The European Referendum

With whatever enthusiasm (or lack of it) we face the coming EU referendum, it does raise important political issues that Catholics need to reflect on in the light of the principles of social teaching.

To kick off, a few interesting (albeit random)  resources I've come across:

1) A discussion of subsidiarity in Catholic social teaching and the EU. From the Reimagining Europe blog (here).

2) For the wearers of tin foil hats amongst us: 'Is the European Union a Catholic Plot' (From First Things here.)

3) 'Catholic origins of the European Union' (From Zenit, here.)

4) Address of St John Paul II to European Parliament 1988 (here) and Pope Francis 2014 (here).

5) The section of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church dealing with International Organizations here (sections 440-443).

No doubt I shall be returning to this...

Christian Human Rights

Samuel Moyn's book on the development of human rights in the twentieth century has been on my 'to read' list for a while now.

His thesis seems to be that modern human rights represents a very recent secular takeover (roughly 1970s onwards) of a Christian movement which arose in the 1930s as a response to the encroachment upon Christianity of totalitarian regimes. A key figure in this Christian movement was Jacques Maritain. If he's right in this historical analysis, human rights owes far more to Christianity (and in particular Catholicism) than it does to the Enlightenment. On the other hand, Moyn celebrates the 'capture' of the concept of human rights by secularism and its broadening to concerns wider than the essentially defence of subsidiarity that was key to the original Catholic position.

I still haven't read the book! (I have, however, finally bought a copy so I guess that's progress!) There's a very helpful podcast of an interview with Samuel Moyn here. There's also a series of papers on The Immanent Frame website discussing his thesis here.

My hunch would be that he's right to emphasize the role of Catholic thinkers such as Maritain in the development of modern human rights, but wrong to regard its post-Christian development with favour. Not much of a surprise there perhaps! But apart from the kneejerk reaction resulting from personal prejudices, I am for many reasons philosophically suspicious of recent developments in the understanding of human dignity, the concept which in Moyn's view (rightly, I think) underpins modern human rights, and view with favour an understanding of government which allows and indeeds encourages the subsidiarity of the little platoons of society. Anway, we'll see...

Here's a taster from Moyn's introductory essay on the book from The Immanent Frame discussion:

The essay on so-called “personalism” under scrutiny here deals heavily with Catholic publicist Jacques Maritain, certainly the most prominent philosophical defender of universal human rights in the 1940s, and a pivotal player in the political transformation of Christianity across the transwar divide. The other chapters in Christian Human Rights, when it appears, will start with the history of human dignity in constitutions: the first of this sort was Ireland’s 1937 document, not coincidentally perhaps also the first Christian Democratic constitution in history; then there was Marshal Philippe Pétain’s abortive 1944 French constitution; and only later the postwar West European constitutions. The book looks at Protestant versions of Christian human rights, notably in the work of Gerhard Ritter, the dean of German historians of the period. If Maritain was the leading theoretician of human rights then, Ritter was their preeminent historian. Finally, the book concludes with an account that offers some inking of the legacy of Christian human rights today, in European Court of Human Rights cases about the Muslim headscarf and the meaning of religious freedom.

In the 1940s, as much as in and through some of their legacies today, Christian human rights have not so much been about the inclusion of the other, but about policing the borders and boundaries at which threatening enemies loom. Human rights have a complex history, and it is—like all inheritances—worth tough criticism, not subservient adulation.

Ash Wednesday

Aquinas on fasting:

The mean of virtue is measured not according to quantity but according to right reason, as stated in Ethic. ii, 6. [ie in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics]. Now reason judges it expedient, on account of some special motive, for a man to take less food than would be becoming to him under ordinary circumstances, for instance in order to avoid sickness, or in order to perform certain bodily works with greater ease: and much more does reason direct this to the avoidance of spiritual evils and the pursuit of spiritual goods. Yet reason does not retrench so much from one's food as to refuse nature its necessary support: thus Jerome says: "It matters not whether thou art a long or a short time in destroying thyself, since to afflict the body immoderately, whether by excessive lack of nourishment, or by eating or sleeping too little, is to offer a sacrifice of stolen goods."  In like manner right reason does not retrench so much from a man's food as to render him incapable of fulfilling his duty. Hence Jerome says... "Rational man forfeits his dignity, if he sets fasting before chastity, or night-watchings before the well-being of his senses."
[...]
The fasting of nature, in respect of which a man is said to be fasting until he partakes of food, consists in a pure negation, wherefore it cannot be reckoned a virtuous act. Such is only the fasting of one who abstains in some measure from food for a reasonable purpose. Hence the former is called natural fasting [jejunium jejuni] while the latter is called the faster's fast [jejunium jejunantis] because he fasts for a purpose.

[STh IIaIIae q.147 a.1 here.]

Explanation: One eats normally to sustain human  nature. In some circumstances, it is reasonable to reduce consumption of food below this normal intake for some special purpose (say, to avoid sickness). Given our supernatural end is superior to our natural end, it is reasonable to reduce intake of food to advance our supernatural end. It is not virtuous, however, to do this to the extent of damaging our body.

Simply going without food isn't virtuous. It is only virtuous when done to fulfil a (good) purpose of the faster.


Picture: Bernardino Pinturicchio - Saint Jerome in the Wilderness  [Wiki page here.]

Donations to SCIAF can be made here.

[Reblogged from last year]

Social Justice Isn't What you Think It Is (Book review)

Michale Novak, Elizabeth Shaw and Paul Adams' new book looks interesting:

The book Social Justice Isn’t What You Think It Is isn’t what you think it is. The dust jacket of the latest from Michael Novak (with coauthors Paul Adams and Elizabeth Shaw) promises to rescue the term from “its ideological captors” by clarifying “the true meaning of social justice.” What it provides is a careful reading of select papal encyclicals, and application of them to the concept of social justice and contemporary social work—especially that being done from a Roman Catholic perspective. The book’s aim, in practical terms, is to make social justice safe for conservative Catholics both in theory and in practice. Novak humorously notes that this anti-market rallying cry of the Left has an “operational meaning”: that “we need a law against that.” One response to such social justice boosterism—Friedrich Hayek’s, in fact—is to reject the phrase altogether. Novak summarizes Hayek’s critique succinctly: Either social justice is a virtue, and so is about individuals and not about redistribution; or it is not a virtue and “its claim to moral standing falls flat.” Because its advocates treat it “as a regulative principle of order, not a virtue,” the slogan serves as an instrument of coercion, not a call to good habits of character, so the Hayekian conservative should set it aside.

From Library of Law and Liberty here (review by James Bruce)

I haven't read the book so can't do more than point it out as a potentially interesting read. But the review does suggest a few points:

a) Catholic social teaching mustn't be taken as a simplistic rule book. Justice and concern for res publica requires the application and development of the virtue of prudentia (practical wisdom). There are themes and basic observations about human nature, but how these are to be applied in concrete historical and cultural circumstances is a matter for that virtue of prudentia.

b) One of the biggest issues in modern Western societies (and particularly in the United States) is the role of government in achieving justice. In particular, there is a tendency in some countries to allow the state to destroy the associations of civil society and the family. On the other hand, in other countries, there is a failure of the state to support such associations. Catholic social teaching is clear that the family and the associations of civil society cannot rightly be replaced by government action. Equally, the state is more than a nightwatchman state the purpose of which is simply to protect basic physical welfare: it is there to promote human flourishing. Between these extremes, there is a range of possibilities which might be required in particular circumstances.

c) Politics essentially involves debate and disagreement. That some positions are clearly excluded by Catholicism does not imply that we should expect all Catholics to agree on what remains. (We might, however, expect Catholics to conduct that debate virtuously.)

One message I'd like this blog to reinforce is that Catholic social teaching is not some simplistic package which can be reduced to chucking a few more pennies in the SCIAF tin (laudable though such efforts are!). It is essentially an application of theology and philosophy to the hugely complex area of the social nature of human beings. It requires hard thinking and engagement with the fullness of the Catholic intellectual tradition.


Related post here.

Catholic Education Week 2016

The pastoral letter from Archbishop Tartaglia (PDF here and reproduced below) deserves careful study both as a straightforward exhortation for more young people to think of becoming teachers and also as reflecting a number of principles in Catholic social teaching.

 

Appeal for Catholic Teachers

At this time last year I appealed to young people to come forward to become teachers. Again this year I ask young people to give serious consideration to my appeal. I also urge parents, grandparents and teachers to encourage young people to pursue Teaching as a vital career choice.

