Good morning!
I am writing to bring to Your attention 2 questions and I would ask that You explain them through the morality lens.
I do not have an opinion with regards to either matters, and I am writing to gain some guidance and understand what is the correct moral behavior..
1) According to logic, if fundamental rights of human beings are indeed ‘fundamental’, then it follows that nobody has ever a reason to breach them.
Freedom of choice is one of those fundamental rights, for example, whether to get vaccinated or not. I deduce this because: if God respects these rights i.e. absolute freedom, then man too has to respect them.
Furthermore: what is worth more: a human being alive in his body or respect for human freedom, always referring to the recent pandemic. If we are talking about non negotiable principles, then it seems the answer would be human freedom . 
Therefore, even if we had a 99% mortality rate pandemic, it would still be morally wrong to limit individual freedom. Otherwise we would not have non-negotiable values anymore. However, is there a limit to human freedom? And suppose there is, based on which principles?
2) This question is linked to the one above. The postulate ‘’your freedom ends where mine begins’’: is this a morally sound principle?
Does it not contradict the non-negotiable principle by which an individual has the absolute right to enjoy their freedom, except when this encroaches the limits of the law (where the law is itself morally respectful of the legal virtue of Justice)?
Thank you!

The priest’s answer

Dearly beloved.


1. God has created man free.
Amongst the rights each individual enjoys there is the right of freedom.
As enounced by the Second Vatican Council, freedom is the clearest signal of our own likeness of God.
It is precisely because of freedom that we are our own masters and we preside over our act of choice, as St Thomas Aquinas said. 

2. And yet man’s freedom is not absolute. Herein lies your mistake.
I could say: freedom is an absolute. In other words, it is a non -negotiable principle that man is free.
But it would be a mistake to draw from this that man’s freedom is absolute.

3. There is no need for elucubrations to understand that human freedom has limits.
There are essentially two limits: our nature and our aim.
We are not free with regards to our nature: we are created in a certain fashion, casted into existence in a determined historical period, we are originated by two parents whom we have not chosen. With a body and a soul with their own intrinsic needs.
We are not even free with regards to our aim, as everything that man does, he does it for his happiness whether this happiness is real or presumed. Even Aristotle, the pagan philosopher, recognised that man is not free with regards to his aim: he said that he wanted necessarily his own happiness.
At the same time this means that we are not the authors of moral law.
It is not us who decide what is good and what is evil. it has already been written into our own nature.

4. Where we are free is in the realm of means.
And it is an incredibly vast realm. Because each individual realizes their own happiness by choosing a certain way of life, a certain profession, organizing their day and their future however they please. 

5. John Paul II, in his great encyclical Veritatis splendor in a splendid page about human freedom writes: “As we read in the book of Genesis: «The Lord God gave man this order: “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden, except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die” (Gn 2,16-17).
With this image, Revelation teaches that the power to decide what is good and what is evil does not belong to man, but to God alone. Man is certainly free, as he can understand and welcome God’s commands. And man’s freedom is vast, because he can eat  «from any of the trees of the garden». But this freedom is not unlimited: it must end in front of «the tree of knowledge of good and bad», given that its calling is to accept the moral law God has given to man. Indeed, it is in this acceptance that man’s freedom reaches its true fullness. God, who alone is good, knows perfectly what is good for man, and through the strength of his love, He bestows it upon man in the commandments.
God’s law therefore does not tone down let alone eliminate man’s freedom, on the opposite, it warrants and promotes it.
At the opposite side of the spectrum, some of today’s cultural tendencies have generated ethical guidelines which are based upon a conflict between freedom and law. Such are those doctrines ascribing to each individual or social group the ability to decide about good and evil: human freedom could «create values» and would be more important than truth so that truth itself would be considered as a product of freedom. This, therefore, would claim total moral autonomy and this would practically signify its absolute sovereignty.” (VS 35).

6. The saying “your freedom ends where someone else’s freedom begins’’ could seem respectful of others’ freedom, however it places the freedom of each individual in contrast with each other.
It has been rightly pointed out that the law, as a balancer of the rights of individuals (contractualism), acts almost as an enemy of the right of the individual, because its intervention always has a necessarily limiting effect.
It is almost as though there is the need to defend ourselves from an aggression or to attack an enemy. Men would always be facing enemies or strangers.
According to moral which is based on natural law we are faced with a law written within the nature itself of each human being that harmonizes the needs of ions with those of others by observing a superior law that forces both the first and the latter impartially.
But today nobody wants to talk about natural law. The reason is simple: talking about natural law presupposes a universal legislator. This universal legislator has a name: it is God.

Wishing you all the best, I bless you and remember you gladly in my prayers.

Fr Angelo

Questo articolo è disponibile anche in: Italian Spanish Portuguese