Wolność w katolickiej doktrynie społecznej
Freedom in the Catholic social doctrine

Summary/Abstract: Freedom is one of the basic categories of anthropology and ontology but it is not an unambiguous concept. Many different sciences do research about freedom for example: Catholic social teaching. The Catholic social doctrine make use of academic achievement of an ancient philosophers; uses the Holy Bible; refers to many Early Christian, Middle Ages and contemporary writers; interprets some important teachings of Popes: Leon XIII; Pius X; John XXIII; Paul VI; John Paul II; Benedict XVI. It makes use of documents of Vatican II and also of documents published after Vatican II and teaching of Catholic Catechism. Christian understanding of freedom is a very complex notion because is built upon a very long of social teaching. Various classification of concept of freedom gives attest to richness of this term. Concise definition of freedom we can find in Catholic Catechism: “Freedom is the power to act or not to act, and so to perform deliberate acts of one’s own. Freedom attains perfection in its acts when directed towards God, the sovereign Good” (1744). Freedom means lack of constraints. People are free as long as they can decide of themselves. Freedom is very important to all people and is the keystone of humanity. Freedom is given us as a gift and responsibility. The right of freedom belongs to all people because it defends them against some abuses of others. The Catholic Church teaches that good social order fosters freedom of all people through: love, social justice and solidarity. Freedom is a condition of development of man and humanity. Social doctrine of the Church teaches us that every person is created by God, is a free being and has to find fulfillment in individual, family, religious and social life.

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