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Libertas: On the Nature of Human Liberty
Liberty, the highest of natural endowments, being the portion only of intellectual or rational natures, confers on man this dignity - that he is “in the hand of his counsel” and has power over his actions. But the manner in which such dignity is exercised is of the greatest moment, inasmuch as on the use that is made of liberty the highest good and the greatest evil alike depend. Man, indeed, is free to obey his reason, to seek moral good, and to strive unswervingly after his last end. Yet he is free also to turn aside to all other things; and, in pursuing the empty semblance of good, to disturb rightful order and to fall headlong into the destruction which he has voluntarily chosen. The Redeemer of mankind, Jesus Christ, having restored and exalted the original dignity of nature, vouchsafed special assistance to the will of man; and by the gifts of His grace here, and the promise of heavenly bliss hereafter, He raised it to a nobler state. In like manner, this great gift of nature has ever been, and always will be, deservingly cherished by the Catholic Church, for to her alone has been committed the charge of handing down to all ages the benefits purchased for us by Jesus Christ. Yet there are many who imagine that the Church is hostile to human liberty. Having a false and absurd notion as to what liberty is, either they pervert the very idea of freedom, or they extend it at their pleasure to many things in respect of which man cannot rightly be regarded as free. 2. We have on other occasions, and especially in Our encyclical letter Immortale Dei, in treating of the so-called modern liberties, distinguished between their good and evil elements; and We have shown that whatsoever is good in those liberties is as ancient as truth itself, and that the Church has always most willingly approved and practiced that but whatsoever has been added as new is, to tell the plain truth, of a vitiated kind, the fruit of the disorders of the age, and of an insatiate longing after novelties.
First published June 20, 1888
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About the author
Pope Leo XIII
297 books66 followersPope Leo XIII (Italian: Leone XIII), born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci to an Italian comital family, reigned as Pope from 20 February 1878 to his death in 1903. He was the oldest pope (reigning until the age of 93), and had the third longest pontificate, behind that of Pope Pius IX (his immediate predecessor) and John Paul II. He was the most recent pontiff to date to take the pontifical name of "Leo" upon being elected to the pontificate until 2025.
He is well known for his intellectualism, the development of social teachings with his famous papal encyclical [Book: Rerum novarum] and his attempts to define the position of the Catholic Church with regard to modern thinking. He influenced Roman Catholic Mariology and promoted both the rosary and the scapular.
Leo XIII issued a record of eleven Papal encyclicals on the rosary earning him the title as the "Rosary Pope". In addition, he approved two new Marian scapulars and was the first pope to fully embrace the concept of Mary as Mediatrix. He was the first pope to never have held any control over the Papal States, after they were dissolved by 1870. He was briefly buried in the grottos of Saint Peter's Basilica before his remains were later transferred to the Basilica of Saint John Lateran.
He is well known for his intellectualism, the development of social teachings with his famous papal encyclical [Book: Rerum novarum] and his attempts to define the position of the Catholic Church with regard to modern thinking. He influenced Roman Catholic Mariology and promoted both the rosary and the scapular.
Leo XIII issued a record of eleven Papal encyclicals on the rosary earning him the title as the "Rosary Pope". In addition, he approved two new Marian scapulars and was the first pope to fully embrace the concept of Mary as Mediatrix. He was the first pope to never have held any control over the Papal States, after they were dissolved by 1870. He was briefly buried in the grottos of Saint Peter's Basilica before his remains were later transferred to the Basilica of Saint John Lateran.
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November 4, 2022
A timeless foil to the great obsession of modernity; liberty. And particularly the erroneous conception thereof. I was writing my dissertation on the errors of the 'negative liberty'- promulgated invariably by classical liberalism and libertarianism- when I was reading this and can conclusively say it was a profound help for it encapsulates the vision and understanding of a true sage (the Holy Spirit one may fairly conclude must not have been far away).
