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'...