35. The Papacy and Liberalism

Man is not just an individual being, but belongs to a larger whole, a nation. What is otherwise called a species is the nation for man. And just as what is of equal value also proves to be similar in its expressions, so too the voice of reason, if man really listens to it objectively, will not speak one way in this individual and differently in that one. And even if reason is numerically different in many people, it is nevertheless the same in content; if the individual truly places himself under its spell and not under that of subjective arbitrariness and egoism, the will of one cannot exclude that of the other, but will meet with it, complement it and support it. Thus the aspirations of a number of individuals who belong together as a state will form a reasonably ordered system within which the individual can really move freely. In this system each will fulfill his task without being restricted, opposed or exploited by the others; he will be restricted in his freedom neither by an authority, as in the Catholic world view, nor by the egoism of others, as in the modern pseudo-liberal state. This is a state order that corresponds to true liberalism and at the same time can be described as truly state socialist.