The Struggle of the Age is Between Anarchic Freedom and Authentic Freedom

To an age enamored with so many false concepts of 'choice' the Church proclaims the unchangeable truth that some choices are always and everywhere wrong

Freedom is not simply about the fact that we can choose but about how and what we 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. As Pope Benedict XVI stated, with the clarity that the world so desperately needs in this crucial moment, choosing against what is good and what is true - and claiming this is freedom - is anarchic.

P>CHESAPEAKE, VA. (Catholic Online) - The great struggle of this 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 and must be viewed within that context in order to produce the desired result of happiness and human flourishing. Freedom, properly understood, then becomes a lens through which we come to understand how we are to live our lives and directs the way we are to live with others.

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. This capacity to make truly good choices is what makes us truly human persons. What we choose either humanizes us further or leads us, ultimately, into slavery.

This very capacity to choose reflects the "Imago Dei", the Image of God, present within every human person. As the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council 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 need to listen closely to those who are using the word "freedom" today. We must ask what they really mean when they speak the word and examine their actions. We need to hear true voices of authentic freedom and reject the siren song of contemporary libertines who are leading us to slavery.

Two voices tower above all the others in proclaiming the truth concerning human freedom, it's essential connection to truth and its obligations in solidarity to view the other as another self. Those two voices come from Blessed John Paul II and his successor in the Chair of St. Peter, Pope Benedict XVI.

These two extraordinary Christian leaders are presented by some advocates of a false vision of illusory freedom as archaic remnants of some perceived "oppressive system." Yet, just the opposite is true. Their message points us toward the future and they are the champions of authentic human liberation.

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

The message of authentic freedom confronts the lies of what Pope Benedict called the "dictatorship of relativism". This message of authentic freedom insists that there is such a thing as truth, which can be known through the exercise of reason, and that freedom must always be exercised in relationship to truth. Otherwise, it will lead to new forms of slavery and anarchy.   

Truth alone has the ability to lead us all to a future of authentic human freedom and to bring about peace, with us and between us. It is only in choosing what is good that we experience human flourishing, serve the common good, promote justice and promote true human liberation.

Blessed John Paul II was a prophetic voice for authentic human freedom. His successor, Benedict XVI, stepped into the trajectory that he began without missing a beat. Together, their message can give leadership to the emerging freedom movement of the Third Millennium. It exposes the lies of this age and tells the truth about its illusory claims to freedom.

In 2005 Pope Benedict XVI delivered to an assembly of families. He coined a phrase that was heard around the world, "anarchic freedom" in these words: "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,"

In that phrase he summarized much of the teaching of his predecessor. This "anarchic freedom" is what Blessed John Paul referred to as a "counterfeit" notion of freedom.  It can lead to something he warned of in his encyclical letter "The Gospel of Life" as  the "death of true freedom"

One of the overriding themes of the pontificate of Blessed John Paul II was the overriding importance of a true and authentic definition of human freedom. Only such an understanding of freedom can light the path for individuals, communities, Nations and the international community to find their way.

Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict are freedom fighters. In their insistence upon the existence of absolute moral truths that are intended to guide all human behavior, they also remind us that the struggle for what constitutes true and authentic freedom is the struggle of our age. The Catholic Church exists to proclaim and point the way to this authentic human freedom.

According to Pope Benedict , 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 these "erroneous interpretations of freedom" and proclaiming the full truth concerning freedom is the task of the hour. Our invitation is to heed Pope Benedict's words and follow them, committing ourselves to the struggle for authentic freedom. 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 truly free. They will never be fully satisfied without God, who is the source, author and way to freedom because God is the source of all that is true and good.

When freedom is authentic in its exercise it leads men, women and Nations to true liberation because it leads them to fulfill their very reason for existence. The contemporary neo-pagan and post modernist age has become intoxicated on the wine of a false notion of freedom as a raw power over others who are weaker. Then, in an act of sophistry and newspeak, the exercise of this raw power is hidden behind an illusory claim of a "right" to do whatever one wills, including taking their lives 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." By calling what is always wrong a "right", contemporary men and women are becoming bound by the chains of their own self delusion, materialism and nihilism. They are imprisoned by the lie of what Pope Benedict called "anarchic freedom."

Anarchic freedom is a counterfeit, rooted in the deceptions of materialism and nihilism. The new slavery of this age is its treatment of human persons as property to be used and disposed of at will. 

To an age enamored with so many false concepts of "choice" the 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 simply 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.

As Pope Benedict XVI stated, with the clarity that the world so desperately needs in this crucial moment, choosing against what is good and what is true - and claiming this is "freedom" - is anarchic. The struggle of the age is between anarchic freedom and authentic freedom. The future hangs in the balance.

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