QUOTATION: Our Liberty Does Not Diminish God's Omnipotence

Although God gives us liberty, He does not mean to relinquish His rights over us. We belong to Him, we are His; and should we endeavor to free ourselves by disobedience, which is a true robbery of God's goods, a denial of His rights, we then declare war against God. God has then to declare anew His right to possession, and He does so by chastisement. Would He allow the revolt to go unpunished, He would no longer be God.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Responsibility

It must be remembered that every flight from responsibility is a flight from liberty. Perhaps it is the very burden of responsibility that flows from free choice that makes so many ready to surrender their great gift of freedom.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Self-Mastery

To be subjected to our lusts, and to yield to them, is the most extreme form of slavery. To keep those lusts in subjection is the only liberty.

--St. Clement of Alexandria

QUOTATION: Tyranny

A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.

– G. K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: The Liberty of Liberals

From all this may be understood the nature and character of that liberty which the followers of liberalism so eagerly advocate and proclaim. On the one hand, they demand for themselves and for the State a license which opens the way to every perversity of opinion; and on the other, they hamper the Church in divers ways, restricting her liberty within narrowest limits, although from her teaching not only is there nothing to be feared, but in every respect very much to be gained.

--Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, 1888

QUOTATION: Liberalism

By the patrons of liberalism, however, who make the State absolute and omnipotent, and proclaim that man should live altogether independently of God, the liberty of which We speak, which goes hand in hand with virtue and religion, is not admitted; and whatever is done for its preservation is accounted an injury and an offense against the State. Indeed, if what they say were really true, there would be no tyranny, no matter how monstrous, which we should not be bound to endure and submit to.

--Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, 1888

QUOTATION: God and the State

This kind of liberty, if considered in relation to the State, clearly implies that there is no reason why the State should offer any homage to God, or should desire any public recognition of Him; that no one form of worship is to be preferred to another, but that all stand on an equal footing, no account being taken of the religion of the people, even if they profess the Catholic faith. But, to justify this, it must needs be taken as true that the State has no duties toward God, or that such duties, if they exist, can be abandoned with impunity, both of which assertions are manifestly false. For it cannot be doubted but that, by the will of God, men are united in civil society; whether its component parts be considered; or its form, which implies authority; or the object of its existence; or the abundance of the vast services which it renders to man. God it is who has made man for society, and has placed him in the company of others like himself, so that what was wanting to his nature, and beyond his attainment if left to his own resources, he might obtain by association with others. Wherefore, civil society must acknowledge God as its Founder and Parent, and must obey and reverence His power and authority. Justice therefore forbids, and reason itself forbids, the State to be godless; or to adopt a line of action which would end in godlessness -- namely, to treat the various religions (as they call them) alike, and to bestow upon them promiscuously equal rights and privileges.

--Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, 1888

QUOTATION: Liberals and Liberty

If when men discuss the question of liberty they were careful to grasp its true and legitimate meaning, such as reason and reasoning have just explained, they would never venture to affix such a calumny on the Church as to assert that she is the foe of individual and public liberty. But many there are who follow in the footsteps of Lucifer, and adopt as their own his rebellious cry, "I will not serve"; and consequently substitute for true liberty what is sheer and most foolish license. Such, for instance, are the men belonging to that widely spread and powerful organization, who, usurping the name of liberty, style themselves liberals.

--Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum