Leo XIII’s condemnation of liberalism

By Thomas V. Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 24, 2025 | In Magisterium of Leo XIII

In the first installment of my series on the great encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII, I discussed Aeterni Patris, his encyclical on the restoration of Christian philosophy. Now it is time to get into the specific philosophical principles undergirding Leo’s social magisterium, beginning with his 1888 encylical Libertas (“On the Nature of Human Liberty”).

Of all of the Leonine encyclicals I’ve read, Libertas is perhaps the most sustained assault on the sacred cows of modern political philosophy. After explaining how we should understand true liberty and the nature of law, Leo spends the rest of the encyclical condemning liberalism (in the classical sense, not merely modern progressivism), as well as a few particular false liberties celebrated in modern times.

Quite a bit of this will be challenging to modern Catholics, perhaps especially to Americans, as the Church, through Leo, condemns absolute freedom of worship and speech. But these condemnations are absolutely essential to understand where the West has gone wrong.

It should be noted that Libertas is concerned entirely with matters of moral and theological principle, and therefore its teachings cannot be dismissed as time-bound and prudential, as might be the case with parts of some social encyclicals.

Freedom and law

Leo begins by explaining that freedom is a gift from God, that it is enhanced by grace, and therefore that true freedom is always supported by the Catholic Church. But he immediately punctures the modern pretension that we have only now discovered true liberty for the first time: “whatsoever is good in those [modern] liberties is as ancient as truth itself…but whatsoever has been added as new is, to tell the plain truth, of a vitiated kind, the fruit of the disorders of the age, and of an insatiate longing after novelties.” However, “many cling so obstinately to their own opinion in this matter as to imagine these modern liberties, cankered as they are, to be the greatest glory of our age, and the very basis of civil life, without which no perfect government can be conceived”.

He then explains the metaphysical basis of free will, which I will not recount in detail. The most important points, practically speaking, are:

1. The will follows what the intellect perceives as good, and therefore: “The end, or object, both of the rational will and of its liberty is that good only which is in conformity with reason.”
2. Just as the possibility of taking something false for truth shows a defect in the intellect, the possibility of choosing something contrary to reason shows a defect in the will. This is proven when we consider that God, who is perfectly free, cannot choose evil, and that the angels and saints in paradise also cannot choose evil because there is no possibility of error in the beatific vision. Thus we cannot identify freedom essentially with the possibility of choosing between good and evil. Rather, the possibility of choosing evil shows imperfect freedom.

Leo proceeds from there to a brief discussion of law. Some argue that our natural freedom is a reason why we should not have law, but it is just the opposite: our capacity for choosing evil (which is, again, an imperfection in our freedom) is what makes law necessary.

Reason reveals that there is a “law” embedded in our nature, though this only becomes law in the strict sense because of the authority of God, who makes natural law into eternal law. Since we are bound together in society, we also need human law, which has authority only insofar as it gives specific expression, based on circumstantial prudence, to the dictates of the natural and eternal law.

True liberty does not consist in doing what we please regardless of human and divine law, but conversely, “the liberty of those who are in authority does not consist in the power to lay unreasonable and capricious commands upon their subjects.” When authority decrees something contrary to reason, it has no binding force of law.

The heresy of liberalism

I will quote Leo’s definition of liberalism in full:

What naturalists or rationalists aim at in philosophy, that the supporters of liberalism, carrying out the principles laid down by naturalism, are attempting in the domain of morality and politics. The fundamental doctrine of rationalism is the supremacy of the human reason, which, refusing due submission to the divine and eternal reason, proclaims its own independence, and constitutes itself the supreme principle and source and judge of truth. Hence, these followers of liberalism deny the existence of any divine authority to which obedience is due, and proclaim that every man is the law to himself; from which arises that ethical system which they style independent morality, and which, under the guise of liberty, exonerates man from any obedience to the commands of God, and substitutes a boundless license.

Leo has already explained that the will follows the judgment of the intellect—so when he now relates liberalism to rationalism, he is essentially saying that liberalism is to the will as rationalism is to the intellect. If the intellect is not under divine teaching, neither can the will be under divine authority.

The immediate social consequences, as described by Leo, are that people come to believe the following errors: that the unity of society has no source other than the free will of individuals, that the consent of the governed is the sole criterion of legitimate rule, and that the best criterion for governing public affairs is the consensus of a collection of those individuals (majority rule/democracy as an end in itself).

Leo goes on to trace how rationalism leads to liberalism, liberalism leads to relativism, and relativism leads to what Pope Benedict XVI will later call the “dictatorship of relativism”, which leads to religion being treated as a private club which we may join and leave according to personal preference.

