Christian Human Rights in the French Revolution

Bibliographic Data

ID5305709
AuthorsDan Edelstein (0000-0002-2541-1119, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume79
Issue3
Pages411-426
Publication date2018-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the History of Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-5037 • E-ISSN: 1086-3222
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/jhi.2018.0025
PMID30245487
OpenAlexW2891474751
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited7

This essay explores the early Catholic response to the concept of human rights. It is widely assumed that the Catholic Church opposed human rights talk in the wake of the French Revolution, and only slowly came around to accepting it in the twentieth century. However, a more systematic analysis of Pius VI's stance toward the French Revolution reveals that he approved of human rights, but had a more Thomistic understanding of them than what was found in the French Declaration. The Vatican's embrace of human rights in the 1930s should accordingly be seen as a continuity of more long-standing practices

Declaration · Environmental ethics · French revolution · Fundamental rights · Human rights · Political science · Politics · Right to property · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty