January 2009 Print

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

On May 2, 1965, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, then Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, gave a conference to students in Paris on the problem of liberty. A transcript of this address was printed as a 16-page booklet, which does not give any particulars as to the organizers of the meeting, nor its exact location. The text shows that the orator himself does not quite know his audience, particularly the field of study of these young people. Were they already members of movements whose enthusiasm was admired by the former Archbishop of Dakar in 1968: “We see the rise of a new generation…young people thrilled by their discovery.…They see that their minds’ and hearts’ desire has been hidden from them, and it is that treasure that has transformed the world. They have discovered…the true history of Christian civilization, and henceforth it becomes their life, their interior life, their life in society, and their ideal. They will never again abandon it” (Itinéraires, No.127, pp.227-28; quoted in Marcel Lefebvre [Angelus Press, 2004], pp.388 [Available from Angelus Press; price: $22.95]). The interest of the conference lies in its content, the problem of liberty, and in its date: May 1965. That is a few months before the works of the Second Vatican Council (which would deal with the issue of religious liberty) were resumed. The Superior General of the missionary Holy Ghost Fathers divided his discourse into two parts, the first of which is reproduced here. After recalling the principles, he dealt with the ways in which liberty is applied, and quite naturally he came to speak about religious liberty, which he was to discuss in the conciliar aula that coming fall. The second part will be published in an upcoming edition of The Angelus. When we read this document, of great pedagogical clarity, we can affirm that the opposition of the founder of the SSPX to the modern doctrine of religious liberty remained unchanged before, during, and after the Council.

I have been asked to come and talk to you on the very delicate subject of liberty. If I had some hesitations, it was not because I was not very happy to come and talk to you about this, and even more to get in touch with you and encourage you. The reason was rather that, being taken up with many things, I was afraid I would not meet your expectations, nor be quite up to the task requested of me. Consequently, you will excuse me if my discourse is both very simple and full of conviction. I will first try to give you some principles, and then some applications of liberty.

I thank you for your kindness in inviting me, because I am most happy to come into contact with you, and I am pleased to be able to tell you to continue your efforts, and pleased to be able to tell you that you have the truth. You have the truth by the simple fact that you really study Christian and Catholic principles from their truest and safest source. You can certainly do much good, to yourselves first, and also to many around you. This is why I did not hesitate to accept the invitation, hoping that you would be a little indulgent with me if my discourse is not exactly what you expected. If, at the end of this brief exposition, you have some questions about liberty, or even about some other topics, I will try to answer in truth and charity.

The subject of liberty is an immense subject. This subject touches so much upon the very heart of what we are, the very core of man, and consequently all of human society, that it is difficult to embrace it completely and thoroughly. I must admit that, rather than proceed with an analysis of liberty, as Pope Leo XIII did in his Encyclical Libertas Praestantissimum, I prefer to begin with a synthesis. I fear that such an analysis being long and difficult to do, some notions concerning liberty itself will not be brought into light very well, and that, in our judgment upon liberty, we end up lacking the light which is needed to consider it in its entirety.

The Order of the Universe and Natural Law

In order to correctly understand our liberty and its end, we must consider it within the order of the universe. I think that we will understand the role of our liberty by examining first the universal order that God put into things. I am not begging the question when I say this. I am not using preconceived principles to prove the thesis I wish to prove, but I am starting from what is obvious. When we open the eyes of our mind, of our intelligence, we cannot but observe that there is a magnificent order in the universe. This order is nothing else than the orientation of all the activities of nature to an end, a useful end, an objective assigned by God to all of Creation. You, who are students–I do not know your particular field of study–but one way or another, you are studying laws that are inscribed in nature; all the more so if you are pursuing scientific studies. Man cannot help researching the laws of nature, laws which direct the activities of any being. And we realize that these laws are truly inscribed in nature since we manage to discover them. Eventually we make them into a science. All of our scientific books, all the books which study nature–vegetative as well as animal nature, human nature and the nature of man in society–are searching for laws deeply inscribed in nature. We can manage to discover them quite well. We would even be more learned if we could manage to know them all. That is what scientists endeavor to do. Whether it be medicine, or any science connected with physics or chemistry, men always study the laws inscribed in nature. We often realize that we have not reached the end of a science and that God still has hidden secrets and mysteries in nature which we only discover progressively.

These laws are inevitably observed by unintelligent beings, that is to say that they follow the course of the laws necessarily and in a predetermined manner. If they are laws in the realm of physics, it is obvious that, as a rule, these laws apply absolutely and without fail. If they can fail, it means that there are other laws at play that we do not yet know, otherwise we could really foresee all that is conditioned by a law in nature down to its most remote effects. If, at times, there are errors, for instance, in meteorology, if weather forecasts are so often wrong, it is precisely because we still hardly know the laws. The day when we manage to discover all the laws governing the weather, obviously we will manage to forecast unerringly that on such a day, at such a time, it will rain or not; the weather will be nice or not… So, no matter what, we must first discover the laws and then realize that these laws apply without fail in natural things and for non-living elements.

