At this juncture, I want to say that the bishops are certainly not the only people who have engaged in either-or thinking.
In case you have never wondered why Friedrich Nietzsche thought that we need to move our thinking "beyond good and evil," the either-or thinking of the bishops about good and evil should help you understand the kind of thinking that Nietzsche was concerned about.
I am not sure that Nietzsche has worked out a viable alternative to moving "beyond good and evil." But I give him credit for recognizing that we do need to move "beyond good and evil."
It is beyond the scope of this essay to explore further how we might move "beyond good and evil."
But the most important points of this essay are that the bishops do not officially endorse freedom of speech and association as civil liberties, as most Americans do.
Of course if American Catholics want to behave in accord with what the bishops teach, then they should be free to do so. This is not the issue.
The issue is that the bishops do not officially view freedom of speech and association as basic civil rights. For them, considerations of the common good and acting responsibly in accord with the common good trump freedom of speech as a basic civil right.
Now, a well-known rule of thumb in American jurisprudence states that we Americans have not entered into a suicide pact. For example, yelling "Fire!" in crowded movie-theater when there is no fire could lead to panic and a stampede to get out. As a result, this is not considered to be a legally accepted use of one's freedom of speech. So there are limits to exercising one's freedom of speech.
In theory, the limits of freedom of speech may resemble the spirit of acting responsibly in accord with the common good.
But let's look at this the other way around. Do we Americans have anything to be gained by having it spelled out as a legal principle that freedom of speech is one of our civil rights?
If we do not gain anything from having freedom of speech as a civil right, then we might as well go along with the kind of thinking that the bishops advance.
However, if we do gain something from having freedom of speech spelled out as a civil right, then we Americans should wonder why the bishops do not officially spell out that freedom of speech is a civil right.
Until Pope Francis and the bishops officially spell out that freedom of speech is a basic civil right, then we Americans should view their teaching as un-American.
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