Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and a happy 2016!

 





[Details of painting: here.]



Catholic Social Teaching University of Edinburgh Catholic Chaplaincy

I am currently giving a series of talks at the Catholic Chaplaincy in Edinburgh on the theme of Catholic Social Teaching and primarily intended for a student audience. Welcome to all those who are attending the talks and to anyone else who has come upon this site with a view to finding more information on Catholic Social Teaching!

For those attending the talks, you'll find a dedicated page for resources here.

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: final post

                                                              Christ Pantocrator*

This will be the final post of the four week course on Anthony Esolen's Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching. You are of course very welcome to add comments in the boxes at any time.

In the other posts this week, I've covered general issues such as Esolen's methodology and the question of the depth and detail of his vision of societies. In this final post, I want to say a little about a striking feature of Leo's social teaching which Esolen constantly emphasizes: the importance of the 'little platoons' or societies/associations which are intermediate between the State and the individual.

If there's one thing that characterises Catholic social teaching -and, even if not in all places, this is one place where Catholic social teaching has much in common with 'social conservatism'- it is an emphasis on the centrality of the family and civil society to human nature. Unlike some readings of liberal political philosophy, where individuals enter into social groupings, especially the State, by choice, Catholic social teaching emphasizes the existence of groups such as the family which exist prior to the State and, in many ways, prior to our individuality, let alone our individual choice. This is of course most clearly seen in the family: children find themselves within a family, owing duties and having rights with respect to other people that have not been freely adopted and which as much create a person as are create by it. Beyond the family, other associations (such as the neighbourhood or interest groups) also are not exactly freely chosen: again, there is an element of finding oneself already embedded in those little platoons rather than creating them ab initio.

Whatever else may be said about neuralgic issues such as divorce and same sex marriage, this observation helps to throw light on why these are taken so seriously by Catholics in a way that seems often incomprehensible to outsiders. For the classic liberal, the starting point is the individual and his or her freely chosen associations: the State is there to serve and facilitate those individual choices. For Catholicism, whatever truth there is in that liberal vision (and I would accept that there is much truth in it) it leaves out other key elements, among which, from the perspective of social teaching, the two most important are our relationship to God and his Church, and our relationship to our families. Just as individual rights are fundamental to liberalism, the rights of the biological family are a fundamental part of Catholic social thought. Putting aside our relationship to God for the moment (and Esolen's work stands as a reproach to the thought that such as secularised attitude can ever be an adequate starting point for social thinking), for Leo's social teaching, the family is one of the basic building blocks of society (indeed, in many ways, the building block) and any changes in it (even if possible) would require as much serious attention as attenpts to remake individual human beings. It is this importance of the family -quite apart from what reflection on that importance might bring- which makes recent changes in marriage law and practice so serious an issue for Catholic social teaching, a seriousness which is often completely baffling to non-Catholics.

That's it as far as the formal elements of the course are concerned! Thank you to all those who have followed along over the last weeks. For anyone coming to this course later on, I hope you find some of these posts useful. But, of course, the main thing I'd say is: make sure you've read Anthony Esolen's book! (Here.)



[Details of image here.]

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: post 12

This is the second in the final week's posts which aim to present a critical discussion of the book as a whole. In yesterday's post, I discussed Esolen's methodology. In today's post, I want to discuss some of the content of that vision of a Catholic society I suggested he was aiming to pass on.

A striking feature of Esolen's presentation has been his emphasis on aesthetics: not only has he continually engaged with the artistic in most of the chapters, but he has frequently focused on images. Indeed, the whole work could be perhaps be described as trying to show the integritas, consonantia and claritas (wholeness, harmony, radiance: the three aspects of beauty according to Aquinas) of a Catholic society. Rockwell's images above are but one example of the paintings considered by Esolen.

Now although in the post (post 4) I considered Esolen's remarks on Rockwell I admitted I disliked the paintings intensely, Esolen has a point in claiming that they do capture something right: roughly, the tenderness of young not-quite-yet-sexual love between the sexes. You might, if you prefer and have a stronger stomach than mine, consider Donny Osmond's Puppy Love as a further popular example of this theme:

Whatever is wrong with these artworks (and I'll go on to discuss that) their popular appeal on the theme of innocent love ought to give us some pause for thought. Esolen praises the way that Rockwell's images gesture to a life beyond the immediate: the children are situated in a social world of small town America; they are situated in the natural world accompanied by other species etc etc. But there is also a completeness: the children themselves- or at least the adult selves they gesture towards- also form a complete world between them, the world of the primary society which is the family.

A lot of Esolen's images have this completeness. In the final chapter, his imagining of a community at peace with itself at Mass as the perfect society is the paradigm of this completeness. The problem for actually existing societies -whether these are marriages, businesses or States- is that this degree of completeness seems impossible. Whether it is the bickering of even a happy marriage or the political antagonisms of the nation state, incompleteness and strife seem hardwired into actually existing societies. Moreover, it might be claimed, such an eristic atmosphere is necessary. Returning to the Rockwell images, whatever else might be said about them, they seem to fit Roland Barthes' category of readerly texts which have a closed, single message, rather than the more open writerly texts which invite numerous different interpretations through their incompleteness. Just as Rockwell's images are aesthetically inadequate because of their straightforwardness and (relative) hermetic completeness, so Esolen's images of perfect societies are politically inadequate because of their ignoring of complexity and indeed disharmony as necessary ingredients of modern (and indeed ideal) social life.

What might be said on behalf of Esolen in response to these criticisms? First, Esolen is not committed to the aesthetic defence of Rockwell: it is perhaps precisely in the lack of depth and complexity that the American Protestant/secular view of society is lacking. Indeed, once you take God and the community gathered round the sacrifice of Christ at the Mass out of society that it becomes trite and ultimately unrealistic. Something like Rockwell's view of small town American life is a fantasy (and not in the end even a terribly inviting fantasy). Something like Dante's Divine Comedy (about which Esolen has also written) is, whilst imaginative, both complex and deep. It is that sort of deep image that Esolen is claiming Leo XIII is presenting in his writings rather than the superficial image of Rockwell.