Moderate liberalism also condemned

Inevitably, people will try to defend more moderate forms of liberalism as compatible with Christianity. Pope Leo XIII condemns these moderate versions as well, identifying two in particular.

Some liberals recognize the viciousness of pure liberalism as defined above, “and therefore they would have liberty ruled and directed by right reason, and consequently subject to the natural law and to the divine eternal law. But here they think they may stop, holding that man as a free being is bound by no law of God except such as He makes known to us through our natural reason.”

That is, the first kind of moderate liberals think men and societies are bound only by the natural law, but not by Revelation.

Leo refutes this as follows:

If…the will of the Divine Law-giver is to be obeyed, because every man is under the power of God, and tends toward Him as his end, it follows that no one can assign limits to His legislative authority without failing in the obedience which is due. Indeed, if the human mind be so presumptuous as to define the nature and extent of God’s rights and its own duties, reverence for the divine law will be apparent rather than real, and arbitrary judgment will prevail over the authority and providence of God.

Leo further points out that it makes no sense to separate natural law from Revelation since they come from the same Divine Source.

Some other, even more moderate liberals “affirm that the morality of individuals is to be guided by the divine law, but not the morality of the State, for that in public affairs the commands of God may be passed over, and may be entirely disregarded in the framing of laws. Hence follows the fatal theory of the need of separation between Church and State.”

Leo refutes this view (which is very common among modern Catholics) by pointing out that “since God is the source of all goodness and justice, it is absolutely ridiculous that the State should pay no attention to these laws.” Those in authority should be concerned not only with the material benefit of the commonwealth, but also the good of men’s souls. But since nothing is better for men’s souls than the divine law, political authorities who ignore this law necessarily abuse their power and neglect their duties.

Leo also points out that there are areas in which the spheres of religious and political authority overlap, and therefore active cooperation is necessary to avoid conflict. He does not give examples, but Catholic social teaching elsewhere identifies marriage and education as two such areas where secular states interfere with the Church’s liberty and authority. Leo famously compares the proper harmony between Church and State to the relationship between soul and body.

False modern liberties

Based on the above principles, Leo condemns several kinds of liberty precious to modern politics, chief among them the unconditional liberties of worship and speech:

1. Liberty of worship, in which “every man is free to profess as he may choose any religion or none”. (You may wonder how this condemnation is compatible with Vatican II’s declaration on religious liberty. I will get into this when I discuss Leo’s encyclical on Church and State, Immortale Dei, or if you are impatient, you can listen to my interview with Thomas Pink.)

Leo’s argument: The chief duty of man is to worship God. Since all virtues are ordered to this highest virtue, “no true virtue can exist without religion”—and not just any religion, but “that one which God enjoins.” Therefore liberty to choose any religion or none is “no liberty, but its degradation, and the abject submission of the soul to sin.”

The negative consequences of liberty of worship in regard to the State are as follows:

[Liberty of worship] clearly implies that there is no reason why the State should offer any homage to God, or should desire any public recognition of Him; that no one form of worship is to be preferred to another, but that all stand on an equal footing, no account being taken of the religion of the people, even if they profess the Catholic faith. But, to justify this, it must needs be taken as true that the State has no duties toward God, or that such duties, if they exist, can be abandoned with impunity, both of which assertions are manifestly false.

God is the founder of civil society, hence: “Justice therefore forbids, and reason itself forbids, the State to be godless; or to adopt a line of action which would end in godlessness—namely, to treat the various religions (as they call them) alike, and to bestow upon them promiscuously equal rights and privileges.” The state should “preserve and protect” one religion, the true religion.

2. Absolute liberty of speech/the press. There can be no right to liberty of speech unless it is used in moderation. Human rights and freedoms are not indifferent to truth and falsehood. Therefore, we can publish true and honorable things, but not lies and vices. The latter “should be diligently repressed by public authority, lest they insidiously work the ruin of the State.”

Leo includes a helpful discussion of the tolerance of evil, which is not a good in itself, but is permissible when done in order to secure a greater good or avoid a greater evil. In this, rulers imitate God Himself, who allows certain evils to occur for the sake of a greater good. But this tolerance ought not lead to treating evil and falsehood as human rights.

The following passage sums up Pope Leo XIII’s conclusions well:

Man, by a necessity of his nature, is wholly subject to the most faithful and ever-enduring power of God; and that, as a consequence, any liberty, except that which consists in submission to God and in subjection to His will, is unintelligible. To deny the existence of this authority in God, or to refuse to submit to it, means to act, not as a free man, but as one who treasonably abuses his liberty; and in such a disposition of mind the chief and deadly vice of liberalism essentially consists.

For a more thorough discussion of Libertas, listen to the corresponding episode on the Catholic Culture Podcast: