t approve of that liberty which
generates a contempt of the most sacred laws of God, and puts away the
obedience due to legitimate power. For this is license rather than
liberty, and is most correctly called by Augustine, "_libertas
perditionis_" (_Ep._ cv., _ad Donatistas._ ii., n. 9); by the Apostle
Peter, "_a cloak for malice_" (1 Peter ii. 16), indeed, since it is
contrary to reason, it is a true servitude, for "_Whosoever committeth
sin is the servant of sin._" (John viii. 34.) On the other hand, that
liberty is natural and to be sought, which, if it be considered in
relation to the individual, suffers not men to be the slaves of errors
and evil desires, the worst of masters; if, in relation to the State, it
presides wisely over the citizens, serves the faculty of augmenting
public advantages, and defends the public interest from alien rule, this
blameless liberty worthy of man the Church approves, above all, and has
never ceased striving and contending to keep firm and whole among the
people. In very truth, whatever things in the State chiefly avail for
the common safety; whatever have been usefully instituted against the
license of princes, consulting all the interests of the people; whatever
forbid the governing authority to invade into municipal or domestic
affairs; whatever avail to preserve the dignity and the character of man
in preserving the equality of rights in individual citizens, of all
these things the monuments of former ages witness the Catholic Church to
have always been either the author, the promoter, or the guardian.

Ever, therefore, consistent with herself, if on the one hand she rejects
immoderate liberty, which both in the case of individuals and peoples
results in license or in servitude; on the other she willingly and with
pleasure embraces those happier circumstances which the age brings; if
they truly contain the prosperity of this life, which is as it were a
stage in the journey to that other which is to endure everlastingly.
Therefore what they say that the Church is jealous of, the more modern
political systems repudiate in a mass, and whatever the disposition of
these times has brought forth, is an inane and contemptible calumny. The
madness of opinion it indeed repudiates; it reproves the wicked plans of
sedition, and especially that habit of mind in which the beginnings of a
voluntary departing from God are visible; but since every true thing
must necessarily proceed from God, whate