It is greatly gratifying to see Catholics—especially those who profess themselves to be good liberals and good Catholics—discovering the phenomenon of getting people fired (or in trouble) for things they say on social media. Formerly liberal Catholics on the right and the left are turning each other in to their employers for expressing bad—heterodox, even—opinions. Some campaigns have even been successful, getting speaking invitations revoked and some people fired. We have often spoken of the current moment as the moment for illiberal Catholicism. We confess that, while we are sorry that some people have suffered serious professional setbacks, we are happy to see so many Catholics returning, after so long in the liberal wilderness, to the traditional teaching of the Church on the so-called freedom of speech. And we are as hopeful as we have ever been that Catholics will again unite in support of truth and the common good against the liberals and their cherished license.

At long last, Catholics are recalling that Pius IX condemned, in his allocution Numquam fore, collected in Syllabus (p. 156 in this collection of the sources of Syllabus), the proposition that “it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism.” At long last, there is a recognition that it is by no means acceptable to “overtly and publicly manifest[] any opinions whatsoever,” and that some views do in fact “conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people.” It is immaterial that these Catholics take private steps to punish the speakers privately, for the basic principle is the same, whether it is the government taking action to silence speakers or private citizens.

Recall also what Leo XIII said in Libertas praestantissimum:

We must now consider briefly liberty of speech, and liberty of the press. It is hardly necessary to say that there can be no such right as this, if it be not used in moderation, and if it pass beyond the bounds and end of all true liberty. For right is a moral power which—as We have before said and must again and again repeat—it is absurd to suppose that nature has accorded indifferently to truth and falsehood, to justice and injustice. Men have a right freely and prudently to propagate throughout the State what things soever are true and honorable, so that as many as possible may possess them; but lying opinions, than which no mental plague is greater, and vices which corrupt the heart and moral life should be diligently repressed by public authority, lest they insidiously work the ruin of the State. The excesses of an unbridled intellect, which unfailingly end in the oppression of the untutored multitude, are no less rightly controlled by the authority of the law than are the injuries inflicted by violence upon the weak. And this all the more surely, because by far the greater part of the community is either absolutely unable, or able only with great difficulty, to escape from illusions and deceitful subtleties, especially such as flatter the passions. If unbridled license of speech and of writing be granted to all, nothing will remain sacred and inviolate; even the highest and truest mandates of natures, justly held to be the common and noblest heritage of the human race, will not be spared. Thus, truth being gradually obscured by darkness, pernicious and manifold error, as too often happens, will easily prevail. Thus, too, license will gain what liberty loses; for liberty will ever be more free and secure in proportion as license is kept in fuller restraint. In regard, however, to all matter of opinion which God leaves to man’s free discussion, full liberty of thought and of speech is naturally within the right of everyone; for such liberty never leads men to suppress the truth, but often to discover it and make it known.

(Emphasis supplied.) To complain to the employer of one who expresses these bad views is, therefore, to vindicate one’s responsibility for the common good and the truth by driving the person from the public square. It is to recognize that the liberal state has abdicated an important responsibility—to protect the “untutored multitude” from “lying opinions” and “vices which corrupt the heart and moral life”—and to take up that responsibility, even if only in a small way in the name of true liberty, not liberal license.

Can the reformation of the state along truly Catholic lines now be far off? Now that even the formerly liberal Catholics acknowledge that some opinions ought not to be tolerated, even in the liberal state, can the false idol of tolerance be long for this world? The former liberals must acknowledge, if they are truly motivated by a love of the truth, and not merely seeking to advance their party spirit in a new forum, that the toleration of bad opinions by the liberal state is a grave fault of the liberal state. Again Leo:

But, to judge aright, we must acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further is it from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the motive of good is wanting. And although in the extraordinary condition of these times the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of providing for the eternal salvation of mankind. One thing, however, remains always true—that the liberty which is claimed for all to do all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights.

(Emphasis supplied.) Now that they admit that some opinions ought not to receive a hearing, surely they shall join their integralist brethren in agitating for a new constitution of the state, reflecting the truth that license is not liberty and toleration is no virtue when it harms the common good.