LIBERALISM. - A movement inspired by the principle of freedom in every sphere, spiritual and political, which prevailed in Europe after the French Revolution of 1789 and characterized the contemporary era until the First World War.
That principle of freedom remained ill-defined, but it may be said that it was most commonly understood as emancipation from the tutelage of others, an affirmation of one’s own independent activity, and the exclusion of every authority not deriving from human consent. Moreover, freedom was generally conceived as the freedom of nature, understood in Rousseau’s manner (v.), without distinguishing, within true human nature, personal values as supreme and capable of imposing order and unity upon all human activities, and of constituting in man a vestige of Divinity itself. The theoretical and practical aberrations to which l. gave rise were collected in the so-called Syllabus (v.) and condemned by Pio IX (8 Dec. 1864).
I. PHILOSOPHICAL L. - The attitude of philosophy that rejects every safeguard it might receive from anything outside itself Descartes (v.). Even earlier, the abuse of Aristotle’s authority in the scientific field had provoked a reaction that was justified in itself; this subsequently spread into every sphere of human thought. Reason, not content merely to restore the proper criteria of scientific method, claimed absolute freedom for itself, refusing to acknowledge any limit in the exercise of scientific and philosophical reflection, and claiming the right to judge everything, including revealed dogmas. The concept of philosophy as «ancilla theologiae» was excluded from every point of view. It was no longer enough to affirm the autonomy of reason in the search for the rational foundations of the act of faith, and in its right to use its own methods to investigate, discover, discuss, and reach conclusions in the field of truth of the natural order; rather, it was further demanded that a priori it deny the existence of cognitions not derived from it, such as truths of supernatural origin. Every relation with these was consequently rejected.
All the philosophical currents of the modern age, even those most opposed to one another in other respects—sensism, rationalism, criticism, scepticism, absolute idealism, positivism, materialism, neo-idealism, problematicism, etc.—agree in considering this kind of freedom their necessary presupposition. Their point of departure is the same: the self-sufficiency of human thought as such. It is in the spirit of philosophical l. to foster a jealous awareness of this kind of sovereignty. It remains hostile to any investigation—even one conducted by reason itself and by its own methods—aimed at demonstrating its dependence upon a superior Mind (from which it derives the power to attain truth in general), and at proving the existence of such a Mind in itself, as the true Absolute Subject, from whom it is possible to receive communications superior to material cognitions and thus to assess properly the assistance that Revelation can offer philosophy. This is not admitted by the naturalism to which philosophical l. is bound: for human thought to be free, it must rely exclusively upon itself. The consequences are well known: it either recognized itself as essentially limited and proclaimed relativism (or scepticism or problematicism), that is, its necessary condition of being unable to make any act of true affirmation; or it believed itself to be the Absolute Subject determining itself in a continuous becoming, and fell into an idealistic pantheism that excludes any individual freedom; or it believed itself to be a result of cosmic matter, and found itself included in matter’s universal determinism (which is likewise pantheistic). It is noteworthy that the two extremes of modern philosophy, absolute idealism and materialism, both favour totalitarianism in social life, which in practice denies freedom of thought as an essential right of the individual—a right that philosophical l. intended to preserve as the first and principal right for the life of humanity. Despite these contradictory consequences, philosophical l. still persists, more as a state of mind than as a theory: man who wishes to be sufficient unto himself.
II. RELIGIOUS L. — Religious l. has its antecedent in the “free examination” of Scripture proclaimed by the Protestants of the 16th century, that is, the rejection of any visible authority living in the Church: in their minds, the individual could make use of that freedom because he was directly enlightened by Christ. When faith in this light of a mystical character weakened, or disappeared altogether, Enlightenment (v.) of the 18th century, the individual was left with his freedom to judge matters of religion without any control superior to his personal use of reason. Hence the concept, condemned in no. 4 of the Syllabus, that reason is the sovereign norm by which man must judge every kind of truth. This concept, even if not openly accepted, exerted broad influence in the Protestant theological schools of the 18th century and made possible the excesses in biblical criticism that occurred already in that century and then in the following one, especially in Germany; or it fostered the tendency to depreciate the supernatural element of religion, especially in England. Here, as a reaction, there arose the “Oxford Movement” (v.), Newman (v.), who perhaps was the first to denounce that tendency under the name of religious l., and to combat it, first as an Anglican and then as a Catholic.
