Sir Thomas More: You threaten like a dockside bully.
Sir Thomas Cromwell: How should I threaten?
Sir Thomas More: Like a minister of state, with justice!
Sir Thomas Cromwell: Oh, justice is what you're threatened with.
Sir Thomas More: Then I am not threatened.

Sadly, this exchange still rings all too true in our own times. The lack of due process given to an accused cleric and COVID-19 vaccine mandates are just two present and real examples. 

There is and always will be a tension between the legitimate exercise of individual rights (e.g., presumption of innocence, defense of reputation, privacy, health care choices, etc.) and the safeguarding of the common good. That tension is proper, equitable, and balanced when the pursuit of truth (that which is true/real, good, and beautiful) and justice (that is, giving to each his due -- ius suum cuique tribuere) is first and foremost as well throughout and at the end of a leader's decision.

When leaders -- whether secular or ecclesiastical -- lose sight of the pursuit of truth and justice, they become "bullies" (at best) and "head-choppers", tyrants, and dictators (at worst).

When we as individuals lose sight of the pursuit of truth and justice, then our acts of charity are false, self-serving, and reckless.

"Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way" (Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in veritate, n. 3). "Justice is the primary way of charity, ... the minimum measure.... Charity transcends justice and completes it in the logic of giving and forgiving" (Ibid., n. 6). "Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution;.. [and] justice without mercy is cruelty" (Saint Thomas Aquinas, Super Matthaeum, Cap. V, 1.2).

Now, more than ever, we need statesmen and men of the Church who are valiant and courageous leaders, wiling to be martyrs (defenders of and witnesses to the truth), and, most importantly, saints (men and women who follow the example of God, whose justice is always true and tempered with mercy). Now, more than ever, we need men and women of faith who are and will do likewise.