The Acton Institute's defintion of freedom

It has been frequently argued that the Acton Institute advocates for a flawed understanding of human freedom, a "neo-liberal" one. But anything but superficial similarity with the Acton Institute would see that interpretation as egregiously flawed. See, for example, this movie clip:



This is wholly consonant with the Catholic understanding of freedom, which is really freedom for moral and spiritual excellence.

To compare, a passage from the Catholic Catechism:

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.

1733 The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to "the slavery of sin."