The characteristic of this l. consists precisely in depreciating Grace in relation to nature, hence its sympathies for Pelagianism (v.), and in abandoning the criterion of the supremacy of revealed truth over purely rational truths, attributing to human reason, in its infinite progress, the right to judge the divine Revelation as intrinsically imperfect (Syllabus, no. 5). The effects of this l. in Protestant countries were most serious: it undermined the ancient veneration for the Bible and made indifferentism (v.) widespread, leaving each man free to embrace and profess whatever religion appeared true to his subjective reasoning (op. cit., no. 15). This subjectivism or individualism claims to find its justification precisely in freedom, without regard for the rights of objective truth, which communicates itself both in the natural light and in the supernatural light. It regards religion as a purely individual fact, in which God is admitted to be able to intervene, but only by adapting himself to the dispositions of individual human subjects, each of whom thus makes a religion of his own; and all are good and true, even if they contradict one another. Thus, as a mental habit, there takes root a repugnance to admitting an Authority superior to individuals and obliging them to a uniformity of adherence, to one unique and absolute truth. Hence the pronounced opposition to Catholicism, more than to the other positive religions, since in it the principle of authority is affirmed in the most definite and concrete manner, in the teaching Church and in its visible head, the Vicar of Christ. Religious L. spreads a state of mind characterized by antipathy to dogmatic definitions, as was manifested in the world of culture when the Immaculate Conception or papal infallibility was defined. It also penetrated Catholic schools. Pius IX had occasion to reproach, Hermes (v.), Guenther, FROHSCHAMMER, JACOB (v.), respectively in 1846, 1857, and 1862, the erroneous prejudice in favor of a freedom of reason and philosophy such as would grant them precedence over the revealed truths themselves and over the methods by which the study of theology must be conducted, without regard for divine tradition and for the authority that preserves and guarantees that tradition. Every kind of tradition displeases religious L.; hence its aversion to scholasticism, even in its most vital parts and in its function as the continuer and systematizer of the philosophia perennis, to which Christian thought remains connected even in its natural progress. The general depreciation of tradition, characteristic of religious L., modernism (v.), condemned by Pius X (1907). Whenever the Catholic Church condemned these various manifestations of religious L., it added clarifications concerning the true concept of the freedom belonging to human reason and philosophy in their proper fields, and concerning their relations with Revelation, tradition, and theology. In particular, it insisted on the function belonging to natural reason of demonstrating the motives of credibility of the fact of Revelation, on the intrinsic value of such a demonstration, logically prior to the certainties of faith, and consequently on the reasonableness of accepting the authority of God who reveals and of the Church, custodian of Revelation. It is this reasonableness that places a limit on the freedom exalted by philosophical and religious L. The latter also had other applications, always suggested by aversion to authority. This occurred in the field of the organization of the Church, which was claimed to ought to be democratic. This was easily achieved in the various Protestant denominations, very few of which retained the concept of episcopal hierarchy after all of them had denied the pope. Hence the sympathy of L. for Protestantism as a religion more suited to the times. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, maintained the principle of authority that comes from above, that is, from Christ, who transmitted it to the Apostles with Peter as head, and thereafter to the bishops with the successor of Peter as head. Religious L., in opposing the principle of authority that comes from above, targeted especially the visible head of the Church, in whom all jurisdictional power is concentrated and from whom it is then shared both with the bishops, by divine and immutable institution, and with others, by ecclesiastical and variable law. Religious L. continued in this the work already begun in previous centuries by the movement favored by absolute kings in Catholic countries, called “jurisdictionalism,” and sought to make the definition of the dogma of primacy, not only of honor but of the power of jurisdiction, as unpopular as possible.
