May 2012 Print

By Fr. Jean-Michel Gleize, FSSPX

This article is Fr. Jean-Michel Gleize’s preface to his translation of the third volume of Cardinal Billot’s Treatise on the Church. This volume presents the last part of the treatise, which covers the sovereignty of the Church in the temporal sphere and its implications for civil society. Cardinal Billot begins the study of the relations between the Church and the State by analyzing the fundamental principles of modern liberalism. His cwritical study is still authoritative. The translator’s preface highlights its importance in the context of contemporary deviations.

The third and final part of Cardinal Billot’s Treatise on the Church has remained the most well known.¹ In it, the learned Jesuit gets to the very bottom of the error of liberalism. Liberalism is the tap root of the dechristianization of the modern world. The societies spawned by the Revolution of 1789 reject the social reign of Christ together with the indirect sovereignty of the Church which it implies in as much as they profess the principle of liberalism inscribed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man. This principle itself is derived, in varying degrees, from materialist atheism.² It is the negation and the rejection of the truth expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas: “Now the Divine will is the sole rule of God’s act, because it is not referred to any higher end. But every created will has rectitude of act so far only as it is regulated according to the Divine will, to which the last end is to be referred: as every desire of a subordinate ought to be regulated by the will of his superior; for instance, the soldier’s will, according to the will of his commanding officer.”³ If, contrariwise, the exercise of human free-will carries within itself its own rule and justification, it cannot but be good, just, and legitimate. It is considered an end in itself. But in that case human free-will would be confounded with God’s: this is the very principle of liberalism, which makes of human freedom an absolute.

I. Preliminary Notions

The truth expressed by St. Thomas and contradicted by liberalism is a principle. A principle is a fundamental truth from which flow all the others in the same order. That is the reason why error regarding principles is always consequential. It is therefore indispensable to comprehend these principles in order to form an adequate idea of the gravity of the opposing errors. The above-quoted passage from the Summa Theologica is compact, as are all statements of principle. It cannot be well understood without first clarifying, however briefly, a few basic notions of psychology. The faculty of the will has as its proper object the good, but this object is reached under two different aspects, which govern a radical distinction at the level of acts of the will. A voluntary act regarding an object willed for itself, like health, is not of the same kind as a voluntary act regarding an object desired only for its relationship to something else, as to take medicine. The first act is called the simple will or volition, and when it regards the absolutely last end, which is the first principle of every voluntary act, the theologians name it the natural will or will as nature⁴; the second is called choice or election, and the theologians name it rational will or will as reason. This diversity of acts does not diversify the faculty of the will, for both aim at the object in so far as it represents a good.⁵ But the difference remains on its level. The act of simple volition is differentiated from the act of choice in that the object of the former is the end, while the object of the latter is the means. A radical tending of the will toward the end is one thing, the choice of means willed dependently on this end is another; such choice is the proper act of free-will.⁶ Freedom is not, therefore, a power properly so-called, distinct from the will; it is one of its tendencies.⁷ In relation to the absolutely last end, these two tendencies are not differentiated only because each regards a specific aspect of the good according to whether it is desired as an end or as a means. The difference is also in the mode by which the tendency is exercised. The tendency of the will towards the absolutely last end, the first principle of every voluntary act, is not a deliberate act because it regards what the will desires by nature and therefore (in a certain sense) necessarily.⁸ The tendency of the will towards the means is a deliberate act, for it must resolve an indetermination and choose something the will does not desire by nature and hence desires freely. Let us add: there is an order between the two tendencies and their mode of exercise. The will is nature before it is deliberation; it is determined before it determines itself. It is relative firstly to the order of the end, which it does not choose, and secondly to the order of means, which it chooses. The exercise of human freedom rests, then, in the last analysis, on a certain measure of determinism or of dependence. More precisely, freedom merely makes explicit the virtualities already contained in germ in nature. The human manner of proceeding to the attainment of the end remains radically a natural operation, in the sense in which nature is defined as what is determined in its fundamental tendency toward a perfection inscribed within it. This is understandable because human will is not master of its own end: it is the Divine will that assigns it the first and necessary object of its fundamental act, which is simple willing.⁹ Here, after a needed digression, we rejoin St. Thomas’s initial statement: “Now the Divine will is the sole rule of God’s act, because it is not referred to any higher end. But every created will has rectitude of act only so far as it is regulated according to the Divine will, to which the last end is to be referred.”¹⁰ For liberalism, everything happens as if there were only one order, first and absolute, that of means. The will is essentially free, for its characteristic action is choice.¹¹ Its essential manifestation would be the absolutely autonomous action, the deliberation of which is freed from any objectively natural basis; it is a deracinated act in the strict sense of the word, that is to say, cut off in principle from any determination. Autonomy becomes the criterion of life and of courage, of morality, of heroism, and of holiness. It is easy to understand that the rejection of the social kingship of Christ logically flows from this principle. But this implication calls for two remarks.

