Unit IIA: The Human Vocation

Basics:

What is “Catholic social teaching” or “Catholic social thought”?

J. Bryan Hehir, one of the foremost Roman Catholic social ethicists, describes Catholic social teaching as “an effort to provide a systematic, normative theory relating the social vision of the faith to the concrete conditions of the twentieth-century [and now the twenty-first century]. In other words, it is the systematic reflection of the church on what it means to be Christian and Catholic [and more fundamentally what it means to be human] in the world.

Although “social ethics,” as such, begins when the first Christian community starts to work out its relationship with the world around it (“Can Christians be soldiers? How should we provide for the material needs of the community?”), the tradition we call “modern Catholic social teaching” is initiated by Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum. Here Leo makes an explicit “turn to the world,” taking up the situation of workers under industrialization. The encyclicals which follow also take up practical problems (i.e., they “read the signs of the time”) in light of a developing set of principles and themes.

The core documents of CST are:

Most of these core documents are encyclicals (letters issued by popes) although the list also includes some statements issued by ecumenical councils and synods. Most scholars also include major statements and pastoral letters on social questions issued by regional bishops’ conferences among the documents of CST (e.g., The Challenge of Peace by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).

Some of these encyclicals are issued on anniversaries of Rerum Novarum. These typically include a retrospective on progress made and a reflection on problems still to be addressed. Others are issued in the face of particular pressing social problems (e.g., Pacem et Terris was issued as a response to the Cuban missile crisis). We will notice some features common to encyclicals: they are generally issued to “all people of good will”; they presume a natural law ethical framework; they reflect their time; they are aspirational and universal in scope (rather than solution-oriented). It is presumed that people with expertise must discern the implications of the challenge issued within diverse economic and political contexts. Scholars generally recognize three periods in Catholic Social Thought (defined by the major preoccupations):

1. 1891-1941: The Industrial Revolution
   • labor - work
   • state - private property
2. 1941-1971: Interdependence of Post-war World
   • United Nations - Human Rights
   • global capitalism - arms race
   • development
3. 1971- : Post-industrialization [globalization]
   • mass communications - secularization
   • pluralism - social status of women
   • post-socialism

A concern for poverty (and gaps between rich and poor of various sorts) permeates the entire tradition. Hehir identifies four framing assumptions of Catholic Social Thought as a systematic and evolving theory:

1. The church has no specifically political mandate or ministry/subscribes to no single political or economic system
2. The Church is a religious community whose ultimate goal is to contribute to the building of the Kingdom of God
3. The Kingdom, however, grows in history
4. Hence, as the church pursues its religious objective it has four consequences:
   • protecting the dignity of the person
   • promoting human rights
   • fostering the unity of the human family
   • informing human activity with meaning

(from “Continuity and Change in Social Teaching”)

Thematic Overview

Respect for human dignity lies at the heart of the Roman Catholic tradition in social ethics. Gaudium et Spes (1965) captures a central assumption of the social encyclicals: “The human person . . .is and ought to be the principle, the subject, and the object of every social organization (#25.1). The Catholic tradition’s account of what it means to respect human dignity follows from a particular understanding of the person. As Richard Gula writes, Roman Catholic morality takes its norms from an understanding of the human person as “an historical subject . . .who stands in relation to the world, to other persons, to social structures, and to God, and who is a unique originality in the context of being fundamentally equal with all other persons” (p. 67). CST assumes, first, that human beings are intrinsically social. We need human society both to assist us in our vulnerability and to provide a context for our full flourishing: "Society for [the human person] is not an extraneous addition but a requirement of his nature. Through the exchange with others, mutual service and dialogue . . ., man, [woman] develops his potential" (Catechism, #1879). Economic, social, and political systems and exchanges are legitimate insofar as they serve the full development of persons. In shorthand, we say that they are legitimate insofar as they serve the common good – the “good of all and of each individual.”