universal jurisdiction, belonging to the pope by divine institution. Concern over this unpopularity, and over the harm that might thereby come to religion in difficult times, led a number of bishops—among them the most eminent, Dupanloup (v.) STROSSMAYER, JOSIP JURAJ (v.)—to advise against defining dogmatically at the First Vatican Council, as inopportune, something that they nevertheless regarded as a Catholic truth, and which they in fact accepted once it had been defined. Moreover, religious L. generally opposed the concept of the Church as a true and perfect society, possessing inalienable rights by virtue both of natural law itself and of the power conferred by Christ, its Divine Founder, denying it any freedom of action or other rights not granted to it by the State (v. § 5 of the Sillabo, nos. 19–38). This was an application to the religious sphere—though an incoherent and arbitrary one—of political L. Equally incoherent was the application of the principle of “a free Church in a free State,” expressed in Montalembert (v.), but with a different intention from that with which it was taken up by Cavour (v.) and the other liberals of the time. By freedom they understood a separation of Church and State that left the State free to legislate and act while ignoring the Church, as though it did not exist, and therefore without considering whether the measures it adopted might conflict with her legitimate requirements. This is not mere separation, but in substance practical hostility, because experience shows that between two different powers concerned with the same people there always arises some cause of conflict. If, however, each of the two makes it a rule of conduct to ensure that its measures do not conflict with those of the other, then one can no longer speak of separation, but of an understanding that may even be merely tacit. From a historical perspective, L. saw in the formula adopted by Cavour a justification for attempting to place the Church, in terms of her juridical position, on an equal footing with any private society existing within the State’s borders, and for legislating while ignoring the requirements of the religious conscience of Catholic citizens. This became explicit in the law on civil marriage.
III. POLITICAL L
At the outbreak of the French Revolution, the form of absolute government predominated in Europe, that is, an executive power (embodied in the king) which absorbed the other powers (legislative and judicial) into itself, with unlimited authority. The ideal of this system was paternal government, in relation to which all citizens found themselves in the condition of minor children within a family. Freedom was invoked as an emergence from minority, a conquest of the right to enter, through representatives, into participation in government and thus to attain the practical « autonomy » of the entire people. This kind of freedom, insofar as it places limits on the exercise of a purely human authority, such as that of rulers, is in itself lawful and just, and indeed becomes a genuine right in a people mature enough to govern itself and conscious of this maturity. This is democracy, in its true sense. The movement that during the 19th century led to the transformation of the European States into democratic States was called political L.; the guarantee of the new freedom recognized for all citizens was found in the practice of representative institutions (Chambers of Deputies). In England, an example of this had already been seen in preceding centuries. But English political liberties had developed not so much as a systematic affirmation as through a laborious search for equilibrium between the powers of the sovereign and certain autonomous functions of the nobles and the cities (communes), as a partial control exercised by these over the exercise of royal authority, as a continually renewed attempt at practical agreement between the interests of the central power and those of the other bodies, subject to the State but necessary to it,constituting the bulk of the nation. Continental l., on the other hand, was much more theoretical, and spoiled what was good in its program by transferring the confusions of philosophical l. into the political sphere. It proposed the exaltation of the individual, but soon had to realize that naturalistic individualism leads to anarchy. On the other hand, the individual absorbed into the « people », to which unlimited sovereignty is attributed, finds himself confronted by a new kind of despotism, the despotism of the majorities, worse than that of the historical monarchies, which at least had a restraint in the principles of the Christian religion they professed. The new « popular sovereignty » (conceived on the postulate of man’s self-sufficiency), by contrast, recognizes nothing above or outside itself. The State, as the emanation and realization of such sovereignty, declares itself the origin and source of all rights (Syllabus, no. 39). The liberal governments of the 19th century maneuvered in the face of the insoluble problem—whose gravity they perhaps did not perceive—of reconciling such a concept of the State with the principle of individual liberties. But this internal incoherence weakened those governments and, during the crisis of the First World War, opened the way to the so-called totalitarian governments, which exploited precisely that concept of the State, already accepted by the liberal parties.
