Fr. Roger J. Landry
The Anchor
Editorial
July 3, 2008
When President Bush addressed Pope Benedict XVI on the White House Lawn in April, he invited the Holy Father to give all Americans a catechesis on the true meaning of freedom. “In a world where some see freedom as simply the right to do as they wish,” the President said, “we need your message that true liberty requires us to live our freedom not just for ourselves, but in a spirit of mutual support.”
The Pope did not let the President down. Throughout his pilgrimage, Benedict returned time and again to the subject of freedom, celebrating with Americans the fundamental role of freedom in our history, defining its true nature, and calling our attention to counterfeit versions of freedom that are undermining the real thing.
On this day on which we as a nation give thanks to God for the gift of our freedom, it is fitting to return to Benedict’s message so that our country may remain and become ever more what we sing in our national anthem: “the land of the free.”
At the White House reception, Pope Benedict began his response to the President’s request by reminding us that our country’s founding fathers, who risked their lives to sign the Declaration of Independence 232 years ago today, recognized that there is essential link between freedom and the truth of a moral order coming from God.
“From the dawn of the Republic,” he stated, “America’s quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the Creator. The framers of this nation’s founding documents drew upon this conviction when they proclaimed the ‘self-evident truth’ that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights grounded in the laws of nature and of nature’s God. The course of American history demonstrates the difficulties, the struggles, and the great intellectual and moral resolve which were demanded to shape a society that faithfully embodied these noble principles. In that process, which forged the soul of the nation, religious beliefs were a constant inspiration and driving force, as for example in the struggle against slavery and in the civil rights movement.”
The Holy Father added that throughout the centuries Americans cultivated the moral virtues that kept our country free and how their example provides a challenge to us today. “Freedom is not only a gift,” Benedict emphasized, “but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience — almost every town in this country has its monuments honoring those who sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom, both at home and abroad. The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one’s deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate. In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good.”
There is, Benedict implied, a battle to keep freedom tied to the good against those who want to invoke it to do evil. In speaking to the younger generations at Dunwoodie Seminary, the pope made this battle explicit.
“Numerous individuals and groups vociferously claim their freedom in the public forum,” he remarked. “Yet freedom is a delicate value. It can be misunderstood or misused so as to lead not to the happiness that we all expect it to yield, but to a dark arena of manipulation in which our understanding of self and the world becomes confused, or even distorted by those who have an ulterior agenda.” One obvious example of this type of manipulation of freedom is in the so-called “freedom to choose” to kill one’s own children through abortion.
In order to prevent freedom from being co-opted, Benedict told the throngs of young people that freedom must remain bound to the truth of the human person and what is good for him. “Have you noticed how often the call for freedom is made without ever referring to the truth of the human person? Some today argue that respect for freedom of the individual makes it wrong to seek truth, including the truth about what is good. In some circles to speak of truth is seen as controversial or divisive, and consequently best kept in the private sphere. And in truth’s place — or better said its absence — an idea has spread which, in giving value to everything indiscriminately, claims to assure freedom and to liberate conscience. This we call relativism.”
Pope Benedict then illustrated the type of damage this false notion of freedom, based on the “dictatorship of relativism,” brings about. “What purpose has a ‘freedom’ that, in disregarding truth, pursues what is false or wrong? How many young people have been offered a hand which in the name of freedom or experience has led them to addiction, to moral or intellectual confusion, to hurt, to a loss of self-respect, even to despair and so tragically and sadly to the taking of their own life?”
“Dear friends,” he continued, “truth is not an imposition. Nor is it simply a set of rules. It is a discovery of the One who never fails us; the One whom we can always trust. In seeking truth we come to live by belief because ultimately truth is a person: Jesus Christ. That is why authentic freedom is not an opting out. It is an opting in; nothing less than letting go of self and allowing oneself to be drawn into Christ’s very being for others.”
Real freedom, in other words, comes through living by Christ’s love. “The path that leads to true freedom,” he synthesized at Nationals Park in Washington, is “the path of a sincere and generous imitation of Christ.” At Yankee Stadium he further developed the point. “The Gospel teaches us that true freedom, the freedom of the children of God, is found only in the self-surrender which is part of the mystery of love. Only by losing ourselves, the Lord tells us, do we truly find ourselves. True freedom blossoms when we turn away from the burden of sin, which clouds our perceptions and weakens our resolve, and find the source of our ultimate happiness in him who is infinite love, infinite freedom, infinite life. … Real freedom, then, is God’s gracious gift, the fruit of conversion to his truth, the truth which makes us free. And this freedom in truth brings in its wake a new and liberating way of seeing reality.”
Since real freedom is tied to embracing the truth revealed by God, Christians have a particular responsibility in keeping our nation free. “Authentic freedom,” Benedict told Catholic educators, “can never be attained by turning away from God. Such a choice would ultimately disregard the very truth we need to understand ourselves.” For that reason, he called upon Catholic teachers to exercise an “intellectual charity” in their instruction, so that they will form not just the mind but the will of younger generations to “opt-in” for truth in faith and win freedom over for the cause of good. “The profound responsibility to lead the young to truth is nothing less than an act of love” guiding the young toward “the deep satisfaction of exercising freedom in relation to truth” and striving to “articulate the relationship between faith and all aspects of family and civic life.”
The Church has this responsibility of “intellectual charity” to the nation as a whole.
As the challenge of freedom, so nobly advanced by our founding fathers and preserved and defended by ten generations of valiant Americans, is passed precariously to us, the message of Pope Benedict charts for us a path to rise up to the challenge, and safeguard and strengthen this precious gift.