured in Henry Luce'sTime magazine, most prominently on December 12, 1960, when Murray graced the cover in a feature aboutUS Catholics and the State.[5] Henry Luce was a prominent Republican and close friends withJohn Foster Dulles, the father ofAvery Dulles, SJ, who was known to be sympathetic to Murray's theology and with CIA DirectorAllen Dulles, who was John's brother.[6] TheCIA then sought to use the news media to influence public opinion during theCold War.[citation needed] Murray's liberal approach to religious liberty and the traditionally-strong Catholic opposition tocommunism were useful in the global battle against communism, especially inLatin America and other Catholic strongholds.[7] After his death in 1967, his obituary inTime declared that he had been responsible for incorporating /the US secular doctrines of church-state separation and freedom of conscience in to the spiritual tradition of Roman Catholicism" despite the efforts of the "ultra conservative" faction in the Church.[8]
By the late 1940s, Murray argued that Catholic teaching onchurch-and-state relations was inadequate to the "moral functioning" of contemporary peoples. TheAnglo-American West, he claimed, had developed a fuller truth abouthuman dignity, which was the responsibility of all citizens to assume "moral control" over their own religious beliefs and to wrest control frompaternalistic states. That truth was an "intention of nature" or a new dictate ofnatural law philosophy.[1]
Murray’s claim that a "new moral truth" had emerged outside the Church led to conflict with CardinalAlfredo Ottaviani, Pro-Secretary of the VaticanHoly Office. In 1954, the Vatican demanded for Murray to end both writing on religious freedom and publishing his two latest articles on the issue.[1]
In spite of his silencing, Murray continued to write privately on religious liberties and submitted his works to Rome, all of which were rejected.
In 1963, he was invited to the second but not the first session of theSecond Vatican Council in which he drafted the third and the fourth versions of a document on religious freedom.[9]
In 1965, the document eventually became the Council's endorsement of religious freedomDignitatis humanae personae.[10] He continued to write on the issue by claiming that the arguments offered by the finaldecree were inadequate even if the affirmation of religious freedom was unequivocal.
In 1966, prompted by theVietnam War, he was appointed to serve onLyndon Johnson's presidential commission, which reviewedSelective Service classifications. He supported the allowance of a classification for those opposed on moral grounds to some but not all wars, but that recommendation was not accepted by theSelective Service Administration.[11]
Murray then turned to questions of how the Church might arrive at new theological doctrines. He argued that Catholics who arrived at new truths about God would have to do so in conversation "on a footing of equality" with non-Catholics andatheists. He suggested greater reforms, including a restructuring of the Church, which he saw as having overdeveloped its notion of authority and hierarchy at the expense of the bonds of love that had from the start defined the authentically Christian life.[11]
In August 1967, Murray died of aheart attack inQueens, New York, one month before his 63rd birthday.[1]