Pope Leo XIII was writing with the charism and speaking with the authority you would expect from a successor of St Peter; the very same of carrying out the ministry of feeding sheep which our Lord mandated. It's always heartening to be reminded of the profundity and certainty of doctrinal Catholic tradition.
He also, very helpfully, takes explicit care to clarify and consistently define and reëxplain the conceptual terms he discusses. Moral liberty; modern liberties; right reason; natural law; eternal law. All are employed so as to be easily understood and rationally comprehended in his logical thinking. He consistently summarises his points and reviews what has been established, which makes this a pleasant read. This is also a helpful measure when concepts are being discussed in philosophy, lest things become desperately abstract.
So although the first three paragraphs or so may require a modest pace with time allocated for careful reflection and consideration, afterwards you will then familiarise yourself with the concepts in discussion, his tempo, and style of writing. It herein flows naturally and becomes very easy to follow.
What is discussed?
I shall not attempt to reword something which is necessarily thorough and complete, so I encourage you to read it for yourself. But he both summarises and builds on the understanding of true liberty, revealed by revelation in the Gospel, New Testament, Church Fathers, and the deposit of the faith more generally.
This includes but is not limited to; a recognition of sin as slavery, an appreciation of man's natural end (happiness and reunion+obedience to God), a criticism of liberty as license, an affirmation that freedom is bound up with truth and goodness (of which are instituted by their eternal Author, not civil society or man), and criticism of liberty imagined as freedom from the presence of the State and for the will to do as it pleases (both of which may indeed result in man's self-slavery).
What makes it unique it the fullness and brevity of the summary. He applies the still relevant context of modernity and exposes its lasting errors, particularly in the common misconceptions of the human person, the human will, reason, and government.
It is also not free of scathing rebukes towards liberalism and freemasonry:
"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 was writing with the charism and speaking with the authority you would expect from a successor of St Peter; the very same of carrying out the ministry of feeding sheep which our Lord mandated. It's always heartening to be reminded of the profundity and certainty of doctrinal Catholic tradition.
He also, very helpfully, takes explicit care to clarify and consistently define and reëxplain the conceptual terms he discusses. Moral liberty; modern liberties; right reason; natural law; eternal law. All are employed so as to be easily understood and rationally comprehended in his logical thinking. He consistently summarises his points and reviews what has been established, which makes this a pleasant read. This is also a helpful measure when concepts are being discussed in philosophy, lest things become desperately abstract.
So although the first three paragraphs or so may require a modest pace with time allocated for careful reflection and consideration, afterwards you will then familiarise yourself with the concepts in discussion, his tempo, and style of writing. It herein flows naturally and becomes very easy to follow.
What is discussed?
I shall not attempt to reword something which is necessarily thorough and complete, so I encourage you to read it for yourself. But he both summarises and builds on the understanding of true liberty, revealed by revelation in the Gospel, New Testament, Church Fathers, and the deposit of the faith more generally.
This includes but is not limited to; a recognition of sin as slavery, an appreciation of man's natural end (happiness and reunion+obedience to God), a criticism of liberty as license, an affirmation that freedom is bound up with truth and goodness (of which are instituted by their eternal Author, not civil society or man), and criticism of liberty imagined as freedom from the presence of the State and for the will to do as it pleases (both of which may indeed result in man's self-slavery).
What makes it unique it the fullness and brevity of the summary. He applies the still relevant context of modernity and exposes its lasting errors, particularly in the common misconceptions of the human person, the human will, reason, and government.
It is also not free of scathing rebukes towards liberalism and freemasonry:
"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."
February 28, 2022
Prophetic and uncompromising.
July 4, 2025
A strong critique of liberalism and so called modern “liberties”
September 26, 2025
Enlightening.
June 16, 2023
I have to confess I didn't read this encyclical as closely as I should have. It was hard for me when reading this (it was written in 1888) not to keep thinking how thoroughly the Catholic Church and the conception of "true" liberty outlined herein has been routed in the West.