Secondly, there is the role of the coherent ideal even in the midst of disharmony and complexity. Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching is a relatively short book and it is an introduction to Leo's writings. (And Leo's writings themselves might be seen only an introduction to the full body of Catholic thought in this area.) But by presenting a relatively short, focused work which itself presents merely the sketch of an ideal, we are better able to orient ourselves when it comes to the nitty gritty of social life and politics. When all is in flux, a simplified, clear ideal may be of more use that a detailed, realistic representation. The London Underground map, for example, by simplifying and abstracting, is much more useful as a guide than a more realistic map of the rail network would be:

[There'll be a final post this week on Friday 18 September 2015!]

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: post 11

                                                                         Pope Leo XIII

We've now completed the systematic three week run through of Esolen's Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching chapter by chapter. For the remainder of this fourth and final week of the course, I intend to add some general posts which critically engage with the book as a whole.

In the first of these general posts, I'd like to focus on the issue of methodology. It's a frequent problem in book reviews that the reviewer complains that the book under discussion is not the book that the reviewer himself would have written. Esolen's book isn't and cannot be the final word on Catholic social teaching. But what are the specifics of his book and what might be said critically about the approach he has taken?

The most obvious thing to note is that it is a book solely about Leo XIII's teaching. Whatever else might be said about this, it does mean that, as a text on Catholic social teaching simpliciter, it is incomplete: much has been written by Popes and others since then. So one book this is not is the book that shows how contemporary magisterial teaching fits in with Leo's. Although there is, in principle, nothing wrong with a book that focuses solely on one Pope's understanding of Catholic social teaching, if it is intended to be a book that is aimed at a general audience rather than an academic one specialising in nineteenth century thought, the choice of this focus does require some explanation and even justification.

The first thing to say is that Esolen's book presents a vision more than an argument. He stresses the coherence (and one might add beauty) of Leo's view, but he does not engage in a detailed, philosophical defence of either its content or of its methodology. What you should make of that is a tricky question. I have no doubt that at least part of Esolen's aim is persuasive: he wants to persuade his readers that Leo's vision is right and that those who either reject Catholic social teaching in toto or reject Leo's/Esolen's version of it are wrong. Whether that persuasion is best accomplished by presenting your case as coherently as possible so that the sheer strikingness of the vision convinces or whether it is better to enter into detailed argument is another matter. Certainly, Esolen's approach is one way to convince people whether or not it is the most effective.

But even noting that Esolen's aim is to produce a persuasive vision of the whole does not directly explain why it has to be Leo's. Why couldn't it (eg) be John Paul II's or even contemporary Catholic social teaching as it now stands? I have no doubt that it could be: these are books that Esolen simply hasn't written rather than books that could not be written. The advantages of taking Leo's vision as a focus, however, bring me on to my second point: Leo stands at a crucial point between modernity and tradition in Catholicism and it is this point that Esolen is implicitly at least addressing in the book.

As I've mentioned before, Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum is often taken as the beginning of a new phase in Catholic teaching: the creation of a separate body of thought called Catholic Social Teaching. Esolen's aim is undoubtedly to undermine this sense of a chasm between the old and the new here by showing that Leo is firmly rooted in the past: if Leo founded Catholic social teaching, he did so in full continuity with past Catholic teaching. As well as the 'creation' of social teaching, Leo XIII is also famous for the revival of Thomism in his Encyclical Aeterni Patris (description here) and the social teaching he puts forward is what one would expect from someone soaked in the Aristotelianism of Thomist political and moral philosophy. Moreover, by being rooted in that Thomism, the social teaching falls into the general framework of Thomist discussions of beatitudo (human flourishing) and, in particular, of the relationship between our supernatural destiny with God and the goods of our natural life here on earth. If Leo is the founder of Catholic social teaching, then it is a teaching that is not separated from the philosophical and theological past, nor a teaching which separates human social life from our lives after death with God, nor one that ignores the importance of the liturgical life of the Church.

I'll go on to say something more tomorrow (16 September 2015) about some of the detailed content of Leo XIII's vision of human social life.

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: post 10

Week 4

Welcome to the final week of the course where we read through Anthony Esolen's Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching. If this is the first time you've joined us, please see this post which should navigate you through the course. After today's post -where I'll simply summarise the final chapter of the book- I'll post again this week to discuss critically some overall aspects of Esolen's work. Please feel free to comment on any issue you wish to tackle in the comment boxes.

My summary:

Esolen's final chapter can be summarised by his final words:

I know where a truly Catholic social order is to be found. It is found in a Church... (p186)

He does go on to say more about precisely what sort of Church this would be (full to bursting with repentant sinners; full of the faithful focused on God rather than themselves; where younger children are taken care of by the older children etc etc). But it is a Church and indeed the Church which embodies the completion of the social nature of human beings: the Church, gathered round the Eucharist, is the perfect society.

The central document for this chapter is perhaps Mirae Caritatis [here]. This Encyclical emphasises the centrality of the Eucharist to the good social life:

History bears witness that the virtues of the Christian life have flourished best wherever and whenever the frequent reception of the Eucharist has most prevailed.


My critical discussion:

As I've said above, I'll say more about this final chapter and indeed the whole book in further posts this week. For the moment, note the emphasis on two themes that Esolen is clearly identifying as central to the book and to the social teaching of Leo XIII. First, that a focus on God is central to good social life. Secondly, that a focus on the Church, and especially the Eucharist, is central to the God centred life.

I've suggested earlier that much of Esolen's book can be seen as an attempt to reintegrate Catholic social teaching into the main body of the Church traditional teaching. Here, we can see the heart of this: the integration of social concern into the heart of what might be seen as a traditionalist focus, the Liturgy of the Mass.

[I'll post tomorrow (15/9/15) further critical discussion of the book as a whole.]

[Details of image here.]

