Catholic Social Teaching: An Introduction

In this episode, Malcolm Schluenderfritz and Jason Wilde draw on a wide range of Catholic sources to explain the basic principles of Catholic Social Teaching. We’ve included the sources we’ve quoted below. What is Catholic Social Teaching? Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is often misunderstood. When it is brought up, people can be quick to think of economics . . . or of socialism! It is also a complicated topic and isn’t discussed enough. Humans are social beings. CST is the Church’s teaching on our social interactions. We’re called to live with justice and charity toward our neighbors. The Beatitudes and the Works of Mercy can help us to understand CST, which can be seen as the Works of Mercy applied to society. Justice and Charity Without justice, charity is useless. We’d be highly offended if somebody stole our possessions, and then claimed to be charitable when they gave a few of them back! Too often, Christians focus on personal charity but ignore the aspect of justice. The teaching of the Church, going all the way back to St. John Chrysostom, is that feeding the poor is a matter of justice, not merely of charity. We can also see the works of mercy, the acts of charity, as personal responses to failures of social justice. We have to personally aid the poor, but the Church’s CST also provides us with the tools to analyze and combat wider social injustices. Framing aid to the needy as a matter of justice rather than charity can be uncomfortable. We all instinctively realize that while even a small amount of charity is laudable, falling even a little short of what justice requires is reprehensible. Instead of feeling uncomfortable, we should take this opportunity to realize our need for a Savior. Only Jesus can save us from the web of evil in the world. We are all somewhat unjust on this side of Heaven. The Principles of Catholic Social Teaching All the CST principles are tightly interwoven. They each depend on the others; if we drop one or two of them the others don’t make sense. The Rights of Workers The rights of workers are tightly connected to the dignity of every human person, but they are also connected to the dignity of work itself. Through work, we can participate in God’s ongoing act of creation. Work needs to be properly oriented, both to sustaining those who perform it, and ultimately toward leisure. All work is for the sake of not working. It can be difficult to remember this in a culture with a deeply flawed view of work. Human Rights and Responsibilities All humans have certain basic rights; most fundamentally, the right to life, and to the basic necessities for living a good human life, such as food, shelter, clothing, basic medical care, and adequate rest. Every right comes paired with a responsibility. In the case of basic human rights, society and individual human beings have a responsibility to make sure that the rights of others are met. In our individual lives, we can’t let a focus on our own rights blur a realization of our duties toward others, and we should be willing to waive our lesser rights so that the more fundamental rights of others can be honored. The Preferential Option for the Poor and Vulnerable We all have rights, but the Church calls us to have a special concern for the poor and vulnerable. In part, this is just pragmatic; the poor and vulnerable are more likely to “fall through the cracks” unless they are given special attention. But it is also part of the Gospel Message. Christ said he came to bring good news to the poor. Poverty does not equal virtue, but it does help to prepare one’s heart to encounter Christ. (We discussed this in our episode on Gospel Poverty.) Solidarity Solidarity calls us to see all human beings as brothers and sisters. This has a natural dimension, but above all it has a spiritual dimension. We are called to see every other human being as created in the image and likeness of God, and as at least potential members of the Mystical Body of Christ. This means that we should care deeply about what happens to every human person, much as we would care about the members of our families or the members of our own bodies. The Dignity of the Human Person All CST is ultimately grounded in the Dignity of the Human Person. Every human being has this dignity from conception to natural death, which is why the Catholic Church opposed abortion and all other attacks on life. If we don’t believe in the fundamental dignity that each person has, we won’t see any reason to respect human rights, stand in solidarity with others, value human work, or care for those who are poor. The Call to Family, Community, and Participation But we are not just individuals; we are communal, and therefore we are called to seek the Common Good. Common Goods are those things which are not diminished by being shared. The ultimate common good is the contemplation of God in Heaven; this good is not diminished by being shared. Neither is the good of belonging to a family or community. Care for Creation As a community, we need to care for our common home and the common goods provided by Creation. This will the theme of our next CST episode, which will be an in-depth discussion of Laudato Si. Practical