Reminder: "The Summons of Freedom"

If it's Fall, that means (i) Bell's Brewery has a tasty Octoberfest beer out, and (ii) the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture's big annual conference is drawing near.  This conference is among the highlights of the academic year for me.  This year, the theme is "The Summons of Freedom:  Virtue, Sacrifice, and the Common Good."  See you (t)here!

Final confirmation of the relevance of this conference theme came when we reflected once again upon the remarks made on the South Lawn of the White House by Pope Benedict XVI during his apostolic visit to the United States last April. In those remarks the Holy Father said:

Freedom is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience—almost every town in this country has its monuments honoring those who sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom, both at home and abroad. The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good, and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one’s deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate.

Here the Holy Father makes clear certain connections that are of utmost importance not only to us Americans, but also to anyone trying to sort through the enormous moral and political complexities of our dizzyingly globalized world. Pope Benedict underscores that freedom is both gift and summons, a call toward a particular “cultivation” or cultural formation in the virtues, virtues that always demand sacrifice—and sometimes even the total sacrifice of one’s life—for the sake of common goods higher than the merely private goods of the self. Earlier in his remarks the Holy Father had emphasized that “the great intellectual and moral resolve” that, in America, ended slavery and brought into being the civil rights movement, took religious belief as a “constant inspiration and driving force,” thus reminding us of Christianity’s role as the true preserver and defender of human freedom. In saying this, the pope invoked his revered predecessor, John Paul II, who tirelessly preached that “in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation.”