The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 234: Freedom and Responsibility (2025)

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

The Catechism gives us an overview of what it means for humans to have freedom, as well as some of the ramifications of that freedom. It introduces us to the countercultural notion that true freedom is to choose the good—the “freedom” to choose evil is merely the abuse of freedom. Fr. Mike ensures that we understand imputability and culpability because questions about intention, ignorance, and other social factors will be the hinges upon which swing the doors of sin. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1730-1738. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to The Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture, and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 234. We are reading paragraphs 1730 to 1738. As always, I am using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own

catechism in a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash CIY, and you can click follow or subscribe to your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications because you've made it today, to day 234, day 234. We were reading paragraphs 1730, 1738 about man's freedom yesterday we talked about that were made for beatitude right we're made for that fullness of blessing today we recognize that we've been given freedom and and there's something so powerful about that because freedom comes with responsibility like want want i know but but we have the capacity to choose good we have the capacity to choose evil and because we have the capacity to do this we have the responsibility to do this that makes sense the last couple days we went through

the entire article. Today we're only going to do a part of the article. We might call it a particle. I don't know what I'm saying. But we're going to talk about the reality that because we're given freedom, we have the responsibility to live like God. We have the responsibility to use that freedom, to exercise that freedom by doing good, by choosing the good. That means we're responsible. I know. But what a great gift. Tomorrow we'll talk about human freedom in the economy of salvation, like when it comes to freedom and sin and threats to freedom. But today we're talking about that power we have, the capacity to choose good or evil. And so because of that, because we need God's help, we need God's grace. Let us call upon Him now in prayer. Father in heaven,

we give you thanks and praise. And thank you again. And thank you so much for your goodness. Thank you so much for bringing us to this day, for bringing us to this moment. Thank you for giving us and intellect to think. Thank you for giving us a will that we can choose. Thank you for creating us in your image and likeness and conferring on us this dignity and this power. Thank you for the power to do good. Thank you for the power to choose the good. Help us to always, always turn away from evil. Help us to always, always turn towards you. And in turning towards you, experience that beatitude experience that blessing experience that fullness that is you and that fullness that comes from choosing you give us this power because lord we often find ourselves too weak to choose

give us the power to do the right in jesus name we pray amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen it is day 234 rereading paragraphs 1730 to 1738 Article 3. Man's Freedom God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. God willed that man should be left in the hand of his own counsel so that he might of his own accord seek his creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him. St. Ernaus wrote, Man is rational and therefore like God. He is created with free will and is master over his

acts. Freedom and responsibility. Freedom is the power rooted in reason and will to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will, one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness. It attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude. As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach. The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just.

The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to the slavery of sin. freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary. Progress and virtue, knowledge of the good, and acesis enhance the mastery of the will over its acts. Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors. Every act directly willed is imputable to its author. Thus, the Lord asked Eve after the sin in the garden, what is this that you have done? He asked Cain the same question. The prophet Nathan questioned David in the same way after he committed adultery with the wife of Eurya and had him murdered.

An action can be indirectly voluntary when it results from negligence regarding something one should have known or done. For example, an accident arising from ignorance of traffic laws. An effect can be tolerated without being willed by its agent. For instance, a mother's exhaustion from tending her sick child. A bad effect is not imputable if it was not willed either as an end or as a means of an action. For example, a death a person incurs in aiding someone in danger. For a bad effect to be imputable, it must be foreseeable and the agent must have the possibility of avoiding it, as in the case of manslaughter caused by a drunken driver. Freedom is exercised in relationship between human beings. Every human person created in the image of God has the natural

right to be recognized as a free and responsible being. All owe to each other this duty of respect. The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in moral and religious matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of the human person. This right must be recognized and protected by civil authority within the limits of the common good and public order. All right. Now we have it, Bear Guff's 1730 to 1738. I don't know if you guys got jazzed up by that, but I definitely did. I love this is just the concept, the reality, it's not just the concept, because we live

it every single day, the reality that, yes, we've been given an intellect, so we can know the good, we can know the true, we can know the beautiful. We also have been given this will. And because we are rational beings with wills, we have power, right? We have the capacity to choose. We have freedom. Now, so incredible. I love, I love the, even the definition of what freedom is.

Paragraph 1731, freedom is the power, right? It's a capacity, it's an ability. Freedom is the power rooted in reason and will, right? Our intellects and our will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and to sort of perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. That's the definition of freedom. In fact, you could even make it simpler. You could define freedom like this.

You could say freedom is not simply the ability to do whatever you want, but freedom is the power. to do what is right, right? The power to do what you ought. That is true freedom. So freedom is the power to do what I ought. It goes on to say this next line in 1731 is such an incredible. It says this, very short sentence, by free will one shapes one's own life. We sit with that for the rest of the week. By free will, one shapes one's own life. There's this quote I came across. It's something like this, that the child is the father of the man. So what I'm trying to communicate is who we choose to be earlier on in life is who we ultimately end up becoming later in life, right? So the child becomes

the father of the man, that the girl becomes the mother of the woman. That, does that make sense? By free will, one shapes one's own life, that human freedom is a force for growth and maturity and truth and goodness. It attains its perfection, but directed towards God or our beatitude. Now, the question comes up sometimes, paragraph 1732 answers it. The question comes up, well, if one of the God's gifts for us is freedom, like the ability to choose right or wrong, then what about heaven? Can you still sin in heaven? And if you can't, doesn't that mean that you're no longer free in heaven? If you get to heaven and it's like, yeah, there's no sin there. Well, wait a second. There's sin on earth because we have the capacity to either say yes to God or say no to God. So question, in heaven, are we not free anymore? Great question camper. So paragraph 1732 says, as long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good, which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus either growing in perfection or failing and sinning. But there isn't

