Across the globe, people largely report being satisfied with their personal freedoms—but not Americans. In fact, American dissatisfaction with personal freedom has sharply risen, particularly among women. This trend isn’t just a cultural oddity or political fluke. It reflects a deeper truth that faithful Catholics should understand: freedom, rightly ordered, is under threat.
According to Gallup data published May 14, 2024, “For the third year in a row, Americans are less satisfied with their personal freedom than the rest of the world, including their peers in other wealthy, market-based economies.” While global satisfaction with freedom remains high—81% across 142 countries—the U.S. has seen a steep decline. In 2020, 85% of Americans were satisfied with their freedom to choose what they do with their lives. Today, that number has plunged to just 72%.
This is more than a mood—it’s a moral concern. Catholics believe that human freedom is a gift from God, rooted in our dignity as persons made in His image. When that freedom is degraded, we are not only politically diminished—we are spiritually threatened.
That degradation is real. According to the Freedom in the World 2025 report by Freedom House, “Global freedom declined for the 19th consecutive year in 2024.” Governments around the world, including in the U.S., are “increasingly seeking to undermine checks on their power,” especially through attacks on the media, anticorruption agencies, and courts. These shifts erode the very structures that protect basic liberties.
Similarly, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2024 warns that many democracies “have become estranged from citizens,” noting that governments maintain the appearance of democracy “so long as nobody really challenges them or wants to make their own choices.” The Catholic Church has long warned against this kind of utilitarianism and relativism, where the truth and dignity of the person are subordinated to power or convenience.
Even the Fraser Institute’s Human Freedom Index 2024 acknowledges this shift, reporting that “freedom deteriorated severely in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic,” particularly in areas such as movement, expression, and association. The report concludes: “87.4 percent of the world’s population saw a fall in human freedom from 2019 to 2022.”
What makes the American case unique, however, is how clearly many Americans—especially women—have perceived this change. While men’s satisfaction with freedom dropped from 88% in 2020 to 77% in 2024, women’s satisfaction fell even more dramatically, from 82% to 66%.
Gallup researchers Benedict Vigers and Julie Ray noted that the “drop among women from 2021 to 2022 was especially sharp,” coinciding with the leaked draft and final ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade. The survey found that “women’s satisfaction dropped most among those who approved of then-President Joe Biden,” highlighting that reproductive rights serve as a “touchstone” by which many women measure their freedom.
As Catholics, we hold that true freedom is not the license to do whatever we please, but the capacity to choose the good. While the Church affirms the sanctity of all human life, from conception to natural death, we must also recognize the complex emotional and moral anxieties women face—especially in a culture that treats children as burdens rather than blessings. The Church’s call to walk with women in crisis must be more than a slogan; it must be a witness.
The larger picture is even more troubling. Freedom is not only under threat abroad but within nations that once claimed to defend it. The Church teaches that the common good depends on just governance, moral responsibility, and respect for the person. As these foundations crack, it’s no surprise that Americans feel less free—because, as J.D. Tuccille bluntly put it in Reason, “Americans are outliers in the Gallup survey because we’re right.”
True liberty is ordered toward truth. It requires not just democratic structures but moral clarity, courage, and a refusal to accept creeping authoritarianism—even when it comes dressed in the robes of security, convenience, or political expediency.
Let us remain vigilant. Let us form consciences well. And let us pray—for our country, for the world, and for the restoration of true freedom in Christ.