II. Crucial Terminology

The one end laid upon all men is the glory of God and the eternal happiness of a creature endowed with reason. The attainment of this end necessitates recourse to a certain number of means, among which is the practice of the one religion willed by God. According to Cardinal Billot’s explanation, political society is defined in terms of a proper end which is only intermediary because “temporal”: the government of rulers ought to procure the common good in such wise that men may attain as easily as possible their last end, which is “spiritual.”¹² Similar considerations would justify the requisite harmony between what is commonly called “the temporal order” and “the spiritual order”—a harmony that should flow from the necessary subordination of ends. The terminology currently adopted by writers, however, calls for some clarification. Temporal is exactly opposite eternal; it designates in the strict sense of the word a reality that, being subject to movement (per se or accidentally) is measured by time. In the broad sense, it designates corruptible realities (per se or accidentally), the existence of which is of limited duration. On the other hand, eternal designates in the broad sense an incorruptible reality the existence of which is of unlimited duration (strictly speaking, the adjective eternal is proper to God alone). Spiritual is the exact opposite of corporeal or material. Supernatural is the exact opposite of natural. The supernatural is always spiritual, but the spiritual is sometimes natural and sometimes supernatural.¹³ The temporal is sometimes natural and sometimes supernatural. The supernatural is sometimes temporal and sometimes eternal. To designate the power of the Church, writers, canonists or theologians speak of the “spiritual” power in opposition to the power of the State, which is called “temporal.” Likewise, they distinguish a spiritual end, which is that of the Church, in relation to a temporal end, which is that of civil society and the State; and they speak of temporal society as distinguished from the Church, which is a spiritual society. But these two adjectives do not denote sufficiently distinct notions. Therefore they cannot be used to designate adequately the distinction that exists between civil society and the Church. The word temporal is not a modifier that designates civil society alone to the exclusion of the Church. On one hand, the Church is a society in the strict sense, and like every society, it is a reality whose existence possesses a limited duration here below since at the end of the world its power will disappear (there will no longer be sacraments or hierarchy or jurisdiction in the here after): the Church on earth (the Church militant), therefore, as such is a temporal society (like every State), in opposition to the communion of saints (the Church triumphant), which is an eternal reality in the broad sense. On the other hand, the Church has a twofold end. The Church possesses an immanent end, which is temporal since it is attained uniquely here below and lasts for the time corresponding to the duration of the world: this end is, in fact, the external activity that corresponds to the threefold unity of the profession of faith, the sacraments, and the hierarchical government. Now, the faith, the sacraments, and the hierarchical government are only for here below; their duration is thus limited to this world. The Church possesses a transcendent end, which is eternal, since it is equivalent to the mystical communion of grace and glory begun here on earth but destined to last eternally here after. The proper, immediate, and essential end of the Church is its immanent end. From the standpoint of its end, the Church is defined as a reality of the temporal order. Moreover, spiritual is not a qualifier that uniquely designates the Church to the exclusion of civil society. On one hand, civil society equates to an ordered union the foundation of which is the co-operation of rational beings qua rational; this union is thus spiritual in nature. On the other hand, the end of civil society is the common good that corresponds to virtuous human life and not just to procuring a sufficiency of material goods, which is merely the condition of the virtuous life. Considered from its end, civil society is also a reality with a spiritual dimension. If it were necessary to adopt precise terminology, we should rather say that the distinction between Church and civil society (or the State) is adequately expressed by the distinction between the supernatural and the natural. But this nomenclature raises another difficulty, which calls for further clarification. Concretely and in fact, Divine Wisdom ordained that these two orders, natural and supernatural, would exist together. The first might have existed without the second, but it can no longer do so without it in fact, for it presupposes it as what is perfectible presupposes its perfection. And reciprocally, the second, as it exists, cannot exist without the first, for it presupposes it and integrates it, as perfection presupposes and integrates what is perfectible.¹⁴ Civil society exists in fact and concretely within a supernatural order. The last end to which it must be ordered is of this order, which is the proper end of the Church. Within this order, the Church presupposes civil society as perfection presupposes something that can be perfected. Civil society in its turn depends on the Church and ought to be subordinate to it as that which can be perfected depends upon that which perfects it and is subordinate to it. Of course, if they are considered according to their formal causes, the two societies are not situated within a common order in which their relations would obey the same general and necessary principles. They correspond to two distinct orders, the natural order and the supernatural order. Yet, when we are considering these formal causes, it is no longer from the concrete, really existing viewpoint of their final cause. Rather, it is from the theoretical and abstract viewpoint of essential definitions. Both perspectives are legitimate, but they are not the same. It cannot be denied that civil society in fact exists concretely within the supernatural order with an ultimate end of the same order. It remains, on the other hand, that qua civil society it essentially comes within the natural order by its formal cause. It could have existed without the Church in a state of pure nature. But now in fact, it can only exist in dependence of the Church, for its concrete perfection is not that of pure nature. The concrete perfection of civil society now is gratuitous and supplementary in comparison with an end that would have been sufficient in its own order had it been left to itself; and that is why now the perfectible comes within the same order as its concrete perfection only accidentally, not essentially. The concretely existing order is a supernatural order in which the natural order is involved in the same way that something that can be perfected finds itself included in perfection. But this consideration should not induce us to deny the essential distinction that exists between grace and nature, or to confound the natural and the supernatural under the pretext that both belong to the same concrete historical design. In this way, speaking of the respective concrete ends of Church and State, their adequate distinction amounts to that which exists between the last end and an intermediate end, between the complete end and a partial end within the same order. And if we speak of the essential and abstract ends respectively of the Church and the State, their adequate distinction amounts to that which exists between a supernatural end and a natural end. The second distinction does not contradict the first, for this first distinction is to be understood precisely in a concrete state of things in which the ultimate end is of the supernatural order which subordinates to itself the natural order. This subordination being admitted in its proper perspective, the motives that render it necessary ought to be properly understood. Within the concretely existing order, civil society is dependent on the Church as something that can be perfected is dependent on its accidental perfection. But perfectibility and perfection can be taken in two ways: something is made perfect in the first sense when, having been wounded, it is healed and restored to its natural health. Something is made perfect in a second sense when, being of a lower order, it is elevated to a higher order. The supernatural is the perfection of the natural in both of these senses. Grace does not merely elevate nature to a supernatural perfection; it also restores it to itself by healing the disorder incurred from original sin. It is undoubtedly true (to a certain extent) to say that civil society favors the attainment of the supernatural final end by acting as a removens prohibens, that is to say, by removing obstacles within the social order which might hinder the Church’s action. But this presupposes the activity of the Church, acting on civil society in order to heal its wounds and restore the proper natural perfection of society. The Collect of the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost appositely reminds us that if grace follows after us, it is only in the measure that it has already made its effects felt. For one cannot perform feats of prowess before being healed, and a sick man must begin by being well again before he can become a strongman.

III. Of Liberalism and Religious Freedom

Does the still current demand for a civil right to religious freedom (or of a political regime with a healthy positive laicity) as it is expressed in the Vatican II declaration Dignitatis Humanae necessarily originate in the rejection of the principle enounced by St. Thomas? This is an important question since some authors¹⁵ claim that Gregory XVI, and after him Pius IX, intended to condemn freedom of conscience in matters religious only insofar as this claim flowed from liberalism and indifferentism. According to this interpretation, the condemnation of Mirari Vos and Quanta Cura would not be incurred provided that the principle of religious liberty were affirmed without its being derived from liberalism or indifferentism. Now, still according to these authors, the declaration Dignitatis Humanae teaches the right to freedom of conscience in matters religious only for those who are in good faith, and not for the adepts of indifferentism. That is why, according to this interpretation, the teaching of Dignitatis Humanae would not contradict that of Gregory XVI and Pius IX. This interpretation does not stand up to an examination of the documents. Gregory XVI and Pius IX condemned freedom of conscience in matters religious per se, regardless of its circumstantial link with liberalism and indifferentism. The essential passage of the condemnation in Gregory XVI’s Mirari Vos reads: “From this infected source of indifferentism flows that absurd and erroneous maxim, or rather this delirium, that it is necessary to grant everyone freedom of conscience. [Ex hoc puditissimo indifferentismi fonte absurda illa fluit ac erronea sententia seu potius deliramentum asserendam esse ac vindicandam cuilibet libertatem conscientiæ.]” The entire passage expresses two judgments: the first affirms that the demand for a right to religious freedom flows from indifferentism as from its source, the second affirms that this demand is wrong. The two judgments are independent. The second judgment, in effect, concerns the demand for a right to religious freedom considered in itself and not in relation to indifferentism. The adjectives absurda and erronea are a predicate attributed to the subject illa sententia, which strictly equates with the demand for a right to religious freedom and nothing else. The freedom of conscience in question corresponds to self-determination of human action, that is to say, the moral usage one makes of his psychological liberty; and this moral usage is envisaged in relationship to others, in relationship to society and to the civil authority, and not in relationship to God or a transcendent moral order. The other basic reference for this issue is the essential passage of Quanta Cura that expresses the same reprobation when it condemns the following proposition: “ ‘…the liberty of conscience and of worship is the peculiar (or inalienable) right of every man, which should be proclaimed by law, and that citizens have the right to all kinds of liberty, to be restrained by no law, whether ecclesiastical or civil, by which they may be enabled to manifest openly and publicly their ideas by word of mouth, through the press, or by any other means’” [§3]. Here Pius IX denounces as contrary to the order established by God the independence of human freedom from human authority. Once this independence is claimed, even if the autonomy of the conscience from Divine authority is not posited in principle, the condemnation of Quanta Cura is incurred. These distinctions should be given their full import, for these distinctions alone are what indicate why religious freedom as taught by Vatican II is inadmissible even if it doesn’t flow directly from liberalism pure and simple. Keeping in mind the general principles given above, freedom can be understood in four different senses. First, in the sense of physical freedom, it signifies freedom of bodily movement or the absence of physical constraint. In the second sense, denoting psychological freedom, it involves free-will or the indetermination of the will as regards the choice of means, as it is dependent on the intellect which comprehends the end. In the third and fourth ways, as moral freedom, it is a question of the self-determination of free-will, that is to say, the independence of the will in its choice of means: in the third sense, it denotes a direct and absolute independence in relation to the Divine authority fixing the transcendent moral order; in the fourth sense, it designates the indirect and relative independence in relation to human civil authority, whose laws express and specify the Divine law. The principle of liberalism, as Cardinal Billot analyzes it, claims as a right freedom understood in the third sense: the principle of unmitigated liberalism, which would free human will from all authority. The principle of freedom of conscience as enunciated by Vatican II asserts a right to freedom understood in the fourth sense.¹⁶ The expression “libertas conscientiæ,” which must be claimed as a right, precisely equates to independence in relation to other men, and in relation to the coercive power of civil authority, which Fr. Bertrand de Margerie, S.J., has called “sociocivic” freedom. In his Christmas Address to the Roman Curia of December 22, 2005,¹⁷ which gives the authentic interpretation of the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, Pope Benedict XVI makes a distinction between the third and fourth meanings of the term “freedom of religion”: Taken in the third sense, it is to be reproved: “[I]f religious freedom were to be considered an expression of the human inability to discover the truth and thus become a canonization of relativism, then this social and historical necessity is raised inappropriately to the metaphysical level and thus stripped of its true meaning. Consequently, it cannot be accepted by those who believe that the human person is capable of knowing the truth about God and, on the basis of the inner dignity of the truth, is bound to this knowledge.” But in the fourth sense, which according to the Pope is implied by the second, the expression would be correct: “It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence [the fourth sense], or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction [the fourth sense as flowing from the second]. The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern State [the fourth sense of freedom of conscience in religious matters: cujus regio ejus religio has progressively become cujus conscientia ejus religio] with the Decree on Religious Freedom, has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church.” Further on, the Pope states even more explicitly what meaning should be attached to the term “religious freedom” taught by Vatican II: “The martyrs of the early Church died for…freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one’s own faith—a profession that no State can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God’s grace in freedom of conscience.” This is indeed the freedom meant in the expression condemned by Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos and by Pius IX in Quanta Cura. Far from correcting the faulty teaching of Dignitatis Humanae on religious freedom, Benedict XVI’s Christ­mas speech forcefully and clearly confirms it. But there is thus a direct contradiction between Benedict XVI’s statement and that of Gregory XVI. There is also and especially a utopia, that is, an impossible dream. How is it possible, at one and the same time, to affirm that man is bound by the knowledge of divine truth and proclaim that no social authority may prohibit anyone, whoever he may be, from doing that which would hinder the profession of this same truth? Man is by nature a political animal, which means that he can only connect with divine truth on condition that he live in society. If he lives in a society in which the public authorities must in principle refrain from impeding the social propagation of error, how can he remain bound, in a concrete, effective way, by the knowledge of divine truth? This is the incoherence analyzed in its root by Cardinal Billot,¹⁸ the incoherence of liberal Catholicism, which has survived in neomodernism.

IV. Social Theology and Ecclesiology

The Christian social order constitutes a major chapter of ecclesiology. There is nothing surprising about this. Cardinal Billot carries on the thinking of the authors of the Early Church, who had no experience of dechristianization such as that of the modern era. In their eyes, the Church is inseparable from civil society. Both enter into the composition of one and the same edifice. This idea is made explicit very early, as soon as the theology of the Church is elaborated. It appears already, in any case, in the very first treatise of ecclesiology, which was authored by Cardinal Juan de Torquemada (1388-1468).¹⁹ A figure of the distinction of these two powers as well as their indissoluble union, he says, occurs in the Old Testament in the third book of Kings.²⁰ Solomon built the temple; Solomon is a type of Christ, an architect full of wisdom. The edifice has an atrium (figure of the Church militant) and the temple proper (figure of the Church triumphant). The atrium itself has a portico supported by two columns, which figure the two powers of the Church militant. The left column figures the less worthy power, the secular power. The right column is called Joachim, which means præparans aliis firmitatem. This expression designates the pre-eminence of the spiritual power over the secular power. Each of these two powers corresponds to a hierarchy, and at the top of each is placed a head, the pope for the spiritual power, the king for the temporal power. Juan de Torquemada concludes this description by quoting the words addressed at the end of the fifth century by Pope St. Gelasius I to Emperor Anastasius: “There are two powers, august Emperor, by which this world is chiefly ruled, namely, the sacred authority of the priests and the royal power. Of these that of the priests is all the more weighty, in that they have to render an account for even the kings of men in the divine judgment.”²¹ Here we are still a long way from religious freedom. Religious freedom has wrought, in the etymological sense of the word, decomposition; and, quite often, this is the result, in the social order as in the physical order, of corruption. In the circumstances, the corruption is even worse as it attacks the highest principles. A continuator of earlier theologians, Cardinal Billot defends the Church’s principles and stems the corruption. His work assures the transmission of a vital heritage. It ought to remain for Catholic minds one of the major expressions of the Church’s Tradition.