Given the current shortages of teachers and Head Teachers, I also want to appeal to Catholic teachers who are not currently working in Catholic schools. My request is this: please seek an appointment in a Catholic school; ask your Council employer for a transfer to a Catholic school. We urgently need committed Catholic teachers to be working in Catholic schools.

The Bishops and our advisers have appealed to Scottish Government Ministers to ensure that sufficient teachers are being trained to work in Catholic schools. We are working hard with the University of Glasgow and others to improve the supply of teachers who will be able to contribute to the provision of Catholic education for our children and young people.

I must stress that this is a critical issue which may have significant consequences if we cannot produce more teachers soon.


Yours devotedly in Christ,

 Philip Tartaglia,

Archbishop of Glasgow
President of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland

1) The letter reflects the multi-layered aspect of Catholic understandings of society. Instead of concentrating on the State as agent, the letter assumes the existence of several sources of authority (eg: the family, the school, the university, the Church, the State, the individual) all of whom have to work together to promote human flourishing. (The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church referred to below as the Compendium can be found here.)

Political authority must guarantee an ordered and upright community life without usurping the free activity of individuals and groups but disciplining and orienting this freedom, by respecting and defending the independence of the individual and social subjects, for the attainment of the common good. Political authority is an instrument of coordination and direction by means of which the many individuals and intermediate bodies must move towards an order in which relationships, institutions and procedures are put at the service of integral human growth.

[Compendium, 394]

2) The centrality of education of the next generation to social action. Teaching is not just one more job. The teaching of the next generation (both within and outwith schools) is one of the central tasks of human flourishing.

The commitment to the education and formation of the person has always represented the first concern of Christian social action.

[Compendium, 557.]
That connection between the generations largely formed by teaching is again one of the central aspects of the good life:

Procreation expresses the social subjectivity of the family and sets in motion a dynamism of love and solidarity between the generations upon which society is founded.

[Compendium, paragraph 230]

There's a lot more to be said here, but I take the centrality of education and schools to be an increasingly countercultural aspect of Catholicism in a society where children are often seen as just one more life choice for which individuals alone are responsible.

3) Schools as communities and as a cause of communities. Schools of course form a community within civil society for teachers and pupils. But beyond this, they form further communities around them (sports clubs, fund raising activities, friendships etc). As such, they are a key driver of the little platoons which form such an important part of the Catholic understanding of human beings and society.

Civil society is the sum of relationships and resources, cultural and associative, that are relatively independent from the political sphere and the economic sector. “The purpose of civil society is universal, since it concerns the common good, to which each and every citizen has a right in due proportion”. This is marked by a planning capacity that aims at fostering a freer and more just social life, in which the various groups of citizens can form associations, working to develop and express their preferences, in order to meet their fundamental needs and defend their legitimate interests.

[Compendium 417]

Those interested in pursuing a career in Catholic education in Scottish schools can find further information here.



 

 

Robert Burns and Catholic social teaching

 

 

I'm not quite sure whether it's right to wish people a happy Burns' Day rather than a happy Burns' Night. But in any case, Robert Burns was born on 25 January 1759. I'm not going to pretend that Burns was either a Catholic or even a convinced Presbyterian, but neither is he the straightforward opponent of religion that modern secularists might claim:

 

`What a transient business is life! Very lately I was a boy; but t'other day I was a young man; and I already begin to feel the rigid fibre and stiffening joints of Old Age coming fast o'er my frame. With all my follies of youth, and I fear, a few vices of manhood, still I congratulate myself on having had in early days religion strongly impressed on my mind. I have nothing to say to any body, as, to which Sect they belong, or what Creed they believe; but I look on the Man who is firmly persuaded of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness superintending and directing every circumstance that can happen in his lot - I felicitate such a man as having a solid foundation for his mental enjoyment; a firm prop and sure stay, in the hour of difficulty, trouble and distress: and a never-failing anchor of hope, when he looks beyond the grave.'

 

[From here.]

 

That said, Burns' poetry does reveal broad themes that connect with Catholic social teaching. Let's take 'A man's a man for a' that' as an example.