The section from the United States Bishops’ Pastoral Letter, Economic Justice For All, assigned for this week contains a definition of social justice that provides helpful clues to understanding what concerns drive Catholic social teaching as a whole: “Social justice implies that persons have an obligation to be active and productive participants in the life of society and that society has a duty to enable them to participate in this way.” (O’Brien and Shannon, p. 595). The degree to which individuals and groups have the means and opportunity to participate in the full life of the community is a key measure of the just society for this tradition, just as the degree to which individuals and groups are marginalized is a key indication of injustice. Drawing from the biblical prophets, Catholic social ethics is keenly sensitive to gaps between rich and poor, and, in particular, to the indifference of the well off to the plight of the poor. It is not only the effect of poverty on human dignity that is at stake in promoting social justice, but the relationship between poverty and participation.

Two things will follow from the priority of participation/marginalization in the tradition:

1) a comprehensive theory of human rights, economic and social as a well as political, with rights being understood as means for expressing and honoring the dignity of persons through participation in the common good. (Pacem in Terris contains the most comprehensive table of human rights in the social encyclicals, # 8-37, Shannon and O’Brien, pp. 132-37). 

2) A preferential option for the poor. There is no single definition of “preferential option” in Catholic social teaching, but in all interpretations, the principle holds generally that the needs of the poor take precedence over the liberty of the rich. In contemporary documents, the principle of preferential option has been used to argue that assessments of whether or not a society is just should be made from the perspective of the poor. It has also been used to call for heightened awareness to the reality of social or structural sin: the embodiment of injustice within economic or political systems that legitimate the marginalization of persons and groups. In the social encyclicals of the present pope, Pope John Paul II, mention of a preferential option for the poor is often joined with the call to local and global solidarity. By “solidarity” John Paul II means something more than just a feeling of empathy or concern. He means a material commitment to the good of all persons in proportion to my commitment to my own good.

Alongside the assumption that human beings are intrinsically social is a second important assumption, usually called the “universal destination of goods.” Following from a commitment to the fundamental equality of all persons under God, Catholic social teaching holds that every person has a right to a share of the earth’s goods sufficient for the care of oneself and one’s family: “God intended the earth and all that it contains for the use of every human being and people” (Gaudium et Spes, #69). As we will see, to hold that the goods of the earth are intended for the use of all does not mean that there is no place for a right to private property. It does mean, however, that this right, as all rights in the tradition, incorporates correlative responsibilities: one has a right to private property because one has a duty to participate in the common enterprises of society and to care for oneself and one’s family in a manner consistent with human dignity. It also means that private property is always under a “social mortgage.” Gaudium et Spes writes: Whatever the forms of ownership may be, as adapted to the legitimate institutions of people according to diverse and changeable circumstances, attention must always be paid to the universal purpose for which created goods are meant. In using them, therefore, a man should regard his lawful possessions not merely as his own but also as common property in the sense that they should accrue to the benefit of not only himself but of others (#69).

The commitment to enabling individuals to participate fully and with dignity in the life of the society gives rise to a particular account of the role of government and civil authority. Government has an important moral purpose: it exists, as all social institutions and organizations, to promote the common good. Its function is limited, however, by the responsibility of individuals to contribute in an appropriate manner. Catholic social teaching uses the principle of subsidiarity to define the proper scope of government: “Authorities must beware of hindering family, social, or cultural groups, as well as intermediate bodies and institutions. They must not deprive them of their own lawful and effective activity, but should rather strive to promote them willingly and in an orderly fashion (Gaudium et Spes, #75).

In sum, Roman Catholic social teaching is an ethic grounded in a practical, material respect for human dignity. Whether in social or interpersonal contexts, human beings are called to live in right relation: to God, self, others and institutions. Justice and injustice is defined in relation to the rights and duties of participation in the common good. Social, economic, and political institutions and organizations find both their rationale and their limit in their fundamental orientation toward the dignity of the person.

Below are 10 recurrent themes in Catholic social teaching. The list is a good “bullet summary” of the overview above and points to some issues (e.g., the dignity of work and ecological accountability) to be on the watch for in your reading this semester

• The dignity of the human person.
• The social nature of the human person.
• The common good is inseparable from the good of persons.
• Solidarity of the human family.
• Participation as a basic human right.
• Subsidiarity as a rule of social organization.
• The dignity of work.
• The universal purpose of material goods.
• The special claim of the poor.
• Ecological responsibility, which flows from the dignity of all creation.