 

Translated from Courrier de Rome, September 2011.

¹ A translation of Question 17 of this treatise, devoted to the analysis of liberalism, has already been published: Louis Cardinal Billot, The Principles of 1789 and Their Consequences [French] (Téqui, 1989).

² Cf. Billot, Treatise on the Church, III, Nos. 1141-1156, 1177-1182.

³ St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 63, Art. 1.

⁴ “Will of nature” and “volition,” then, are not strictly equivalent terms. End and means are only adequately distinct when the last end, that is, the one good that cannot otherwise be willed than for itself, is set apart from every other good which is willed in view of the last end. It is in this sense that the natural will is distinguished from the rational will. The object of the first is the end; and of the second, the means—the end and means here being considered as absolutely adequately distinct. But every other good beside the last end can be the object of volition as the basis of a number of choices: in this case we are speaking of intermediary ends. A good that is willed as an intermediary end is an end relatively speaking, that is to say, in relation to other goods willed for its sake and thus the object of volition, but absolutely speaking it continues to be a means in relation to the unique good which is the last end, and hence an object of the rational will. Cf. on this point James Ramirez, De Actibus Humanis, No. 464, p. 333, & No. 488, p. 352.

⁵ St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, III, Q. 18, Art. 3.

⁶ Ibid., Art. 4.

⁷ St. Thomas Aquinas proves this in the Summa Theologica, I, Q. 83, Art. 4, by making an argument a simili: everything happens on the level of the will as it does on the level of the reason, which means that the relationship that exists in the mental faculty of knowing, between understanding and reason, is equivalent to the relationship that exists in the appetite between volition and free-will, which is nothing else than the power to choose; now to make an act of intellection (considering the first principles) and to reason (by deducing conclusions from first principles) are not two distinct faculties, but two acts proper to the same power of the intellect; hence, due allowance being made, to make an act of simple volition (by regarding the end) and to choose freely (by regarding the means) are not two distinct faculties, but two acts that are proper to the same power of the will.

⁸ St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, 82, Art. 1, corpus: “As the intellect of necessity adheres to the first principles, the will must of necessity adhere to the last end, which is happiness: since the end is in practical matters what the principle is in speculative matters. For what befits a thing naturally and immovably must be the root and principle of all else appertaining thereto, since the nature of a thing is the first in everything, and every movement arises from something immovable.” Still, where the necessity lies needs to be clarified. The fundamental tendency of the will towards the end (the simple will) is an act that is partially necessary and partially free or contingent: It is necessary from the viewpoint of its specification or of its object because it turns on what the will desires by nature; it is free from the standpoint of its exercise and necessary only inchoatively. It is necessary in its beginning because it results from God’s moving the will, prompting it to pass into act so that it can will; it is free in its consummation or term because it is elicited by the will. The first act of simple will is necessary in as much as it is passive, and free in as much as it is active. It is free in its exercise and in its being by concomitance with a Divine motion that renders it necessary in its essence. That is why an indeliberate voluntary act and an absolutely necessary act are not the same thing: an indeliberate act can be not necessary and remain free—not, obviously, absolutely, but with regard to its exercise. It is one thing to will deliberately something and another to will freely. Every deliberate volition is free, but every free volition is not deliberate. Cf. on this point J. Ramirez, De Actibus Humanis, commentary on the ST, I-II, Q. 10, Art. 4, No. 363.

⁹ ST, I, 82, Art. 1, ad 3.

¹⁰ Ibid., I, 63, Art. 1, corpus.

¹¹ For an insightful treatment of this question, see Charles Journet, L’Esprit du protestantisme en Suisse (Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1925), pp. 186-90.

¹² Cf. No. 1153 of Billot’s Treatise on the Church.

¹³ Cf. Charles Journet, L’Église du Verbe Incarné, Vol. II: “Its Internal Structure and Its Catholic Unity” (Desclée de Brouwer, 1951), Pt. 1, Ch. 1, p. 7: “The word spirit can be understood in two different senses.” One aspect of the new theology of Vatican II is the assimilation of “spiritual” and “supernatural,” and thus, subtly, the confounding of nature and grace. Thus, for example, in No. 23 of the Constitution Gaudium et Spes, the Church declares it has the task of fostering the spiritual progress of mankind: “Inter praecipuos mundi hodierni aspectus, mutuarum inter homines necessitudinum multiplicatio adnumeratur, ad quam evolvendam hodierni technici progressus plurimum conferunt. Tamen fraternum hominum colloquium non in istis progressibus, sed profundius in personarum communitate perficitur, quae mutuam reverentiam erga plenam earum dignitatem spiritualem exigit. Ad hanc vero communionem inter personas promovendam, Revelatio christiana magnum subsidium affert, simulque ad altiorem vitae socialis legum intelligentiam nos perducit quas Creator in natura spirituali ac morali hominis inscripsit.”

¹⁴ Summa Theologica, I, Q. 2, Art. 2 ad 1: “…for faith presupposes natural knowledge, even as grace presupposes nature, and perfection supposes something that can be perfected.” Natural perfection is required for supernatural perfection in the sense that it is the choice ground of supernatural perfection, the indispensable, albeit insufficient, locus without which supernatural perfection cannot take root. Grace cannot do without nature, even if nature is powerless to originate grace.

¹⁵ The most famous artisan of this interpretation is Msgr. De Smedt, the official relator for the schema on religious freedom, who in his report of November 19, 1963, said: “As we see, freedom of conscience is condemned because of the ideology preached by the proponents of rationalism, based on the notion that the individual conscience is lawless, and unfettered by any divinely transmitted norm” (Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vatican II, Vol. II, Pt. 5, p. 491).

¹⁶ “This Vatican Synod declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that in matters religious no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs. Nor is anyone to be restrained from acting in accordance with his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits….This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed. Thus it is to become a civil right.” [“Declaration on Religious Freedom,” The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott, S.J. (Herder and Herder, 1966), pp. 678-9.]

¹⁷ Benedict XVI, Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005 [online at vatican.va].

¹⁸ Cf. Billot, op. cit., Nos. 1157-1163.

¹⁹ Juan de Torquemada, Summa de Ecclesia, Bk. 1, Ch. 87.

²⁰ III Kings 7:1-22.

²¹ DS 347 [English version: translated in J. H. Robinson, Readings in European History (Boston: Ginn, 1905), pp. 72-73, online at www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/gelasius1.asp].

