Given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM Sydney Australia
Choose a topic from Vol 4:
You introduce one of the most difficult and complex problems in existence, one on which volumes have been written by philosophers and theologians in their efforts to do justice to it.
Yes, provided they be natural rights. No man has the right to do just as he pleases without any regard for the rights of others. Individuals ought to be free, not to behave irresponsibly, but as responsible human beings. But responsibility supposes obligations to be fulfilled, and from which we cannot be free. There can be no such thing as absolute freedom. You can be free from what is good, and subject to what is evil; or you can be free from what is evil, and subject to the demands which goodness will make upon you. Rightly understood, freedom is liberty, not to do as one pleases, living a purely selfish and self-centered life, but to do as one ought to do. If people choose to do as they ought not to do, to the injury of others, they deserve to be deprived of their freedom to continue behaving in such a way.
The Catholic Church teaches that, since religion is a duty binding on all men, both as individuals and in their social capacity, they must have the right to religious liberty as individuals, and the right of assembly for religious purposes in accordance with their convictions. Any State which deprives men of this liberty goes beyond its rights, unless the religion in question be not merely a false religion, but also injurious to the legitimate temporal welfare of the State. The true Christian religion revealed by God Himself could never, of course, when rightly understood and practised, be injurious to the legitimate welfare of the State. And no civil government in the world is acting within its competence if it attempts to take away from its citizens the right to practise that religion.
"THAT CATHOLIC CHURCH
A Radio Analysis"
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