Pope Leo: San Marino offers world an example of ‘care of human person’
Pope Leo XIV visited San Marino on August 22, meeting the Captains Regent at the Public Palace and expressing gratitude for the country’s long tradition of liberty. He praised San Marino as the world’s oldest republic and urged the nation to continue its example of “care of the human person,” linking its values to Catholic social teaching and the protection of human life. The Pope highlighted the importance of civil and personal freedom, the defense of conscience, and the need to guard against political idolatry, citing figures such as St. Thomas More. He called on San Marino to serve as a “laboratory of good politics,” encouraging diplomacy, multilateralism, and solidarity while noting the country’s hospitality toward Ukrainians and commitment to humanitarian law.
about 1 month ago
Pope Leo XIV’s two‑day pastoral visit to the Republic of San Marino on 22 August 2026 highlighted the micro‑state’s historic role as a “laboratory of good politics” and underscored the Church’s teaching on the care of the human person, authentic freedom, and the Gospel as a path to peace. 1 2
The Pope began his half‑day visit at the Public Palace, greeting the Captains Regent and thanking San Marino for its long‑standing commitment to liberty (“Libertas”) and for defending personal freedom as a dignity granted by God. He linked this civic freedom to the Christian principle that true civil liberty cannot exist without respect for the human person. 2
He recalled the Republic’s founders, Saints Marinus and Leo, as models who translated the Gospel into a communal and political model founded on freedom, mutual respect, and communion. The Pope urged San Marino to continue serving as a “laboratory of good governance,” drawing on Catholic social teaching—common good, universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity, and social justice. 2 3
Leo XIV stressed that the central objective of politics should be the “care of the human person,” which includes protecting life from conception to natural death and fostering a culture of welcome, citing San Marino’s historic hospitality to refugees, especially Ukrainians, and its adherence to international humanitarian law. 2
In his address to the clergy and faithful, the Pope explained that authentic freedom is rooted in the conscience, a gift of God, and that defending the spaces of conscience is essential to true liberty. He warned against “idolatry” that corrupts political projects that claim to serve freedom while serving power, and called for a Trinitarian understanding of freedom that leads to communion and dialogue. 3
He urged believers to respond to a world marked by conflict by walking “with even greater conviction on the path of the Gospel,” presenting charity as a gift aimed at the integral good of each person. 1
Addressing young people, Leo XIV invited them to “open the window of their hearts” to Jesus Christ, emphasizing that authentic freedom is found only in Him. He encouraged youth to embrace their mission with enthusiasm, make demanding life choices, and collaborate with parents in an “educational pact” that renews family faith and transmits Christian values. 4 5
He highlighted the role of priests, catechists, and teachers in supporting families, and warned that the world’s wounds—conflict, isolationism, and mistrust—require a renewed commitment to fraternity, peace, and mutual aid. 4
The Pope praised San Marino’s active participation in multilateral peace‑building and its partnership with the Holy See in promoting diplomacy as the preferred means of fostering international understanding. He presented the Republic’s small‑scale, human‑centered politics as a model for the wider world. 3
Overall, Pope Leo XIV’s San Marino visit combined a celebration of the micro‑state’s historic commitment to liberty with a theological call to protect human dignity, nurture youth, and let the Gospel shape public life.
Assess Catholic social teaching on liberty and human dignity
Catholic social teaching presents liberty and human dignity as inseparable realities: every person possesses an inviolable dignity because he or she is created in God’s image, and liberty is the distinctive capacity by which the person responsibly seeks truth and the good. Catholicism therefore rejects both authoritarian oppression and an individualistic notion of freedom detached from moral truth, human relationships, and the common good.
Human dignity is not granted by the state, society, economic usefulness, intelligence, health, or personal autonomy. It arises from the human person’s relation to God as one created in the divine image. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church describes freedom as “the highest sign in man of his being made in the divine image” and therefore as a sign of the “sublime dignity” of every person.
This theological foundation has several consequences:
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales therefore identifies respect for human life “at all its stages from conception to its natural end” as the “bedrock” of civilization. This is a direct challenge to political or social systems that protect liberty for some while denying the right to life of others, especially unborn children, the elderly, the disabled, or those judged burdensome.
Catholic teaching strongly affirms liberty. Leo XIII calls it “the highest of natural endowments” because rational persons possess the capacity to deliberate and govern their actions. Freedom enables a person to choose, accept responsibility, pursue virtue, and orient life toward its ultimate end.
But Catholic social teaching distinguishes authentic freedom from mere unrestricted choice. Leo XIII observes that liberty can be used either to obey reason and pursue moral good or to choose what appears desirable while falling into disorder and self-destruction. Thus, the question is not simply whether an action is voluntarily chosen, but whether it is compatible with human truth and flourishing.
The Compendium makes the point explicitly:
“The meaning of freedom must not be restricted” to an individualistic autonomy that treats freedom as the arbitrary and uncontrolled exercise of personal choice.
Freedom is not best understood as “I may do whatever I want”. It is better understood as the capacity to choose the good in accordance with truth. A person who is dominated by addiction, manipulation, fear, unjust poverty, ideological coercion, or disordered desires may possess formal choices while lacking genuine freedom.
This does not mean that the state or other persons may control every morally questionable choice. Rather, it means that liberty has an objective orientation. Human rights cannot be detached entirely from human nature, moral responsibility, and the common good.
