You are a Catholic more or less open to false allurements, and as a punishment for your sins, you belong to a Liberal society, say, of a literary character. As a Catholic you could take no part in its proceedings. Again, you subscribe to a journal and read it without scruple, although it bears a Liberal title and speaks and reasons accordingly. Well, this moderate or violent Liberal journal has been for years nothing more nor less than a free-thinker, and you have been imbibing its poison under the delusion of a word. Every society, whether scientific, literary or philanthropic, constituted on Liberal lines, is free-thinking.
Every government Liberally organized is free-thinking.
To reject with distrust the name and not the substance is blindness. Any institution, no matter what be its character, established in complete independence of the magisterium of the Faith, is free-thinking. Catholics cannot, consistently with their faith, belong to them. Membership there means rebellion against the Church. In all such institutions Liberalism reigns and, in consequence, free-thought.