Catholic social teaching to help the new administration

The American public seems to be losing its fear of “popery” influencing the president of the United States.  When Al Smith ran for president in 1928 that was the cry of the opposition, and it worked.  He was defeated by many who feared that, as a Catholic, he would be ruled by whatever the pope said.  The same fear almost worked against John F. Kennedy in 1960.  But here we are in 2020, and Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic, has won the presidency with many more popular votes than Kennedy received.  And also, a majority of the justices on the Supreme Court are now Catholic.

These are good things, because there are many points in Catholic social teaching that could help President-elect Joe Biden, the Supreme Court  and all of us fellow Americans, whether we be Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or agnostic or atheist.  The basis of modern Catholic social teaching is found in papal encyclicals beginning with Pope Leo XIII in 1891 who wrote “Rerum Novarum” (“Of New Things”).
Encyclical letters are usually meant for all Catholics but they frequently are on subjects that affect the lives of all humanity.  Although not infallible statements, they are official Catholic teaching.  With the industrial revolution affecting the conditions of labor throughout the world for better and worse, Pope Leo XIII thought it was time for the Catholic Church to share its rich tradition of moral teaching on the dignity of work, justice, care of the poor and the common good of everyone.

He defended the right to private property as Marxism and socialism were on the rise.  He approved of credit and loans, necessary for a capitalist system, while warning against “individualist economics.”  He insisted on the right of the state to insure decent working conditions and just wages. Workers, he said, had a right to form unions but admitted that there were good unions and bad unions.  

He also cautioned that government intervention could become excessive. And he reminded both Church and State that they had an obligation to care for the most vulnerable members of society.  He told a movement in Italy, at the time called Christian Democracy, to steer clear of partisan politics.  

The next great social encyclical came during the great world-wide depression in 1931.  Written by Pope Pius XI, its title was “Quadragesimo Anno” (“On the Fortieth Year,” referring back 40 years to “Rerum Novarum”).  In English it is often called “On the Christian Social Order.”  Pope Pius XI condemned communism, by then flourishing in Russia, and warned against a type of socialism that held a flawed, materialistic view of humanity and society.  He strongly supported labor organizations and insisted on government action on behalf of the poor.  

He balanced this with an insistence on “subsidiarity,”  meaning that the government should not do for the people what they and non-governmental organizations could do for themselves. He warned against antagonism between labor, management and government and went so far as to suggest that employees have a representative seat at the table.  Some of these ideas have been used in European countries.  

A classmate of mine, Father Frank Colborn, recently wrote a book ,“The
Evolution of Catholic Social Ethics,” in which he states that “A few hundred worker-owned cooperatives exist in the U.S., and many more elsewhere, as in Spain and Italy.”  He also sees the employee stock option plans offered by some U.S. companies as flowing from ideas like these initiated by Pope Pius XI.  With the fascism of Mussolini controlling Italy during his pontificate, it is easy to understand the pope’s thinking.

That he published his encyclical was daring.  

World War II and Pope Pius XII followed.  He wrote major encyclicals on sacred Scripture and liturgy but none on social ethics.  His critics fault him for not condemning Nazism.  He chose neutrality, there being so many Catholics in Germany and its army.  However, he did hide Jews in the Vatican and in monasteries throughout Italy, for which he was honored after by the State of Israel. The next pope, Pope John XXIII who called the Second Vatican Council was universally loved. Before the council began, he wrote an encyclical on Christianity and Social Progress entitled by its first two Latin nouns, “Mater et Magistra” (“Mother and Teacher”).  He reviewed all the major themes of his predecessors and raised some entirely new topics, stressing the need for justice in international economic relations and the need for widespread education, especially of the young, about Catholic social teaching.  He also clearly defined the major Catholic social goal of the common good: “the sum total of those conditions of social living whereby men are enabled to achieve their own integral perfection more fully and more easily.”  

While applauded by international leaders, he was severely criticized by economic philosophers, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek and the popular novelist Ayn Rand who defended selfishness, saying that we should do nothing for another without being paid for it and that religions teaching unselfishness are evil.  Criticism didn’t bother Pope John XXIII. He followed up with another encyclical, “Pacem in Terris” (“Peace on Earth”).  It was well received by a world fearful of nuclear proliferation.

Then the council that Pope John XXIII called published its document on “The Church in the Modern World” condemning the destruction of large areas and their populations.  It also promoted freedom of faith and practice for all religions.

Pope John XXIII died in 1963 and was followed by Pope Paul VI who concluded the council and wrote an encyclical on international development, “Populorum Progressio” (the “Development of Peoples”). He called for fairer terms of trade between countries of unequal wealth and resources.  He also reminded the world of the Bible’s call to welcome immigrants and provide for them.  He endorsed people to people programs like the U.S. Peace Corps.  During the council, which Pope Paul VI headed in its last three sessions, there was one intervention against racism made by Bishop Robert E. Tracy, the first bishop of the Diocese of Baton Rouge. This was followed up by a letter from the U. S. Catholic bishops in 1979, “Brothers and Sisters to Us,” denouncing racism as a “sin” which divides the human family and “violates the fundamental dignity of those called to be children of the same father.”

St. John Paul II was the next pope to write encyclicals, too many to comment on here.  His most important encyclical on social ethics is “Centesimus Annus: On the Hundreth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum.”  At the beginning he states that the “new evangelization”  he had been promoting must include the church’s social doctrine.  He applauds the gains made in the areas of Social Security, pensions, health insurance and compensation in the case of accidents.  He also baptizes as good the building of democratic societies inspired by social justice while maintaining free markets and subjecting them to “social control.”  He gives credit to managers and entrepreneurs who contribute to the common good.  But he warns against “consumerism ... a style of life which is presumed to be better when it is directed toward ‘having’ rather than ‘being’ ... in order to spend life in enjoyment as an end in itself.”  Widening his view to the government, he says that “it is the task of the state to provide for the defense and preservation of common goods such as natural and human environments, which cannot be safeguarded by market forces alone.”  (God save our national parks.)

Pope Benedict XVI followed John Paul II.  He produced his own encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate: Charity in Truth”  His point was that without truth, social concern becomes do-goodism.  Love demands action that affects political and financial institutions.  Profit as the exclusive goal without regard for the common good is bad.  We have to practice “gratuity,” or generosity that leads us to do more than is required. This is necessary to make the market economy serve the common good. This leaves us with Pope Francis, whose lengthy encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si’,” we have  already discussed in former columns.  Let’s see how much Catholicism our new national administration will actually reflect.

FATHER CARVILLE is a retired priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge and writes on current topics for The Catholic Commentator. He can be reached at [email protected].