Catholic teaching rejects the conception of liberty as self-sufficiency. The human person becomes free not by escaping every relationship or obligation, but by entering relationships governed by truth and justice. The Compendium states:
“Freedom only truly exists where reciprocal bonds, governed by truth and justice, link people to one another.”
This relational account prevents two opposite errors.
Totalitarian systems subordinate the person to the state, party, race, class, or collective ideology. They deny the person’s capacity to possess rights and responsibilities prior to political authority. The bishops’ document therefore states that the Church opposes totalitarianism because it “oppresses people and deprives them of their freedom.”
At the other extreme, radical individualism treats the person as an isolated chooser whose preferences automatically define the good. Such a view can ignore duties to family, neighbor, the vulnerable, future generations, and God. It can also allow powerful actors—corporations, institutions, media systems, or technological platforms—to exploit people while formally claiming to respect their “choices.”
Catholic social teaching therefore places liberty within solidarity, meaning a firm commitment to the good of others, especially those whose vulnerability limits their effective freedom.
Religious liberty holds a particularly important place in Catholic social teaching. The Compendium identifies the right to exercise freedom in moral and religious matters as an “inalienable requirement” of human dignity.
This right does not mean that all religions or moral claims are equally true. Rather, it recognizes that faith must involve a free and responsible response to truth. The analysis of Dignitatis Humanae supplied here explains that human beings possess a transcendent capacity: they can rise beyond material concerns, ask ultimate questions, and seek the truth about God and the world.
Religious liberty therefore includes:
This has implications for conscientious objection and institutional freedom. The discussion of the U.S. women’s preventive-health mandate argues that requiring Catholic institutions to fund practices they judge morally wrong can violate freedom of conscience and religious liberty. That particular article concerns a historical American legal controversy and should not be treated as a universal legal ruling, but its underlying Catholic principle is clear: the state should not force persons or religious communities to cooperate materially in actions they are morally bound to reject.
Religious liberty is thus not merely a private exemption from public life. It includes the freedom of believers and religious institutions to contribute to society according to their faith.
Catholic social teaching does not view law as the enemy of freedom. Proper law protects the conditions in which people can live freely and responsibly. The bishops’ document explains that society should respect freedom by enabling people to assume responsibility for their lives and cooperate for the common good.
This requires a balance:
The principle of subsidiarity is central here. Government has an important role, but it should assist—rather than absorb or dominate—persons, families, churches, associations, and local communities. The bishops describe government as properly subsidiary when it helps people remain free to realize their own vocation and destiny.
Subsidiarity is not an argument for government indifference. A state that refuses to address poverty, inadequate housing, illness, exploitation, or exclusion can also violate dignity. The same source warns that insufficient attention to such social ills denies the dignity of those who suffer them.
Accordingly, Catholic social teaching rejects both:
A formal legal liberty is insufficient if a person lacks the practical conditions needed to exercise it. Hunger, homelessness, lack of medical care, unjust wages, discrimination, and coercive working conditions can severely restrict a person’s real freedom.
The bishops’ document insists that basic human needs should be met as far as possible and rejects the view that compassion can be systematically denied for political convenience. At the same time, it cautions that human happiness cannot be identified with material well-being alone. Excessive emphasis on welfare provision may reduce people to passive dependence, while inadequate social provision abandons them to degrading conditions.
This illustrates the Catholic balance between assistance and participation. Social policy should help people obtain what they need, but also enable them to exercise responsibility, work, family life, civic participation, and personal initiative.
Freedom is therefore not merely the absence of government interference. It also requires an adequate social order in which people can genuinely develop their human capacities.
No account of Catholic liberty can exclude the right to life. Every other right depends upon continued existence. The sources emphasize that abortion is not only a private or bioethical concern but also a question of social justice and the common good. Williams describes the unborn as a class of persons whose “fundamental right to life is being trampled upon.”
He also notes that the social and political questions surrounding abortion include the place of the right to life within human rights, the role of natural law, conscientious objection, and the evaluation of imperfect laws. This is important because Catholic social teaching involves not only identifying moral principles but also prudently applying them in complex political circumstances.
The Catholic position is therefore twofold:
Defending life and defending liberty are not competing projects. The right to life establishes the basic sphere in which every other freedom can be exercised.
Catholic social teaching offers a robust account of liberty because it avoids reducing freedom to either obedience to authority or unrestricted choice. Its principal strengths are these:
Its central challenge is that this framework does not translate automatically into one political program. The bishops explicitly state that the Church does not present a party-political program; public policies must be judged by their effects on human dignity and the common good, while recognizing that reasonable disagreement may exist about the best means of achieving them.
Catholic social teaching can therefore establish principles, moral limits, and goals, but it does not determine every tax policy, welfare structure, healthcare model, or constitutional arrangement. Prudential judgment remains necessary.
Finally, Catholic social teaching insists that political reform alone cannot fully restore human dignity. Human beings are created for God, and social action must be accompanied by conversion of mind and heart. The theological account offered in the seminary study similarly holds that social reality is created, fallen, and redeemed; without this perspective, societies risk either nihilism or utopianism.
Catholic social teaching understands liberty as responsible participation in truth and goodness, not arbitrary autonomy. It understands human dignity as universal, inviolable, relational, and grounded in the image of God. Consequently, authentic freedom requires protection from coercion, respect for conscience and religion, defense of life, just social conditions, and participation in the common good.
The Catholic assessment of any political or economic system is therefore fundamentally moral: Does it respect the person, protect the vulnerable, foster responsible freedom, and order social life toward truth, justice, and the common good?