This article is Fr. Jean-Michel Gleize’s preface to his translation of the third volume of Cardinal Billot’s Treatise on the Church. This volume presents the last part of the treatise, which covers the sovereignty of the Church in the temporal sphere and its implications for civil society. Cardinal Billot begins the study of the relations between the Church and the State by analyzing the fundamental principles of modern liberalism. His cwritical study is still authoritative. The translator’s preface highlights its importance in the context of contemporary deviations.

 

The third and final part of Cardinal Billot’s Treatise on the Church has remained the most well known.¹ In it, the learned Jesuit gets to the very bottom of the error of liberalism. Liberalism is the tap root of the dechristianization of the modern world. The societies spawned by the Revolution of 1789 reject the social reign of Christ together with the indirect sovereignty of the Church which it implies in as much as they profess the principle of liberalism inscribed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man. This principle itself is derived, in varying degrees, from materialist atheism.² It is the negation and the rejection of the truth expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas: “Now the Divine will is the sole rule of God’s act, because it is not referred to any higher end. But every created will has rectitude of act so far only as it is regulated according to the Divine will, to which the last end is to be referred: as every desire of a subordinate ought to be regulated by the will of his superior; for instance, the soldier’s will, according to the will of his commanding officer.”³ If, contrariwise, the exercise of human free-will carries within itself its own rule and justification, it cannot but be good, just, and legitimate. It is considered an end in itself. But in that case human free-will would be confounded with God’s: this is the very principle of liberalism, which makes of human freedom an absolute.

I. Preliminary Notions

The truth expressed by St. Thomas and contradicted by liberalism is a principle. A principle is a fundamental truth from which flow all the others in the same order. That is the reason why error regarding principles is always consequential. It is therefore indispensable to comprehend these principles in order to form an adequate idea of the gravity of the opposing errors. The above-quoted passage from the Summa Theologica is compact, as are all statements of principle. It cannot be well understood without first clarifying, however briefly, a few basic notions of psychology. The faculty of the will has as its proper object the good, but this object is reached under two different aspects, which govern a radical distinction at the level of acts of the will. A voluntary act regarding an object willed for itself, like health, is not of the same kind as a voluntary act regarding an object desired only for its relationship to something else, as to take medicine. The first act is called the simple will or volition, and when it regards the absolutely last end, which is the first principle of every voluntary act, the theologians name it the natural will or will as nature⁴; the second is called choice or election, and the theologians name it rational will or will as reason. This diversity of acts does not diversify the faculty of the will, for both aim at the object in so far as it represents a good.⁵ But the difference remains on its level. The act of simple volition is differentiated from the act of choice in that the object of the former is the end, while the object of the latter is the means. A radical tending of the will toward the end is one thing, the choice of means willed dependently on this end is another; such choice is the proper act of free-will.⁶ Freedom is not, therefore, a power properly so-called, distinct from the will; it is one of its tendencies.⁷ In relation to the absolutely last end, these two tendencies are not differentiated only because each regards a specific aspect of the good according to whether it is desired as an end or as a means. The difference is also in the mode by which the tendency is exercised. The tendency of the will towards the absolutely last end, the first principle of every voluntary act, is not a deliberate act because it regards what the will desires by nature and therefore (in a certain sense) necessarily.⁸ The tendency of the will towards the means is a deliberate act, for it must resolve an indetermination and choose something the will does not desire by nature and hence desires freely. Let us add: there is an order between the two tendencies and their mode of exercise. The will is nature before it is deliberation; it is determined before it determines itself. It is relative firstly to the order of the end, which it does not choose, and secondly to the order of means, which it chooses. The exercise of human freedom rests, then, in the last analysis, on a certain measure of determinism or of dependence. More precisely, freedom merely makes explicit the virtualities already contained in germ in nature. The human manner of proceeding to the attainment of the end remains radically a natural operation, in the sense in which nature is defined as what is determined in its fundamental tendency toward a perfection inscribed within it. This is understandable because human will is not master of its own end: it is the Divine will that assigns it the first and necessary object of its fundamental act, which is simple willing.⁹ Here, after a needed digression, we rejoin St. Thomas’s initial statement: “Now the Divine will is the sole rule of God’s act, because it is not referred to any higher end. But every created will has rectitude of act only so far as it is regulated according to the Divine will, to which the last end is to be referred.”¹⁰ For liberalism, everything happens as if there were only one order, first and absolute, that of means. The will is essentially free, for its characteristic action is choice.¹¹ Its essential manifestation would be the absolutely autonomous action, the deliberation of which is freed from any objectively natural basis; it is a deracinated act in the strict sense of the word, that is to say, cut off in principle from any determination. Autonomy becomes the criterion of life and of courage, of morality, of heroism, and of holiness. It is easy to understand that the rejection of the social kingship of Christ logically flows from this principle. But this implication calls for two remarks.

