Catholic Social Teaching: Saving Souls, not Structures

Every politically engaged person desires a just world. This observation is frustratingly only a mere tautology that creates no progress in political discussion. Every person agrees that we should have people given what is due to them, but people disagree on what is due to each person. A person who tends toward capitalism will see capital owners are due a large share of the fruit of the labor because it was the investment of their capital that made it possible. A socialist can claim that it is just that the laborers get a greater share because of the importance of their labor in the capital owners' return on investment. When the magisterium of the Catholic Church responds to these ideologies, it does so with her principles, such as solidarity, universal destination of good, subsidiarity, and private property. The Church may give the impression it merely is answering the question of what is fair. It can look like she exists to make sure the capitalist knows the rights of the worker that they must respect, and the socialist knows the rights of property owners and the entrepreneurial spirit common to all. Holy Mother Church will not shy away from speaking up when structures disrespect the rights of people, but this is not done just for the sake of the structure. Instead of structural change, the Church sees the end goal in all her actions to save souls. God didn’t become man, suffer, die, and rise again to save any political structure, but for each person to be saved through knowing him. (Tim 2:4) Scripture is very clear that this knowledge turning into the love of the invisible God must accompany the love of visibleneighbor (1 John 4:20) The Church sees the internal conversion towards this love of neighbors as the primary goal of her social teaching, instead of any social change.

The Church has pointed out many examples of the mistakes that happen when the Church’s goal is seen as mere social change, not spiritual renewal. A person who thinks that carts belong in front of horses will think plenty with plenty of incorrect things. However crazy some explanations for the inability to move may be, they can be quite rational when the wrong location of the horse is accepted.

Similarly, there are plenty of assumptions people reasonably make based on false principles about the need for spiritual renewal in political life. A person may conclude that they should just get a different horse when the cart does not move, seeing the problem being with their horse A similar thing happens when man, either consciously or unconsciously, is convinced that the kingdom Jesus preached can be obtained without conversion to Jesus. They will look at all the failed attempts of history at creating this kingdom and assume the right system hasn’t yet been applied. If man’s problems can be solved by the making of the right machines, that must mean that the problems we have today are due to us not the perfect machines. If war is merely the result of the big mean oppressors taking advantage of helpless, innocent victims to the point they resort to violence, the fact that there are wars means we have yet to create the perfect economic system that does not allow for this oppression. However, the issue of suffering and war has not yet found simple solutions not because it just has yet to see the answers, but because you can’t separate the kingdom of Christ from the person of Christ and his grace.

As the person is mistaken about the cart and the horse tries to reason through all the possible things wrong with the horse, it would be ineffective to have them go through every idea they come up with as to why the cart doesn’t move. Instead, for their sake, you must show

them that their information about the cart's relationship to the horse was initially wrong. In the same way, when someone falls into the error of thinking that a perfect society can come from outside of the Church, you can go through these systems that are suggested to have the power to create perfect societies and show them the flaws in that. A lot of these political ideologies contain violations of human rights so egregious, like the often-forceful removal of unborn or elderly when they are not economically useful, that pointing these examples out may not be a waste of time. However, at some point, it must be said that the reason that all these manmade systems fail is not due to us not being able to create the perfect one, but it's because no perfect one can exist outside the Church. Under the section on the Church’s final trial, the Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes Pope Pius XI’s Divini Redemproris where he claims, “The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.” (CCC 676)

The Church sees a problem of seeing her social critiques existing only to make the world just and leave it at that. While reflecting on previous magisterial documents, Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate points out that all the popes have been addressing are interconnected. He pointed out the problems of “hunger, deprivation, endemic diseases and illiteracy,” which Pope Paul VI was concerned about in his social letters have not been fixed because of too large emphases on profit, which Benedict asserts “if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty” (P.21)

Again, this may seem like the pope is giving an updated account of what the Church sets as the minimum for an ethical society, where if people stay within these parameters, the Church doesn’t care about political actions. Benedict, however, says he is doing more than just sharing what justice demands so the man knows where his duty to others ends but is finding the place where mere justice ends, and true charity begins. “I cannot ‘give’ what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice. If we love others with charity, then first we are just towards them.” (P.6)