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: post 9

                                              Decoration Day St Thomas, Ontario (1959)*


Week 3: Chapter 8

Key points:

• Leo XIII's vision of a good social order is one based primarily on the family and the 'small platoons' of civil society
• The state has a role in preserving these societies, but must be careful not to undermine them
• The modern Western state is tending to undermine these societies

My synopsis:

This chapter really develops the themes of the previous one: the natural human need for society is primarily satisfied through those associations or societies with a human face: the family, the guild, or the workplace where there is a genuine friendship between employees and employer. Perhaps a quote best expresses this:

Leo's ideal is not State control, with individuals as wardens, but a society built up of societies: a culture truly social, based on human friendships and family ties and alliances. (p.164)


My critical discussion:

Esolen starts the chapter not with an artistic reference this time, but to a vignette from his childhood: a memory of Memorial or Decoration Day. There isn't an exact equivalent in Scotland for this North American practice (see here for details) but it is a near relative of Remembrance Sunday, albeit with an addition of a more personal, intimate tone given by the practice of decorating relatives graves.

The essential point here is that Decoration Day, at least as practised in Esolen's childhood, involved both public elements and also an intimacy. As well as the public acts of commemoration, this was also a 'family' space where genuine emotion for specific individuals, living and dead, could exist.

Esolen in this chapter says rather more perhaps about what the State shouldn't be than what it should be. In this, he is echoing a frequent complaint that the modern state is too powerful: it has taken upon itself functions that rightly belong to other, smaller societies such as the family. The problem with this encroachment is that it depersonalises society: instead of the existence of social spaces which foster friendship, the State replaces them with an impersonal bureaucracy which is not only depersonalising, but inefficient.

From a European viewpoint, it might be wondered whether Esolen says enough about the positive role of the State. The centralisation of State power is a feature of European life since (at least) the Late Middle Ages where the establishment of a strong national monarchy was at least in part justified on the grounds of establishing the rule of law over local, powerful individuals. (A cynic might well point out that the Mafia after all is a small platoon with a human face.) Whatever details remain to be worked out here, however, the general picture within that vignette of Decoration Day is an organic relationship between Church ( the town's ceremonials involve both Protestant and Catholic clergy), State (the commemoration of national sacrifice by legally appointed civil representatives against the background of a national (American) culture), 'guilds' (the associations of civil society such as the American Legion) and the family. It's also worth stressing the individual here, or at least that individual human being, Anthony Esolen. It is his memory of the events that is being relayed here: it is a public, impersonal ritual which has become, through the multiple attachments of the 'small platoons', something meaningful for him.


Questions:

• There is a nostalgic element to Esolen's vision. Does this undermine his argument? 
• Is the modern State (in the UK or in your own country) too powerful? 
• Is there something oppressive about living in a 'small platoon'? (The synopsis of Iain Crichton Smith's 'The Red Door' captures this thought here.) 

*[Details of image: Licensed under Creative Commons from Elgin County Archives. Full details here.]

[That was the last post for this week! I'll be posting on the final chapter (with critical reflection on the book as a whole) starting from 14 September 2015.]

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: post 8

Week 3: chapters 6-8.

We turn to chapter 7, 'Work'.

(If you've just joined us, have a look at this post for orientation...)

Key point:

• Work should be a fully human relationship where employer and employee are bound by friendship rather than simply power and money.

My synopsis:

Modern work dehumanises us. It encourages us to luxury and to use others simply as resources. On the other hand, work allows us to be fully human in serving and being served by our fellow man. As in all things, to ignore God in work is to cut away the foundation of our humanity.

My critical discussion:

Again, Esolen starts the chapter with a picture, Murillo's painting of the Holy Family (above), The space is full of 'business', but it is a business conducted in the sight and awareness of God, and between people who have a genuine affection and relationship with each other.

Esolen in this chapter turns to paradigmatic aspects of Catholic social teaching as it is known in the modern world: Leo's Rerum Novarum and the nature of work and the State. The very fact that it is only now, right near the end of the book, that these things emerge, is a sign that Esolen regards much of the presentation of Catholic social teaching as flawed. Rerum Novarum is not itself a new thing, but simply an application of existing Catholic principles. Wealth, poverty and work are not things which can be treated in isolation from our wider human nature, but have to be understood against an understanding of our natural and supernatural ends. The family, as the first society for human beings, helps us understand what it is to have a fully human relationship with others. Great art and the Western tradition of thought help us understand and apply abstract principles in concrete ways.

Leo's Encyclical, Rerum Novarum, makes much of the Guild: that body of workers who come together in self managing 'unions' and who establish a culture of mutual respect between master and worker. In essence, they are a way of bridging the gap between the affection of a family and the public, utilitarian space of work. The nearest equivalent in modern times is the profession (eg that of law). But even these are succumbing to the pressures of the market and being replaced by a more impersonal, temporary set of relationships between competitors.

Questions:

• What are the features of a successful working life?
• Is it possible to be idle throughout one's entire life and be happy?
• Is there a way of reconciling the innovation and cost reduction brought about by a competitive market with a 'family like' atmosphere in a workplace? 
• Is anything like a 'family' atmosphere in a workplace really desirable? Doesn't it lead to an absorption of private life by the employer?

[Details of image: Murillo, Holy Family with Little Bird. Full details here.]


[Back tomorrow (9/9/15) with the final post this week on chapter 8, 'The State'.]

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: post 7

Week 3: chapters 6-8


For new readers:

We are now at the beginning of the third week of this four week course. The first post of the course was here.

If you have been following the posts up till now, well done and I'll say more about this week's work below! For anyone who has just arrived on the blog, welcome! There's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't join in now. In essence, this course is just me blogging through Anthony Esolen's book. The posts therefore can be read at any time as prompts to further thought about this work: there is absolutely no reason why this has to be restricted to the period of the four weeks ended 21 September 2015. However, if you are reading this during the four week period, I have left the final week (beginning on 14 September 2015) relatively free of reading the book (we'll only be looking at one chapter in that week) with a few to encouraging some critical reflection on the book as a whole, As it is a relatively short book, there is plenty of time to get the book, read it, and contribute to the comments box in the remaining period of the course. (A Kindle version of the book is available here.)

