The state of Maryland was the first experiment in religious freedom in human history. Lord Baltimore and his Catholics were a long march ahead of William Penn and his Quakers on what is now called the path of progress. That the first religious toleration ever granted in the world was granted by Roman Catholics is one of those little informing details with which our Victorian histories did not exactly teem." — G. K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America
"Where society is so organized as to reduce arbitrarily or even suppress the sphere in which freedom is legitimately exercised, the result is that the life of society becomes progressively disorganized and goes into decline." — Bl. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 25.
"But freedom attains its full development only by accepting the truth. In a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation and man is exposed to the violence of passion and to manipulation, both open and hidden." — Bl. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 46.
Today is Independence Day in the United States, a day marked by celebrations large and loud, festive and familial. The word of the day, the defining characteristic of the celebration of the signing and adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, is "freedom". Today also marks the conclusion of the second "Fortnight of Freedom", which commenced on June 21st, the vigil of the Feast of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More. It should give pause, if for only a moment, that the "Fortnight" began on the feast day of two English martyrs and then ends on the National Day commemorating the 237th anniversary of a declaration of independence from the rule of Great Britain. Among other things, it speaks to the fact that while religious freedom has a special place in the history of the United States—see the quote above from Chesterton—that freedom is catholic, something that all men and women should enjoy, even though so many throughout the world do not. It also speaks to the special relationship between Catholicism and freedom, a relationship little understood and rarely acknowledged in a country whose historical and cultural foundation was largely Protestant in nature.
And what of today? In thinking of today, specifically and in the broader sense of the current age, it is notable that Pope Francis will tomorrow release his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei ("The Light of Faith"), which is reported to be the joint work of Francis and Benedict XVI. Rather than coincidental, the timing is fortuitous. That fact hit home when, in the process of cleaning my office yesterday, I re-discovered a book about the relationship between freedom and faith, written by an English scholar (my office usually has several stacks of books, each with 20 or 30 books, so such "discoveries" are hardly unusual). Several passages caught my attention, but I'll share just a couple of them. Bypassing the context for a moment, here's the first passage:
The confidence in state action, the glorification of technology, the unlimited faith in science, the centralization of decision, and the subordination of low to so-called mass interests—all these … have helped in the West to create communities in which the individual citizens feels overwhelmed, isolated, and helpless before the anonymities of public and private bureaucracy. We are right to fear these vast distortions of tendencies already at work in our society.It is a fine summation of the broad (and deep) problems faced today, yet it is not original. Except that it was written, not in the past few years, but over sixty years ago, in the the early 1950s. The book is Faith and Freedom, the author was Barbara Ward, and the publisher was Image; the subhead is: "A stimulating inquiry into the history and relationship of political freedom and religious faith." It is a book worth tracking down for many reasons, among them Ward's beautiful and learned writing, the historical perspective presented, and the philosophical insights, which are just as meaningful today, if not more so, than there were when the book was first published in England in 1954.
Ward has some interesting things to say about the War for Independence and the founding of the United States, but I am more interested here in her thoughts on dealing with and fighting against tyranny.