Speaking of more recent times, card. Rouco Varela recalled that "the terrible experience" of the Second World War dramatically shook "the moral conscience of all mankind" and led it "to a political-legal belief in the inviolable character of human rights and their superiority, not only ethically but also legally, under the state positive law, with the implicit assertion of the need to limit the sovereignty of the states" to promote domestic and international peace. In this context, the Church made appeal to religious freedom and to cooperation for the common good in the negotiations of new agreements with the States in the second half of the XX century, before and after the Second Vatican Council, thus placing itself within international law. "The case of Spain said the cardinal does not qualitatively differs from the common European denominator in the basic legal wordings" of the XIX and XX centuries. Then he spoke of the Concordat of 1853 and that of 1953, which "helped extend the internal freedom of the Church and its presence in the world of the educational, cultural and social institutions of its time, with appreciable effects of a Christian education of the consciences and the opening of new apostolic horizons in the work world and in the political community". (continued)