A larger question that swirls around much of the reading I do concerning the common good--here I'm thinking about the writers at the Postliberal Order Substack (Vermeule, Pappin, Deneen, and Pecknold); The Josias; First Things, and other bastions of Orthodoxy--has to do with who is being harmed by the license of which Pope Leo XIII spoke about over 130 years ago? To what extent are they harmed? Do they know they're being harmed? And what can be done in the West now to "save" the populace of Western countries from the deleterious effects of their liberty, presently understood (not "rightly" understood, as explicated by the Pontiff) as choice, freedom, and individuality?
The Postliberals et al. have in mind, at least concerning the question "what can be done," some manner of integrating the Church (Catholicism specifically, Christianity more broadly) more actively within the administrative, bureaucratic, and civic life of the State. That's fine. The knottier question is whether people know they are being harmed and will they be receptive to religion rightly understood as a salve of their woes. If anything we're going the exact opposite direction of that receptivity. The liberal progressive hegemony has moved into 4th gear in the 1960s and remained there until the first decade of this century, has snapped into 5th gear in the last 15 years. Putting aside whether all the moral and ethical commitments of Catholic Orthodoxy are "correct" (I'm not a Catholic), it's still worth pondering how the implementation of these moral and ethical restraints instantiated through various levers of the State could conduce to the common good. I'm very sympathetic to the belief that these restraints and checks on "liberty" and choice would do more good than harm.
Another historical idea I pondered while reading this was that just around the corner of the next century came bloodshed and horror on a world-world scale that was unimaginable to the Pope or anyone else who lived and died before 1914. One can't help but wonder in the wake of two world wars, the Holocaust, the Gulag, Mao, and nuclear attacks how much the world, how much Man, would have been edified and protected were Catholic social teaching and the diktats of the Magisterium adhered to more stringently. Did not the whole world become a wayward Israel in the 20th century, and as a result saw not divine retribution but that hell that comes when we turn away from the Creator and become masters of the universe.
I'm glad I've read these encyclicals: "Rerum Noverum," "Immortale Dei," "Libertas," "Humanae Vitae," "Evangelium Vitae." Modernity versus the Church. The Enlightenment, change, progress, man as the center of the world versus a divinely ordered world brought into being by a loving Creator who gives us free will to order our lives toward the good whose ultimate end is Himself. At each point when these encyclicals are published, the reader gets a snapshot of the Church's teaching vis-à-vis the challenges facing the modern world. Like all non-Catholic Americans I grew up with the Black Legend, or at least a variation of that legend, of forced conversions, punitive, domineering, and repressive institutions; the Inquisition, etc. So be it. But one doesn't have to read far in the encyclicals above, or any of the encyclicals written by Pope Benedict XVI, to see the foundational Gospel of Love that is at the heart of Catholic teaching; that is at the heart of the Catholic Church. Yes, there are rules. Yes, there isn't a place for the autonomous individual fully answerable to nothing other than his own conscience constructed whole cloth from his own rationality.
But again, in light of the horrors of the 20th century and the present stultifying, soul-deadening tidal wave of consumerism, commercialism, commodification of everything under the sun, greed, superficiality, and post-humanist scientific and technological endeavors, it's hard not to see the Church and it commitment to Orthodoxy as perhaps, as maybe, the Truth and the Way. And more than that, as a way out, a way above, all that ails us. Back to something whole, to something true, to something good.
A larger question that swirls around much of the reading I do concerning the common good--here I'm thinking about the writers at the Postliberal Order Substack (Vermeule, Pappin, Deneen, and Pecknold); The Josias; First Things, and other bastions of Orthodoxy--has to do with who is being harmed by the license of which Pope Leo XIII spoke about over 130 years ago? To what extent are they harmed? Do they know they're being harmed? And what can be done in the West now to "save" the populace of Western countries from the deleterious effects of their liberty, presently understood (not "rightly" understood, as explicated by the Pontiff) as choice, freedom, and individuality?