My synopsis of the course up till now:

In the first five chapters of the book, Esolen has concentrated (following Leo XIII) on the key structures of human societies rather than the neuralgic issues which are often taken to be the heart of Catholic social teaching. He methodology is to to a) restrict himself to Leo XIII writings; b) to integrate this social teaching with the entirety of Catholic teaching rather than to view the social teaching as something separate from (say) teaching on sexual morality or the nature of God; c) to view the teaching through a sensibility enriched with the classical tradition of Western art, thought and philosophy.

In previous chapters, Esolen has focused on the family and the associations of 'civil society': those associations which exist in the space between the State and the family. He does this to reflect a key feature of Leo's teaching: that human nature's fulfilment in associating with other human beings is not done primarily through the State. Moreover, the State exists to reinforce those naturally existing associations rather than to create them from scratch. (Modern reworkings of family life to include divorce and same sex marriage are clearly in Esolen's (and Leo's) sights here.)

My synopsis of chapter 6: The Church as Society:

Key point:

• The Church is not so much just one other society that human beings may or may not belong to, but the perfect society which is a model for all others.

Modern understandings of social life tend to privilege the political State as a model. Among early modern thinkers such as Hobbes and Locke, the social contract suggests a democratic basis for authority: atomistic indviduals come together in a social contract to form a society -the State. Instead, taking the Church as the paradigm of Society, the model of good human relationships becomes (eg) one which rests on God-given authority (and not the consent of individuals) and one focused on our relationship with God (rather than, as in Hobbes, our physical safety). Democracy can be a valuable part of human life, but, for Leo and Esolen, 'the Church [is] the standard by which we judge democracy' (p.131) rather than vice versa.

My critical discussion of the chapter:

Esolen's book is undoubtedly counter cultural, at least in the sense that it champions some unfashionable social positions. We've already looked in previous chapters at the value of liberty which Esolen has critiqued in its modern form as mere licence and whim. He is now critiquing the value of democracy which again tends to be one of the assumed pillars of modernity: good government is, at the least, democratic. 

If democracy is one of the principles of a good society, the Catholic Church is going to be found wanting! (And indeed, Esolen makes the point that it is precisely in this area that much modern criticism of the Church is focused.) If on the other hand, there are more important principles of society than democracy (and in fact, if democracy is only justifiable to the extent that it serves those more ultimate principles) then it becomes more plausible to argue that the Church is the standard by which other societies are judged than vice versa.

This is probably going to be one of the key areas for assessing your reaction to Esolen and Leo. If you think that democracy is a simple, obvious good, then you are going to find it hard to accept a view of social teaching which stresses the value of hierarchy and authority over democracy. On the other hand, Esolen is certainly not rejecting democracy as a good in its place. To claim that the Church is a model of human association is not to suggest that its structures are simply reproducible in other areas (such as that of the State or even the family). Whatever we may learn from the Church as a model of how to relate to other human beings cannot simply be reproduced mechanically in our family or political life: Church and State are not identical. 

As usual, Esolen refers constantly to Leo XIII's writings. Perhaps the key one for this chapter is Testem Benevolentiae (on 'Americanism'): here.

Questions: (feel free to respond to these or any others in the comments box!):

• Should all human societies (family, Church, State, businesses) be democratic? Why?
• Given scandals such as child abuse, can the Church be considered as a model for human relationships?
• What is the role of authority in human relationships? Is it 'God given'? (And what might that mean?)

[I'll post tomorrow (8/09/15) on chapter 7!]

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: post 6

"Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations...In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others." Tocqueville: Democracy in America here

We continue week 2's sessions with the final chapter in this section: 'Social life'.

Key points:

• Small associations are a key element in the flourishing human life.
• The existence of such associations, both in the Church and in wider society has been under attack in the modern West.

My summary:

Leo emphasises the importance of what is often described as 'civil society': that type of association or society which is intermediate between the State and the family. In particular in this chapter, Esolen emphasises those associations ('pious societies' such as the Legion of Mary (p. 97) which both focus on the supernatural end of human beings but also on their natural end through friendship and mutual support. It is these associations which have often withered away in modernity, either as a result of deliberate targeting or by social changes.

My critical discussion:

Esolen starts the chapter with a discussion of Tocqueville's identification of small associations as a noticeable strength of nineteenth century US life:

"Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations...In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others." Tocqueville: Democracy in America here

It is certainly true that much Catholic social teaching focuses on this level of social engagement: together with an emphasis on the family, this emphasis on the 'little platoons' ( a phrase from Edmund Burke) is in stark opposition to either individualism or an emphasis on the State. (As such, many of its themes have been taken up in Phillip Blond's Red Toryism or Maurice Glasman's Blue Labour. ) These societies have a natural right to exist which is not delegated to them by the State or even simply by the individual: they are more the basis for individuality and the State rather than the effects of them.

There is, once again, a methodological point to be made here about Esolen: by starting the chapter with a discussion of Tocqueville, he locates Catholic social teaching in history, in particular in the tradition of Western political philosophy and of the canon of Great Books.

Although Esolen, as usual, refers to a number of Leo XIII's documents in this chapter, perhaps the most relevant to read is Quod Apostolici Muneris. 

Questions:

• Changes in the family and in the 'little platoons' of civil society are particularly noticeable in modern societies. Should we see these changes as attacks on their existence or simply as changes, either neutral or even benign?
• Life in Catholic parishes is, according to Esolen, no longer dominated by these 'muscles' of Catholic life (p.97). Is that true? Is it regrettable?

[This is the final post for week 2. Join me on 7 September for the posts on week 3, starting with chapter 6: The Church as Society.]

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: post 5

                                                                    Sigrid Undset


Week 2: 

We continue week 2 of the course on Anthony Esolen's Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching by looking at chapter 4 on 'The Family'.

My synopsis:

• The family is the fundamental society: it is both a society itself and the foundation for other societies such as the State.
• The family is the space within which individuals are formed who have an understanding of their natural end and, fundamentally, of their supernatural end as oriented towards God.

