True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace.
Interpretation
True freedom involves moral responsibility rather than allowing any behavior under the guise of freedom.
In this quote, Pope John Paul II emphasizes that genuine freedom is not simply the absence of constraints or the freedom to behave without ethical considerations. True freedom requires a framework of moral values that guide individuals and societies, suggesting that a lack of these values ultimately undermines both freedom and peace.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about the ethical implications of freedom in political debates.
Like so many pilgrims before us, we kneel in wonder and adoration before the ineffable mystery which. was accomplished here... In This Child - the Son who is given to us - we find rest for our souls and the true bread that never fails - the Eucharistic Bread foreshadowed even in the name of this town: Bethlehem, the house of bread. God lies hidden in the Child; divinity lies hidden in the Bread of Life
And everything else will then turn out to be unimportant and inessential except this: father, child, and love. And then, looking at the simplest things, we will all say, Could we have not learned this long ago? Has this not always been embedded in everything that is?
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
Man matures through work which inspires him to difficult good.
United with the angels and saints of the heavenly Church, let us adore the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. Prostrate, we adore this great mystery that contains God's new and definitive covenant with humankind in Christ.
I have a sweet tooth for song and music. This is my Polish sin.
When a man's home is born out of his heart and developed through his labor and perfected through his sense of beauty, it is the very cornerstone of life.
Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something (All The King's Men)
Rather than understand the original cause-a thought-we try to change the stressful feelings by looking outside ourselves.
A lifelong intimacy with animals has got me out of the common notion that they are automata with a slight infusion of intelligence in their composition. The mind in beast and bird, as in man, is the main thing.
No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity.
In this broad earth of ours, Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, Enclosed and safe within its central heart, Nestles the seed of perfection.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.