CSDC 143

Freedom mysteriously tends to betray the openness to truth and human goodness, and too often it prefers evil and being selfishly closed off, raising itself to the status of a divinity that creates good and evil: “Although he was made by God in a state of holiness, from the very onset of his history man abused his liberty, at the urging of the Evil One. Man set himself against God and sought to attain his goal apart from God ... Often refusing to acknowledge God as his beginning, man has disrupted also his proper relationship to his own ultimate goal as well as his whole relationship toward himself and others and all created things”²⁷⁸ Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 13: AAS 58AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1034-1035.. Human freedom needs therefore to be liberated. Christ, by the power of his Paschal Mystery, frees man from his disordered love of self²⁷⁹ Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1741., which is the source of his contempt for his neighbour and of those relationships marked by domination of others. Christ shows us that freedom attains its fulfilment in the gift of self²⁸⁰ Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, 87: AAS 85AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 85 (1993) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1993), 1202-1203.. By his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus places man once more in communion with God and his neighbour.