My critical discussion:

Esolen starts this chapter again with a discussion of a work of art: the novels of Sigrid Undset and, in particular, her triology, Kristin Lavransdatter. (I've made this point before, but it's worth stressing again Esolen's methodology here. He constantly refers to art and particularly canonical works of the Western tradition: for him, the idea of Catholic social teaching appeals to a prudentia -the virtue of practical wisdom formed in part by the Western classical tradition.) Undset's novel focuses on a household, indeed, a patriarchal household of the Scandinavian Middle Ages. By seeing the concrete nature of such a society and its goodness, Esolen (and Undset) hope to restore the vision of a natural pattern of human existence as good, in opposition to the theoretical modern opposition to patriarchy and the family. (Esolen doesn't make this point, but Undset herself lived through a divorce, war and the death of her oldest child. If she has a vision of the 'good family' it is not through a naive ignorance of its problems.) 

This chapter continues on from the previous one on marriage. In essence, it repeats and extends the message of the centrality of the family to human social life, its naturalness as a society (rather than its existence as a voluntary contract), and the existence of attacks on it by secularised modernity.

Questions:

 

• Esolen constantly argues that the family helps the individual to see herself 'oriented beyond time, to God' by seeing an loving its origins (parents, grandparents) and its future (children, grandchildren). Does that mean that those of us who don't have the experience of knowing our parents (or having children) are harmed in some way?
• Esolen (and Leo) emphasises the importance of the father's role in leading the family. Since this is obviously a 'patriarchal' thought. do we need to bother reading on?
• If Catholicism is based on the traditional family, isn't that precisely why it's going to fail in future years?

Works of Leo referred to in chapter:

From now on, I won't be listing the references to Leo's works on the individual blogposts. The full set of documents referred to by Esolen are listed here. Perhaps the two most important writings for this chapter are Arcanum divinae (Vat. Eng. version here), and Rerum Novarum [Vat. Eng. version here.] The latter in particular is often seen as the foundation stone of Catholic social teaching. It would be an interesting exercise to read the document focusing instead on some of the more countercultural sections on the nature of the family. (Eg: sections 13 and 14.)

[Next post -the final one of  week 2- will be tomorrow 1 September 2015.]

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: post 4

Welcome to the second week of our course of reading through Anthony Esolen's Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching.

Where we have got to:

Liberty without an understanding of the goals of that liberty is destructive both of the individual and society. To understand those goals requires both an understanding of the Church's teaching and the tradition of classical western philosophy within which it is situated. We are approaching that understanding through a review of Leo XIII's writings. As Esolen ends ch2 (pp48-9):

And it is Christ, not democracy, much less the mechanics of elections, who has set us free. Free for what purpose? To attain our human and superhuman ends; and, by our very nature, we are meant to do that within a society. What, then, is a society? Let us now turn, as Leo does, to the first natural society of mankind: the marriage of man and woman.

Week 2 (31 August 2015-6 September 2015):

During this week, we will be reading through chapters 3- 5 of the book. That's approximately 60 pages and I reckon (again on average reading speeds) should take just about an hour to get through.

Chapter 3: Marriage

Key points:

• Marriage and the household is the key to much of Catholic social teaching
• Marriage is the 'prime society' (p.54) and the basis for the State, not the other way round.

 

My synopsis of chapter:

'Economics' etymologically is the law of the household (Greek: oikia). It is the understanding of the household as the centre of human life that informs Leo XIII's teachings and why Esolen approaches wider questions of (the modern understanding of) 'economics' through the household.

Within marriage, human beings serve their supernatural ends (the family is 'the reflection of the inner life of God' (p.53) and their natural ends (the procreation and education of children; the virtuous disciplining of their desires). The assault on marriage through, for example, divorce is not of marginal importance to Catholic social teaching: it instead strikes at its heart.

Esolen refers to the Norman Rockwell painting from his series the Four Seasons (above): 

We know, without being told, that this scene is right. The boy and the girl are for one another. They are alone in all four pictures, but they are not alone. They are part of the good and lovely world of trees and snow and weedy flowers and dogs...But in their seedling love, they too form a society, a world. 

(pp.73-4)

My critical discussion of chapter:

One characteristic of Esolen's book is that it doesn't fulfil the usual pattern of many works on Catholic social teaching. Instead of concentrating on (say) work and poverty, if there is a core of the book, it is in these central sections on the household. Bearing in mind what I have said in earlier posts about Esolen's desire to integrate Catholic social teaching into the whole of Catholic doctrine (see, eg, my first post here), this emphasis on the household is a key element in integrating what some regard as a 'traditional' obsession with sexual morality with a 'modern' emphasis on social justice. Esolen, following Leo XIII, sees the two as inseparable.

Perhaps the key issue here is the question of the individual. If (as in much liberal thinking) you see human beings as separate persons coming together voluntarily to form larger collectives, then the 'family' is simply one of those voluntary associations, formed by consent, and open to redesign of the wills of those individuals concerned change. (The decline of the 'traditional family' is thus of no more importance than the decline (say) of the 'sewing circle': modern individuals have simply come up with different and better ways of associating to fulfil their needs and desires.) On the other hand, bearing in mind what Esolen has said about 'liberty' in chapter 2, from Leo XIII's viewpoint, marriage and the family is the context within which liberty is exercised: it is the natural structure within which we are free to act, rather than a structure we are free to redesign.

Turning to Esolen's use of Rockwell, I confess I find these images almost nauseating. Esolen does acknowledge the limitations of his art and I'm afraid, for me, these are very difficult to overcome. But Esolen does, I think, have a point worth pondering. What is it about these images that is right? What is the potency of seeing children on the verge of something greater than themselves? (And I would add, what is the precise failing of Rockwell here? What might that tell us about the weakness of the non-Catholic traditional vision of marriage that made it so vulnerable to modernity?)

The key text of Leo XIII's on marriage is Arcanum dei. It is worth reading in full.

Questions: (feel free to discuss these and any others in the comment box)

• How convincing do you find the claim that marriage and the family is the centre of our social nature?
• Does that marriage have to have a particular shape? Why couldn't we (as advocated by Peter Tatchell among others) replace marriage with a form of association to reflect the variety of possible desires? 
• Clearly many people don't find Esolen or Leo XIII's vision of marriage convincing. What does that show about the nature of disagreement on this sort of issue? Are there arguments which might make this vision convincing?
• What is right and wrong with Rockwell's images in the Four Seasons pictures above?

