The Future of the West and the Struggle for Authentic Human Freedom

The struggle of this age is between anarchic freedom and authentic freedom. The future of the West hangs in the balance.

To an age enamored with so many false concepts of freedom the Catholic Church proclaims the unchangeable truth that some "choices" are always and everywhere wrong - choosing them does not make one free, rather it erodes authentic human freedom and leads to slavery and tyranny. Freedom is not about the fact that we can choose but about how and what we do choose. This is what truly matters. Authentic Human Freedom will never be found in decisions that are made against God and against the Natural Law.

P>WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - With most of the children out of school, that wonderful time we call summer is now upon us. In only a couple of weeks we will celebrate that unique American holiday, the Fourth of July. Our focus as a Nation turns increasingly to that that precious word - FREEDOM - which has informed this experiment in ordered liberty called the United States of America.

We see threats to freedom gathering everywhere around us like stormclouds. Recently, thousands around the United States gathered to Stand up for what this Nation has properly called the First Freedom, Religious Freedom. The Catholic Bishops of the United States have called for a Fortnight (14 days) of Prayer for Freedom

There is no word which echoes more passionately within the heart than that word freedom or evokes a deeper response. This Nation was founded by men and women who experienced threats to freedom's promise and potential and responded to them with heroism. It has beckoned from its birth to all who hear freedom's invitation to come and see what true Freedom means.

These compelling words written by Emma Lazarus are engraved on the pedestal of the Lady Liberty in New York's Ellis Island:  "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Freedom's lamp still shines beside that golden door. However, that light is being diminished by counterfeit notions of freedom which fail to recognize its source, comprehend its promise, accept its obligations or believe in its potential to build a better future.

One of the architects of the freedom undertaking which brought down the Berlin Wall at the end of the last century, Blessed John Paul II wrote, "Human freedom belongs to us as creatures; it is a freedom which is given as a gift, one to be received like a seed and to be cultivated responsibly. It is an essential part of that creaturely image which is the basis of the dignity of the person."

This yearning for freedom is present in all men and women. It is the hunger of the human heart. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians Christians, "For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery." (Gal. 5:1) The Lord Jesus Christ called us along the path to freedom with this promise, "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." (John 8:31, 32)

The struggle of our age is being waged over the meaning of freedom. It is a contest with extraordinary implications. Almost every contemporary concern that we face can be positioned within this struggle. As Christians, we know that freedom has a specific meaning. Viewing it within that context is the only way we will obtain the desired result of happiness and human flourishing.

How one defines human freedom will influence the way that he or she views almost everything. Freedom has consequences. Our choices have the capacity to not only change the world around us, but they make us to be the kinds of persons we become.

The capacity to make choices is what makes us human persons. What we choose either humanizes us further or leads us, ultimately, into slavery. The capacity to choose reflects the "Imago Dei", the Image of God, present within every human person.

As the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council in the Catholic Church wrote in their document on the Mission of the Church in the Modern World, "Authentic freedom is an outstanding manifestation of the divine image within man." (Gaudium et Spes, "Joy and Hope", 17)
We should listen closely to the contemporary voices using the word "freedom". What do they mean when they speak the word? We need to heed the voices of authentic freedom.

Two voices tower above all others. They proclaim the truth concerning human freedom and its essential connection to truth. They remind is of freedom's obligations to view the other as another self. Those two voices come from Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

To a growing number of Christians, young and old, from every community and confession, as well as to many other people of faith and good will; they are being recognized as prophetic voices. The authentic vision of human freedom they proclaim is exposing contemporary counterfeit notions of freedom.

Pope Benedict XVI warned of a "dictatorship of relativism" at work in the secularist age. The antidote is the message of authentic freedom which insists that there is such a thing as truth, which can be known through the exercise of reason. Freedom must be exercised in relationship to truth. Otherwise, it is illusory and will lead to new forms of slavery and anarchy.   

In 2005 he spoke to an assembly of families: "Today's various forms of dissolution of marriage, free unions, trial marriages as well as the pseudo-matrimonies between people of the same sex are instead expressions of anarchic freedom which falsely tries to pass itself off as the true liberation of man,"

This "anarchic freedom" is what Blessed John Paul referred to as a "counterfeit" notion of freedom.  It leads to something he warned of in his encyclical letter "The Gospel of Life" as the "death of true freedom"

According to the Pope this was Blessed John Paul II's mission, "when, in face of all attempts, apparently benevolent, in the face of erroneous interpretations of freedom, he underlined in an unequivocal way the inviolability of the human being, the inviolability of human life, from its conception until natural death."

Exposing "erroneous interpretations of freedom" and proclaiming the full truth concerning freedom is now our task as as Christiansof the West.  In one of his seminal works entitled "Introduction to Christianity" Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote: "one could very well describe Christianity as a philosophy of freedom."

Philosophy deals with the existential questions. The men and women of this age are asking the fundamental questions men and women of every age have asked. They hunger for truth and they yearn to be free. They will never be satisfied without God, who is the source, author and way to freedom because he is the source of all that is true and good.

The contemporary neo-pagan age has become intoxicated on the wine of a false notion of freedom as a raw power over others who are weaker. An example of the sophistry which accompanies all of this is the illusory claim of a "right" to do whatever one wills, including taking the lives of our first neighbors in the womb and calling it a "choice".  

On May 8, 2005 Pope Benedict opined concerning legal abortion and creeping euthanasia: "The freedom to kill is not true freedom, but a tyranny that reduces the human being to slavery." The new slavery of this age is its treatment of human persons as property to be used and disposed of at will. 
By calling what is always wrong a "right", contemporary men and women are being bound by the chains of their own self delusion, materialism and nihilism; imprisoned by the lie of what Pope Benedict called "anarchic freedom."

To an age enamored with so many false concepts of freedom the Catholic Church proclaims the unchangeable truth that some "choices" are always and everywhere wrong - choosing them does not make one free, rather it erodes authentic human freedom and leads to slavery and tyranny.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church addresses the wrong exercises of human freedom reminding us of the extraordinary implications of our use of our power to choose: "Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself." (CCC, 1861.)

Freedom is not about the fact that we can choose but about how and what we do choose. This is what truly matters. Authentic Human Freedom will never be found in decisions that are made against God and against the Natural Law.

The struggle of this age is between anarchic freedom and authentic freedom. The future of the West hangs in the balance. 

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