Not An Invention Of Communism

• 9 years ago

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK

Unless I miss my guess, large numbers of Catholics loyal to the Magisterium were happy to see the excerpts from Pope Francis’ interview with Vatican writers Andrea Tornielli and Giacomo Galeazzi in the Italian newspaper La Stampa on January 11. In that interview, the Pope made clear that the statements he has made over the past months critical of global capitalism and calling for greater assistance for the poor should not be seen as a sign of Marxist leanings.

Francis stressed that concern for the poor “is not an invention of Communism,” but a central element of the Catholic faith, citing the passage from the Gospel of Matthew: “I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was in prison, I was sick, I was naked, and you helped me, clothed me, visited me, took care of me.”

That said, I think it fair of critics to argue that the Pope is a man “of the left” on economic matters, someone whose statements throughout his career as a South American Jesuit and bishop of Buenos Aires and now as Pope — especially his off-the-cuff remarks — indicate a predisposition toward the big government programs to deal with poverty associated with the Social Democrats in Europe and the Democratic Party in the United States.

There is nothing wrong with that. The men who become Popes have had lives as citizens and voters in their countries of origin. They are entitled to their political and economic views. (And, let’s face it: There are not many Catholic priests in Latin America and in Europe who are disciples of Milton Friedman.)

The same predisposition toward big government social programs may well have been found in previous Popes, some of whom are remembered fondly by Catholics with traditional views. John Maynard Keynes’ and John Kenneth Galbraith’s books are on not on the Index. One can argue that the confidence in the central government to manage the economy that they advocated is misguided, but there is no reason to assume that it indicates a hidden Marxist agenda. A case can be made that certain liberation theologians harbor such an agenda, but Pope Francis, while still a Jesuit priest, and later archbishop of Buenos Aires, spoke critically of those who fall into that category.

So there is no reason to think that Pope Francis does not know how to draw the proper lines in this matter; that he does not know the difference between those who are committed to social justice for the poor and tub-thumpers for the Communist Party. In his interview in La Stampa, Francis warned of the danger of turning the Gospel admonition to care for the poor “into some ideology, as has sometimes happened in the course of history.” He is talking about certain liberation theologians.

Beyond that, the Pope knows and understands the Church’s social teachings. Even if one were to suspect that the Pope’s private political leanings lead him to favor the wealth redistribution programs associated with the European socialist parties and the Democratic Party in the United States (which, I repeat, may well may be the case), the Pope knows it would be crossing the line for him to advocate these programs as part of the teachings of the Church.

One has only to think back to Economic Justice for All, the 1986 pastoral letter of the then National Conference of Catholic Bishops on Catholic social teaching and the U.S. economy. Many Catholics feared the pastoral letter would reflect the bias of certain members of the hierarchy at the time in favor of the wealth redistribution social programs of the Democratic Party. Indeed, many critics saw some of the pastoral letter’s policy recommendations as doing precisely that.

Nonetheless, the bishops were obliged to state specifically in the opening passages of the pastoral letter that what they were offering was “not a blueprint for the American economy,” and that they were not embracing “any particular theory of how the economy works,” or attempting to “resolve the disputes between different schools of economic thought.”

The bishops emphasized that they were “aware that the movement from principle to policy is complex and difficult and that although moral values are essential in determining public policies, they do not dictate specific solutions,” and that any specific policy recommendations they make “do not carry the same moral authority as our statements of universal moral principles.”

The American bishops were aware, as is Pope Francis, of the clearly established position of the Church in this matter: The Church claims no expertise in the nuts and bolts of economic theory; Catholics are free to disagree and debate in good faith about these things.

Pope Pius XI, in his 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, written to reaffirm and expand upon Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, underscored the point: When the Church speaks on economic matters, its authority does not extend to “matters of technique for which she is neither suitably equipped nor endowed by office,” but only to “things that are connected with the moral law.” Pius XI added that “the Church holds that it is unlawful for her to mix without cause in these temporal concerns,” since “economic science and moral discipline are guided each by its own principles in its own sphere” (II, 41-42).

Pope John Paul II reaffirmed this point in his 1987 encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (On Social Concerns), wherein he stated that reforming the social order is the “preeminent role that belongs to the laity”; that it is up to them “to animate temporal realities with Christian commitment by which they show that they are witnesses and agents of peace and justice” (n. 47).

In other words, the lay faithful are free to employ temporal wisdom to promote the economic theories that they believe will be the most effective in pursuit of economic wellbeing and social justice.

Pope Francis understands as well the principle of subsidiarity, explained by Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno: that government should undertake only those initiatives which exceed the competency of individuals or private groups acting independently. Further, that functions of government should be carried out as locally as possible, with the central government stepping in only when private groups and local, regional, and state governments have proven incapable of the task at hand.

In practical terms this means that members of the Catholic laity on the political left and the political right are free, for example, to make their case that free-market economics will do a better job of achieving the ends sought by Pope Francis — feeding the hungry, providing employment, and a just society — than economies tightly regulated by the government. Or to make the case that economies based on the principles favored by European Social Democrats and their counterparts in the Democratic Party in the United States will be more likely to achieve that end. They can also argue the case for the distributism advocated by G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. Get out the pie charts; make your case.

No doubt, there are priests and members of the hierarchy — including some in Rome — with private political preferences for an expansive wealth redistribution program carried out by the central government, who chafe at the fact that these principles are clearly articulated in the Church’s social teachings.

But they are articulated in those encyclicals. Pope Francis knows that. That is why he went out of his way in his interview in La Stampa to make clear that his call for Catholics to seek a just society is not a call for a left-wing economic approach to that end.