[I'll post on chapter 4, The Family, tomorrow (1 September 2015).]

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: Post 3

[Details of image: here]

For previous post, see here.

Chapter 2: Human Liberty

We complete the first week's work by looking at the chapter on liberty.

Key points:

• Liberty without order based on a true sense of what is fulfilling for human beings is self-destructive.
• An obsession with replacing tradition involves the wilful destruction of the accumulated wisdom of humanity. 

My summary:

Esolen adduces three main arguments against an undue emphasis on liberty(ie liberalism) in this chapter. First, liberalism is an 'innovation' and such innovations, changes to the established wisdom of humankind, carry a heavy burden of proof before they should be accepted. Secondly, liberalism leads to tyranny. Thirdly, submission to divine law and authority provides protection against both the tyranny of individuals and of the State.

Democracy is not always and everywhere the best form of government: although it can allow an appropriate liberty, it can also set the conditions for excessive liberty and tyranny.

My critical commentary:

Esolen begins this chapter with the image of Satan from Dante's Inferno, trapped in ice, gnawing on three traitors. (This is from Inferno, Canto 34. The English text may be found here.) For Esolen, this is the image of modern, empty freedom: the licence to do everything become the emptiness of nothingness. (As an aside, it's worth thinking about Esolen's methodology here, in his constant reference to great works of art, visual and literary. Are these merely educational aids to make understanding of complex arguments easier? Or does art reveal something that the conceptual thinking of philosophy cannot? If a society has abandoned its great art, has it also abandoned a privileged access point to reality?)

An obvious objection here is that Satan (eg by being trapped in ice) is not at liberty at all. But the charge that liberty and democracy produces a sort of desperate and futile search for meaning and eventual tyranny is an old one. (The decline from democracy to tyranny is, for example, described by Plato in the Republic.)  The key thought here is that lack of an order based on human nature (and of the nature of the universe) leads to personal disorder (the triumph of tyrannical whims over reason) and social disorder (the triumph of a tyrant). 

Questions:

• Isn't the promotion of maximum liberty the best form of government?
• Given that we have no agreed idea of what a 'natural order' might be, isn't the best thing simply to allow people to do what they like?
• We know that the past is shot through with patriarchy and other unfortunate tendencies. Doesn't this alone give as reason to prefer 'innovation'?

This is the end of the first week's work. Do feel free to keep commenting! The next post (week 2) will be on Monday 31 August.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Works of Leo XIII referred to in chapter (in order of reference; page number in book cited):

Libertas praestantissimum here. (p.40) 

Praeclara grationis publicae here. (p.43)

Inscrutabili here. (p.43-4)

Quod Apostolici muneris  here. (p. 44)

Immortale Dei here. (p.44)

Humanum genus here. (p.44)

Rerum Novarum here. (p.44-5)

Inscrutabili here. (p.46)

Quod Apostolici muneris  here. (p. 46)

Immortale Dei here. (p.46)

Libertas praestantissimum here. (p.46)

Pervenuti all'anno (Italian version here.) (p.47) 

Immortale Dei here. (p.47)

Libertas praestantissimum here. (p.47)

Sapientiae Christianae here. (p.47)

Testem Benevolentiae here. (p. 48)

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: Post 2

Previous post here.


Chapter I: Man, in the Image of God

We continue the first week's work of reading through the introduction and chapters I and II.

Key points:

• A secular society which ignores God is a deeply flawed society because it misunderstands human beings and their nature.
• Such a society becomes dominated by irrational and inconsistent desires.
• Only in a Catholic society where unity is based on the unity of the Eucharist can human beings flourish fully.

My summary:

If we forget that human beings are made to enjoy God, any society based on such forgetfulness will be based on false principles and radically flawed. In particular, a society from which God has been banished will be subject to the 'domination of the passions' (p.26). Without Christianity -and in particular, without its source in the Eucharist- the bonds which link people to people in society will be lost.

My critical commentary:

 Esolen has in his sights here secularism. Although this is a term without any exact definition (and has been used in various ways in various contexts) one idea is that politics should be conducted without any religious content: that whatever we believe in private, as citizens we enter into a public space where public rationality excludes the introduction of views based on religious doctrine.

The problem with this is, as Esolen notes, if we believe that human beings are creatures whose happiness involves a relationship with God, any society that ignores such a relationship is not going to be well run. (It's rather as if, in constructing a society, we ignored the human need for food. It's just not going to turn out well...)

As well as this general point, Esolen argues for the specific importance of Catholicism. He takes The Angelus by Millet as an illustration of this.

[Image from Wikipedia. Details here.]

In essence, Esolen picks up from this painting a natural order (man/woman; labour/rest) in the context of the Church (the Angelus). Separate that natural order from Catholicism, and our understanding of it starts to fray.

What are we to make of this? Why should in principle truths be excluded from society simply because they are religious? (And what exactly is a religious truth as opposed to a common-or-garden one?) Certainly, if most people reject religion and especially Catholicism, then it's going to be difficult to persuade people in a democratic country to acknowledge beliefs restricted to those practices. But there are all sorts of truth that it might be difficult to persuade people of for all sorts of reasons...

On the other hand, isn't the truth of secularism that some things are quite obvious to all people (the human need for food and shelter) whilst some things are not (the human need for God)? Don't we have to compromise on what can be agreed, rather than what we might like to see agreed?

Esolen would undoubtedly reply here that, whatever the practical difficulties involved in convincing people of the truth about human beings, in the absence of such convictions, society will fare badly. Without at least the classical philosophical ideas of ordering our desires according to reason, society will be radically unstable as individuals pursue their whims.

Questions (please feel free to debate these or any others in the comments box below!):

• Are you convinced by Esolen's vision of an ordered society? Why? Why not?
• Philosophers such as Alasdair MacIntyre have argued that radical (and irresolvable) disagreement on values is part of the modern condition. If that is the case, are modern democratic states condemned to fail? 
• Does Millet's The Angelus provide a helpful image of a society in good order?