II. Crucial Terminology

The one end laid upon all men is the glory of God and the eternal happiness of a creature endowed with reason. The attainment of this end necessitates recourse to a certain number of means, among which is the practice of the one religion willed by God. According to Cardinal Billot’s explanation, political society is defined in terms of a proper end which is only intermediary because “temporal”: the government of rulers ought to procure the common good in such wise that men may attain as easily as possible their last end, which is “spiritual.”¹² Similar considerations would justify the requisite harmony between what is commonly called “the temporal order” and “the spiritual order”—a harmony that should flow from the necessary subordination of ends. The terminology currently adopted by writers, however, calls for some clarification. Temporal is exactly opposite eternal; it designates in the strict sense of the word a reality that, being subject to movement (per se or accidentally) is measured by time. In the broad sense, it designates corruptible realities (per se or accidentally), the existence of which is of limited duration. On the other hand, eternal designates in the broad sense an incorruptible reality the existence of which is of unlimited duration (strictly speaking, the adjective eternal is proper to God alone). Spiritual is the exact opposite of corporeal or material. Supernatural is the exact opposite of natural. The supernatural is always spiritual, but the spiritual is sometimes natural and sometimes supernatural.¹³ The temporal is sometimes natural and sometimes supernatural. The supernatural is sometimes temporal and sometimes eternal. To designate the power of the Church, writers, canonists or theologians speak of the “spiritual” power in opposition to the power of the State, which is called “temporal.” Likewise, they distinguish a spiritual end, which is that of the Church, in relation to a temporal end, which is that of civil society and the State; and they speak of temporal society as distinguished from the Church, which is a spiritual society. But these two adjectives do not denote sufficiently distinct notions. Therefore they cannot be used to designate adequately the distinction that exists between civil society and the Church. The word temporal is not a modifier that designates civil society alone to the exclusion of the Church. On one hand, the Church is a society in the strict sense, and like every society, it is a reality whose existence possesses a limited duration here below since at the end of the world its power will disappear (there will no longer be sacraments or hierarchy or jurisdiction in the here after): the Church on earth (the Church militant), therefore, as such is a temporal society (like every State), in opposition to the communion of saints (the Church triumphant), which is an eternal reality in the broad sense. On the other hand, the Church has a twofold end. The Church possesses an immanent end, which is temporal since it is attained uniquely here below and lasts for the time corresponding to the duration of the world: this end is, in fact, the external activity that corresponds to the threefold unity of the profession of faith, the sacraments, and the hierarchical government. Now, the faith, the sacraments, and the hierarchical government are only for here below; their duration is thus limited to this world. The Church possesses a transcendent end, which is eternal, since it is equivalent to the mystical communion of grace and glory begun here on earth but destined to last eternally here after. The proper, immediate, and essential end of the Church is its immanent end. From the standpoint of its end, the Church is defined as a reality of the temporal order. Moreover, spiritual is not a qualifier that uniquely designates the Church to the exclusion of civil society. On one hand, civil society equates to an ordered union the foundation of which is the co-operation of rational beings qua rational; this union is thus spiritual in nature. On the other hand, the end of civil society is the common good that corresponds to virtuous human life and not just to procuring a sufficiency of material goods, which is merely the condition of the virtuous life. Considered from its end, civil society is also a reality with a spiritual dimension. If it were necessary to adopt precise terminology, we should rather say that the distinction between Church and civil society (or the State) is adequately expressed by the distinction between the supernatural and the natural. But this nomenclature raises another difficulty, which calls for further clarification. Concretely and in fact, Divine Wisdom ordained that these two orders, natural and supernatural, would exist together. The first might have existed without the second, but it can no longer do so without it in fact, for it presupposes it as what is perfectible presupposes its perfection. And reciprocally, the second, as it exists, cannot exist without the first, for it presupposes it and integrates it, as perfection presupposes and integrates what is perfectible.¹⁴ Civil society exists in fact and concretely within a supernatural order. The last end to which it must be ordered is of this order, which is the proper end of the Church. Within this order, the Church presupposes civil society as perfection presupposes something that can be perfected. Civil society in its turn depends on the Church and ought to be subordinate to it as that which can be perfected depends upon that which perfects it and is subordinate to it. Of course, if they are considered according to their formal causes, the two societies are not situated within a common order in which their relations would obey the same general and necessary principles. They correspond to two distinct orders, the natural order and the supernatural order. Yet, when we are considering these formal causes, it is no longer from the concrete, really existing viewpoint of their final cause. Rather, it is from the theoretical and abstract viewpoint of essential definitions. Both perspectives are legitimate, but they are not the same. It cannot be denied that civil society in fact exists concretely within the supernatural order with an ultimate end of the same order. It remains, on the other hand, that qua civil society it essentially comes within the natural order by its formal cause. It could have existed without the Church in a state of pure nature. But now in fact, it can only exist in dependence of the Church, for its concrete perfection is not that of pure nature. The concrete perfection of civil society now is gratuitous and supplementary in comparison with an end that would have been sufficient in its own order had it been left to itself; and that is why now the perfectible comes within the same order as its concrete perfection only accidentally, not essentially. The concretely existing order is a supernatural order in which the natural order is involved in the same way that something that can be perfected finds itself included in perfection. But this consideration should not induce us to deny the essential distinction that exists between grace and nature, or to confound the natural and the supernatural under the pretext that both belong to the same concrete historical design. In this way, speaking of the respective concrete ends of Church and State, their adequate distinction amounts to that which exists between the last end and an intermediate end, between the complete end and a partial end within the same order. And if we speak of the essential and abstract ends respectively of the Church and the State, their adequate distinction amounts to that which exists between a supernatural end and a natural end. The second distinction does not contradict the first, for this first distinction is to be understood precisely in a concrete state of things in which the ultimate end is of the supernatural order which subordinates to itself the natural order. This subordination being admitted in its proper perspective, the motives that render it necessary ought to be properly understood. Within the concretely existing order, civil society is dependent on the Church as something that can be perfected is dependent on its accidental perfection. But perfectibility and perfection can be taken in two ways: something is made perfect in the first sense when, having been wounded, it is healed and restored to its natural health. Something is made perfect in a second sense when, being of a lower order, it is elevated to a higher order. The supernatural is the perfection of the natural in both of these senses. Grace does not merely elevate nature to a supernatural perfection; it also restores it to itself by healing the disorder incurred from original sin. It is undoubtedly true (to a certain extent) to say that civil society favors the attainment of the supernatural final end by acting as a removens prohibens, that is to say, by removing obstacles within the social order which might hinder the Church’s action. But this presupposes the activity of the Church, acting on civil society in order to heal its wounds and restore the proper natural perfection of society. The Collect of the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost appositely reminds us that if grace follows after us, it is only in the measure that it has already made its effects felt. For one cannot perform feats of prowess before being healed, and a sick man must begin by being well again before he can become a strongman.

