“We must not resign ourselves to the dictatorship of an idea of freedom that is imposed on us by the deviant ideology of self-development, of a misconceived autonomy that fetters the confines of our having been created in the image of God. Only God can have the last word on freedom”. So declares Cardinal Simonis, archbishop of Utrecht and president of the Dutch Bishops’ Conference, in a pastoral letter for Advent addressed to the faithful, issued on 3 December. The concept of “freedom” is at the centre of analysis in the letter, in which Simonis enunciates the Catholic view of what is meant by it. “The danger exists”, he warns, of many different aspects or components of the truth being ignored or denied. In this way “the inclination to confuse freedom with caprice remains” “True freedom”, writes Simonis, “is the result of truth”. Without truth, freedom “inevitably risks succumbing to caprice, wilfulness, to the lust for unlimited possession, to the unchecked lust for pleasure and rewards”. In this regard, the Cardinal cites the passage from John’s Gospel: “the truth shall make you free” (8:32).