I'll post on chapter 2 (the final one of this week) tomorrow (Wednesday)...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Writings of Leo XIII referred to in this chapter (in order of reference, page number in book given):

[No need to read these fully. Esolen usually provides extracts when discussing the texts. I have included these links to the full texts for those interested in pursuing further reading.]

Tametsi [1900] Here. (p15)

Rerum Novarum [1891] Here. (p.16)

Humanum Genus [1884] Here. (p.16)

Tametsi [1900] Here. (p17)

Aeterni Patris [1879] Here. (p.17)

Rerum Novarum [1891] Here. (p.18)

Au milieu des solicitudes [1892] Here. (pp. 21-3)

Humanum Genus [1884] Here. (p.23-6)

Affari Vos [1897] Here. (p.24)

Arcanum Divinae [1880] Here. (p.26)

Inscrutabili [1878] Here. (p.26)

Cum Multa Sint [1882] Here. (p.26)

Immortale Dei [1885] Here. (p.27)

Sapientiae Christianae [1890] Here. (p.27)

Tametsi [1900] Here. (p27)

Arcanum Divinae [1880] Here. (p.30)

Humanum Genus [1884] Here. (p.31)

Tametsi [1900] Here. (p.32)

Immortale Dei [1885] Here. (pp.32-33)

Mirae Caritatis [1902] Here. (pp. 33-34)

Pervenuti all' anno [1902] Italian version here. (p.34)

Libertas Praestantissimum [1888] Here (p.35)



















[Image: Wikipedia details here.]

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching: Post 1

Welcome to the first post of this journey through Anthony Esolen's book, Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching. If you want to see what I intend to be doing over the next four weeks, please see my previous post.

Week 1: (24 August 2015-30 August 2015)

During this week we'll be covering the introduction and chapters 1-2. (That's about 45 pages and for average reading speeds should take less than an hour.)

1) Introduction:

Key points:

• We need to get first principles right: logical reasoning from flawed first principles produces erroneous conclusions.
• We need to keep our eyes on 'human realities' (p.8). Even if our principles are wrong or unclear, keeping in touch with realities can stop us going too far wrong.
• Catholic social teaching is not separate from other Catholic teachings: they form an integral whole.
• Catholic teaching draws on natural reason as well as revelation. '[Leo XIII] heeds what the greatest thinkers, including the pagan philosophers of Greece and Rome, have to teach us. He draws upon that cast fund of human experience that is called history.' (p.11)

My summary:

Esolen concentrates on methodology in the introduction. He is going to take Leo XIII's writings as his focus for two main reasons. First, Leo XIII is frequently regarded as the founder of Catholic social teaching with his Encyclical, Rerum Novarum. (Encyclical is here. By all means read it if you wish! But there is no necessity to just now.) By exploring a wider range of his writings, Esolen intends to show that Leo does not intend a radical break with the past or with other (non-social) teachings: Catholic social teaching is simply an application to modern social conditions of traditional principles. Secondly, by examining a coherent presentation of those teachings, we will see that, instead of modern Catholic social teaching being identifiable as politically 'liberal' or even 'socialist', it is simply a development of the philosophical (and artistic) tradition of Western natural law thinking.

My critical commentary:

I think it's fair to characterise the 'Introduction' as an opening shot against the view that at some stage in modern times, Catholic social teaching became something separate from the other teaching of the Church, that it represents a break with the past, and that it is anti-capitalist and anti-tradition. Esolen doesn't directly tackle this point in the 'Introduction' but it's hard to resist the thought that at least some of his guns are trained against a 'hermeneutic of rupture': that Vatican II (and the social teaching that emerged afterwards) represents a break with previous teaching and an abandonment of a supernatural focus in favour of a 'this world' focus. Benedict XVI discussed precisely this point in his Christmas address of 2005:

It might be said that three circles of questions had formed which then, at the time of the Second Vatican Council, were expecting an answer. First of all, the relationship between faith and modern science had to be redefined. Furthermore, this did not only concern the natural sciences but also historical science for, in a certain school, the historical-critical method claimed to have the last word on the interpretation of the Bible and, demanding total exclusivity for its interpretation of Sacred Scripture, was opposed to important points in the interpretation elaborated by the faith of the Church.

Secondly, it was necessary to give a new definition to the relationship between the Church and the modern State that would make room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, merely assuming responsibility for an orderly and tolerant coexistence among them and for the freedom to practise their own religion.

Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel.

These are all subjects of great importance - they were the great themes of the second part of the Council - on which it is impossible to reflect more broadly in this context. It is clear that in all these sectors, which all together form a single problem, some kind of discontinuity might emerge. Indeed, a discontinuity had been revealed but in which, after the various distinctions between concrete historical situations and their requirements had been made, the continuity of principles proved not to have been abandoned. It is easy to miss this fact at a first glance.


[Full address here. Again, there is no need to read this unless you want to.]

I suspect a not unfair summary of Esolen's aims would be along these lines: 'To resist the idea of a hermeneutic of rupture in Catholic social teaching, it's a good idea to go back to the root, Rerum Novarum. By examining that root in the full context of Leo XIII's thought, we'll see that there is no rupture, but simply a restatement of eternal principles in a (slightly) new context.'

Questions (please feel free to debate these or any others in the comments box below!):

• How convincing do you find Esolen's approach? What's wrong/right with it?
• Is my summary and critical commentary fair? 
• Why look at the teachings of a nineteenth century pope? Wouldn't we be better starting somewhere more recent?
• How much is the 'Introduction' coloured by American 'culture wars'? If it is at all, is that a bad thing? (On 'culture wars' you could read this. Again, there is no need to do this unless you wish.)

Additional material:

Here's an interview with Anthony Esolen on the book Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching in which he introduces the key themes of the book. (There's some problem with the video until about 1 min in: start there.) It runs for about half an hour.

I'll post tomorrow on chapter one, 'Man in the image of God'...