III. Of Liberalism and Religious Freedom

Does the still current demand for a civil right to religious freedom (or of a political regime with a healthy positive laicity) as it is expressed in the Vatican II declaration Dignitatis Humanae necessarily originate in the rejection of the principle enounced by St. Thomas? This is an important question since some authors¹⁵ claim that Gregory XVI, and after him Pius IX, intended to condemn freedom of conscience in matters religious only insofar as this claim flowed from liberalism and indifferentism. According to this interpretation, the condemnation of Mirari Vos and Quanta Cura would not be incurred provided that the principle of religious liberty were affirmed without its being derived from liberalism or indifferentism. Now, still according to these authors, the declaration Dignitatis Humanae teaches the right to freedom of conscience in matters religious only for those who are in good faith, and not for the adepts of indifferentism. That is why, according to this interpretation, the teaching of Dignitatis Humanae would not contradict that of Gregory XVI and Pius IX. This interpretation does not stand up to an examination of the documents. Gregory XVI and Pius IX condemned freedom of conscience in matters religious per se, regardless of its circumstantial link with liberalism and indifferentism. The essential passage of the condemnation in Gregory XVI’s Mirari Vos reads: “From this infected source of indifferentism flows that absurd and erroneous maxim, or rather this delirium, that it is necessary to grant everyone freedom of conscience. [Ex hoc puditissimo indifferentismi fonte absurda illa fluit ac erronea sententia seu potius deliramentum asserendam esse ac vindicandam cuilibet libertatem conscientiæ.]” The entire passage expresses two judgments: the first affirms that the demand for a right to religious freedom flows from indifferentism as from its source, the second affirms that this demand is wrong. The two judgments are independent. The second judgment, in effect, concerns the demand for a right to religious freedom considered in itself and not in relation to indifferentism. The adjectives absurda and erronea are a predicate attributed to the subject illa sententia, which strictly equates with the demand for a right to religious freedom and nothing else. The freedom of conscience in question corresponds to self-determination of human action, that is to say, the moral usage one makes of his psychological liberty; and this moral usage is envisaged in relationship to others, in relationship to society and to the civil authority, and not in relationship to God or a transcendent moral order. The other basic reference for this issue is the essential passage of Quanta Cura that expresses the same reprobation when it condemns the following proposition: “ ‘…the liberty of conscience and of worship is the peculiar (or inalienable) right of every man, which should be proclaimed by law, and that citizens have the right to all kinds of liberty, to be restrained by no law, whether ecclesiastical or civil, by which they may be enabled to manifest openly and publicly their ideas by word of mouth, through the press, or by any other means’” [§3]. Here Pius IX denounces as contrary to the order established by God the independence of human freedom from human authority. Once this independence is claimed, even if the autonomy of the conscience from Divine authority is not posited in principle, the condemnation of Quanta Cura is incurred. These distinctions should be given their full import, for these distinctions alone are what indicate why religious freedom as taught by Vatican II is inadmissible even if it doesn’t flow directly from liberalism pure and simple. Keeping in mind the general principles given above, freedom can be understood in four different senses. First, in the sense of physical freedom, it signifies freedom of bodily movement or the absence of physical constraint. In the second sense, denoting psychological freedom, it involves free-will or the indetermination of the will as regards the choice of means, as it is dependent on the intellect which comprehends the end. In the third and fourth ways, as moral freedom, it is a question of the self-determination of free-will, that is to say, the independence of the will in its choice of means: in the third sense, it denotes a direct and absolute independence in relation to the Divine authority fixing the transcendent moral order; in the fourth sense, it designates the indirect and relative independence in relation to human civil authority, whose laws express and specify the Divine law. The principle of liberalism, as Cardinal Billot analyzes it, claims as a right freedom understood in the third sense: the principle of unmitigated liberalism, which would free human will from all authority. The principle of freedom of conscience as enunciated by Vatican II asserts a right to freedom understood in the fourth sense.¹⁶ The expression “libertas conscientiæ,” which must be claimed as a right, precisely equates to independence in relation to other men, and in relation to the coercive power of civil authority, which Fr. Bertrand de Margerie, S.J., has called “sociocivic” freedom. In his Christmas Address to the Roman Curia of December 22, 2005,¹⁷ which gives the authentic interpretation of the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, Pope Benedict XVI makes a distinction between the third and fourth meanings of the term “freedom of religion”: Taken in the third sense, it is to be reproved: “[I]f religious freedom were to be considered an expression of the human inability to discover the truth and thus become a canonization of relativism, then this social and historical necessity is raised inappropriately to the metaphysical level and thus stripped of its true meaning. Consequently, it cannot be accepted by those who believe that the human person is capable of knowing the truth about God and, on the basis of the inner dignity of the truth, is bound to this knowledge.” But in the fourth sense, which according to the Pope is implied by the second, the expression would be correct: “It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence [the fourth sense], or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction [the fourth sense as flowing from the second]. The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern State [the fourth sense of freedom of conscience in religious matters: cujus regio ejus religio has progressively become cujus conscientia ejus religio] with the Decree on Religious Freedom, has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church.” Further on, the Pope states even more explicitly what meaning should be attached to the term “religious freedom” taught by Vatican II: “The martyrs of the early Church died for…freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one’s own faith—a profession that no State can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God’s grace in freedom of conscience.” This is indeed the freedom meant in the expression condemned by Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos and by Pius IX in Quanta Cura. Far from correcting the faulty teaching of Dignitatis Humanae on religious freedom, Benedict XVI’s Christ­mas speech forcefully and clearly confirms it. But there is thus a direct contradiction between Benedict XVI’s statement and that of Gregory XVI. There is also and especially a utopia, that is, an impossible dream. How is it possible, at one and the same time, to affirm that man is bound by the knowledge of divine truth and proclaim that no social authority may prohibit anyone, whoever he may be, from doing that which would hinder the profession of this same truth? Man is by nature a political animal, which means that he can only connect with divine truth on condition that he live in society. If he lives in a society in which the public authorities must in principle refrain from impeding the social propagation of error, how can he remain bound, in a concrete, effective way, by the knowledge of divine truth? This is the incoherence analyzed in its root by Cardinal Billot,¹⁸ the incoherence of liberal Catholicism, which has survived in neomodernism.

IV. Social Theology and Ecclesiology

The Christian social order constitutes a major chapter of ecclesiology. There is nothing surprising about this. Cardinal Billot carries on the thinking of the authors of the Early Church, who had no experience of dechristianization such as that of the modern era. In their eyes, the Church is inseparable from civil society. Both enter into the composition of one and the same edifice. This idea is made explicit very early, as soon as the theology of the Church is elaborated. It appears already, in any case, in the very first treatise of ecclesiology, which was authored by Cardinal Juan de Torquemada (1388-1468).¹⁹ A figure of the distinction of these two powers as well as their indissoluble union, he says, occurs in the Old Testament in the third book of Kings.²⁰ Solomon built the temple; Solomon is a type of Christ, an architect full of wisdom. The edifice has an atrium (figure of the Church militant) and the temple proper (figure of the Church triumphant). The atrium itself has a portico supported by two columns, which figure the two powers of the Church militant. The left column figures the less worthy power, the secular power. The right column is called Joachim, which means præparans aliis firmitatem. This expression designates the pre-eminence of the spiritual power over the secular power. Each of these two powers corresponds to a hierarchy, and at the top of each is placed a head, the pope for the spiritual power, the king for the temporal power. Juan de Torquemada concludes this description by quoting the words addressed at the end of the fifth century by Pope St. Gelasius I to Emperor Anastasius: “There are two powers, august Emperor, by which this world is chiefly ruled, namely, the sacred authority of the priests and the royal power. Of these that of the priests is all the more weighty, in that they have to render an account for even the kings of men in the divine judgment.”²¹ Here we are still a long way from religious freedom. Religious freedom has wrought, in the etymological sense of the word, decomposition; and, quite often, this is the result, in the social order as in the physical order, of corruption. In the circumstances, the corruption is even worse as it attacks the highest principles. A continuator of earlier theologians, Cardinal Billot defends the Church’s principles and stems the corruption. His work assures the transmission of a vital heritage. It ought to remain for Catholic minds one of the major expressions of the Church’s Tradition.