Applications On our website we have a list titled “101 Ways to Change Your Life Right Now!” If you want to start putting CST into practice, this list might be a good place to start. We’re not yet at 101, but we have more than 60 action items listed. (Contact us if you have any suggestions to add to the list.) Resources This is a list of most if not all of the sources we quoted during the episode (and some that we didn’t get time to quote!) with links to the originals where relevant. Text in bold before each section of quoted text was added by us to indicate the connection to our discussion in the episode. These sources come from different eras and help to show the unity of CST over time. Evangelium Vitae by Pope St. John Paul II Section 3: The Dignity of Every Human Life. “Every individual, precisely by reason of the mystery of the Word of God who was made flesh (cf. Jn 1:14), is entrusted to the maternal care of the Church. Therefore every threat to human dignity and life must necessarily be felt in the Church’s very heart; it cannot but affect her at the core of her faith in the Redemptive Incarnation of the Son of God, and engage her in her mission of proclaiming the Gospel of life in all the world and to every creature (cf. Mk 16:15) . . . .The Second Vatican Council, in a passage which retains all its relevance today, forcefully condemned a number of crimes and attacks against human life. Thirty years later, taking up the words of the Council and with the same forcefulness I repeat that condemnation in the name of the whole Church, certain that I am interpreting the genuine sentiment of every upright conscience: “Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practise them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonour to the Creator”” Let Us Dream, by Pope Francis pp. 52-53: Catholic Social Teaching is based on the Beatitudes. “Jesus gave us a set of keywords with which he summoned up the grammar of the Kingdom of God: the Beatitudes. They begin in the hope of the poor for the fullness of life, for peace and fraternity, for equity and justice. It is an order of existence in which values are not negotiated but sacrosanct. Reflecting on the kingdom of God in response to the way we live in the modern world, the Church has developed a series of principles for reflection, together with criteria for judgment that also offer directives for action. It is known as Catholic Social Teaching. While they are drawn from reflection on the Gospel, its principles are accessible to all, seeking to translate and set in motion the Good News in the here and now. “ pp. 116-117 The Dignity of Workers “There is a 12th-century midrash, or commentary, on the story of the Tower of Babel in chapter 11 of the Book of Genesis. The tower was a monument to the ego of the people of Babel. Building the tower required huge numbers of bricks, which were very expensive to make. According to the rabbi, if a brick fell it was a great tragedy: work was stopped and the negligent worker was beaten severely as an example. But if a worker fell to his death? the work went on. One of the surplus laborers—slaves waiting in line for work—stepped forward to take his place so that the tower could continue to rise . . .And nowadays? When shares of major corporations fall a few percent, the news makes headlines. Experts endlessly discuss what it might mean. But when a homeless person is found frozen in the streets behind empty hotels, or a whole population goes hungry, few notice; and if it makes the news at all, we just shake our heads sadly and carry on, believing there is no solution . . .Either a society is geared to a culture of sacrifice—the triumph of the fittest and the throwaway culture—or to mercy and care. People or bricks: it is time to choose.” Caritas in Veritate, by Pope Benedict XVI From paragraph 6: The Relation of Charity and Justice. “Charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what is “mine” to the other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting. I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice. If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them. Not only is justice not extraneous to charity, not only is it not an alternative or parallel path to charity: justice is inseparable from charity, and intrinsic to it.” Apostolicam Actuositatem, from the Second Vatican Council From Chapter II, Section 8: The Relation of Justice and Charity, Solidarity in Christ, Reform of the Social Order. “In order that the exercise of charity on this scale may be unexceptionable in appearance as well as in fact, it is altogether necessary that one should consider in one’s neighbor the image of God in which he has been created, and also Christ the Lord to Whom is really offered whatever is given to a needy person. It is imperative also that the freedom and dignity of the person being helped be respected with the utmost consideration, that the purity of one’s charitable intentions be not stained by seeking one’s own advantage or by striving for domination, and especially that the demands of justice be satisfied lest the giving of what is due in justice be represented as the offering of a charitable gift. Not only the effects but also the causes of these ills must be removed and...