The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) defines freedom as “the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1731). As such, the Catholic Church recognizes freedom as essential to human existence, and always champions the cause of those human beings throughout the world whose freedoms are unjustly restricted or completely suppressed. Having said that, the Church also recognizes freedom as a gift from God; and as with any other gift, freedom is only pleasing to God when it is used to do His will. Thus, freedom must always be exercised by the faithful in light of the human virtues (which paragraph 1804 of the Catechism defines as “firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith,” thus leading the virtuous man to “freely practice the good”. The Catechism identifies four categories of virtue, or cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude).
It is unfortunate that, especially in modern times, the concept of freedom has been distorted to justify certain beliefs and practices that run counter to the will of God. In such a context, the exercise of freedom is seen as always leading to good because the gift of freedom is itself good. Under this definition of freedom, in which freedom is always good and always leads to good, the purpose of the human virtues is pre-empted; and thus human virtue becomes unnecessary. This distortion and irresponsible use of the concept of freedom has been particularly abused, and used as a justification for dissent, in two categories of freedom: freedom of conscience and academic freedom.
The disingenuously-named organization Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) publishes a quarterly publication subtitled “A News Journal of Catholic Pro-Choice Opinion.” The publication’s title, Conscience, derives it name from CFFC’s motto, “Let your conscience be your guide.” This motto serves as a smokescreen for a massive misinformation campaign serving two purposes: one public (the promotion of a pro-abortion agenda) and the other a badly-kept secret (the discrediting of the Catholic Church). The leadership of CFFC is aware of the enormous appeal of the concept of freedom of conscience, and it is also aware that the Catholic Church advocates this concept. It uses this common ground with the Church to justify itself as a faithful Catholic organization (conveniently neglecting to mention that it has twice been denounced by the U.S. Bishop’s Conference as nothing more than a political pro-abortion lobby group), and then uses this “connection” to publicly challenge the Church, as a “faithful” organization, to change its teachings to allow for “reproductive rights” (although its main focus is abortion, CFFC is also active in the promotion of artificial contraception, homosexuality, and other sexual matters).
In taking this approach, CFFC relies on the ignorance of the faithful, since it has no intention of mentioning to the public that the Church also advocates the need to have a fully-informed Catholic conscience for the purposes of moral decision-making. Such information, of course, would severely undermine CFFC’s pro-abortion agenda, which explains the need for a misinformation campaign. CFFC wants people to follow their consciences, but does not want those consciences informed by the teachings of the Catholic faith. Instead, CFFC wants the education of the faithful in matters of conscience to be directed by itself and groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL. If there is to be any Catholic formation of the faithful, it is of course more than willing to refer people to Call to Action, Voice of the Faithful, FutureChurch, Dignity USA, and similar “Catholic” organizations which also distort the meaning of freedom in order to promote dissent from Church teachings.
CFFC’s efforts in the present were helped enormously in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, when hundreds of Catholic theologians led a public backlash against Pope Paul VI’s encyclical affirming the Church’s ban on contraception, Humanae Vitae. As with CFFC, these theologians relied on a massive misinformation campaign. Among other things, they accused the Holy Father of adding the ban on contraception to Catholic teaching, when they knew quite well that the Church had forcefully condemned the practice of contraception throughout its entire history. These theologians argued in favor of the pill, claiming that the early Church fathers could not have envisioned its existence and thus could not have been opposed to it. This of course ignores the long and well-documented history of theologians condemning the ingestion of various types of abortifacients before, during, and after intercourse, as well as early withdrawal (coitus interruptus).
These theologians, led by Fr. Charles Curran of Catholic University, were also the ones who popularized the term “freedom of conscience,” stating that if young couples believed they were not ready to have children then they could in good conscience dissent from what was written in Humanae Vitae (these theologians at first advocated contraception only between married couples; but less than five years later, many of them openly applauded the Roe v. Wade decision. And yet they deny that is a "slippery slope" of immoral behavior). These theologians relied not only on the ignorance of many Catholics, but also on secular media forces which had been partly responsible for and heavily influenced by the sexual revolution. It was also largely through the efforts of these theologians and the dissenting organizations that arose through their support (and the support of secular interests) that the catechetical training of Catholics, where it was still practiced, led to poorly-formed consciences in moral decision-making.
Nor were these poorly-formed consciences solely the work of bad religious education programs in parishes. In 1967, ostensibly due to the fear that the Catholic identities of their schools was an impediment to gaining more credibility with secular institutions of higher learning and with the hope of rectifying this problem, the heads of 24 Catholic colleges and universities, led by Fr. Theodore Hesburgh (then-President of the University of Notre Dame), met in Wisconsin and proceeded to sign the infamous Land ‘O Lakes Statement (for more information, see the Land ‘O Lakes Statement on the Nature of the Contemporary Catholic University ). This document, which needless to say was never presented to the Magisterium for formal approval, addressed ten points ranging from the theological disciplines to characteristics of organization and administration, and was essentially a declaration of independence from the Church’s Magisterium. The statement stipulates, among other things, that not only should the Catholic theologian be free from the influence of the Magisterium in order to have the academic freedom to pursue higher learning (thus directly implying that the Church was an impediment to academic freedom), but that – quite the opposite – the Church should make use of the vast knowledge the theologians had to advise them in their decision making (in any other context, this would not have seemed so condescending).
