Another Big Deal: The New Motu Proprio

It's Intima Ecclesiae Natura (The Church's Deepest Nature) and is captioned as "On the Service of Charity."  haven't seen too much play in the media, but this is actually a pretty gargantuan undertaking. A lot of the Holy Father's reign has been to deal with this idea that the Church really only exists to tend to man's temporal wants and needs. While that might sound fine to the average modern Jesuit or LCWR delegate, it is secondary to the Church's true mission, which is the salvation of souls. He hit on this in Deus Caritas Est and then made it the theme of a whole encyclical with Caritas in Veritate. As is typical with the Magisterium these days, it takes a while for anyone to realize that nobody is paying attention to the teaching authority, meaning that mechanisms for dealing with the problem at the ground level have to be developed. We've all heard, for example, about stuff being done by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Now, how will this kind of abomination be handled?

That's what this motu proprio is about. Most of it is hung up on setting new provisions for Canon Law, so it's not exactly dynamic reading. There are a lot of cites and cross-references to the CIC, so make sure you bring some caffeine when you read it. It's not that long, though, and worth your time to be aware of how things will go from here on out. In a nutshell, the motu proprio lays out directives for how Catholic charitable institutions are to be governed, even if it's just by laypeople, and the relationships of said institutions with the bishops.

Let me hit the high points.

It is important, however, to keep in mind that “practical activity will always be insufficient, unless it visibly expresses a love for man, a love nourished by an encounter with Christ." In carrying out their charitable activity, therefore, the various Catholic organizations should not limit themselves merely to collecting and distributing funds, but should show special concern for individuals in need and exercise a valuable educational function within the Christian community, helping people to appreciate the importance of sharing, respect and love in the spirit of the Gospel of Christ. The Church’s charitable activity at all levels must avoid the risk of becoming just another form of organized social assistance.

That noise you heard was probably the large mass of exploding heads as self-styled "progressive Catholics" read this paragraph. I'm not sure whether the average Catholic grasps the enormity of this. It's at the root of the LCWR, liberation theology, and every other movement that tries to camouflage their soul-murdering heresies with activities that could be found even in pagan societies. It's why universities like ND ultimately are failing in their outreach to the oppressed, since "fighting for justice" isn't the same thing as "fighting for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the triumph of His Church."

What does it profit a man to get a nice meal but wind up in hell because nobody bothered trying to show him the error of his ways?

Nevertheless, to the extent that such activities are promoted by the Hierarchy itself, or are explicitly supported by the authority of the Church’s Pastors, there is a need to ensure that they are managed in conformity with the demands of the Church’s teaching and the intentions of the faithful, and that they likewise respect the legitimate norms laid down by civil authorities.

Notice that the intentions of the faithful aren't the only consideration here. A lot of the faithful seem to forget that. I'm currently reading an excellent biography of Blessed Bartolo Longo, who renounced in favor of the Church his role in all the works he had founded and promoted. It was a difficult step for him to take, and he suffered much for it. Saints do that sort of thing, though. So should we, if that's what we want to become.

Now, for a few of the actual legislative bits:

The faithful have the right to join in associations and to establish agencies to carry out specific charitable services, especially on behalf of the poor and suffering. To the extent that these are linked to the charitable service of the Church’s Pastors and/or intend to use for this purpose contributions made by the faithful, they must submit their own Statutes for the approval of the competent ecclesiastical authority and comply with the following norms.

This is almost scary. The bishops will have to do their jobs. Thank goodness the episcopacy seems to be regaining their collective spine, even if just a little.

A charitable agency may use the name “Catholic” only with the written consent of the competent authority, as laid down by canon 300 CIC.

Hmmmm.

At the same time, the ecclesiastical authority must bear in mind its duty to regulate the exercise of the rights of the faithful in accordance with canons 223 § 2 CIC and 26 § 3 CCEO, and thus to avoid the proliferation of charitable initiatives to the detriment of their activity and effectiveness with regard to their stated goals.

This could make for some interesting situations. If we're taking for granted that the stated goals of these groups must include a focus on Church teaching and such, does this mean that the bishop can shut down initiatives that are getting in the way of this? That's what the linked section of the CIC seems to say, but I'm no canonist.

I'm going to skip Pope Benedict's Article 5 here for a moment.

The agencies referred to in Article 1 § 1 are required to select their personnel from among persons who share, or at least respect, the Catholic identity of these works.

Does this mean we can exclude the Nuns on the Bus?

To ensure an evangelical witness in the service of charity, the diocesan Bishop is to take care that those who work in the Church’s charitable apostolate, along with due professional competence, give an example of Christian life and witness to a formation of heart which testifies to a faith working through charity. To this end, he is also to provide for their theological and pastoral formation, through specific curricula agreed upon by the officers of various agencies and through suitable aids to the spiritual life.

Prepare for a lot of lawsuits from people who want to flaunt their use of contraception, in vitro, abortion, etc. Not to mention getting canned for wacky ecumenical or liturgical abuses.

In particular, the diocesan Bishop is to ensure that charitable agencies dependent upon him do not receive financial support from groups or institutions that pursue ends contrary to Church’s teaching. Similarly, lest scandal be given to the faithful, the diocesan Bishop is to ensure that these charitable agencies do not accept contributions for initiatives whose ends, or the means used to pursue them, are not in conformity with the Church’s teaching.

Does this include the United States government? The Democratic Party? That last sentence seems pretty clearly meant to address stuff like the aforementioned CCHD fiascoes.

