Updated July 31, 2009 - I revised this recent post because due to my reading, it seems that this subject and John Paul I’s treatment of it is even more important than I first imagined.
One of the members of the heavenly choir who must be most happy at the appearance of Charity in Truth is John Paul I. Luciani was always very attentive to the Church’s social teachings. And especially to Populorum Progressio, the 1967 encyclical by Paul VI on which Benedict based his own just-published letter. Luciani based much of his own thought on Pope’s Paul’s encyclical. He commented on it at the time of its first appearance, and ten years later, in 1977, he recalled it as being like “one of the tongues of fire” that descended on the apostles at Pentecost, because like those tongues of fire, “it too put forth light, strength, and heat, it too was addressed to all peoples and treats the problems of all peoples.”(1)
Luciani’s own attention to the needs of the poor in the Third World was one of the hallmarks of his episcopate in Vittorio Veneto and in Venice. He also fortunately lived long enough to give a shout-out to Populorum Progressio as Pope. It was during his last public audience the day before he died.
I think there is something important about his few simple words that day that tie them to Benedict’s encyclical. He too spoke about Populorum Progressio in the context of love. That is, he saw the teaching of Paul VI revolving around the twin poles of justice and love. But his talk that day was about love, and that is the context in which he put the encyclical. John Paul I had set out to give talks on each of the three theological virtues (faith, hope and charity) and four moral or cardinal virtues (justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude). Perhaps it’s a good thing that it was during his talk on love, rather than the one on justice, that he spoke about the encyclical, for he didn’t live long enough to deliver the one on justice.
Why is this so important? Well, according to some (such as this article), in Populorum Progressio, Paul VI departed from the traditional balance of charity and justice in Catholic social teaching, to favor an outright emphasis on justice and even the taking of specific positions on government intervention in the economy, limitations on the private property of the wealthy, and the redistribution of wealth from poor nations to rich ones — all positions that some identified with leftist political positions and the solutions of technocrats. What about old-fashioned Christian charity? The same people see Benedict’s new encyclical as a return to sanity with its emphasis on charity.
I doubt that Paul VI himself saw his encyclical this way, and, from his words that day, it’s clear that his immediate successor didn’t either.
Here are John Paul I’s words:
And how [are we to love our neighbor]? Not only in our words, but in our actions. We will take an exam at the end of our lives, and Jesus has already said what the questions he will ask us will be. I was hungry in the persons of the least of my brothers: did you give me anything to eat? I was sick, I was a prisoner, did you come to visit me? These are the questions. Here we will have to give an answer (cf. Mt. 25:34).
Taking these words and some others from the Bible, the Church has made two lists, seven corporal works of mercy, and seven spiritual ones. They are not complete. We should update them. For example: hunger. Today it is no longer a question only of this or that individual. It is whole peoples who are hungry. We all remember the great words of the great Pope Paul VI. “The peoples who are hungry are making a dramatic appeal to the peoples who live in opulence. The Church shudders at this cry of anguish and calls on everyone to respond with love to his brother.” (Populorum Progressio, no. 3) And then, here justice is united to love. Because the Pope says, still in Populorum Progressio: “Private property is not a undeniable and absolute right for anyone. No one has the right to be able to make use of his goods exclusively for his own benefit, when others are dying because they have nothing.” (Ibid., no. 22). Hence “every debilitating arms race is an intolerable scandal” (Ibid., no. 53). . . In the light of these words, we must ask ourselves not only as nations, but as private individuals, especially we who are members of the Church: have we really carried out the plan of Jesus, who has said: “Love your neighbor as yourself”?(2)
By quoting those ringing words of Paul’s work, John Paul I made it clear that the principle it was based on was love: the cry from the heart of Christians responding to brothers and sisters in need. Also of note is his insistence that we must move from a purely individual concept of charity to one that equally embraced individuals and whole peoples, another thing he had in common with both Paul and Benedict.
The main part of his talk, which I’ve translated above, was in Italian. Here he is, saying it in English for the English-speaking pilgrims, from 2:18 to 3:18 (As far as I know, there isn’t any actual video of this part of the audience, so I put the audio together with images and other video):
A transcription, for those who might have trouble following his English (which he had only recently learned to speak)
There is also love of neighbor. These two loves are twins and they go together. Jesus spoke about the importance of loving our neighbors when he said: “I was hungry and you gave me food.” And Paul VI reminded us that there are whole peoples who are hungry and waiting for our fraternal love. Private property is not an absolute right, and the arms race is a scandal. From these things, we can see that as individuals and peoples we have still not fulfilled the command of Jesus: to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Many people may have wondered as I have what a social encyclical by Pope John Paul I might have been like. If we can believe the “person in Rome,” the anonymous source whose account was published in Camillo Bassotto’s book Il mio cuore è ancora a Venezia (My Heart is Still in Venice), he did indeed plan to write one, and from the description the Pope gave of it, it would have been very much along the lines of Populorum Progressio:
‘I will write and speak on “The poor and poverty in the world.” From the lands of famine and drought, of hunger and epidemics, voices are incessantly raised asking for help. The peoples of hunger, where the children die by thousands every day, are appealing to the peoples and the cities of opulence. There are peoples in the heart of Africa, in the countries of South America and in the communities of Vietnam and Cambodia that are struggling for survival, they are the poorest, the most wretched on earth. Those forms of poverty are the scandal of the western world, of the rich and of the Christians. The rich peoples must give life to a chain of solidarity and justice which will drastically reduce the debt of the peoples of the Third World: we must institute a vast worldwide network of exchanges and cooperation for the rebirth, development and independence and the religious, economic, cultural and racial freedom of those peoples who for centuries have been the prey and the servants of Europe and of the West. There will not be peace until justice is done to the underprivileged peoples.(3)
Much has happened in regard to poverty, the globalized consciousness of Christians, and especially the growing culture of death, that makes Charity in Truth a fitting update to Populorum Progressio. If Pope John Paul I had lived, his social encyclicals certainly would have done so too.
NOTES
(1) “La Populorum Progressio dieci anni dopo,” Homily for the feast of Pentecost, June 6, 1977, in Albino Luciani /Pope John Paul I Opera Omnia 8:143.
(2) The text is from L’Osservatore Romano, September 28, 1978; but I have also followed the recording of the Pope’s words (which sometimes differs slightly from the official text because the Pope delivered it from memory); the video and audio are available here on YouTube, courtesty of Italian TV RAI; the translation from the Italian is mine
(3) Camillo Bassotto, Il mio cuore è ancora a Venezia (Venice, 1990).
Charity in Truth, Pope Benedict’s new encyclical, has been in preparation for some time. It was intended to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical, Populorum Progressio, which took up the problems of human solidarity and justice on a large scale, in particular the problems of the poor nations of the Third World, a trend toward the globalization of the Church’s social teaching that grown during the pontificate of John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council. The anniversary actually fell in 2007, but the encyclical has been delayed by over a year; partly it was because of updates necessitated by the world economic crisis that began last fall.
Pope Benedict looks at the question of “integral human development in charity and truth.” He tells us that “love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth.” The focus of the encyclical then, is that love is the motive for social action, but only truth can set love free to act and direct its course. The truth about humankind and the means to human justice can be sought only in God. A particularly bold challenge for a relativistic time.
Reading it — and I’m trying to go slowly to savor it — is re-acquainting me both with the force and vigor of Pope Benedict’s mind as well as the sweetness of his devotion, if I can put it that way; as I recall from Jesus of Nazareth, he has a powerful connection with Christ and what His love can do.
I wanted to put down some of my own thoughts, but first, it seems necessary to clear away some misunderstandings.
I’ve spent some time looking at the reactions to the encyclical. I’ll spare you the sillier ones from the professional pundits right and left, who fall all over themselves trying not to notice Benedict’s criticisms of their own social and political views, while loudly trumpeting his criticisms of their opponents. Misunderstanding is rife here, but it’s the type of misunderstanding anyone could easily predict.
Skipping all that, I’ll get right to the basic misunderstandings found among Catholics in blog comment boxes. I’ve noticed over time that the number of those who have made any study of Catholic social teaching or papal encyclicals on the subject is relatively small. At times the wildest misunderstandings of the Pope’s words occur.
Misunderstanding #1 Context, context, who has the Context?
Some errors come out of a near-total lack of knowledge of the history of Catholic social teaching, which forms the context in which the encyclical is written. For instance, the misunderstanding of those who read Bendict’s words about the need for “a true world political authority” and decided at once that he meant there should be a “one world government” that would absorb the powers of all other nations, whose governments would then presumably disappear. They reacted with tremendous — and completely unnecessary — alarm. What the Pope actually wrote was:
To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, (Pacem in Terris no. 84) and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth.
For those who have read Pacem in Terris, the encyclical of John XXIII that Benedict refers to, and who are familiar with subsidiarity, one of the principal aspects of Catholic social teaching he refers to, there is no difficulty in interpreting this passage. John XXIII wrote in the cited passage: “one must bear in mind that, even when it regulates the relations between States, authority must be exercised for the promotion of the common good. That is the primary reason for its existence.” So good Pope John wanted an authority to regulate relationships between states, and was probably thinking of the model of the U.N., certainly not of one world government. And subsidiarity, clearly stated again and again in Catholic social thought, teaches that the smallest, most local and most de-centralized authority that has the competence is the best one to make decisions. In short, a “world political authority” would not have the authority to do those things that could best be done by the member states themselves.
But few Catholics are genuinely familiar with these things. This is a rather sad reflection in general on Catholic education. But on the other hand, if final encyclical texts were a little clearer, and made a greater effort to explain things to ordinary Catholics, some of this harm might be avoided. Benedict’s thought, as I said, is vigorous and well-expressed, but it’s also possible to tell when a text has been through the curial committee wringer one too many times.
And if I could make a small suggestion to the people who draw up the final text of an encyclical and its footnotes — would it really hurt to cite papal texts by their paragraph numbers, instead of their page numbers in the printed edition of the Acta Apostolica Sedis, which exists only in a few specialized libraries? This is especially helpful for those who want to look up the citations on the Vatican’s own website, as I have been trying to do today. It took me a long time to find the citation from Pacem in Terris by the Vatican webiste, because, of course, there are no page numbers there. The other method would make more sense considering the way most people get information today through the Internet. And, while we’re at it, why not put hyperlinks to the citations of other papal documents? (I put the paragraph number in the text above, so you can find it as well).
Misunderstanding #2: What does a Pope know about Economics Anyway?
“I don’t like the Pope’s ideas about one world government (sic). And why should I pay any attention to him anyway? I’m sure he knows very little about economics. After all, he never cites economists, just other Popes.”
This as actually said by someone in a combox yesterday, on a thoroughly Catholic site. And this is a pretty basic misunderstanding.
When a Pope writes an encyclical, he is primarily writing as a pastor, as a theological and moral authority. He is not writing to make specific social economic proposals — a task for Catholic economists, social scientists and politicians. At the same time, it would be very difficult for him to make the application of moral principles clear without any knowledge of the specifics of economics and social realities. In fact, papal social encyclical are all written after consultations with experts. Often there is a whole team of them overseeing the work, as with John XXIII’s encyclical above.
Now I’m going to bring in a little and (to readers of this blog) very familiar help. As it happens, I have been translating just this week a very pertinent text by Pope John Paul I on the subject of the preparation of one papal social encyclical Rerum Novarum, the grand-daddy of them all, written in 1891 by Leo XIII, when the problems of the working class became acute in industrialized Europe. One of the economists who helped Pope Leo with the encyclical was Giuseppe Toniolo, who lived in the diocese where Albino Luciani was bishop, Vittorio Veneto. Speaking in the Church of the Assumption in Pieve di Soligo, where Toniolo is buried, in 1961, for the 70th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Luciani spoke of the preparation and inspiration of the encyclical, and the mutual part of the Pope and social and economic thinkers in it. As usual his treatment is clarity itself.
But I must clarify in what sense and within what limits Toniolo contributed to preparing the encyclical. Rerum Novarum, like other papal documents on social themes, contains three sorts of truths: truths of faith, of reason, and of simple observation.
Truths of faith: for example, in Rerum Novarum, the supernatural destiny of man is present from beginning to end; the reasoning that emerges, now here, and now there, is this: “Yes, let’s seek a good arrangement for the workers, but let’s recall that no arrangement can be good if it puts the other arrangement of heaven in danger!” In this area of truth, obviously, Toniolo had nothing to suggest to Leo XIII.
Nor did he in the sector of “truths of reason,” which is the sector of good sense, of natural law, old as the centuries, which the Pope interprets authentically. To this sector belong, for example, the statements of Rerum novarum about the right to property and the right of workers to unite in associations.
It is instead in the sector of observation that the advice of Toniolo could be useful. Social phenomena formed the material for observation. Society, in fact, changes as life changes, and to the changes there must correspond, on the part of the Church, not a different truth, but a different dose of the same truth. Hence a constant adaptation, an opening of our eyes to quickly register the signs of the new times.
I will supply an example: it is a truth of reason that the state must intervene in favor of the workers, in cases where they are not succeeding in reaching just and reasonable goals on their own. Well then, in Quadragesimo anno we hear Pius XI concerned with indicating the limits of state intervention and it is understandable; it was in 1931, the period of totalitarian governments that actually intervened too much in social questions.
In Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII urged the state to intervene in favor of the workers. This means that the Pope was convinced that in 1891 the workers could not do it alone and that the states were taking little action. But from where did this conviction come to him? Not from Sacred Scripture or from philosophy, but from the world itself, which from the observatory that is the Vatican, he sought to read as though in a book. He tried to make the reading easier for himself with the help of Catholic thinkers, who, however, were divided on this point.
“The state is like pitch,” said some; “if we dip our finger in it, we will not get it out again; the workers must act alone without the state!” “If the state does not intervene with its massive power, the workers will remain as miserable as they are, the power of the employers are too great!” answered the others, and they were the flower of bishops, thinkers and politicians, in France, Belgium, Germany and England. Among these was none other than Giuseppe Toniolo and he was distinguished among them by the moderation of his tone and the acuteness of his reasoning.
Did he have an influence on inserting the thesis of state intervention and other points in the encyclical? The decree of introduction of the cause of Giuseppe Toniolo says the Leo XIII “doctissimos in hac encyclica conscribenda consuluit viros, quos inter Servum Dei Josephum Toniolo [consulted very learned men in the writing of this encyclical, among them the Servant of God Giuseppe Toniolo].”
(Toniolo was actually declared Venerable by Paul VI in 1971).
***Update July 12
Here’s an equally interesting passage Luciani wrote on this subject a few years later, in 1971, after the appearance of Populorum Progressio, in a Lenten sermon he gave in Venice called “We and the Third World”:
But does the Pope, does the Church, have the right to touch on these questions, beyond the generic call for justice and charity? I know: the Magisterium of the Church must limit itself to declaring what God has revealed. Now, God, by His revelation, has opened new spiritual horizons for humanity, but He has not directly proposed the solution to social problems. Jesus expressly denied being a social revolutionary; he urged us to be just and to share our substance with the poor, but he did not specify how society and property should be regulated in specific periods in history; he has said that people as individuals are the goal, the protagonists and the foundation of human institutions and activities (the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath), but he did not descend to details in socio economic matters.
The ecclesiastical Magisterium, therefore, can only touch on these questions indirectly, by expounding the principles of Christ and setting them beside the various concrete social situations. The analysis of these situations, on the other hand, is up to the experts, whose collaboration the Magisterium must humbly seek and accept. This might explain, for example, why private ownership of the means of production, although stated and reconfirmed as necessary to human liberty and dignity in Gaudium et Spes and Populorum Progressio, occupies a less important place than at one time. And why the Pope, among other things, calls upon the responsible authorities for suitable international laws and an international authority capable of making them respected by the nations.
*** End of update
As for why Popes never cite economists — just as Toniolo went uncited — I’m sure it’s so no one economist or school of economics were be pinpointed as identical with the Pope’s views; since this would not be true in any case, and would be detrimental in some cases to the spiritual point he is making.
I dearly miss the encyclicals John Paul I would have written — something makes me think they would have excelled in clarity and readability as well as in charity and truth. And he did actually speak as Pope on social justice, very briefly, but in a way that resonates with the new encyclical.
But that’s a subject for another post. In fact, I’ll make it my next post.
In addition to the puff-piece editorial on Obama at Notre Dame (which praised the president for seeking “dialogue,” and saying very little about the Christian witness of the student and faculty protesters), OR has an article that, from the summary anyway, looks as if it is correcting the impression of that earlier editorial that Obama’s ESCR policy wasn’t as bad as thought. THIS story quotes Cardinal Rigali’s and Archbishop Chaput’s strong criticisms of Obama policy. It’s about time!
In my reply to the earlier article, I actually sent them Cardinal Rigali’s remarks! (So did many other people I’m sure).
I haven’t been able to find any trace of these articles in Italian on the OR part of the Vatican website, though.
Update: evening of May 22:
The Osservatore Romano article that I called a “puff piece” on Obama has been causing a firestorm in the last few days. Here’s a translation (thanks to Joey on Fr. Z’s blog-I’m too overwhelmed with work to do more than correct it a bit):
Obama in a Search for Common Ground
The search for common ground: it appears that this is the path chosen by US President Barack Obama in affronting the delicate question of abortion. Putting aside the heated tones of the electoral campaign, Obama affirmed as much on the occasion of the press conference for his [first] hundred days in the White House, when he affirmed that the launch of the new law on abortion is not a priority of his administration. And to reaffirm this position, the president chose the ceremony for the conferral of a doctorate of law honoris causa from Notre Dame in Indiana, the most prestigious Catholic college in the United States.
Increasing controversies have marked the weeks following Obama’s invitation from university president John Jenkins. And also yesterday—as was predictable—protests were not lacking. But from the podium prepared in the basketball stadium, the president invited Americans of all faiths and ideological conviction to “hold hands in a common effort” to reduce the number of abortions. “I don’t want to say that the debate concerning abortion will disappear: the opinions of Americans concerning it are complex and, at certain levels, irreconcilable,” the president said, exhorting those present to defend their opinions with passion and conviction, but “without reducing to caricature those who don’t think like us.”
In his speech Obama reaffirmed the line of the task force assembled “to reduce the number of abortions, diminishing unwanted pregnancies, facilitating adoptions, and assuring assistance and support for those who decide to keep the baby”. The president also proposed a conscience clause for doctors and paramedics who disagree with the practice of abortion. “But”—he added—“let us work so that our health policies are founded on clear scientific and ethical criteria, such as respect for the equality of women”.
In his speech the president reminded the students the challenges posed by the economic crisis and by violent extremism, by nuclear proliferation and pandemics. But the attention was completely focused on the issue of abortion. “Even if they do not agree”—he said—“we can agree that it is a painful decision for any woman”.
This article came out several days ago, and hasn’t received much attention in all the furor. Father Jenkins has a lot of explaining to do, but he’s not the only one.
No Likely Support From Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees For Rescinding Obama Invite
By Frank Walker
May 10, 2009 - A great deal of criticism has been leveled at Notre Dame President, Rev John I. Jenkins, for his choice to honor President Obama at this year’s commencement. But Fr. Jenkins, like all university presidents, must consider the will of the school’s governing board. The Notre Dame Board of Trustees is a powerful organization, comprised of top international business owners, chairs of rich endowments, academic leaders, judges, attorneys, faculty, and prominent clergy. These individuals are typically very wealthy, well-connected and highly accomplished; many with broad interests outside the university. A closer look at the board and its affiliations might shed light on just how Notre Dame came to this decision.
Many of the influential alumni on the Notre Dame board are from the nearby Chicago area, and are part of the same Chicago power structure that President Obama ascended. Richard and Peggy Notebaert are leading members of the ND community, and Notebaert is chair of the Notre Dame trustees. While Obama served in the senate, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, received federal funding earmarked by Obama.. Key Obama campaign fundraiser, Frank Clark served on the board of the Notebaert Museum at the time. The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, where ND trustee Arthur Velasquez is on the board, also received millions in earmarks. Velasquez contributed to Obama’s campaigns in ’04 and ’08.
