LIBERTÀ POLITICHE

POLITICAL FREEDOMS. – These are the most immediate practical applications of the principle of liberty in a truly democratic State, that is, one which recognizes the right of all citizens to participate in the government of public affairs through representatives.

1. Individual liberty, by which no one may be arrested or brought to trial except in the cases and in the forms prescribed by law. 2. Liberty of domicile. No domiciliary visit by public force may take place except within the limits mentioned above. 3. Liberty of movement. Every citizen may change domicile, circulate, and travel as desired, provided public order is respected. 4. Liberty of petition. Every citizen has the right to address the Chamber by presenting petitions, whether individual or collective, in the forms regulated by law. 5. Liberty of election. The formalities for electing the people’s representatives must be established by law, and the security of citizens must be guaranteed so that they may exercise their choice with full freedom. It is clear that one of the best guarantees is secret ballot. Public discussions on the matter and propaganda must also be free. 6. Liberty of assembly and association. Citizens may assemble peacefully and without arms in the forms required by public order. They may form associations among themselves, provided these are not secret. This right is annulled if the associations’ aims are immoral or contrary to the fundamental principles of the State’s constitution; or if it is found that members abuse their otherwise licit association for illicit purposes. Judgment on such matters should not be given by ordinary courts, but by the Supreme Court established to safeguard the essential rights of citizens against possible encroachments by the State. An example of the inconsistencies of the liberalism of the last century was the suppression and dispersal of religious Orders, in which one of the most proclaimed rights of liberalism itself was violated, namely, the freedom to associate for licit ends: nothing could be more licit than associating for the purpose of one’s own sanctification. Governments sought to justify themselves by invoking the State’s right of competition and of withdrawing juridical personality according to its own criteria, that is, its own arbitrary will; they failed to see that precisely in such uncontrolled arbitrariness lay the absence of true liberalism.

7. Liberty of thought and [of the press]. Citizens exercise their intelligence without dependence on the State in various cultural, scientific, and philosophical activities, and cannot be disturbed in the exercise of these activities or in their expression, whether orally or in print, except by the common laws protecting morality and public order and by specific laws aimed at repressing abuses peculiar to the press. This freedom, like the freedom of religious propaganda, can constitute a danger to the detriment of truth, which in its private and public manifestations is thus reduced to the level of error. The danger is highlighted by the Syllabus, no. 79, and it would be folly to deny II. That the State should have the same obligations toward error as toward truth would be absurd to maintain; but in practice this kind of freedom is taken as a tolerance, a permission of what in itself may be an evil, in view of a greater good: the greater good would be to avoid the danger of despotism on the part of a human authority, such as the State, and to stimulate the spontaneous forces of good to fight and overcome evil by themselves, without too much reliance on governmental aid. The risk inherent in the system of freedoms remains. For a more thorough examination of press freedom and its concrete application in Italy, V. PRESS, freedom of.

8. Liberty of teaching (v. TEACHING).

9. Liberty of conscience and of worship

Individual convictions regarding religion, the profession of this or that faith, and the practice of this or that cult cannot constitute an impediment to the possession and exercise of all civil and political rights recognized by the Constitution. This principle is admitted by modern States, which are therefore no longer “confessional,” even if they officially declare that a given religion is the “religion of the State.” If this were interpreted as approving “indifferentism” toward the various religions, as if all were equally good, it would incur the condemnation of the Syllabus (nos. 77, 78, and 79). But this principle can only be taken as a refusal on the part of the State to examine and judge the consciences of individuals, something altogether inadvisable in present historical circumstances and always dangerous, as past experience demonstrates. Nevertheless, the State remains obligated not only to guarantee the true freedom of religious profession for individual citizens, but also to promote, by means appropriate to its competence, religious action as a factor in the spiritual elevation of individual persons and of the entire nation. The State must not “ignore,” under the pretext of freedom, the religion of its citizens; rather, it must ensure, in legislation and governance, that nothing is done to violate their religious conscience, as occurs when it seeks to impose civil marriage as the true marriage for Catholics, whereas for them it is a dogma of faith that the only true marriage is the Sacrament. Liberty of worship also has its limits, in that the State cannot tolerate acts contrary to natural morality, such as sacred prostitution and human sacrifice.