This 3rd encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI is titled Caritas in Veritate, which in English means “Charity in Truth.” The Pope had already named his first encyclical after the claim made that God is love, (1 John 4:16) and elaborates that this love can only be lived truth, which Jesus identifies himself as (John 14:6). Scripture makes clear that both truth and love are interlinked. Benedict shows that this connection is not just a coincidence. Both characteristics of God are always found together in the lived tradition of the Church. He says how their connection is necessary. “Only in truth does charity shine forth, can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity.” (P.3)

He claims that truth is necessary for charity, but also sees that plenty of people who attempt charity are outside of the truth. As stated in the introduction, every person wants a society where people are given what they are owed. However, the corpus of catholic social thought touches on many different factors in her ethical principles. It is not always easy to discern the boundaries of each principle. This is why Benedict deems it necessary for the Church to weigh in on social matters. Not just to use good wills to get the most social benefit, but he knew if the Church does not guide man, then even those who act with altruistic intentions will turn in on their potential for real charity to be actualized. “In a culture without truth, this is the

fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, and the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing space.” (P.3) Benedict is claiming the ideas presented in not only his encyclical but also all the teachings the Church has presented on politics while in themself not generating charity, sharing with the world what charity requires, and what actions or structures are contrary to charity.

An analogy can be made to help make this point on the Church’s social teaching using her sexual teaching. John Paul II restated the Church’s condemnation of the use of contraceptive technology within marriage by sharing the constant teaching of the Church that sexual union is both for the union of the couple and for procreation, and by using contraception, the couple “act(s) as ‘arbiters’ of the divine plan and they ‘manipulate’ and degrade human sexuality-and with it themselves and their married partner-by altering its value of ‘total’ self-giving.” (Familiaris Consortio, 32) The Church can say that when contraceptives are being used, it is impossible for the bodies of the people in the sexual embrace to honestly say what Christ says at the Last Supper, “This is my body which is given for you.” (Luke 22:19) In this same respect, the Church speaks in the political arena when peoples have strayed too far from the teachings and example of Jesus that friendship with him cannot be possible. As Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

The Church in multiple realms makes known when an action is so opposed to charity that the action cannot image that of God. However, that should not be confused with the Church claiming that every action that falls outside of the magisterium condemnation equals God’s disinterested love. With the example of contraception, when the Church says that contraception is opposed to the sexual act being free, total, faithful, and fruitful, that does not mean the Church is saying that every sexual action within a marriage that does not use contraceptives meets all four of these marks. The ability for a couple to honestly give of themself to each other requires authentic love for each other, not just the absence of contraception. Likewise, when it comes to social morals, Jesus says we are to have self-emptying love for all. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you.” (John 13:34) This love we are invited into and is required in the new covenant is more than just the absence of atheist collectivism, consumerism, or oppression of the poor for the sake of profit but is an affirmative pursuit of your neighbor's good.

The Church speaks of what is contrary to internal conversion without speaking as to what will cause this conversion because she humbly knows her limits. “No legislation, no system of rules or negotiation will ever succeed in persuading men and peoples to live in unity, brotherhood, and peace; no line of reasoning will ever be able to surpass the appeal of love. (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 207) It is only through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that man first comes to know God’s love before he can share it. (Rom 5:5) While man receives the Holy Spirit through the Church, in her sacraments, the intersection of her saints, scripture, tradition, magisterium, and prayer, (CCC 688) the members of the Church are recipients of the Holy Spirit and are in no way his master. How the Holy Spirit moves to convict and convert someone’s heart we do not know and cannot fully discover. “In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” (1 Cor 2:11)

While we do not know every detail about how the Spirit moves in these conversions, we can still say with confidence that aiding in the conversations of heart to God is the goal of the Church in all her actions, including discussing politics. We can’t see the amount of ink the Church has used to express her desire for social reform in any way to mean that it is her biggest priority. If the Church’s social teaching was primarily about social change, then you do not need a Church for that, since history is full of social changes for better and for worse. The Church’s political proposals are only necessary when they are seen as giving us proper direction to living out a restored friendship with God and having the fruitfulness of that divine friendship overflow to benefit our neighbors and sanctify the world. This is why the Church sees the development of this divine friendship as more important than the external outcomes of this friendship.

Written by Avery Starr