Chicago power at Notre Dame extends to political posts as well. Justice Ann Claire Williams was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1999 to the U.S. Court of Appeals 7th District. In 2004, she ruled that the Department of Justice could not subpoena hospital abortion records to enforce the ban on partial birth abortions. Left-leaning Chicago politics has a place on the Notre Dame governing board. Currently Ann Claire Williams is receiving serious attention among the top three possible Obama replacements for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
Some Notre Dame board members have made ethical misjudgments in the past. Chicago trustee Philip B. Rooney, Chairman of Claddagh Investments, is former CEO of Waste Management Inc., the world’s largest waste services company. In 2002, Rooney and Waste Management, along with Arthur Andersen, Enron and others, were indicted by the SEC in a massive fraud case. WMI management eventually settled for 30.8 million in penalties. The SEC barred Rooney permanently from being an officer in a public company. He divested most of his own stock before the investigations caused shareholder assets to plummet. Despite this history Rooney retains his board position at Notre Dame today.
ND Trustee Douglas Tong Hsu is chairman of Far Eastern Group, a $32 billion dollar Chinese conglomerate. Hsu’s strong political connections in Taiwan lean toward unification with mainland China. He recently stated that democratic governance is a hindrance to investment, and praised communist China’s system for being more favorable to business with its staunch system of rule. In 2006, Hsu was indicted for breach of trust and forgery in connection with a major department store takeover. These charges also involved the Taiwanese first lady, Wu Shu-chen. With Douglas Tong Hsu, the political and business interests of the PRC have influence at Notre Dame. In 2006, ND President Jenkins led a small delegation to East Asia, where they met with Hsu, and travelled to communist Beijing to develop partner programs for the university.
There are Notre Dame trustees who directly support [sic] Obama administration goals. Dr. Mary Anne Fox is chancellor at U[niversity of] C[alifornia] San Diego and Vice-Chair of the National Science Board. Recently Fox announced the opening of a new research facility where the school will cultivate and experiment on human embryonic stem cells. The laboratory will partner with Scripps Research and the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA where Fox also sits on the leadership council. In 2007 the Institute hosted a stem cell ethics conference. R. Alta Charo, bioethicist and advisor to the Obama transition team was a key speaker. At UCSD the bio-engineering department has just established a partnership with Tsinghua University in China, to further their research.
Raymond G. Chambers, co-founder of anti-poverty organization Millenium Promise, serves on the ServiceNation leadership council. ServiceNation is a political group that supports the enormous multiplication of federal national service programs in the Obama agenda, including the just-passed Kennedy Serve America Act. The Kennedy act was touted as the “largest expansion of community and national service since the launch of the Civilian Conservation Corps.” In September, Chambers was a panelist at the ServiceNation Summit as special envoy for malaria, United Nations.
Several Notre Dame board members lead American banks and major investment houses, where the federal government has sunk billions in bailout funds and stock purchases. Robert Conway was head of Goldman Sachs (AIG). Philip J. Purcell was formerly CEO of Morgan Stanley and COO of Dean Witter. Enrique Hernandez, Jr. is on the board of Wells Fargo Bank. Business leaders in this sector are under increasing pressure to appeal to the Obama administration, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Congress for their survival and direction.
In conclusion, a review of the Board of Trustees at Notre Dame does NOT reveal a particularly strong Catholic identity. There are board members whose actions and associations put them in a position directly at odds with Church teaching and in line with the Obama administration. At the Notre Dame board, we see a group of well-connected well-heeled individuals from all sectors of society, and at the most prominent levels. Taking a stand against inviting the President of the United States would likely jeopardize membership in the elite club where they travel. Therefore it is highly unlikely that there will be any movement from within the board to rescind invitation to President Obama.
Every once in a while, for all my scribbling in comboxes, I write something I think is well, kind of good. Today was one of those days. I wrote something I thought fitting for the anniversary of Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum. And since I want to put all the time I spent writing it to good use, here is my reply to a man who thought that the “social justice” and “common good” talk of Catholics is a crock, and that it’s all just a cover up for “socialist” ideas about the re-distribution of wealth. He thinks all social justice and the welfare state is a great evil. He says he really doesn’t care what papal social encyclicals say on this subject, and that they’re not infallible, though the Gospel is, he is for freedom and individuality, etc. (Evidently, in spite of this, he is a Catholic). My reply:
I was very glad to hear that you practice what you preach in the way of individual charity in helping that man [find a home]. It’s a great example and a true following of the Gospel.