The diocesan Bishop is obliged, if necessary, to make known to the faithful the fact that the activity of a particular charitable agency is no longer being carried out in conformity with the Church’s teaching, and then to prohibit that agency from using the name “Catholic” and to take the necessary measures should personal responsibilities emerge.

We've already seen stuff like this happen, as in the case of Bishop Olmsted with the hospital in Arizona.

It is also the duty of the Bishop to ensure that the activities carried out in his Diocese are conducted in conformity with ecclesiastical discipline, either prohibiting them or adopting any measures needed in cases where that discipline is not respected.

Another hmmmm. Seems like a shot at the wayward orders, maybe.

Ok. Now, let's take a look at the article I skipped earlier.

The diocesan Bishop is to ensure that the Church enjoys the right to carry out charitable activities, and he is to take care that the faithful and the institutions under his supervision comply with the legitimate civil legislation in this area.

There are a lot of references to the civil authority scattered throughout the document. It seems to me that maybe Pope Benedict is looking to get out in front of some of the forthcoming upheaval wrought by the HHS mandate. Sure, there were plenty of reasons to issue this kind of legislation already, but I have to believe that the mandate was at least partially on his mind.

If the Supreme Court doesn't strike down the mandate as unconstitutional, then we'll see some epic legal battles, based on both secular and canon law, about what happens to all these Catholic institutions. They aren't all structured the same, so nobody can say for sure that things will work out in one particular fashion. However, this new motu proprio does stand to weigh things a little bit more on the bishops' side, especially from the standpoint of the CIC.

Stay tuned...

Why The Dorothy Option Won't Work

Vox Nova recently posted an article by a guy named Mark Gordon regarding the current state of political and economic affairs in the US. In a nutshell, he rightfully decries the left-right paradigm and how Catholics have splintered into one or the other faction.

I used to engage in these war games, and enjoyed watching others engage in them. I fought under the conviction that the soul of the Church – at least in America – was being contested. Don’t get me wrong: my intent is not to trivialize or dismiss either the importance of the issues contested or the legitimate passions of the contestants. It is true that from a Catholic perspective there is a fundamental problem with a party that aggressively supports both the killing of the unborn and a revolutionary redefinition of marriage. And it is also true that from that same perspective there is a fundamental problem with a party that aggressively seeks to dismantle the social safety net in the name – acknowledged or not – of a Darwinian economic ideology, and which uncritically celebrates war, torture, and empire.

For the purpose of this post, we'll overlook what appears to be the standard problem of placing abortion on the same level as these other concerns. Let's assume that he's not doing that and is merely pointing out that both sides have pretty big problems if one is to profess Catholicism. Catholics in general should abhor abortion, but they also understand that subsidizing corporate interests to create oligopoly and monopoly at the expense of people is bad, too (along with war, etc.).

To remedy this, Mr. Gordon proposes what he calls "the Dorothy (Day) Option."

The “Dorothy Option” is not about retreating into isolated enclaves like Ave Maria, Florida, or indulging in the kind of spiritual navel-gazing that so often marks New Age and fundamentalist Christian communities. Instead, it means a deeper, more radical engagement with the world through a life centered on service to the poor and marginalized. It also means resistance – including the use of non-violent civil disobedience – against systems that generate violence or offend the dignity of the human person. Dorothy was no socialist. She mistrusted the concentration of state power and even opposed the erection of a bureaucratic welfare state, which she thought was violent at its core and dehumanizing in its effects. But, of course, she was no capitalist either. She equally mistrusted private concentrations of power, especially corporations, which she believed commodified human persons and impoverished the many for the sake of a few.

Sounds good. The problem is that it omits, and maybe not even purposefully, the thing so often left out of Catholic social justice discussions. Why are we engaging the poor and marginalized? The paraphrased error of the liberation theologians is to say that we do so because we should be pushing for the realization of the Kingdom here on Earth. Many Catholics have swallowed and digested this until they think that taking care of the poor is the Church's primary end. This is false. The Church's mission is to save souls. All Her work in charity, or social justice, or whatever you want to call it is subordinated to that goal.

You can "radically engage" the poor in whatever extreme method comes to mind, but it will never catch on unless people understand why it should be done. It's because we love God first, and then His creatures on account of Him. In all of the Dorothy Option discussion, there is no call to evangelize these poor people. There isn't a push to win souls for Christ. There's only a list of things that could come from anywhere. Anybody can ladle soup, get arrested, or publish a newspaper. Where will they get their ideas of justice, though? Do they understand where justice places a limit on those they are protesting AND their actions and demands as protesters?

They won't unless they understand why all of this is important. Unless they are taught to listen to the voice of Mother and Teacher. Pope Benedict hit on this very theme a lot in Caritas in Veritate. What good does all this talk of charity and justice do unless it's tempered by Truth? Absolutely none. Even if temporal successes are realized, what good does it do for such those receiving assistance to be ultimately without Christ? I suggest none. Tending to people's material needs while letting them continue under a distorted idea of what charity and justice are is only going to make things worse by (a) leading those assisted to think their ideas are correct or at least acceptable and (b) confusing Catholics as to what is correct or acceptable.

