Politicians and economists consider: Can Catholic social teaching help get us beyond the current economic crisis?

It is increasingly acknowledged, indeed by some surprising sources, that Catholic Social Teaching offers one of the most persuasive and morally interesting responses to the recent financial crisis.

That’s Anne Rowlands, of King’s College in London, in an article posted this month at Thinking Faith: The Online Journal of the British Jesuits. The article is called “Catholic Social Teaching: Not-so-secret anymore?”, and the “surprising sources” Rowlands has in mind are leading British politicians and economists. She writes that a growing number of them are beginning to recognize Catholic social teaching as an important resource for moving beyond the economic crisis. They see that “CST envisions a world of value, relationship and social creativity beyond the narrow confines of a framework couched primarily in the language of profit, marketization, choice and endless consumption.”

The crisis has presented the church, Rowlands says, with a great opportunity “to make the case for a Catholic vision of economic life” because “many of the alternative narratives have run into moral cul-de-sacs and there is a greater openness to a degree of reflection on the last three or four decades of policy-making, its social impact and the model of the human person at its heart.”

That’s exciting stuff. And there’s more, too. I was especially interested in her comments about the way CST has provided concrete resources for helping the British political Left to “re-orient its politics,” the  “fundamental coherence” of the various points of Catholic social teaching, and the need for discussion of “structures of virtue” to compliment CST’s awareness of “structures of sin” in society.

Have a look.

Archbishop Aquila on abortion and a culture of life

Kudos to Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila, who made public a well-done pastoral letter on abortion yesterday, the fortieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

There’s a lot to like about the letter. He opens by sharing some personal experiences that are startling and real. He acknowledges that we have all been complicit by our complacency, our ineffective action, or, for some, our pro-choice positions. He offers a beautiful quotation from a homily of Pope John Paul II during his 1987 pastoral visit to America that I wasn’t familiar with. He insists that human dignity is central to a healthy culture — and that that means more than just respect for unborn babies:

A culture of life, quite simply, is one which joyfully receives and celebrates the divine gift of life. A culture of life recognizes human dignity not as an academic or theological concept, but as an animating principle—as a measure of the activity of the family and the community. A culture of life supports most especially the life of the family. It supports and celebrates the dignity of the disabled, the unborn, and the aged. A culture of life seeks to live in gratitude for the gift of life God has given us.

If we want to build a culture of life, we need to begin with charity. Social charity, or solidarity, is the hallmark of a culture of life and a civilization of love. It allows us to see one another through the eyes of God, and therefore to see the unique and personal worth of one another. Charity allows us to treat one another with justice not because of our obligations, but because of our desire to love as God loves.

This charity must begin in the family. Our families are the first place where those who are marginalized, and whose dignity is forgotten, can be supported. To build a culture of life we must commit to strengthening our own families, and to supporting the families of our community. Strong families beget the strong ties which allow us to love those most in danger of being lost to the culture of death.

The charity of the culture of life also supports works of mercy, apostolates of social justice and support. Families impacted by the culture of death are often broken. Supporting adoption, marriage, responsible programs of social welfare and healthcare, and responsible immigration policy all speak to a culture which embraces and supports the dignity of life.

I think if I’d been writing the letter, I’d have made sure to acknowledge the very difficult situations in which people find themselves that leads them to contemplate and choose abortion. I’d have noted that there is in our times a moral blind spot that allows many, many good people to miss the reality of the situation. And I’d also have included a strong statement that God’s mercy is always available to those who have been involved in abortion.

I might also hesitate to headline the entire letter with reference to “the culture of death” (the letter is titled, “40 Years of the Culture of Death”), because of the grave moral judgments it suggests against anyone who does not agree with church teaching. With that title, is anyone who does not already agree going to read any further?

But all in all, Archbishop Aquila’s letter makes for worthwhile reading.

Speaking of good reading on this dark anniversary, I’d also point out Simcha Fisher’s column (on the many reasons that using graphic abortion images to protest legal abortion is usually not a good idea) posted yesterday at the National Catholic Register and Charles Camosy’s post (on the inaccuracies of some conventional wisdom on the subject) at the Catholic Moral  Theology blog.

