Dear St. Rita Parishioners,
The development of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) over the course of the last 130 years or so has been driven by the various social, political, and economic upheavals of our very fast-paced, modern world. In this context, it is imperative to note that the doctrine presented under the heading of Catholic Social Teaching is not new doctrine, but is rather the Church’s attempt to apply the principles of Christian charity to far-reaching circumstances that profoundly affect many people, and which are also rapidly developing and changing. This is no small task, hence the proliferation of encyclicals and other documents over the years. For our purposes, though, we must allow the principles set forth in CST to inform our approach to politics, economics, and social life. Practically, that means stepping outside of our own political, economic, and social milieu that is constantly bombarding us with ideology.
An important moment for me in the seminary was a back-and-forth in class between a professor and seminarian, whose background was economics. The seminarian struggled to mesh the “laws of economics” with an appropriate Christian anthropology. In other words, the question he wrestled with was, “Do the ‘laws’ of economic behavior adequately describe human nature?” For him, the struggle was to accept that human nature cannot be reduced to the laws of economics – we are called to something higher and can, in fact, live better than that, even if those laws may describe how we tend to react given the various economic stimuli. For me, the realization was that the economic world had a different way of conceiving of man than the Church.
In paragraphs 29-45 of Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo offers a brief summary of the various encyclicals of the recent popes on CST, and he highlights their context and their enduring teaching. What the Church has been trying to do with this doctrine is to ensure that Catholics (and the world, if it wants to listen!) remain attentive to the revelation of Jesus Christ about mankind, and that we do not become partisanly skewed in our understanding of ourselves, God, and the world. Indeed, in a world that looks profoundly different than the world of Leo XIII who wrote the first encyclical in this corpus of what is now called Catholic Social Teaching, and in a world that is even more different than that of the Renaissance or the Middle Ages, it is all the more important that we remain rooted in Revelation and the teaching of the Church.
It was the Church who upheld the West after the upheavals of the fall of Rome and during the spread of Islam, and the political, economic, and social order that was established in many ways grew out of ecclesial life. And, while it was not without its problems (often significant), the modern cry for a “more just social order” (MH 30) stems partly from the fact that with the Enlightenment movement in particular of the 19th century, society has attempted to create itself anew apart from ecclesial (and ecclesiastical) influence. The result has been that society has lost sight of its divine goal and purpose, which calls men to something higher than just the successes, comforts, and even peace of this world. And when society has no divine purpose in mind, when we are reduced to economic laws, when all we have to live for is what I (or we) can have in this life, then I become unwilling to sacrifice the goods of this life for something higher. It becomes harder for me to avoid conflict with another – because, why should I? This life is all I have, and material possessions are often a zero sum game. If you have it, then I can’t have it. And if I want (or ‘need’) it bad enough, then I will justify taking it from you.
Therefore, it is precisely in the context of a society designed apart from God that Catholic Social Teaching is necessary. You and I must seek to apply these principles according to our state in life and our place in society, and we must strive not to conflate the principles of CST with a particular political or economic faction, even if there is some overlap in one direction or another. When the Church says that She is not partisan, She means that Her goal is the glory of God and the salvation of souls, NOT the election or rise to power of a particular candidate for the sake of power and influence. Thus, as a rule She limits Herself to teachings about “the issues” rather than commentary about persons. Catholic Social Teaching should influence our thought about the issues, which can guide us in our political choices and in our voting.
Thus, I encourage you to look through the principles laid out in the encyclicals that embody the corpus of CST: “the primacy of human labor over any mindset focused solely on finance or productivity — with the consequent attention to the people and families most susceptible to exploitation — and the inseparable link between proclaiming the Gospel and pursuing a more just social order” (MH 30), “the principle of subsidiarity…[a]ccording to [which], whatever can be carried out by individuals, families, intermediary organizations and local communities should not be carried out by higher-level authorities” (31), “the societal role of private property,” the denunciation of “forms of totalitarianism that demean the dignity of the person, stifle life in society, exalt the State above its just value and discriminate according to race” (31), “the need for law to take precedence over interests; the awareness that economic disparities are a breeding ground for tension and violence; and the necessity of a network of associations capable of mediating between the individual and the State” (32). And there are plenty more!
The reason we must be attentive to these items in a way that steps out of our own political, economic, and social milieu is that we are prone either to reject or adopt them outright if we associate them with a particular political party and their goals. If you hear, for example, the language of “discrimination according to race” as code for encouraging DEI, then you may forget that the original proclamation of the principle stems more from the history of Nazi Germany than from either the Civil Rights Moment or even “No Irish Need Apply.” The Church proclaims clearly that we do not discriminate based on race, but what She means by that does not fall neatly into a modern, political category or ideology. There is, of course, much more we could say about this, but the point now is simply to read all the language of the Church in the context of the Gospel and the Church’s perennial teaching, as opposed to partisan politics.
In Christ,
Fr. Christensen