Let me give an example. I was recently in New York City and passed by the Occupy Wall Street crowd. In one corner of their encampment, there was a quasi-marked off area with two cardboard signs. One said "Community Altar" and the other "Sacred Space." I'm not sure exactly what was going on. Perhaps some sort of pagan marriage ritual. Two people were standing in the "Sacred Space" while a woman waved feathers and incense around them in some kind of pattern. These people might very well be poor and marginalized. Helping them might solve those problems. Their real problems run much deeper, though. Unless Catholics use the Truth to separate themselves from any of the innumerable other groups who can provide assistance, we aren't really helping.

Free Market vs. Pope Benedict(?)

I got this a while back from Haskovec. Because I suck, though, I'm just now getting around to commenting on it. This article is from the web site for the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Let me say now that I was an economics major, and I typically lean to the ideas that guys like Mises and Hayek espoused. And yes, I know that Mises wasn't really a huge fan of Christianity.

Anyways, the article is a review of sorts for Caritas in Veritate, which we went over here in some detail. The guys with the Institute are not all that thrilled with a lot of what the Holy Father had to say. After giving a bit of an intro, they remark:

From a classical-liberal, Austrian, and free-market perspective, many will agree with the general framework that the Pope has outlined above, particularly those who accept an Aristotelian, Thomistic, and Rothbardian approach to the ethical foundations of voluntary exchange. However, when Benedict transitions from a philosophical framework to specific economic analysis and policy recommendations, particularly as he tries to carefully maintain a "middle of the road" approach to the logic of the market and economic crises, many will take exception.

Can you guess what Complaint #1 is?

Perhaps one policy recommendation encapsulates the problem: Benedict calls for

a reform of the United Nations so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth.… To arrive at a political, juridical, and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. 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 … for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority. (#67)

Yep, it's the infamous Section 67. I'm not going to try and duck the fact that this is controversial stuff. I will maintain that Hayek mentioned exactly this sort of entity in his own work. Let's let them give an explanation for their views, though.

Benedict's logical support for this policy stems from the following faulty arguments:

1. The market is the institution that permits the exchange of goods of equivalent value between two individuals in order to satisfy their needs (commutative justice) (#35).

2. Since the market cannot solve all social problems, since it creates problems of its own, and since economic action is merely an engine of wealth creation, it must be complemented by the political action of the state to intervene for the purposes of redistribution of wealth (distributive justice) (#36).

3. Profit is a means for the allocation of scarce resources, but profit risks destroying wealth and creating poverty if it does not recognize the common good as its ultimate goal (#21).

4. The market cannot produce by itself the social cohesion that it requires to function well (#35).

5. In a world economy, redistribution of wealth and regulation of financial institutions cannot be carried out by the current territorial constraints of states; therefore, a world political authority is needed.

Ok, at this point, let me just say that I think the Institute is missing a lot of Pope Benedict's point. As I mentioned previously, what the Pope is looking for is a Catholic entity that will regulate these items in accordance with Catholic principles. This requires that economics (and everything else) be ordered towards the transcendent, rather than the merely temporal. Moving on:

But Benedict's definitions of the market and of commutative justice are mistaken. In a free market, individuals do not exchange goods of equivalent value. They exchange goods of unequal value. If the values were equivalent, market participants would be indifferent and there would be no reason to make the exchange. It is precisely because a buyer values an apple more than 25 cents and because a seller values 25 cents more than an apple, that the buy/sell transaction takes place. This error originated in Aristotle's treatment of exchange in his Nichomachean Ethics (Book V, p. 5), it was restated in Aquinas's treatment of commutative justice in his Summa Theologica (q. 61 a. 2) and is repeated by Pope Benedict.

Sort of. The values in question are subjective for the transacting parties. A person who really likes apples is going to pay more for one than someone who thinks they're disgusting and just happens to be a bit hungry. This is just a setup, though.

Since we cannot measure value, we cannot define the market as the place where actors establish equivalency of value between goods.

Now why is this such a critical insight? If central planners and their supporters believe they can objectively measure the value of goods, then they will believe that equivalence can be established. It follows that belief in redistribution of income and wealth — based on an arbitrary standard — can be justified. Once a policy of redistribution is pursued, it is a very small step for the state and its apologists to justify intervention in matters of commutative justice itself, such as wages, prices, costs, and interest rates. Examples of these errors in theory and practice abound, but the most notorious one is Marx's labor theory, which erroneously states that capitalists rob workers of the surplus value of their work and maintain them at subsistence income levels. According to the socialists who follow Marx, then, the state is justified not only in expropriating the means of production to correct this distributive injustice, but also in managing the factors of production and the economy as a whole by central planning, statistics, and other mathematical tools.

And here we see the beginning of the Institute's error. This encyclical wasn't just about economics. In fact, economics was just a sidebar, really.

Even if we were to accept Benedict's definition of commutative justice, it does not follow from the inner logic of his argument that he can justify state intervention in the regulation of wages, prices, and income, precisely because each of these is a commutation matter between individuals and not a distributive justice matter pertaining to common goods. And moreover, even if we were to accept the Pope's policy recommendation encouraging the political action of the state to intervene in commutative justice for the purposes of wealth redistribution, it does not logically follow that the redistribution itself should be aimed at achieving a certain desired level of equality between the haves and the have-nots. Indeed, Aquinas states very clearly that redistribution of common goods under distributive justice does not use the principle of equality but the principle of proportion between things and persons (Summa Theologica, q. 61 a. 2); therefore, in distributive justice, the more prominent a person's position in the community, the more of the common goods he should receive.

Did you catch it? Here's a hint: It's the same error that Obama and Pres. Jenkins of ND preach.

