Augustine of Hippo

Now the only genuine freedom is that possessed by those who are happy and cleave to the eternal law; I am talking about the sort of freedom that people have in mind when they think they are free because they have no human masters, or that people desire when they want to be set free by their masters. Then come parents, brothers and sisters, a spouse, children, neighbors, relatives, friends, and anyone who is bound to us by some need. Next is the city itself, which frequently takes the place of the parents, together with honors, praise, and what is called popular acclaim. And finally comes property, which includes anything over which the law gives us control and which we have a recognized right to sell or give away.

This is our freedom, when we are subject to the truth; and the truth is God himself, who frees us from death, that is, from the state of sin. For that truth, speaking as a human being to those who believe in him, says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” For the soul enjoys nothing with freedom unless it enjoys it securely.

Now no one is secure in enjoying goods that can be lost against his will. But no one can lose truth and wisdom against his will, for no one can be separated from the place where they are. What we called separation from truth and wisdom is really just a perverse will that loves inferior things, and no one wills something unwillingly. We can all enjoy it equally and in common; there is ample room, and it lacks for nothing. It welcomes all of its lovers without envy; it belongs to them all but is faithful to each.

Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, trans. Thomas Williams (Hackett, 1993), 25, 57. Used by permission.

Dorothee Soelle

For me the word freedom has become an increasingly important word. I think every generation has the right to redefine this word. And if it has the right, it also has the duty. After having worked long in the European and transatlantic peace movement, I believe that freedom, a deeper inner idea of freedom, will not be attained until we are free of bombs, free of poison gas, free of the arms industry, and free of this whole cancer that overruns our entire life, defines our cities, rules our research, and terrorizes our landscapes with its low-flying aircraft that cause schoolchildren to scream and cry at night because they are so disturbed.

Freedom, true freedom, has become for me an intense yearning for a freedom from the most dreadful scourge of humanity, war.…

One day people will speak about war and preparation for war as we speak today about slavery. Perhaps the day will come when people understand that we can live without nuclear slavery, without conventional slavery, without chemical slavery, and without all the forms of this slavery that claim our minds and use us for their madness – 51 percent of all scientists and engineers work for death within the First World. I believe that we define freedom correctly when our ideas grow with us and are not left behind, that is, when our own intellectual growth, our judgment, capacity for truth, and search for truth develop so that we have different ideas with more reality. Thus I would like most to pray: “Free me, O God, from the dreadful historical role of the middle class in rich countries. Let my thirst for liberation grow.”

It has become clearer and clearer to me that freedom is always liberation.… Where the Spirit of God is, there is liberation: liberación, not only libertas but the process of liberation. The more of the Spirit of God we have, the more visible become the prisons in which we live, on which we build, and in which we let others go to ruin.

Dorothee Soelle, On Earth as in Heaven: A Liberation Spirituality of Sharing, trans. Marc Batko (Westminster John Knox, 1993). Used by permission.

The White Rose

The White Rose, an undercover resistance movement of university students in Nazi Germany, printed and distributed leaflets to expose Nazi atrocities. The Gestapo arrested and executed them in 1943. Sophie Scholl was twenty-one; her brother Hans, twenty-four; Christoph Probst, twenty-three; Alexander Schmorell and Willi Graf, twenty-five.

Everywhere and at all times demons have been lurking in the dark, waiting for the moment when man is weak; when of his own volition he leaves his place in the order of creation as founded for him by God in freedom; when he yields to the force of evil, separates himself from the powers of a higher order; and after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on to the next and the next at a furiously accelerating rate. Everywhere and at all times of greatest trial men have appeared, prophets and saints who cherished their freedom, who preached the one God and who with his help brought the people to a reversal of their downward course. Man is free, to be sure, but without the true God he is defenseless against the principle of evil. He is a like rudderless ship, at the mercy of the storm, an infant without his mother, a cloud dissolving into thin air.

I ask you, you as a Christian wrestling for the preservation of your greatest treasure, whether you hesitate, whether you incline toward intrigue, calculation, or procrastination in the hope that someone else will raise his arm in your defence? Has God not given you the strength, the will to fight?

From the fourth White Rose leaflet written by Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell, July 1942. Trans. Arthur R. Schultz, The White Rose: Munich, 1942–1943, © 1983 by Inge Aicher-Scholl. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.

Oscar Romero

There can be no freedom as long as there is sin in the heart. What’s the use of changing structures? What’s the use of violence and armed force if the motivation is hatred and the purpose is to buttress those in power or else to overthrow them and then create new tyrannies? What we seek in Christ is true freedom, the freedom that transforms the heart, the freedom the risen Christ announces to us today, “Seek what is above” (Col. 3:1). Don’t view earthly freedom and the oppression of this unjust system in El Salvador just by looking down from the rooftops. Look on high! That doesn’t mean accepting the situation, because Christians also know how to struggle. Indeed, they know that their struggle is more forceful and valiant when it is inspired by this Christ who knew how to do more than turn the other cheek and let himself be nailed to a cross. Even submitting to crucifixion, he has redeemed the world and sung the definitive hymn of victory, the victory that cannot be used for other ends but benefits those who, like Christ, are seeking the true liberation of human beings.

This liberation is incomprehensible without the risen Christ, and it’s what I want for you, dear sisters and brothers, especially those of you who have such great social awareness and refuse to tolerate the injustices in our country. It’s wonderful that God has given you this keen sensibility, and if you have a political calling, then blessed be God! Cultivate it well, and be careful not to lose that vocation. Don’t replace that social and political sensitivity with hatred, vengeance, and earthly violence. Lift your hearts on high, and consider the things that are above!

Oscar Romero, homily delivered on April 15, 1979, in A Prophetic Bishop Speaks to His People: The Complete Homilies of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, 6 vols., trans. Joseph Owens (Convivium, 2016), 4:372–73. Used by permission.