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).]