Benedict's call to temper the pursuit of profits with the pursuit of the common good misunderstands the function of the entrepreneur in creating wealth and ameliorating poverty.[2] It is impossible to conceive of the common good apart from its connection to entrepreneurial action. The French word 'entrepreneur' comes from the Latin "prehendo," to lay hold of, seize, grasp, catch, detain, or arrest.[3] It is an individual's entrepreneurial action in the pursuit of the goals he values most, using scarce factors of production, taking into consideration his costs, and guided by expected future prices in an unhampered market economy that creates wealth and diminishes poverty for society. Motivated by profit, the entrepreneur plans and then acts to satisfy the needs of other individuals. The common good is the unintended, but logically necessary byproduct of the entrepreneurial process. There exists no other rational mechanism to achieve the common good.

Ok, ok. I give up. These guys are so hung up on the temporal that they miss the whole point. The Pope's WHOLE SHPIEL in this encyclical is precisely that you can conceive of "common good apart from its connection to entrepreneurial action." Common good entails the spiritual good of the masses. In other words, fulfilling the role of the State in its duty to perfect the citizens in virtue and help get them to heaven. I honestly wonder if they read the whole document.

It is precisely distributive justice mechanisms controlled by the state which interfere with entrepreneurial activity, destroy wealth, and create poverty. The common good is the result of an integral dynamic process of human action in an environment of freedom.

Yeah, and it's the forces unleashed by unchecked capitalism that lead to materialism and uninhibited gratification of disordered appetites. This is stuff you don't really see addressed in economic discussions. I get that. It's also what makes these criticisms of what the Pope is saying unfair. They aren't even paying attention to the arguments he's making.

The social cohesion, solidarity, mutual trust, emancipation, friendship, reciprocity, and the pursuit of the common good of which Benedict speaks (#35 & #36) are the result of individual human actions. Society is the outcome of human action in an environment of the division of labor. Humans perceive that it is more efficient and effective to specialize in a particular function and then trade in the marketplace. It is because humans intuitively know this truth that friendship, belonging, solidarity, and even charity can and do arise in society; but the cause and effect relationship between human action and feelings of cohesion flow from the first to the second and not the other way around. Cohesion is the result of individual human action and not its precondition.

Right. God has nothing to do with any of this stuff.

Unhampered entrepreneurial action in free markets is not merely the most efficient and best way to achieve the common good, it is the only way. There is no "middle of the road." As Mises puts it, "The market economy … and the socialist economy preclude one another. There is no mixture of the two systems possible or thinkable. Production is either directed by the market or by the decrees of a production tsar."

What does "unhampered entrepreneurial action" do to save souls?

Contrary to Benedict's assertions that the market becomes a negative force if it is guided by selfish ends (#36), actors in a free market — and the entrepreneur in particular — do not have to be angels, saints, or unselfish to act to the benefit of the common good. Individuals simply need to employ means with the aim of attaining the goals they value and entrepreneurs simply need to comply with the wishes of the consumers who patronize them.

This pretty much sums it up. Who cares if all these folks go to hell as long as the market is left alone? The Pope cares. Everybody else should, too.

The rest of the article is basically this same straw man beat up over and over again, while decrying that the Pope didn't build on the "classical-liberal ideas" from Deus Caritas Est and Centesimus Annus. Maybe somebody should remind them that the Church's main interest isn't market-friendly economics. It's getting people to heaven.

Catholic Social Justice and the Free Market, Part V

Closing out our discussion on this topic, I wanted to look at some of the more recent magisterial items on the topic and maybe get a better idea of how subsidiarity got to be the stepchild when it comes to social justice discussions and a bit on how deformed notions of solidarity have taken hold.

I've seen lots of folks try to pin this stuff on Blessed Pope John XXIII. I am not quite sure where this comes from. He deals heavily with social justice topics in Mater et Magistra and Pacem in Terris, but it's not like there's anything really wacky (on this issue, at least) in either document.

I think that the door got nudged open with the closing document of Vatican II, a not-so-little ditty called Gaudium et Spes aka The Pastoral Constitution on the Church and the Modern World. Quite a mouthful, yes? Anyways, you have some lines in G&S that start pushing man and man's development in ways that would allow later folks to get a bit carried away (trying to be charitable here). For example, consider this statement:

According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be related to man as their center and crown.

And then contrast it with the first sentence of JPII's first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis:

The Redeemer of Man, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe and of history.

What with Jesus being the center of the universe and history, it would seem much more appropriate to say that all things on earth should be related to God as their center and crown. Moreover, G&S mentions subsidiarity a grand total of once and without any real elaboration. There are some other elements that go into this same equation, but I'm trying to be brief(er). My point is that you have a point of emphasis on man rather than God. This has the unfortunate tendency of starting down the slippery slope of the temporal being exalted over the supernatural. On top of that, you've got this huge emphasis on what I feel is the easy side of the equation, solidarity. Even the secular humanists will buy into this. Subsidiarity has been pushed into the background, though.

Then comes Populorum Progressio and things start to get a little weird.

When Paul VI discusses social justice, he seems to fall into the same rut as G&S. He seems to pay some lip service to subsidiarity (actually quoting from John XXIII in the process):

Hence programs are necessary in order "to encourage, stimulate, coordinate, suplement and integrate" the activity of individuals and of intermediary bodies. It pertains to the public authorities to choose, even to lay down the objectives to be pursued, the ends to be achieved, and the means for attaining these, and it is for them to stimulate all the forces engaged in this common activity. But let them take care to associate private initiative and intermediary bodies with this work. They will thus avoid the danger of complete collectivization or of arbitrary planning, which, by denying liberty, would prevent the exercise of the fundamental rights of the human person.