But let me ask you something. Suppose you learned of a sweatshop or a factory where the employer required his employees to work fifteen hours a day, without air-conditioning or heating, without opportunities for meals, and their children as young as 9 or 10 years old, had to work with them under the same conditions, all for pay so small that it still left the whole family starving. And suppose there weren’t any laws to prevent the employer from doing that.
And what could you, being a Christian, do all by your lonesome to prevent this injustice and help this family? The answer is: not a lot, however charitable you might be, at least not without a shotgun, which not be at all advisable. In this case it’s clearly a matter for the law and the state. Fortunately, we don’t have to worry any longer about such things taking place because our laws about fair wages, child labor and proper working conditions prevent them.
One of the primary reasons that we do have these laws is because the Catholic Church took a leading role beginning in the late nineteenth century to call the world’s attention to the problems of working people who were faced with employment conditions similar to the above, and who were being solicited, to the great danger of their freedom and in their faith by the Communist and socialists and their labor organizations.
One hundred and eighteen years ago yesterday (May 15, 1891), Pope Leo XIII issued the first in the long line of modern papal social encyclicals, Rerum Novarum, in which he called for the neeed for true Christian’s workingman’s associations, and at the same time he asked that the State itself do something in this regard by distributing . . . .what? Not wealth (that was the Communist line), not charity (because that’s the individual’s duty), but justice. He even called it “distributive justice” because it meant giving everyone an equal shot and equal rights, including the right to be free from such oppression. The Pope thought that there were a few things, perhaps just a few, that the State could do well, and that was one of them. The social thought of the Church was one of the things that helped ensure that today we have laws regulating fair wages, and good working conditions.
So the Church’s social justice teaching is not socialism. Properly understood, it’s a preventative against socialism. And so it continues today, up through the writings of John Paul II (and Benedict XVI is about to issue his own social encyclical). Each of them spells out not only what the state, but individuals, small groups and associations, and the state itself should do to promote social justice. The primary duty of individuals and associations and the Church in all of this is charity, broadly speaking, but for the state it’s justice, because that’s the state’s job; it’s why states were founded, to ensure and protect every individual’s rights.
You have a strange idea that the social ideas of the Church are identical to those of the left wing of the Democratic party today, or to socialism, or the welfare state. The truth is, they’re not. There are people who misread these encyclicals on the left (and a good many on the left who claim to have read them and haven’t). There are a good many people on the right who shun them like the plague, and never read them, and insist that they are good Catholics while rejecting papal teaching without ever having read it.
In regard to one of your other statements, the social encyclicals of the Popes are not all strictly speaking infallible, but are part of the Church’s magisterium, or teaching authority. They are certainly worthy of respect, and at the very least, an unprejudiced reading.
I don’t know whether you ever have read them or not, but it sounds as if you haven’t. So in honor of the anniversary of Rerum Novarum, here’s a link:
There. Now you won’t even have to get out of your chair to read what the Church really thinks of these matters.
Pausing to look at all the sights on our way to Jerusalem. . . Mainly about faith, the Church, film, writing, famous Christian authors, and anything else I'm interested in at the moment.
The photo above was taken at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in March 2007.
Quote of the Month
"The conviction that there is a Creator God is what gave rise to the idea of human rights, the idea of the equality of all people before the law, the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person and the awareness of people’s responsibility for their actions. Our cultural memory is shaped by these rational insights. To ignore it or dismiss it as a thing of the past would be to dismember our culture totally and to rob it of its completeness. The culture of Europe arose from the encounter between Jerusalem, Athens and Rome – from the encounter between Israel’s monotheism, the philosophical reason of the Greeks and Roman law. This three-way encounter has shaped the inner identity of Europe. In the awareness of man’s responsibility before God and in the acknowledgment of the inviolable dignity of every single human person, it has established criteria of law: it is these criteria that we are called to defend at this moment in our history."
Pope Benedict XVI to the German Parliament, Sept 22, 2011.