that possibility in heaven. Now, does that mean we don't have freedom? No, it means our freedom has been perfected. So if we bind ourselves definitively to God, that's heaven, right? We're bound definitively to God, that we've chosen with our lives, God. In heaven, we have perfect freedom. Remember, freedom is not the ability to do whatever I want. Freedom is the power to do what I ought. To actually have the capacity to say, that's the good, and I get to choose it. And I choose it every time. To know right and wrong and to say, I choose the right every single time. That is true freedom. In fact, paragraph 1733 goes on to point out, the more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good

and just. That to sin is actually not to become free. The sin is to become a slave of sin. And so in heaven, you're completely free. In heaven, you become even freer, even more joyful because there's no true freedom except in the service of what is good and justice. That makes sense. I hope it does because, yes, in heaven, there is no sin, but we're just completely free to be constantly choosing God, the good and the beautiful, to love each other and to love the Lord as we're supposed to. So good. And to not do that occasionally, but to do that perpetually, rooted deeply in actual real, true choice. Now, because we have freedom, we have responsibility. Pergraf 1734 highlights this. It says, freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary.

Now, we recognize that responsibility for an action. Another word is culpability, right? So imputability or presumability, culpability for an action can be diminished or even nullified. If there are things like ignorance, I didn't know what I was supposed to do or I didn't know how to do it. Inadvertence, I didn't mean to do this. This was not my intention. Deress is a thing that can affect culpability, right? If I'm under duress, sometimes there's things that we do out of fear or even habit, sometimes even inordinate attachments or other psychological or social factors. They reduce our culpability. So, as it says, in 1735, we're going to talk about this more later on, but responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by those factors.

Yet, every act directly willed we are culpable for, that we are responsible for all those actions. Remember that what is sin. Sin is, God, I know what you want me to do. I don't care. I'm going to do what I want to do. So in order to have a sin, I have to have knowledge that this is a sin and I have to have freedom to be able to not choose it. Right. So I have the intellect, I have the knowledge and I have the will. So I have full knowledge and I have free will. If that's been affected, right? It could be diminished or nullified because I didn't know or I didn't mean to this.

Now at the same time, an action, paragraph 1736, can be indirectly voluntary when it results from negligence regarding something I should have known or something I should have done. So it says example is, for example, an accident arising from ignorance of traffic loss. Like, if you're driving, you should know the laws of the road. Like, I'm going through a school zone. And I just, I didn't know. I didn't pay attention to any of that. But you're driving, therefore, it's your job to pay attention.

So it's indirectly voluntary if there's an accident because I should have been paying attention. Does that make sense? Always remember that in order for a person to be culpable or responsible for their actions, they have to have knowledge and will. They have to know it and choose it. So paragraph 1737 highlights this. It says a bad effect, right?

The consequence here is not imputable. A person is not culpable if it was not willed as an end or as a means of an action. So, example, a death of person incurs in aiding someone in danger. You're trying to help someone and you die in the process. Well, you don't call that suicide. That is I was trying to help. I was trying to save lives. And in the process, my life was ended, right?

In the process, I died. that's not the same thing as, as I said, as ending one's own life on purpose. Remember, for a bad effect to be imputable, it must be foreseeable, and the person, the agent, the person choosing, must have the possibility of avoiding it. For me to be culpable, and the agent has to have a possibility of avoiding it. And the example they give, as is the case of manslaughter caused by a drunken driver. You say, well, at the moment, like I wasn't choosing, you know, the moment of drunkenness and driving, I didn't want to hurt anybody.

Okay, but the moment I picked up the alcohol, I'm opening myself up, the moment after drinking, I'm now driving, that is foreseeable and that is preventable as well. So as we continue to move forward, just keep these two things in mind because these are going to be kind of like the two hinges that the door is going to swing on. Always, in order for someone to be culpable, they need to have knowledge and free will. I need to know the thing and I need to free will. choose to do the thing. For both the praise and the blame, right, for both the merit or the reproach, for both the good and the bad, I need to know and also choose. So this is going to keep

this in mind in freedom and responsibility. When I'm looking at myself, my examinations of conscience, I have to ask that question, okay, did I know it, or should I have known it? Did I choose it? Or was there other factors that were moving me? And I did not, I did not choose this freely. Now, and so that's part of what we do at the end of every day when we have the examination of conscience or that consciousness examine or we look at ourselves and say, okay, if I did this thing rightly or wrongly, I chose good or I chose evil, did I know and did I freely choose? It's one of those pieces where we have to, if we're going to exercise our freedom, we also have to be willing to take responsibility. Is that makes sense? Oh man, these paragraphs, I had to tell

you, I don't know if you could tell in my voice all day today, but I'm so excited about them, but I have to say that in my excitement, I don't know if it made any sense. I honestly, you might just have to go back and re-listen to the actual content of what the catechism says from paragraph 1730 to 1738 because it's so good. And I just got all riled up about this and I just wanted to go nuts. And so I apologize. If today was, what is he saying? You are a crazy man.

That might be the case. And I totally understand. But I also appreciate your grace. thank you for your patience and your forgiveness and thank you for coming back tomorrow i am praying for you please pray for me my name is father mike and i cannot wait to see you tomorrow god bless