He makes the further point, though, that "However, local and individual undertakings are no longer enough. The present situation of the world demands concerted action based on a clear vision of all economic, social, cultural, and spiritual aspects."

First, the encyclical does not delve much into those "spiritual aspects." They are back-burnered. The rest of the sentence results in comments like:

This international collaboration on a world-wide scale requires institutions that will prepare, coordinate and direct it, until finally there is established an order of justice which is universally recognized. With all Our heart, We encourage these organizations which have undertaken this collaboration for the development of the peoples of the world, and Our wish is that they grow in prestige and authority.

It's easy to see how subsidiarity gets thrown out with the bathwater with comments like this, which I think are illustrative of the encyclical as a whole. I don't want it to seem like I'm piling on Pope Paul here, but this is the same guy who said that the United Nations was "the last, best hope of mankind." It's enough to give you the willies.

Anyways, these are the sorts of things that you hear when folks are looking for authorities to back up their twisted views on social justice.

JPII and Benedict XVI went a ways to restoring subsidiarity to the mainstream of Church thought. Of course, this means that they largely ignored by those looking to push agendas. For JPII, a lot (but not all) of this was a natural outgrowth of his battle with communism. Anyways, he did a much better job of addressing solidarity and subsidiarity in proper order:

The State must contribute to the achievement of these goals both directly and indirectly. Indirectly and according to the principle of subsidiarity, by creating favourable conditions for the free exercise of economic activity, which will lead to abundant opportunities for employment and sources of wealth. Directly and according to the principle of solidarity, by defending the weakest, by placing certain limits on the autonomy of the parties who determine working conditions, and by ensuring in every case the necessary minimum support for the unemployed worker.

In recent years the range of such intervention has vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type of State, the so-called "Welfare State". This has happened in some countries in order to respond better to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the human person. However, excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the "Social Assistance State". Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.

Centesimus Annus

As was ably pointed out by Haskovec below, Pope Benedict has picked up this ball in his own pontificate:

The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person – every person – needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need.

Deus Caritas Est

The idea of man-centric thinking seems also to be squarely in Pope Benedict's cross-hairs:

If progress, in order to be progress, needs moral growth on the part of humanity, then the reason behind action and capacity for action is likewise urgently in need of integration through reason's openness to the saving forces of faith, to the differentiation between good and evil. Only thus does reason become truly human. It becomes human only if it is capable of directing the will along the right path, and it is capable of this only if it looks beyond itself. Otherwise, man's situation, in view of the imbalance between his material capacity and the lack of judgement in his heart, becomes a threat for him and for creation. Thus where freedom is concerned, we must remember that human freedom always requires a convergence of various freedoms. Yet this convergence cannot succeed unless it is determined by a common intrinsic criterion of measurement, which is the foundation and goal of our freedom. Let us put it very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope.

Spe Salvi

The points made by these recent papal pronouncements returns us to the core issues of this series:

1. Man is responsible for his fellow man.
2. God is the source of this obligation. We love our fellow man because we love God Who created him.
3. This does not mean paternalism or economic domination by the state.
4. Temporal stuff is inferior to supernatural stuff.
5. In an extension of #2, God must be the source of all that we do on this scale to avoid exploitation or neglect of the supernatural in dealing with persons.

So that's what I got. Hope you enjoyed the series. If so, thank you. If not, please comment on what I got wrong.

Catholic Social Justice and the Free Market, Part IV A

I neglected this in my previous post because I think it deserves a place of its own. St. Clement of Alexandria wrote a great little treatise called Who is the Rich Man That Shall be Saved? on this topic of property and using it responsibly. It is a great piece of work, probably one of my favorites, and should be read by anyone who has an interest in this topic. Below are some snippets:

So also let not the man that has been invested with worldly wealth proclaim himself excluded at the outset from the Saviour's lists, provided he is a believer and one who contemplates the greatness of God's philanthropy; nor let him, on the other hand, expect to grasp the crowns of immortality without struggle and effort, continuing untrained, and without contest. But let him go and put himself under the Word as his trainer, and Christ the President of the contest; and for his prescribed food and drink let him have the New Testament of the Lord; and for exercises, the commandments; and for elegance and ornament, the fair dispositions, love, faith, hope, knowledge of the truth, gentleness, meekness, pity, gravity: so that, when by the last trumpet the signal shall be given for the race and departure hence, as from the stadium of life, he may with a good conscience present himself victorious before the Judge who confers the rewards, confessedly worthy of the Fatherland on high, to which he returns with crowns and the acclamations of angels.

So that (the expression) rich men that shall with difficulty enter into the kingdom, is to be apprehended in a scholarly way, not awkwardly, or rustically, or carnally. For if the expression is used thus, salvation does not depend on external things, whether they be many or few, small or great, or illustrious or obscure, or esteemed or disesteemed; but on the virtue of the soul, on faith, hope, and love, and brotherliness, and knowledge, and meekness, and humility, and truth, the reward of which is salvation. For it is not on account of comeliness of body that any one shall live, or, on the other hand, perish. But he who uses the body given to him chastely and according to God, shall live; and he that destroys the temple of God shall be destroyed. An ugly man can be profligate, and a good-looking man temperate. Neither strength and great size of body makes alive, nor does any of the members destroy. But the soul which uses them provides the cause for each. Bear then, it is said, when struck on the face; Matthew 5:39 a man strong and in good health can obey. And again, a man who is feeble may transgress from refractoriness of temper. So also a poor and destitute man may be found intoxicated with lusts; and a man rich in worldly goods temperate, poor in indulgences, trustworthy, intelligent, pure, chastened.

