Empires Lost and Regained

That non-confessional liberal democracy was Saint Paul VI’s preferred form of government is a popular, if inexact, notion. Unlike his predecessor Pius XII, who had warned against democracies not “based on the immutable principles of the natural law and revealed truth,” Paul VI certainly welcomed political liberalism, deeming it best among the realistically available options in Europe at the time, and encouraged Catholics to participate in its rites and observances in the hope that the system could be not altered or replaced but rather improved.