If we move to life, the laws for plants are already less determined. In plants, some elements are, as it were, left somewhat to the free determination of the plants themselves in their growth. A climbing plant, for instance, will adjust to the elements it finds, it will cling to and wind around the obstacles it meets. There is a certain adaptation which comes from the very nature of the plant. It is not imposed upon it from outside. It is already a certain trace of freedom, a touch of indetermination found in vegetative life.

If we go further up, we come to animal life, and sensitive life. In this domain, determination is still less important. There is some indetermination in the senses, in the sensitive faculties which are the reason why animals seem to have also a certain freedom. Certainly, there is, in some measure, some indetermination and the possibility of self-determination, yet not a completely free self-determination. An animal is subject to influences to which he responds almost automatically. This is why an animal does not make any progress, or hardly any, unless he is trained by man. Otherwise, by their nature, animals do not progress. An animal remains always within the same limits because it has no awareness of its acts. At least, we cannot say that it has a veritable conscience like ours. So we can observe a certain indetermination in plants and animals, and this touch of freedom which these latter possess we call “instinct.”

The instinct of animals is the center of all their sensations. It is what enables them to guide themselves in a remarkable way through the sensations they experience, yet according to the laws inscribed in nature by the Creator. This instinct has something about it which makes us wonder and which often goes beyond anything we can do. The properties of animal instincts are real marvels, yet they remain internally determined in their acts. The determination of their actions, of their activities, is subject to internal laws. They are not free with the freedom that man enjoys.

Human Liberty and Its Laws

Let us now move from animal life to human life. The difference is great because man is free. Why? Because man possesses psychological liberty, the faculty of being capable of making decisions. Yet, precisely, if animals, plants, and minerals follow laws and consequently conform to the order in the universe, if God has given liberty to man, it is inconceivable that this liberty does not also obey laws. And here is the crux of the difficulty for those who have an erroneous notion of liberty. They believe that, because man can decide for himself to do things of which he is conscious, and that, psychologically speaking, no one can do anything from inside to affect this determination, this can be applied to the domain of man as a whole. Consequently he is free to do what he wills. This simple psychological liberty is applied to man as a whole. It is as if we were to say in analyzing his intelligence: “Man can know, man has the possibility of knowing. Hence he may know anything he wants, he is not obliged to attach himself to any particular knowledge.” But saying this, we ignore the truth for which intelligence is made. Thus a faculty is defined without taking into account its end. It is quite absurd. We must not only analyze the faculty in the abstract, we must consider it in the complete man, in the laws that God imposes upon him. Then we will very clearly see that the freedom that God gave to man is nothing else than the permission for man to make decisions for himself in view of the end that God wants to give him.

This is what makes all the grandeur and nobility of man. Whereas animals are interiorly conditioned and determined, man, on the contrary, can decide for himself, without anybody being able to influence him in the very cause of his liberty. You can make him a martyr as much as you want, but no one will manage to make him believe in the very depth of his liberty something he does not want to believe, nor to make him will something he does not want. Obviously, his will can be influenced and may eventually yield in a certain way. He may even, in the case of persecutions, express something which is in agreement with what his torturers think, but deep down he will not assent to it. Consequently, his freedom remains total in spite of all the exterior influences which may be exercised in any direction. No one can act directly upon the very root of human liberty. This is what makes man free. And he is free because he is an intelligent being.

For we cannot imagine someone who is free without intelligence. How would he direct this liberty? How could man direct himself in life if we took liberty as the first principle of human life? Liberty is unthinkable by itself. It can be conceived only together with intelligence and will. Intelligence shows us the law that God wants us to apply–a law which He expresses and makes manifest–and the will which adheres to it of its own movement and decision. Such is precisely all the grandeur of man: to know the law inscribed in nature and apply his will to it.

But, you see, we cannot really conceive liberty, and we cannot truly understand it unless we place it within this universal order. If we begin by analyzing liberty itself, we run the risk of confusing psychological liberty with moral liberty. Pope Leo XIII very aptly pointed out the difference between natural (or psychological) liberty and moral liberty. Natural liberty is liberty in its physical being. Moral liberty is the application of this liberty to the end of man which is determined by laws known to the intelligence. Hence, moral liberty is not complete because laws limit it. There are things which are good and there are things which are bad, there are things which we are not allowed to do.

Then, you might object that this moral liberty imposes limitations upon our psychological liberty. Not at all! because it presents itself as an object to our liberty, to our intelligence, and does not influence the subject himself. It has an influence upon our mind through the intelligence, as object of our faculty, and not upon the subject himself. If moral liberty influenced the very faculty of being free, of course, at that moment we would no longer be free. But it offers itself to us as a law to which we must freely submit of our own accord.