New online course: Anthony Esolen on Catholic Social Teaching

Now that the school holidays are over (in Scotland at least!), I'm going to try something rather different for the Albertus.

From 24 August 2015 (ie next Monday) until 21 September 2015, I shall be running on this blog an informal course on Anthony Esolen's Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching. For each of the four weeks of the course, I'll posting at least twice a week on the relevant portion of the book and responding to the comments box.  (There's no formal sign up procedure and no fees!) Even though the posts will be largely comprehensible without Esolen's book, I'd encourage you to buy it: it's available on Kindle as well as traditional formats.

I'll say something more about the overall thrust of the book once we've got started on 24 August. But its main interest for me is that it tries to show how Catholic social teaching, rather than being a relatively recent and discrete creation, is instead a natural outgrowth of the Church's traditional teachings on the relationship between God and human beings. It does this by focusing on the teachings of Leo XIII who, as the author of Rerum Novarum, is often taken to be the founder of modern Catholic social teaching.

As noted, Esolen makes extensive use of Leo XIII's own writings. I'll be placing links to those which can be found online here.

As a taster, here's a link to an article by Gerald Russello which gives some of the background to the book and the arguments it's stimulated.

See you on 24 August!

Are we all simply self-interested?

An interesting article here on changes in the understanding of economics from Dominic Burbidge in Public Discourse. (Those who attended our sessions in 2014/15 will note resonances with (eg) Odile Pilley's presentations.)

Anyone holding an economics degree has undergone the strange experience of sitting in a beginner’s class and being told to assume that we are all completely self-interested. I suffered this fate studying economics at Queen Mary, University of London, and then I suffered it all over again taking a class in formal modeling at the University of Oxford. If there is ever such a thing as brainwashing, this ritual is a good example.

Like many students, I questioned the assumption that man is simply homo economicus. Surely, I protested, people are sometimes capable of seeking the good of others. As any economics student will be able to tell you, the reply I got was not that I was wrong, exactly. Instead, I was told, “we just have to make this assumption before going further.” Teaching economics this way is like ushering students into Plato’s cave and then telling them that if they don’t assume the shadows on the wall are real, they will have nothing else to go by. Homo economicus is the only robust, repeatable model of human behavior, it is explained—the only consistent measuring tool for the social sciences and its best starting point.

Full article here.


[Image: Dives and Lazarus from the Master of the Codex Aureus Epternacensis, 1035-1040. Full details here.]

Laudato Si', the environment and natural law

I won't pretend to have digested (or even fully read) Pope Francis' Encyclical Laudato Si' yet. The full text is available here. As way of a stop gap (I'm sure we'll return to it again and again over the coming months!) here is some relevant material:

1) The Environment was one of the subjects tackled on our course in first term of 2015/16. The relevant blogposts on that session are here (which contains some helpful links to relevant supporting material) and here. The relevant handout from that session (containing among other things) extracts from previous teaching about the environment) can be found here (scroll down to find week 9).

2) The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church deals with the environment in chapter 10: here.

My initial reaction is that this Encyclical is an extremely welcome addition to existing teaching in this area. It has always struck me as highly odd that, in a secularised culture which is highly responsive (at least in theory) to talk about the value and care of nature, this existing concern is almost completely divorced from valuing and caring about human nature: the very commodification of nature which is (rightly) condemned in environmentalism is instead celebrated in some of the 'neuralgic' issues of personal morality where the licence to create and recreate ourselves ignoring or even deliberately at odds with the rhythms of (human) nature is demanded as a right. Whether you emphasise the Hellenistic philosophical ideas of a right order in the kosmos and in the human being, or the scriptural account of a divine wisdom structuring all creation, this sort of divorce between human nature and nature tout court is profoundly foreign to Catholicism and, moreover, strikes me as an obvious tension in secularised thought which can be noted and engaged with. The Encyclical seems (at first sight admittedly) to make important progress here in articulating that Catholic sense of the naturalness of morality in the natural law.

My predecessor Benedict XVI likewise proposed “eliminating the structural causes of the dysfunctions of the world economy and correcting models of growth which have proved incapable of ensuring respect for the environment”. He observed that the world cannot be analyzed by isolating only one of its aspects, since “the book of nature is one and indivisible”, and includes the environment, life, sexuality, the family, social relations, and so forth. It follows that “the deterioration of nature is closely connected to the culture which shapes human coexistence”. Pope Benedict asked us to recognize that the natural environment has been gravely damaged by our irresponsible behaviour. The social environment has also suffered damage. Both are ultimately due to the same evil: the notion that there are no indisputable truths to guide our lives, and hence human freedom is limitless. We have forgotten that “man is not only a freedom which he creates for himself. Man does not create himself. He is spirit and will, but also nature”. With paternal concern, Benedict urged us to realize that creation is harmed “where we ourselves have the final word, where everything is simply our property and we use it for ourselves alone. The misuse of creation begins when we no longer recognize any higher instance than ourselves, when we see nothing else but ourselves”.

[Laudato Si', section 6: here.]

2014/15 courses now completed

The 2014/15 courses of the Albertus ended last night with a tremendously successful session from Professor Alisdair MacLullich on healthcare ethics. Our thanks go to Professor MacLullich for his insights into some of the ethical dilemmas of modern medical practice, and to all the others involved in leading or speaking during the term, especially Professor Henry Thompson and Professor Ian Thompson.

This is the final class this term as the scheduled class for 24 June has been cancelled due to a clash with an important Parish meeting at the Cathedral. That session will be rescheduled at some point in the future.

The blog will be continuing to host regular posts of interest in the field of Catholic Social Teaching and we will be making announcements about future classes in 2015/16 as soon as possible. Watch this space!!

Slides available for this evening's session

Copies of slides for this evening's session (17 June) on healthcare ethics are now available: here. (See previous post for full details of session and speakers.)

I'm not sure whether, by announcing that here, I'm saving paper (fewer handouts required) or encouraging the waste of it (more individuals downloading and printing off the slides). Ethics is indeed a tricky business...!


[Details of image: Poster from Office for Emergency Management. Office of War Information, 1941-5. Full details here.]