The so-called liberal Catholics, whose leader was Montalembert, sought not to fall into these contradictions and to avoid the errors of l. tainted by atheism or in any case opposed to the Church (Syllabus, nos. 39–74). They openly opposed the doctrine of « legitimism or the divine right of princes », widespread among the Catholics of France and elsewhere, based on the saying of St Paul « Omnis potestas a Deo », understood as a direct and perpetual investiture by God of sovereign power in the reigning families. The doctrine had first been formulated and defended by the Protestant king of England James I, the first of the Stuarts; it then spread through Catholic countries and was adopted by Bossuet himself (v.). It found favor in circles opposed to the French Revolution, and many Catholics mistakenly believed themselves bound to it in conscience. Montalembert rightly recognized how harmful such a confusion would prove to the Church and worked to persuade Catholics of the need for a better understanding of the new times, which sought free institutions. He was principally inspired by English l., because of the esteem and admiration he had for the political customs of that Kingdom. He wanted a State that was not the master of rights, but their defender and guarantor, especially of the citizens’ just liberties, among which the principal was that of religion. With regard to the latter, he rejected the protection that absolute monarchies had granted it, making the Church pay for it through the enslavement of the Church and consciences. He therefore wanted the State to be free, just as the Church was free (the formula « a free Church in a free State » was, however, ambiguous and dangerous, because it places the Church within the State, whereas by its eminently spiritual nature it is outside and above all States). Liberal Catholics in general proposed accepting from modern times the enhancement of freedom as a method of public life, while at the same time opposing the erroneous and perverse applications made of it by the enemies of religion. To other Catholics, whose leader was Luigi Veuillet (v.), this appeared to be a concession to the errors and misdeeds of the liberal governments of the period; and they fiercely opposed II. Liberal Catholics may not always have used sufficiently cautious language, especially with regard to the doctrine of « popular sovereignty »; but Montalembert’s good faith, and that of many of his followers, is certain. Their possible inaccuracies were avoided by the « neo-Guelphs » in Italy, who were likewise favorable to political liberties, but viewed them in the light of medieval tradition and Thomistic thought, which holds that the authority of governments comes from God but through the people, imposing upon the exercise of authority and freedom those limits marked out by divine law, whether natural or positive, according to circumstances.
Later, Leo XIII, with the encyclical Libertas (20 June 1888), gave the definitive answer to the problem of the attitude of Catholics in political life. The « messages » of Pius XII are an illustration and development of II. Political l., through the crisis of the two world wars, has undergone a transformation. Even if this is not accepted by those who call themselves « historical liberals », the concept of freedom has received a new application in politics, through the exaltation of the personal values of man as superior to the State and through the control of the State’s own action by means of a supreme court, which at the same time calls the executive and legislative powers to respect those values. Whatever was true and good, found implicitly in the political l. of the last century, can thus be preserved and become a force particularly necessary in our own days for defending civilization against the impending threat of materialistic despotism.
Per uno studio del l. attraverso le sue fonti ed i suoi paladini, cf. B. Constant, Cours de politique constitutionnelle ou Collection des ouvrages publiés sur le gouvernement représentatif, Parigi 1861; C. Benso di Cavour, Discorsi, 1ª ed., Firenze 1863-77; 2ª ed., ivi 1932-41, non completa; B. Croce, La storia come pensiero e come azione, 3ª ed., Bari 1939; id., Storia d'Europa nel sec. XIX, 6ª ed., ivi 1943; id., Principio, ideale, teoria, A proposito della teoria filosofica della libertà, in Il carattere della filosofia moderna, 2ª ed., ivi 1945; A. Omodeo, La cultura francese nell'età della Restaurazione, Milano 1946 (sulle dottrine liberali dell'età della Restaurazione); G. De Ruggero, Storia del l. europeo, 4ª ed., Bari 1946; C. A. Jemolo, Chiesa e Stato in Italia negli ultimi cento anni, Torino 1948. Giuseppe Bozzetti