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.]

What's next on the 'Ethics and Faith in the Real World' course?

After the very successful session on 27 May dealing with problems especially in youth justice and child protection, our next classes are as follows (NB: no class 10 June):

June 17th — Personalist Ethics — Power Sharing & Responsibility in Health Care
Distinguishing in Practice: Good & Evil, Right & Wrong, Virtue and Vice


— Alisdair MacLullich, Professor of Geriatric Medicine, University of Edinburgh Medical School
    with Ian Thompson and Henry Thompson


[June 24th — Poverty & Riches — Human Rights and Our Responsibilities in International Aid

Freedom & Liberty, Rights & Duties in relation to Globalization and Development
— Philippa Bonella, Head of Communications and Education for SCIAF,
     with Ian Thompson and Henry Thompson] THIS SESSION HAS BEEN CANCELLED AND WILL BE RESCHEDULED DURING 2015/16.

Full details of those presenting these classes can be found on the 'Who's teaching?' page here.

Classes on Catholic Social Teaching will be offered (normally)  fortnightly on Wednesdays, commencing at 6pm at the Catholic Chaplaincy centre in Edinburgh. Classes are free, but small donations very welcome!

To express an interest or to find out more, please contact Elizabeth Drummond Young: elizdrummondyoung@gmail.com