This statement has served as the primary justification for why dissenting theologians complain bitterly about and have yet to succeed in complying with the mandates of Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Constitution on Catholic Higher Education, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (On Catholic Universities). In this document, our Holy Father addressed the need for Catholic Universities to regain their Catholic identity, which has been lost in the misguided effort to make Catholic colleges and universities more appealing and prestigious in the eyes of the secular world.
One of the most important (and undoubtedly the most controversial) requirements of this letter is that theologians must receive a mandatum (mandate) from their bishops stating that their teaching is in communion with the Catholic Church. Simply stated, theologians should never misrepresent the Church’s teaching, either in writing or in the classroom, and the mandatum is meant to prevent this from happening. That many theologians at Catholic universities have in fact been deliberately misrepresenting the teachings of the faith is more than ample justification for such a requirement. Nevertheless, the protests over the issue of the mandatum in the wake of the promulgation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae have continued unabated to the present day.
This begs the question: why was there no storm of protest when this very same requirement appeared, with little fanfare, in Canon 812 of the 1983 revision of the Church’s Code of Canon Law (Code of Canon Law, Book 3: The Teaching Office of the Church)? It is quite likely that a storm of protest at that time would have brought about what for the dissenters would have been unwanted attention to this seldom-obeyed Canon, the same kind of unwanted attention which it was given by Ex Corde Ecclesiae seven years later.
The obvious question that arises out of this is whether or not the mandatum requirement truly is an impediment to academic freedom. In the United States alone, the existence and continued success of Catholic colleges and universities that have fully complied with Ex Corde Ecclesiae (such as Franciscan University of Steubenville, Christendom College, St. Thomas Aquinas College, and Ave Maria) proves that the answer to this question is a resounding no. Each of these places, while requiring their professors to receive a mandatum and making fidelity to the Church’s Magisterium a priority, provide a quality liberal arts education in a wide variety of majors and encourage open discussion about current issues, especially on how these issues relate to Church teaching. That these universities have publicly expressed complete support for Church teachings has in no way hampered any of their academic pursuits. So to argue that the mandatum impedes academic freedom is disingenuous and belies other motivations on the part of dissenting theologians for opposing it.
No doubt there are those who, for whatever reason, oppose the mandatum in good faith. However, the fact that many of the theologians who are among the most ardent opponents of a mandatum have a long and well-documented history of misrepresenting Catholic teaching in the various media outlets seems to indicate a desire to escape accountability for dishonest behavior. Since the mandatum, despite the protests, is required (and has been since 1983), dissenting theologians make another disingenuous argument: that the mandatum should be a private matter between the theologian and his or her bishop. In other words, whether or not a theologian has a mandatum should be no one else’s business but the theologian's. The dissenting theologians know that the whole reason for having a mandatum is so that the faithful will know who is and is not teaching in communion with the Church, so they are aware that making the mandatum a private matter would negate its purpose (which is, of course, the whole point). This may give the theologian what ever passes for "academic freedom" in his mind, but it severely limits the academic freedom of those the theologian would educate, as they would not have the knowledge they need to decide whether or not they were being taught by a faithful theologian. Thus, once again we have a case where the concept of freedom has been distorted to encourage dissent. In this case, it is a particularly selfish gesture, as the cry for academic freedom is being used as a smokescreen to justify the practice of intellectual dishonesty without regard for the effect it will have on those being educated.
True freedom of conscience is not possible without the virtue of a fully-informed conscience. An uninformed or malformed conscience makes the moral decision-maker a slave to ignorance, as the distinction between right and wrong becomes blurred or distorted. Likewise, true academic freedom is not possible without the virtue of honesty. Academic pursuits only bear positive fruit if both student and educator are honest about what they believe and honest about what it is they are trying to accomplish (this approach allows for the introduction of opposing points of view, so long as they are identified as just that: opposing points of view). In addition, true academic freedom at colleges and universities is not possible if students and their parents do not have all the facts before deciding where and by whom the student will be educated. Similarly, other types of freedom (such as those guaranteed by the first amendment) will not lead to good unless they are exercised in light of the human virtues. Freedom, as a gift from God, is certainly a good thing; but as with God’s other gifts, it can be misused for evil purposes. Not everything that is the product of free choice is good. After all, if we possibility of doing evil did not exist, how could we choose to do good?