The Postliberals et al. have in mind, at least concerning the question "what can be done," some manner of integrating the Church (Catholicism specifically, Christianity more broadly) more actively within the administrative, bureaucratic, and civic life of the State. That's fine. The knottier question is whether people know they are being harmed and will they be receptive to religion rightly understood as a salve of their woes. If anything we're going the exact opposite direction of that receptivity. The liberal progressive hegemony has moved into 4th gear in the 1960s and remained there until the first decade of this century, has snapped into 5th gear in the last 15 years. Putting aside whether all the moral and ethical commitments of Catholic Orthodoxy are "correct" (I'm not a Catholic), it's still worth pondering how the implementation of these moral and ethical restraints instantiated through various levers of the State could conduce to the common good. I'm very sympathetic to the belief that these restraints and checks on "liberty" and choice would do more good than harm.
Another historical idea I pondered while reading this was that just around the corner of the next century came bloodshed and horror on a world-world scale that was unimaginable to the Pope or anyone else who lived and died before 1914. One can't help but wonder in the wake of two world wars, the Holocaust, the Gulag, Mao, and nuclear attacks how much the world, how much Man, would have been edified and protected were Catholic social teaching and the diktats of the Magisterium adhered to more stringently. Did not the whole world become a wayward Israel in the 20th century, and as a result saw not divine retribution but that hell that comes when we turn away from the Creator and become masters of the universe.
I'm glad I've read these encyclicals: "Rerum Noverum," "Immortale Dei," "Libertas," "Humanae Vitae," "Evangelium Vitae." Modernity versus the Church. The Enlightenment, change, progress, man as the center of the world versus a divinely ordered world brought into being by a loving Creator who gives us free will to order our lives toward the good whose ultimate end is Himself. At each point when these encyclicals are published, the reader gets a snapshot of the Church's teaching vis-à-vis the challenges facing the modern world. Like all non-Catholic Americans I grew up with the Black Legend, or at least a variation of that legend, of forced conversions, punitive, domineering, and repressive institutions; the Inquisition, etc. So be it. But one doesn't have to read far in the encyclicals above, or any of the encyclicals written by Pope Benedict XVI, to see the foundational Gospel of Love that is at the heart of Catholic teaching; that is at the heart of the Catholic Church. Yes, there are rules. Yes, there isn't a place for the autonomous individual fully answerable to nothing other than his own conscience constructed whole cloth from his own rationality.
But again, in light of the horrors of the 20th century and the present stultifying, soul-deadening tidal wave of consumerism, commercialism, commodification of everything under the sun, greed, superficiality, and post-humanist scientific and technological endeavors, it's hard not to see the Church and it commitment to Orthodoxy as perhaps, as maybe, the Truth and the Way. And more than that, as a way out, a way above, all that ails us. Back to something whole, to something true, to something good.
May 4, 2011
Absolutely brilliant encyclical that covers the nature of liberty, what that word really means, and inspects some of the common modern misunderstandings of it.
January 20, 2026
''Such, then, being the condition of human liberty, it necessarily stands in need of light and strength to direct its actions to good and to restrain them from evil.''
- Pope Leo XIII
Free Will and Human Liberty has been subject to different debates. In the contemporary world, many equivocate it to libertarian freedom. ''Don't stop it if it hurts nobody.'' But in the classical setting such as some ancient Greeks to even some figures during the Enlightenment era, it is the ability to become virtuous- since the best use of liberty is to become obligated to certain standards rather than to will whatever you want whenever you can. Pope Leo XIII encyclical 'Libertas' sets the authoritative standard on what Catholics ought to believe what Free Will is, using his magisterial authority and sources from the saints.