But if one chooses to continue and to sin perpetually in pleasures, and values indulgence here above eternal life, and turns away from the Saviour, who gives forgiveness; let him no more blame either God, or riches, or his having fallen, but his own soul, which voluntarily perishes. But to him who directs his eye to salvation and desires it, and asks with boldness and vehemence for its bestowal, the good Father who is in heaven will give the true purification and the changeless life. To whom, by His Son Jesus Christ, the Lord of the living and dead, and by the Holy Spirit, be glory, honor, power, eternal majesty, both now and ever, from generation to generation, and from eternity to eternity. Amen.

Catholic Social Justice and the Free Market, Part IV

In continuing our examination of how Catholic concepts of social justice mesh (or conflict) with typical free market ideas, I thought it might be worthwhile to examine the Early Church Fathers for their ideas on the subject. You hear a lot from both sides of the fence on how the Fathers viewed these things. Guys like Mr. Woods, whose article gave birth to this series, mentions at one point that there were no mass demonstrations against poverty in the Middle Ages as an example of how the Church has not historically supported interventionist policies for assisting the poor. While I suppose this may be true, you don’t see much talk of cloning back then either. Economic conditions, like bioethics, have changed more than a bit since then. I get what Mr. Woods is trying to say. It’s sort of a “the poor you will always have with ye” argument. I don’t think it takes into account the historical lineage of both solidarity and subsidiarity that we have been talking about in this series of posts.

Disclaimer: I know that it’s tough to give a blanket version of what “the Fathers” thought on most topics. My goal here is just to show that both solidarity and subsidiarity have a foundation in the early centuries of Christianity, making it a difficult thing to ignore either of them.

Let’s begin with this notion of solidarity. A few of the Fathers really do look on wealth with the eyes of St. Peter and “the love of money being the root of all evil” (something we have to view as hyperbole, unless we wish to figure that the Richard Specks of the world kill for money). Here, for example, is St. Cyprian of Carthage writing in the mid-third century:

Wealth must be avoided as an enemy; must be fled from as a robber; must be dreaded by its possessors as a sword and as poison.

But how can they follow Christ, who are held back by the chain of their wealth? Or how can they seek heaven, and climb to sublime and lofty heights, who are weighed down by earthly desires? They think that they possess, when they are rather possessed; as slaves of their profit, and not lords with respect to their own money, but rather the bond-slaves of their money.

On the Lapsed

Pretty strong words here from Cyprian. He’s pretty clear that wealth is not necessarily a bad thing, but why burden your soul with something that may serve as an occasion of sin? Seems like being a rich guy ain’t easy either. To paraphrase Spider-Man, with great wealth, comes great responsibility. One might ask how great a responsibility it is.

Feed him that dies of hunger; for whenever thou canst save a man by feeding him, if thou hast not fed him, thou hast slain him.

St. Ambrose De Offic. (Quoted in Canon Pasce, dist. 86).

Aquinas also quotes this bit from Ambrose in the Summa when discussing the use and merits of leisure.

Anyways, Ambrose’s point is perhaps as succinct a definition of solidarity as you are liable to find. If all really are responsible for all as John Paul II has stated, then the idea of having slain the hungry man by withholding food that you could have provided logically follows. As to the why solidarity is the case:

When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of charity, we are paying a debt of justice.

Pope St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule

Here we see that the needs of the poor are not something that we are obliged to give merely out of charity or humanistic altruism. There is actually a debt of justice, which means that they are due these things regardless of our desire to be charitable, as justice does not demand an exercise of charity but rather of prudence in recognizing the existence and limits of the obligation due to the other. And for what it’s worth, your excuses really don’t matter all that much, according to St. John Chrysostom:

And what is the specious plea of the many? I have children, one says, and I am afraid lest I myself be reduced to the extremity of hunger and want, lest I should stand in need of others. I am ashamed to beg. For that reason therefore do you cause others to beg? I cannot, you say, endure hunger. For that reason do you expose others to hunger? Do you know what a dreadful thing it is to beg, how dreadful to be perishing by hunger? Spare also your brethren! Are you ashamed, tell me, to be hungry, and are you not ashamed to rob? Are you afraid to perish by hunger, and not afraid to destroy others? And yet to be hungry is neither a disgrace nor a crime; but to cast others into such a state brings not only disgrace, but extreme punishment.

10th Homily on 1 Thessalonians

So where does that leave subsidiarity? Let’s keep in mind that subsidiarity isn’t about whether the duties of solidarity exist. It’s about the “how” of fulfilling those duties. Folks who try to present an opposition between these principles either aren’t paying attention or are pushing an agenda that is very much not Catholic.

St. John Chrysostom actually provides a lot of material on this point. This first bit is from a small book called "On Living Simply: The Golden Voice of John Chrysostom” which is a compilation of his sermons addressing this topic. On page 43:

Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich man's gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone?

Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm. Those who combine both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again. Worse still, the rich whose gold was taken away would feel bitter and resentful; while the poor who received the gold from the hands of soldiers would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would actually do moral harm. Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion; a change of heart will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people's hearts first - and then they will joyfully share their wealth.

I wish the editor of this book would have provided a specific reference to this quote, as it is very striking and says much of what Pius XI was arguing in Quadragesimo Anno. Basically, the Tony Montanas of the world are going to be rich and screw over the poor regardless of the government or the legalities of a situation. The well-meaning rich will wind up bitter. The poor run the risk of ingratitude. This is a marvelous recipe for class warfare and Marxist cultivation. This idea of the participation of the poor in this who process is something that many pushing massive governmental intervention for the alleviation of poverty often neglect. It’s not just warnings about the rise of the welfare state. It’s the idea that the poor may forget their own obligations in this matter. Chrysostom also addresses this in the same homily on 1 Thessalonians:

Let us therefore, both poor and rich, cease from taking the property of others. For my present discourse is not only to the rich, but to the poor also. For they too rob those who are poorer than themselves. And artisans who are better off, and more powerful, outsell the poorer and more distressed, tradesmen outsell tradesmen, and so all who are engaged in the market-place. So that I wish from every side to take away injustice.

A joyful sharing of wealth would be the heart of subsidiarity. That sounds good. How can it be accomplished? You don’t see a whole lot of folks being responsible for their neighbor out there. For Chrysostom, it’s the change of hearts that’s needed, which I think almost necessarily means the preaching of the Gospel so as to head-off any feelings of “poor people are inferior and must be dictated to” paternalism.

Consider also Chrysostom’s 32nd Homily on 1 Corinthians:

There would be no poverty, no unbounded wealth if there were love, but only the good parts that come from each. From the one we should reap its abundance, and from the other its freedom from care and should neither have to undergo the anxieties of riches nor the dread of poverty.

Ah, that dread of property thing again. Cyprian started us off with that principle and Chrysostom has brought us right back there again. Love is a great antidote for this problem. Not love of money, which St. Peter warns against, but rather love of others. Sure, having more money makes it easier to love money, but having greater love makes it even more difficult, I think, to see money as anything more than the unliving thing that it is.

Again, from St. John Chrysostom:

It is not as absolutely bringing an accusation against those who are wealthy that I say all this; nor as praising the poor without reference to circumstances: for neither is wealth an evil, but the having made a bad use of wealth; nor is poverty a virtue, but the having made a virtuous use of poverty. That rich man who was in the time of Lazarus was punished, not because he was rich, but because he was cruel and inhuman. And that poor man who rested in the bosom of Abraham was praised, not because he was poor, but because he had borne his poverty with thankfulness.

Homily Against Publishing the Errors of the Brethren

Nutshelling all this, we’ve got the idea that property is Ok, something that I think Mr. Woods and I both agree on. However, this responsibility to use property in the correct way is not something that will be especially nourished by a totally unfettered free market. This is borne out from QA and the above quotes I think. Without that change of hearts, people will continue to be fine with treating other people as commodities. Is the proper method of alleviating this some sort of government intervention? Certainly not at a high level, this would be both temporally and spiritually harmful for poor and rich alike. Subsidiarity must be respected if the problems Chrysostom envisioned are to be minimized.

Catholic Social Justice and the Free Market, Part III

When we last left off in our discussion of Thomas Woods article on this subject, the question was do the opinions expressed in Pope Pius XI's encyclical Quadragesimo Anno necessitate high-level government redistribution of income? I responded that it did not. Here's why I think that.

As Mr. Woods correctly points out, there has long been a strong defense of private property rights throughout Church teaching. It is an often forgotten point of Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum. Considering the Church's historical role as communism's greatest and most implacable foe, this is understandable.

What has happened in the last 40 years or so is that a certain aspect of the Church's teaching, namely, solidarity, has swallowed up and completely buried its sister principle, subsidiarity. If you don't think this is a realistic portrayal of things, check the index to the Church's Compendium of Social Doctrine. Solidarity has around 81 references. Subsidiarity has 15, and at least 3 of those are also references for solidarity. This is imbalance due to the infiltration of Marxist ideas into the Church as I mentioned previously in this series of posts.

I'm not really going to discuss solidarity, as we currently get preaching and public statements about solidarity out of our collective wazoos. In a nutshell, it "is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good. That is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.” (Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis).

Subsidiarity, on the other hand, is described in QA with the following terms:

"Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them."

The Compendium of Social Doctrine expands on this:

"The principle of subsidiarity protects people from abuses by higher-level social authority and calls on these same authorities to help individuals and intermediate groups to fulfil their duties. This principle is imperative because every person, family and intermediate group has something original to offer to the community. Experience shows that the denial of subsidiarity, or its limitation in the name of an alleged democratization or equality of all members of society, limits and sometimes even destroys the spirit of freedom and initiative."

Basically, social justice problems should be taken care of on the most local level of authority possible.

It is easy to understand these points and why they are so important. One only need look at the current status of American schools to see precisely the effects that top-down monopolization of resources can have. Sure, providing a free education to everyone was a very noble aspiration. Unfortunately, as the system has become increasingly federalized, quality has gone into the crapper. I suggest that those in favor of a similar solution for health care problems take note of this.

