Catholic Social Teaching at St Albert's: session 3

Final session tonight (Tuesday 24 April 2018) on the individual and God!

Last week I talked about the importance of human nature and especially our social nature: that we naturally lived in a variety of relationships among which the family as the primary vehicle of projecting our earthly lives beyond death into a next generation was of key importance. I also talked of the way that a revival of Aristotelian thought in modern, Anglophone ethics was generally supportive of the basis of Catholic, particularly Thomist thought, in Aristotle.

(For further reading on this you could try Elizabeth Anscombe's classic paper, 'Modern Moral Philosophy' here. This is often regarded as the foundation stone of modern virtue ethics, an article about which can be found here.)

I've also occasionally talked about the slogan 'Don't immanentize the eschaton!', popularized by the American conservative Catholic, William F. Buckley (Wikipedia explanation here.) The broad meaning of this phrase is that much that is wrong in modernity is caused by the desire to make heaven on earth.

This evening, the main emphasis of my talk will be on the correct orientation of society towards heaven in heaven: the supernatural end of human beings. In Catholic piety, part of this is reflected in the sense of earthly life being an exile which pervades the Salve Regina:

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,

Our life, our sweetness and our hope.

To thee do we cry,

Poor banished children of Eve;

To thee do we send up our sighs,

Mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

Turn then, most gracious advocate,

Thine eyes of mercy toward us;

And after this our exile,

Show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

O clement, O loving,

O sweet Virgin Mary.

But this sense of the profound incompleteness of earthly life is also found in pre-Christian, classical philosophy, most obviously in Aristotle's emphasis on the importance of contemplation of divine things in the flourishing human life, and in Plato's emphasis on philosophy as a preparation for death (see here for a relevant excerpt from the Phaedo).



Further reading:

The previous Albertus blog course on Anthony Esolen's book, Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching, reflects his strong emphasis on religion practice as the centre of social life. The course can be followed online beginning with the introduction here and clicking on the 'Esolen' label at the bottom of the page to find the remaining posts.


[Image details: Rosa Celeste: Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven, The Empyrean by Gustave Doré. Details here.]