Per Christum

The following two points ring especially true during the presidential campaigns that have now begun in earnest here in the United States. Keep these points from the Holy Father’s encyclical in mind during the next year of speeches, recriminations and promises:

a) The right state of human affairs, the moral well-being of the world can never be guaranteed simply through structures alone, however good they are. Such structures are not only important, but necessary; yet they cannot and must not marginalize human freedom. Even the best structures function only when the community is animated by convictions capable of motivating people to assent freely to the social order. Freedom requires conviction; conviction does not exist on its own, but must always be gained anew by the community.

b) Since man always remains free and since his freedom is always fragile, the kingdom of good will never be definitively established in this world. Anyone who promises the better world that is guaranteed to last for ever is making a false promise; he is overlooking human freedom. Freedom must constantly be won over for the cause of good. Free assent to the good never exists simply by itself. If there were structures which could irrevocably guarantee a determined—good—state of the world, man’s freedom would be denied, and hence they would not be good structures at all.

There won’t be a final “free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, I’m free at last” of all things until Christ comes again in glory. There will be no temporal “glorious revolution” or “final solution” from us men that will free us from having to fight the good fight, both in our culture and inside our selves, until the Kingdom which has no end fully comes.

Again and again, the Holy Father reminds us of the necessity of Grace. The only lasting hope in any realm is the pulling up of the temporal into the eternal, the human into the divine. In short, the only lasting hope is Jesus Christ.

I’ll try to refrain from further quoting and commentary until I’ve finished reading and had some time for digestion.