Anyways, when you take the combined teachings in defense of private property and the need for subsidiarity, it's pretty difficult (for me, at least) to envision Church doctrine as promoting the sort of forced redistribution that seems to be emphasized by so many Church leaders and laity these days. The Compendium itself cautions against the formation of the "Welfare State"

Frankly, I think we like to ignore subsidiarity. God forbid that we actually be taken to task for solving these issues at the local level. It's much easier to pass the buck down the road to Washington (or wherever) and expect them to take care of our problems. Why should we folks be expected to (gasp!) exercise virtue ourselves?

Anyways, that's my shpiel for this. Next time, we'll take a step back to see what the Early Church Fathers had to say on the subject and then we'll close out with a review of some modern papal pronouncements in light of the rest of the discussion.

Catholic Social Justice and the Free Market, Pt. II

As I mentioned below, Mr. Woods has some very good points in his article on this topic. Specifically, he has some outstanding criticisms of ideas that have become accepted out of hand as THE orthodox view of how the problems of poverty and economic inequality are to be handled.

However, starting on around page 3, I think he begins to overstate certain things. For example, he states that the phrase "preferential option for the poor" was coined by liberation theologians. While the precise phrase indeed has its origins with liberation theology, the concept is not that new. Consider the definition that Woods gives for the preferential option:

• "It means we should formulate economic policy, and design our institutional framework, with a special eye to improving the well-being of the poor in particular."

Now compare that with this bit from Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno:

• "The function of the rulers of the State is to watch over the community and its parts; but in protecting private individuals in their rights, chief consideration ought to be given to the weak and the poor."

Sounds pretty similar to me. In fact, I don't think Woods mentions QA at all in his entire article. With regards to what Woods believes is the preferential option for the poor, he posits the free market. To a certain extent, he is correct. However, I would temper this by saying that things that are free tend to be so because there are laws in place to protect them. I would suggest that a system that promotes injustice (which is merely a possibility, not a necessity of free markets) cannot be all that free. We must guard against this tendency.

Again from QA:

Just as the unity of human society cannot be founded on an opposition of classes, so also the right ordering of economic life cannot be left to a free competition of forces. For from this source, as from a poisoned spring, have originated and spread all the errors of individualist economic teaching. . .

But free competition, while justified and certainly useful provided it is kept within certain limits, clearly cannot direct economic life - a truth which the outcome of the application in practice of the tenets of this evil individualistic spirit has more than sufficiently demonstrated. Therefore, it is most necessary that economic life be again subjected to and governed by a true and effective directing principle. This function is one that the economic dictatorship which has recently displaced free competition can still less perform, since it is a headstrong power and a violent energy that, to benefit people, needs to be strongly curbed and wisely ruled. But it cannot curb and rule itself.

Does this necessitate high-level government redistribution? Not really. More on that next time.

Catholic Social Justice and the Free Market

This is an article by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. over at InsideCatholic.com entitled A Catholic Defense of the Free Market.

He brings forth multiple interesting points here, and I think I'm going to make it a series as I run through the different issues addressed. To sort of set the backdrop, I'm going to bring up a couple of things that often get ignored in all the hullaballoo that goes on whenever this topic comes up.

The infiltration of socialist thinking into the Church is a direct product of the Second Vatican Council's refusal to condemn communism. And yes, I use the words socialism and communism interchangeably. I have yet to see a convincing argument for the semantic word games people like to play with these terms, so I will continue to regard them as synonymous for all practical purposes.

It is a little known tidbit of history that Pope John XXIII had a clandestine deal negotiated with the Soviet Union in order to assure the presence of Russian Orthodox clergy at the Council. This deal, usually labelled The Pact of Metz, carried with it Pope John's promise that the Council would not issue a condemnation of communism.

The lack of such a condemnation was a striking omission to folks paying attention. Communism had no greater enemy on the planet than the Catholic Church. This abominable doctrine had been utterly reprobated since its inception by every Pope who dealt with the subject. Unfortunately, supporters of Marxist thought were percolating throughout the clergy, and Vatican II's silence gave them the opportunity to bubble up to the service. This problem of Vatican II giving an inch, followed by heretics taking a mile is a familiar pattern in the post-conciliar era.

In this case, the dissent indeed took the form of the so-called "liberation theology" of certain Latin American churchmen. This mixing of Marxism and Christianity brought an extreme crackdown from Pope John Paul II and then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. That such thinking is heretical cannot be doubted. You either wind up with "better theology through guns" or the replacement of the Church's primary goal, that of the supernatural mission to save souls, with a purely natural end of caring for temporal needs. Frankly, it doesn't profit a guy much to get a good meal if he winds up in hell.

Of course, by the time JPII and Cardinal Ratzinger were on the scene, the damage had been done. Marxist theories had thoroughly penetrated into the minds of many clergy and were being disseminated as legitimate. Dissent having been made noble and glamorous in the 60s and 70s, people were firmly ensconced in their views of not giving a crap what the Magisterium actually said. And that's how we got where we are.

Preferential option for the poor is now regarded as a mandate for communism. The temporal is exalted above the supernatural. Catholic social policy is painted more and more in left-wing shades, which further complicates our political position by confusing the faithful voters into thinking that they can actually support pro-abortion candidates just because this individual is in favor of a large federal welfare state.

Let me be clear from the outset. I do not think Mr. Woods is correct in his treatment of the matter either, and he passes over a great deal that seems to me very important here. We'll explore the different facets of this deal over the next couple of weeks, I think.

For those who seek references for my above comments, I suggest any talks given by Fr. Vincent Micelli, SJ or the book Iota Unum by Romano Amerio.