Catholic Social Teaching

Contextual Quote

"The Catholic social teaching ... tradition was developed to deal with the rise of the aggressive and muscular secular state. The crises of our time will require a new approach, one that addresses the disintegration of social forms, including nation-states."

- R.R. Reno [1]

Description

From the Wikipedia:

"Catholic social teaching (CST) is an area of Catholic doctrine which is concerned with human dignity and the common good in society. It addresses oppression, the communitarian role of the state, subsidiarity, social organization, social justice, and wealth distribution. CST's foundations are considered to have been laid by Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, Rerum novarum, of which interpretations gave rise to distributism (formulated by G. K. Chesterton), Catholic socialism (proposed by Andrew Collier) and Catholic communism, among others. Its roots can be traced to Catholic theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo. CST is also derived from the Bible and cultures of the ancient Near East.

According to Pope John Paul II, the foundation of social justice

- "rests on the threefold cornerstones of human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity". According to Pope Benedict XVI, its purpose "is simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just ... [The church] has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice ... cannot prevail and prosper."

Pope Francis, according to Cardinal Walter Kasper, made mercy "the key word of his pontificate... [while] Scholastic theology has neglected this topic and turned it into a mere subordinate theme of justice."

Catholic social teaching is critical of modern social and political ideologies of the left and of the right, such as liberalism, atheistic forms of socialism and communism, anarchism, atheism, fascism, capitalism,[8] and Nazism,[9] which have been condemned by several popes since the late nineteenth century. It has tried to strike a balance between respect for human liberty (including the right to private property and subsidiarity) and concern for society, including the weakest and poorest.

It has distanced itself from capitalism, with John Paul II writing:

- "Catholic social doctrine is not a surrogate for capitalism. In fact, although decisively condemning "socialism", the church, since Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, has always distanced itself from capitalistic ideology, holding it responsible for grave social injustices. In Quadragesimo Anno, Pius XI, for his part, used clear and strong words to stigmatize the international imperialism of money."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_social_teaching)

History

R.R. Reno:

"By the late 19th century, the state had assumed supreme power over the affairs of men. This was true whether its organs were in the hands of liberal and republican statesmen or hereditary monarchs. Left, right, and center, newspapers became instruments for propaganda and ideology. Wars were justified as political causes.

It was in this context the last Leo on the throne of St. Peter, Leo XIII, put his mind to the task of formulating a social doctrine for the Catholic Church, teachings about the ordering of society, to supplement traditional moral doctrine, which concerns the ordering of souls.

Leo XIII identified the central principles of social health: human dignity, subsidiarity, solidarity, and the common good. The principle of subsidiarity militates against the consolidation of power in the state. Authority in society should be differentiated, with parents, schools, fraternities, and other forms of association, especially the Church, ordering human affairs at different levels in accord with their distinct goals and purposes. Solidarity and the common good unite society, drawing together social classes and distinct regions into a body politic that seeks and shares in collective goods.

In his most famous encyclical, Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII depicted the new power of capital as a threat to the human dignity of those who labor. He recognized that the traditional ethos of aristocratic paternalism was no match for the new realities of modern economic life. He assigned to the state the task of establishing a proper balance between labor and capital to protect human dignity and secure solidarity among economic classes.

The rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century made limitations on state power urgent. The gravest threat to human dignity was not economic exploitation: It was the secret police, the violence of the state against its own citizens. After the advent of nuclear weapons, the lethal menace of state power became global.

Catholic social teaching did not change, but its emphasis shifted. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Church began to embrace the postwar project of articulating and defending human rights. These rights, expressed most influentially in the 1948 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, were seen as crucial bulwarks against state power, necessary instruments for defending human dignity. In concert with human rights, Catholic leaders endorsed the post-national ambitions of the United Nations, another instrument for defending and promoting human dignity in the nuclear age. Support for both human rights and an international legal authority became official Catholic positions at the Second Vatican Council, encoded into Gaudium et Spes, the innovative conciliar document that outlined the Church’s relation to the rerum novarum, the new things of the 20th century.

John Paul II and Benedict XVI remained loyal to these commitments. But the world was changing. The Soviet Union collapsed before the 20th century ended. With American leadership, a new internationalism was constructed, one based on market principles rather than parliamentary democracy scaled up to serve the world community, as envisioned by the idealists who wrote the charter for the United Nations. Central bankers and management consultants assumed the role of legislators, midwifing the organization of human affairs through the seemingly benign laws of supply and demand.

The defense of human rights also evolved, as did the promotion of the common good, now conceived of on a global scale. A network of non-governmental organizations emerged to address political, social, and environmental issues. The NGOs were staffed by experts and activists trained to apply technical solutions or promote moral causes now framed as natural expansions of basic human rights. Both were understood to transcend the interests of nations and domestic politics.

Put simply, as the 21st century unfolded, the instruments designed to limit the power of the state began to supersede it. This process was made explicit in the establishment of the European Union, a post-national project celebrated as the harbinger of a new world order. In that order, an efficient and equitable distribution of utilities would supplant the always messy and sometimes violent ordering of human affairs by means of political debate and contestation.

At the same time as nations and their political cultures were being transcended by market principles and technocratic management, the moral foundations of politics eroded. Pope Benedict recognized that the West had embraced moral relativism. In his speeches to the British Houses of Parliament and the German Bundestag, he warned that without the metaphysical horizon of truth the noble tradition of law-making devolves into mere exercise of power. How can we debate about which laws are good if we renounce any claim to know what is good?

The combination of post-national, neo-liberal technocracy and (often selective) moral relativism now dissolves nations. On what grounds can I justify my preference for my fellow citizens as opposed to the “world community”? In the face of a climate crisis, isn’t our duty global, not national? Aren’t “best practices” those that are determined by experts who transcend cultural particularities and “follow the science”? Isn’t unlimited immigration a human right?

The same acids dissolve the primordial society of the family. Fertility rates are declining throughout the world. Unprecedented numbers of women will have no children. The chain linking the generations is being broken. In the United States, the institution of marriage has weakened. Twenty-five percent of children grow up without fathers. People are treading water in a liquid world."

(https://www.compactmag.com/article/pope-leo-must-revive-catholic-social-teaching/)