Hence, man’s grandeur certainly resides in this liberty. But once again, this liberty must strive to exercise its activity according to the laws which are in nature. It would be a sorry thing to think that men, who are intelligent and capable of knowing the laws which must lead them to their end, are eventually less faithful to the law than are irrational creatures like the birds, the flowers of the fields, the inanimate beings which must follow God’s law perfectly without any disorder. Whereas man, who is intelligent, to whom God has given intelligence for a purpose so that he may submit of his own accord to the laws and that, understanding the grandeur of his laws and of his end, that he might submit freely and consequently adhere with all his soul to the grandeur of the universe’s order and to the grandeur of the order willed by God, in order to merit a participation in this order of the universe and to the goal which is the glory of God. That man would seek ways opposed to such laws! It is in this perspective that I try to consider in what liberty consists and what the limitations of this liberty are.

We might perhaps say that law is a limit to our liberty. Law, as an ordinance of reason destined to guide the activities of various beings towards their end, tends by definition toward the good of these beings, since, materially speaking, the end and the good are one. If we are considering especially reasonable beings, we will say that the effect of morals is to make them virtuous. It is only through virtue that man makes himself ready to obtain the Sovereign Good. Such is the remote effect of the law. Law has immediate effects: its proximate end is to create an obligation to act in the subject of the law. In unintelligent beings, this necessity is unavoidable and irresistible. In reasonable beings, it is of a moral nature and is called obligation or duty. Here also, it is still a necessity, even against the will of the subject of the law, but it is moral and not physical, i.e. it does not proceed from a determination intrinsic to nature, nor from an outward constraint: it addresses reason, yet respects the liberty of the subject of the law. As you can see, moral obligation is addressed to man as an obligation, yet not as such an obligation that man is no longer free. The subject remains free, but he must submit. This law, which man conceives as his good and as his end, must morally be subject to it. This is where the difficulty of liberalism comes in. Liberalism affirms that moral obligations suppress our liberty. This is not exactly true. Moral obligations do not suppress our liberty. There is no liberty to do as we please. There is no man without a law, without a goal, without an end, nor without reason. We cannot be free unless we have an orientation to choose with our liberty, a choice that necessarily leads us to an end, to a goal. Hence, moral obligations do not diminish our liberty but guide it and show us what is its goal and its usefulness. Its end is the very reason God gave the gift of liberty.

I believe that we must strive with our whole soul and heart to know these laws if we want to reach our end. This is why God gave us intelligence and free will. Just as unintelligent beings know the law only in a non-intelligent manner and follow it by instinct and necessarily, so we must seek with our whole soul the law of our activity, the law of our nature which will lead us to our end.

Natural law has been inscribed in our very conscience, in our very hearts and souls. It is complemented by positive law: human and divine laws, the law of the Church which Our Lord founded for the salvation of all men. No man is outside of the supernatural order. There has never existed any man outside the supernatural order. Adam and Eve lived in the supernatural order. Because of their sin, they were deprived of supernatural goods and suffered serious losses in the order of nature. Since then, every man needs to restore the supernatural order in order to also restore the natural order and rediscover the application of the laws leading him to his natural and supernatural end. There is an exaggerated tendency to separate the natural and the supernatural orders. God had already given to Adam and Eve the supernatural order. And we wonder why God gave these laws of the supernatural order which make our lives so difficult. Why did He not simply give us a natural law? God in His liberality, bounty, grandeur, and magnificence towards men wanted to add something to what might have been sufficient for a certain natural happiness. He wanted to give men an even greater happiness. Are we to reproach God for having desired to give us a good even greater than that which we would have had by our mere nature? We can truly say that the supernature which God gave us so that we may better know and love him, and more greatly enjoy his grandeur during all eternity, is now, as it were, part and parcel of human nature. Because, once again, there is no man, and there never was any man, who was outside of the supernatural order. I think this is a rather common error to believe that, when we do not have grace, we are outside of the supernatural order, or we are merely in the order of nature. We lose the order of nature once we are no longer in the order of grace because the order of grace is necessary for the perfection of the natural order. We do not realize this now. When they lost the supernatural order, Adam and Eve also lost the natural order inasmuch as they were in a deficient state in regard to the laws of the order of nature. This is why our liberty is also affected, not mortally wounded, but wounded by sin, by the loss of the supernatural goods. And the consequences of this loss are also felt in the order of nature. We are less able to exercise our liberty than were Adam and Eve when they had the perfection of both nature and supernature.

 

Published for the first time in English. This article is reprinted with permission from Christendom, No.17 (Sept.-Oct., 2008), published by DICI, the international new bureau of the SSPX. Archbishop Lefebvre gave this conference in 1965 while still Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, then the largest missionary order in the world. Edited by Angelus Press. The second part of this conference will be published in an upcoming issue of The Angelus.