What is freedom? Is freedom the ability to do what is simply pleasing to me? Do laws hinder my freedom? Do other people deserve freedom? Can freedom be achieved in the present? Is freedom something that I earn, that I work towards or do I already have it? Am I free? These are all good and serious questions. Some of them are existential, others humanistic and anthropologic with some factor of sociology involved. It also includes legal, philosophical and religious ties. The contributions by Pope Leo to expand Catholic Social Teaching and to greatly advance it is no small feat by him nor by his successors to the Pontificate. Being Catholic, this is very impactful to me. But there is more than the mere reason of being a professed in a religion that this is impactful to me personally but how it impacts others through the faithful. Our laws and our lives ought to imitate the contents of this document since it is our belief that this is in accordance with Christ and the tradition of the Church. Copying from the sixth paragraph, a portion of what the Pontiff teaches, he says this much in the latter half, available on Vatican.va:
''St. Augustine and others urged most admirably against the Pelagians that, if the possibility of deflection from good belonged to the essence or perfection of liberty, then God, Jesus Christ, and the angels and saints, who have not this power, would have no liberty at all, or would have less liberty than man has in his state of pilgrimage and imperfection. This subject is often discussed by the Angelic Doctor in his demonstration that the possibility of sinning is not freedom, but slavery. It will suffice to quote his subtle commentary on the words of our Lord: "Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin."(3) "Everything," he says, "is that which belongs to it a naturally. When, therefore, it acts through a power outside itself, it does not act of itself, but through another, that is, as a slave. But man is by nature rational. When, therefore, he acts according to reason, he acts of himself and according to his free will; and this is liberty. Whereas, when he sins, he acts in opposition to reason, is moved by another, and is the victim of foreign misapprehensions. Therefore, `Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin.' "(4) Even the heathen philosophers clearly recognized this truth, especially they who held that the wise man alone is free; and by the term "wise man" was meant, as is well known, the man trained to live in accordance with his nature, that is, in justice and virtue.''
St. Thomas elsewhere speaks that the possibility to defect from a supernatural end for rational creatures is not the essence of free-will but due to the limited, finite and created intellect. Without the perfection of the intellect in knowing and the grasping of the will in doing what was the objective good, the apparent goods were approached instead which lead to the fall of both the angels and the first humans. Only in the beatific vision, does the same doctor say, one exercise the best of their liberty rather than become estranged by something foreign to their proper end which has been called sin. This sheds light in cases where we may see people stuck in addiction, for example, as being controlled by another created thing (alcohol, opium, gambling, ect) is a form of slavery. An unfortunate reality.
Pope Leo will display examples and explanations such as the necessity of laws to make sure freedom does not become ruined. He appeals to the natural law and then to human law, which ought to be guided by the former. He will talk about moral liberty and the existential threats of the ideas that pervaded his time which were often those called 'liberals' who were often a very mixed crowd, an umbrella term would be more appropriate, to moral progressives, atheist or seculars, gnostics and agnostics, and others who are considered to be associated with rationalist and the naturalist.
My friend who studies analytical philosophy (we'll call him Jon) is also a Catholic who adheres to the writings of Pope Leo. He wrote, rather than a linear definition of free will, particular points which it can be observed that I found useful and easy to memorize. They are:
1) the capacity for rational agents to choose multiple different means to attain a given end without being determined by something else in the world that is extrinsic to you;
2) freedom from being causally determined to particular acts in a metaphysically violent way (by other creatures);
3) the ability to pursue the good
It is overall a great reading! Do you need to be Catholic to read this? No. But if you do subscribe to natural law theory or are sort of learning about the Catholic teaching in this area then you may as well set aside a nice 30 - 45 minuets to give it a good read!
- Pope Leo XIII
Free Will and Human Liberty has been subject to different debates. In the contemporary world, many equivocate it to libertarian freedom. ''Don't stop it if it hurts nobody.'' But in the classical setting such as some ancient Greeks to even some figures during the Enlightenment era, it is the ability to become virtuous- since the best use of liberty is to become obligated to certain standards rather than to will whatever you want whenever you can. Pope Leo XIII encyclical 'Libertas' sets the authoritative standard on what Catholics ought to believe what Free Will is, using his magisterial authority and sources from the saints.
