Church and freedom

The Catholic Church needs the help of people who truly believe in and are students of freedom for her to understand her limits on political proposals, her best way to fight poverty, and her development of a theology of free will harmonious with economic and political sciences and the rule of law.

People who truly believe in and are students of freedom can benefit from the Catholic Church, so that they remain humanitarian and full of charity, understand that free will and respect of free will is not the same than selfishness or disdain, but that true respect of freedom must be close to love for the neighbor.

Love of freedom and fear of God share major features: realizing that one is not almighty and cannot rule over whatever caprice one can have, to trust in powers which are beyond our full comprehension but which we revere by acknowledging that they operate for our ultimate benefit.

Freedom and fear of God are not just compatible but ultimately of mutual necessity as well as totalitarianism and atheism are at the end both sides of one same coin.

There cannot be God without freedom and there cannot be freedom without God. Both Church and classical liberals must understand that or scorn it at their own peril. It is civilization and that which we regard distinctively human which is at stake.