 

Translated from Courrier de Rome, September 2011.

¹ A translation of Question 17 of this treatise, devoted to the analysis of liberalism, has already been published: Louis Cardinal Billot, The Principles of 1789 and Their Consequences [French] (Téqui, 1989).

² Cf. Billot, Treatise on the Church, III, Nos. 1141-1156, 1177-1182.

³ St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 63, Art. 1.

⁴ “Will of nature” and “volition,” then, are not strictly equivalent terms. End and means are only adequately distinct when the last end, that is, the one good that cannot otherwise be willed than for itself, is set apart from every other good which is willed in view of the last end. It is in this sense that the natural will is distinguished from the rational will. The object of the first is the end; and of the second, the means—the end and means here being considered as absolutely adequately distinct. But every other good beside the last end can be the object of volition as the basis of a number of choices: in this case we are speaking of intermediary ends. A good that is willed as an intermediary end is an end relatively speaking, that is to say, in relation to other goods willed for its sake and thus the object of volition, but absolutely speaking it continues to be a means in relation to the unique good which is the last end, and hence an object of the rational will. Cf. on this point James Ramirez, De Actibus Humanis, No. 464, p. 333, & No. 488, p. 352.

⁵ St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, III, Q. 18, Art. 3.

⁶ Ibid., Art. 4.

⁷ St. Thomas Aquinas proves this in the Summa Theologica, I, Q. 83, Art. 4, by making an argument a simili: everything happens on the level of the will as it does on the level of the reason, which means that the relationship that exists in the mental faculty of knowing, between understanding and reason, is equivalent to the relationship that exists in the appetite between volition and free-will, which is nothing else than the power to choose; now to make an act of intellection (considering the first principles) and to reason (by deducing conclusions from first principles) are not two distinct faculties, but two acts proper to the same power of the intellect; hence, due allowance being made, to make an act of simple volition (by regarding the end) and to choose freely (by regarding the means) are not two distinct faculties, but two acts that are proper to the same power of the will.

⁸ St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, 82, Art. 1, corpus: “As the intellect of necessity adheres to the first principles, the will must of necessity adhere to the last end, which is happiness: since the end is in practical matters what the principle is in speculative matters. For what befits a thing naturally and immovably must be the root and principle of all else appertaining thereto, since the nature of a thing is the first in everything, and every movement arises from something immovable.” Still, where the necessity lies needs to be clarified. The fundamental tendency of the will towards the end (the simple will) is an act that is partially necessary and partially free or contingent: It is necessary from the viewpoint of its specification or of its object because it turns on what the will desires by nature; it is free from the standpoint of its exercise and necessary only inchoatively. It is necessary in its beginning because it results from God’s moving the will, prompting it to pass into act so that it can will; it is free in its consummation or term because it is elicited by the will. The first act of simple will is necessary in as much as it is passive, and free in as much as it is active. It is free in its exercise and in its being by concomitance with a Divine motion that renders it necessary in its essence. That is why an indeliberate voluntary act and an absolutely necessary act are not the same thing: an indeliberate act can be not necessary and remain free—not, obviously, absolutely, but with regard to its exercise. It is one thing to will deliberately something and another to will freely. Every deliberate volition is free, but every free volition is not deliberate. Cf. on this point J. Ramirez, De Actibus Humanis, commentary on the ST, I-II, Q. 10, Art. 4, No. 363.

⁹ ST, I, 82, Art. 1, ad 3.

¹⁰ Ibid., I, 63, Art. 1, corpus.

¹¹ For an insightful treatment of this question, see Charles Journet, L’Esprit du protestantisme en Suisse (Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1925), pp. 186-90.

¹² Cf. No. 1153 of Billot’s Treatise on the Church.

¹³ Cf. Charles Journet, L’Église du Verbe Incarné, Vol. II: “Its Internal Structure and Its Catholic Unity” (Desclée de Brouwer, 1951), Pt. 1, Ch. 1, p. 7: “The word spirit can be understood in two different senses.” One aspect of the new theology of Vatican II is the assimilation of “spiritual” and “supernatural,” and thus, subtly, the confounding of nature and grace. Thus, for example, in No. 23 of the Constitution Gaudium et Spes, the Church declares it has the task of fostering the spiritual progress of mankind: “Inter praecipuos mundi hodierni aspectus, mutuarum inter homines necessitudinum multiplicatio adnumeratur, ad quam evolvendam hodierni technici progressus plurimum conferunt. Tamen fraternum hominum colloquium non in istis progressibus, sed profundius in personarum communitate perficitur, quae mutuam reverentiam erga plenam earum dignitatem spiritualem exigit. Ad hanc vero communionem inter personas promovendam, Revelatio christiana magnum subsidium affert, simulque ad altiorem vitae socialis legum intelligentiam nos perducit quas Creator in natura spirituali ac morali hominis inscripsit.”

¹⁴ Summa Theologica, I, Q. 2, Art. 2 ad 1: “…for faith presupposes natural knowledge, even as grace presupposes nature, and perfection supposes something that can be perfected.” Natural perfection is required for supernatural perfection in the sense that it is the choice ground of supernatural perfection, the indispensable, albeit insufficient, locus without which supernatural perfection cannot take root. Grace cannot do without nature, even if nature is powerless to originate grace.

¹⁵ The most famous artisan of this interpretation is Msgr. De Smedt, the official relator for the schema on religious freedom, who in his report of November 19, 1963, said: “As we see, freedom of conscience is condemned because of the ideology preached by the proponents of rationalism, based on the notion that the individual conscience is lawless, and unfettered by any divinely transmitted norm” (Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vatican II, Vol. II, Pt. 5, p. 491).

¹⁶ “This Vatican Synod declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that in matters religious no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs. Nor is anyone to be restrained from acting in accordance with his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits….This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed. Thus it is to become a civil right.” [“Declaration on Religious Freedom,” The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott, S.J. (Herder and Herder, 1966), pp. 678-9.]

¹⁷ Benedict XVI, Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005 [online at vatican.va].

¹⁸ Cf. Billot, op. cit., Nos. 1157-1163.

¹⁹ Juan de Torquemada, Summa de Ecclesia, Bk. 1, Ch. 87.

²⁰ III Kings 7:1-22.

²¹ DS 347 [English version: translated in J. H. Robinson, Readings in European History (Boston: Ginn, 1905), pp. 72-73, online at www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/gelasius1.asp].