EDITORIAL

Only the Catholic is truly free

By Kenneth Baker, S.J., Editor

The highest value of contemporary man is personal freedom. Many of our fellow Americans in their own way have made freedom into a false god. But since man is limited in his very nature, human freedom is also a limited good. Thus those who deify their freedom are trying to make it into something it is not. In brief, many of our contemporaries have a false notion of what personal freedom really is.

That false notion understands freedom to mean that a person can do whatever he wishes, often, though not always, with the one restriction that he does no harm to another person. The source of such an understanding of freedom is pride which, in this case, means an exaltation of self over all limits that might be imposed from outside of the imperial self. Such a view of freedom is possible only in a liberal republic that tolerates exaggerated personal freedom. Freedom understood in that sense is not found in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes that deal ruthlessly with those who do not conform to the ruling ideology. Clear examples of this are Cuba, China and Vietnam.

We learn in logic that from a false premise you can get both true and false conclusions. Since the modern notion of freedom is false, from it flow many false conclusions. As we see in the culture around us, those who espouse absolute freedom for man, in the sense of freedom from the moral law and the Ten Commandments, are usually slaves of their own passions. They proudly reject God and his Commandments for man, but then they are slaves to all sorts of vices, such as greed, sexual license, envy of others, hatred, blasphemy and the whole list of evils listed by St. Paul in Romans 1:28-32. While they boast loudly about their freedom, they are in fact slaves.

On the other hand, the Catholic who truly is such in thought, word and deed, is supremely free — as free as one can be in this life. Why is this? He is free because he knows and possesses the truth. For it is the truth that makes one free. Jesus put it clearly in John 8:31-32, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Why is it that the real Catholic knows the truth? He knows the truth because he embraces the full faith of the Holy Catholic Church which is infallible and indefectible. The Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth, permeates and guides the Church until the end of time (see Matt. 29:20).

Moreover, because of his faith, the Catholic knows that his freedom is a limited freedom. It is limited by the truth that comes from God and is based in God. God is truth. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth and the life.” In this worldview, freedom does not mean that I can do whatever I feel like doing; it means that I have the capacity to do what I ought to do. So full self-realization in this life is achieved by finding out what I, as a limited creature, ought to do; it means finding the will of God for me and then doing it joyfully. What man ought to do is to live his life according to the rules of his nature; those rules are found in the Ten Commandments and in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

When one lives his life as God intended it to be lived, he is free to become what God wants him to become, namely, a saint. The most free people in history are the saints who loved God and strove to do his will. Those men and women were self-possessed and full of joy because they sought only to find the will of God in their lives and to fulfill it. We find such free spirits in saints like St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Philip Neri, St. Isaac Jogues, St. Therese of Lisieux, and a host of others. True freedom is found in holiness and holiness is freedom.