This article first sketches a Catholic constitution of liberty drawing on the paradoxical assertion in Centesimus Annus 41 that liberty is predicated on a dependent, obedient posture that is proper to rational creatures. I argue that the principles of a free society, antecedently cherished by classical liberals, with some variation, can be derived from this liberty of dependence. This article secondly develops a thesis about the possibility of a natural alliance between Catholic thought and classical liberalism, especially in regard to contemporary threats to the common good rooted in both collectivist and individualist attacks on the family and constituting a new formulation of the social question.
Catherine R. Pakaluk, "Dependence on God and Man: Toward a Catholic Constitution of Liberty," Journal of Markets & Morality 19, no. 2 (Fall 2016): 227-252