January 22: A day of penance and prayer

In all the dioceses of the United States of America, January 22 (or January 23, when January 22 falls on a Sunday) shall be observed as a particular day of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion, and of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life. The Mass “For Peace and Justice” (no. 22 of the “Masses for Various Needs”) should be celebrated with violet vestments as an appropriate liturgical observance for this day. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 373

On a dark anniversary: abortion and Catholic social teaching

This Tuesday, January 22, marks the fortieth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade and companion Doe v. Bolton decisions. It’s worth pointing out on this blog, which spends so much time considering Catholic social teaching (CST), that the the abortion issue falls directly — not peripherally, but directly — under the umbrella of the Church’s social teaching and should be understood in the context of it.

That’s not just my quirky take or the theory of a few “liberal” CST enthusiasts who wish the pro-lifers would get as excited about “their” issues as they do about abortion. Pope John Paul II and now Pope Benedict XVI have been adamant about the fact. (See, for example, John Paul’s Evangelium Vitae, sections 5 and 20, and Benedict’s Caritas in Veritate, section 51.)

Why? Abortion has everything to do with CST because it is so clearly related to CST’s two central principles, the ones on which everything else rests.

First, there is human dignity. That abortion is a grave violation of human dignity is clear, and there’s no need to appeal to religion, revelation, or faith to make the point. Indeed, to be “pro-choice” about abortion, one must rely completely “on faith,” believing against all empirical evidence that what is being snuffed out is not a human life. The remarkable Christopher Hitchens — “liberal,” adamantly atheist, and pro-choice — insisted in an essay a decade ago (in which he defended a woman’s right to choose) that denying that the fetus is a living, individual, human person is “obvious nonsense from the biological and embryological points of view.”

(This is not to oversimplify. I recognize and agree that the moral significance of abortion can vary depending on circumstances, including situation, level of development of the fetus, and more. Saying so is completely consistent with Catholic moral theology. But just as killing a stranger accidentally because you were driving drunk and killing your neighbor’s child after weeks of planning because you despise your neighbor both differ greatly in moral significance and are both grave offenses against human dignity, so with abortion.)

Even the “secular” argument can establish abortion as a violation of human dignity, based simply on biology and basic human rights. Throw in the theological principle of the sacredness of the human person, who is made in the image of God and with whom God united himself in the incarnation of Jesus, not to mention the fifth commandment, and the case becomes all the more clear.

Second, there is human solidarity, the moral response to the factual interdependence we share with one another. (Though it is often said that human dignity is the central principle of CST, I suggest in Faith Meets World  that it’s more accurate to think of CST as a bicycle with two wheels — human dignity and human solidarity — upon which all the rest rides. This is not just my thinking. In his encyclical Centissimus Annus (section 10), Pope John Paul II wrote that solidarity is “one of the fundamental principles of the Christian view of social and political organization.” ) Solidarity, too, sheds much light on the nature of abortion. The very same moral impulse that compells us to care for those around us, especially the weakest and most vulnerable among us, because they are one of us, because we are all members of the same human family, demands that we reject abortion. It not only violates the solidarity between a mother and her child, but between human society and each person, each family, who make it up.

Throw in the theological/doctrinal principles that we are all children in the family of God, that we share and are intended to share a communion with one another that is analogous to the life of the blessed Trinity (again, we’re made in the image of God), that we’re therefore called to a preferential option for the poorest and most vulnerable, and the reality becomes even clearer.

Forty years of legal abortion in the U.S. means two generations of aborted children and two generations of the rest of us living in, being complicit with, and being formed by that reality. This Tuesday, January 22, should be for each of us a day of reflection and regret, of fasting and repentance.

Pre-orderable

Faith Meets World: The Gift and Challenge of Catholic Social Teaching is now available for pre-order. It’s available (at the links) from Liguori, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or an independent bookseller. (Unfortunately, at this point the Amazon page lacks the book’s description and both B&N and Indiebound both lack cover images. I’ll work with the publisher to see if we can fix that.) Thanks for considering it!