What is freedom? Is freedom the ability to do what is simply pleasing to me? Do laws hinder my freedom? Do other people deserve freedom? Can freedom be achieved in the present? Is freedom something that I earn, that I work towards or do I already have it? Am I free? These are all good and serious questions. Some of them are existential, others humanistic and anthropologic with some factor of sociology involved. It also includes legal, philosophical and religious ties. The contributions by Pope Leo to expand Catholic Social Teaching and to greatly advance it is no small feat by him nor by his successors to the Pontificate. Being Catholic, this is very impactful to me. But there is more than the mere reason of being a professed in a religion that this is impactful to me personally but how it impacts others through the faithful. Our laws and our lives ought to imitate the contents of this document since it is our belief that this is in accordance with Christ and the tradition of the Church. Copying from the sixth paragraph, a portion of what the Pontiff teaches, he says this much in the latter half, available on Vatican.va:
''St. Augustine and others urged most admirably against the Pelagians that, if the possibility of deflection from good belonged to the essence or perfection of liberty, then God, Jesus Christ, and the angels and saints, who have not this power, would have no liberty at all, or would have less liberty than man has in his state of pilgrimage and imperfection. This subject is often discussed by the Angelic Doctor in his demonstration that the possibility of sinning is not freedom, but slavery. It will suffice to quote his subtle commentary on the words of our Lord: "Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin."(3) "Everything," he says, "is that which belongs to it a naturally. When, therefore, it acts through a power outside itself, it does not act of itself, but through another, that is, as a slave. But man is by nature rational. When, therefore, he acts according to reason, he acts of himself and according to his free will; and this is liberty. Whereas, when he sins, he acts in opposition to reason, is moved by another, and is the victim of foreign misapprehensions. Therefore, `Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin.' "(4) Even the heathen philosophers clearly recognized this truth, especially they who held that the wise man alone is free; and by the term "wise man" was meant, as is well known, the man trained to live in accordance with his nature, that is, in justice and virtue.''
St. Thomas elsewhere speaks that the possibility to defect from a supernatural end for rational creatures is not the essence of free-will but due to the limited, finite and created intellect. Without the perfection of the intellect in knowing and the grasping of the will in doing what was the objective good, the apparent goods were approached instead which lead to the fall of both the angels and the first humans. Only in the beatific vision, does the same doctor say, one exercise the best of their liberty rather than become estranged by something foreign to their proper end which has been called sin. This sheds light in cases where we may see people stuck in addiction, for example, as being controlled by another created thing (alcohol, opium, gambling, ect) is a form of slavery. An unfortunate reality.
Pope Leo will display examples and explanations such as the necessity of laws to make sure freedom does not become ruined. He appeals to the natural law and then to human law, which ought to be guided by the former. He will talk about moral liberty and the existential threats of the ideas that pervaded his time which were often those called 'liberals' who were often a very mixed crowd, an umbrella term would be more appropriate, to moral progressives, atheist or seculars, gnostics and agnostics, and others who are considered to be associated with rationalist and the naturalist.
My friend who studies analytical philosophy (we'll call him Jon) is also a Catholic who adheres to the writings of Pope Leo. He wrote, rather than a linear definition of free will, particular points which it can be observed that I found useful and easy to memorize. They are:
1) the capacity for rational agents to choose multiple different means to attain a given end without being determined by something else in the world that is extrinsic to you;
2) freedom from being causally determined to particular acts in a metaphysically violent way (by other creatures);
3) the ability to pursue the good
It is overall a great reading! Do you need to be Catholic to read this? No. But if you do subscribe to natural law theory or are sort of learning about the Catholic teaching in this area then you may as well set aside a nice 30 - 45 minuets to give it a good read!
December 4, 2017
Algunas expresiones suenan muy fuerte. Uno no está acostumbrado a tanto. Iusnaturalismo llevado al extremo. Interesante.
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