 

Is there for honest Poverty

That hings his head, an' a' that;

The coward slave-we pass him by,

We dare be poor for a' that!

For a' that, an' a' that.

Our toils obscure an' a' that,

The rank is but the guinea's stamp,

The Man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,

Wear hodden grey, an' a that;

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;

A Man's a Man for a' that:

For a' that, and a' that,

Their tinsel show, an' a' that;

The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,

Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,

Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;

Tho' hundreds worship at his word,

He's but a coof for a' that:

For a' that, an' a' that,

His ribband, star, an' a' that:

The man o' independent mind

He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,

A marquis, duke, an' a' that;

But an honest man's abon his might,

Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!

For a' that, an' a' that,

Their dignities an' a' that;

The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,

Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,

(As come it will for a' that,)

That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,

Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.

For a' that, an' a' that,

It's coming yet for a' that,

That Man to Man, the world o'er,

Shall brothers be for a' that.

I won't try to give a full Catholic reading of the complexities here, but let's take four key themes from the song and connect them to the Church's teaching on the subject from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. (Online here. Initial numbers below refer to the section numbers of the Compendium.)


1) Liberty:

135. Man can turn to good only in freedom, which God has given to him as one of the highest signs of his image: “For God has willed that man remain ‘under the control of his own decisions' (Sir 15:14), so that he can seek his Creator spontaneously, and come freely to utter and blissful perfection through loyalty to Him. Hence man's dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice that is personally motivated and prompted from within, neither under blind internal impulse nor by mere external pressure”. Man rightly appreciates freedom and strives for it passionately: rightly does he desire and must form and guide, by his own free initiative, his personal and social life, accepting personal responsibility for it. In fact, freedom not only allows man suitably to modify the state of things outside of himself, but it also determines the growth of his being as a person through choices consistent with the true good. In this way man generates himself, he is father of his own being, he constructs the social order. 2) Solidarity: 192. Solidarity highlights in a particular way the intrinsic social nature of the human person, the equality of all in dignity and rights and the common path of individuals and peoples towards an ever more committed unity. Never before has there been such a widespread awareness of the bond of interdependence between individuals and peoples, which is found at every level. The very rapid expansion in ways and means of communication “in real time”, such as those offered by information technology, the extraordinary advances in computer technology, the increased volume of commerce and information exchange all bear witness to the fact that, for the first time since the beginning of human history, it is now possible — at least technically — to establish relationships between people who are separated by great distances and are unknown to each other. 3) Equality: 144. “God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34; cf. Rom 2:11; Gal 2:6; Eph 6:9), since all people have the same dignity as creatures made in his image and likeness. The Incarnation of the Son of God shows the equality of all people with regard to dignity: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28; cf. Rom 10:12; 1 Cor 12:13, Col 3:11). Since something of the glory of God shines on the face of every person, the dignity of every person before God is the basis of the dignity of man before other men. Moreover, this is the ultimate foundation of the radical equality and brotherhood among all people, regardless of their race, nation, sex, origin, culture, or class.   4) Honest poverty:   324. Those who recognize their own poverty before God, regardless of their situation in life, receive particular attention from him: when the poor man seeks, the Lord answers; when he cries out, the Lord listens. The divine promises are addressed to the poor: they will be heirs to the Covenant between God and his people. God's saving intervention will come about through a new David (cf. Ezek 34:22-31), who like King David — only more so — will be defender of the poor and promoter of justice; he will establish a new covenant and will write a new law in the hearts of believers (cf. Jer 31:31-34). When sought or accepted with a religious attitude, poverty opens one to recognizing and accepting the order of creation. In this perspective, the “rich man” is the one who places his trust in his possessions rather than in God, he is the man who makes himself strong by the works of his own hands and trusts only in his own strength. Poverty takes on the status of a moral value when it becomes an attitude of humble availability and openness to God, of trust in him. This attitude makes it possible for people to recognize the relativity of economic goods and to treat them as divine gifts to be administered and shared, because God is the first owner of all goods.     Given the usual nature of Burns' suppers, one should perhaps also add (mutatis mutandis*) Belloc's words:

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!”

 

 

[Details of image here.]

 

 

*In this case a phrase doubtless to be translated into Scots as 'leaving out the sun and substituting whisky for wine'.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and a happy 2016!

 





[Details of painting: here.]