The pope is an advocate of no 'ism' except evangelism. With striking humility, he notes at several junctures that it does not lie within his prudential responsibility to devise the specific socioeconomic systems to accomplish the ends he calls us to. He effectively invites lay leaders to contemplate and propose systems that, rooted in truth, acknowledge the fulness of the dignity of the human person while providing avenues for the joyful development of that dignity for all.
What the pope did with enthusiastic vigor and wit was to exhort believers to go forth with joy, proclaiming the good news to a world weary with cynicism and exploitation. While recognizing the value of theology, piety, devotions, mysticism and charity as tools of evangelization, he warns against falling in love with the tools, themselves. All these things are useful only to the extent that they help others into direct, joyful encounter with Christ. Francis complains of Christians who act as if it is all Lent and no Easter.
He says you cannot bring people the joy of the risen Christ while looking as if you just came from a funeral. He warns that religion cannot be a form of servitude or the Churches, toll houses. The Pope tells the faithful they should worry less about going astray than they should setting themselves up as harsh judges who begin to pharasaically impose heavy burdens on others. What other pope, before launching into instructions on how to make effective homilies, would joke in an official document that both the clergy and the laity suffer from homilies: the laity from having to listen to them and the clergy from having to preach them? If you have not read Francis' Exhortation, please do so slowly, so as to savor it. The debate over it is deeply impoverished, completely missing his point. It is as if one presented the American Revolution as primarily a dispute over the price of tea.
In a few places (and they are very few) the pope indulges a fantasy common to many Churchmen: that a benign state can impose virtue on people from above. This obscures two important realities. The first is that the state is always run by people who, themselves, are subject to the temptations of our fallen nature.The second is the value God assigns to free will - a quality so important to Him that He allows evil to exist rather than revoke it.
If anything, the halls of power attract a disproportionate number of people given over to the most toxic spiritual disorders; preening, imperious vanity. A state powerful enough to offer a guaranteed income or health care for all is also powerful enough to order the Church to pay for abortion and euthanasia or to ban public professions of faith altogether. In practice, it has always done an incompetent job at the former while vigorously pursuing the latter. Even if it could be successful, all it would beget would be a grudging acceptance of the forms of virtue rather than a joyful embrace of the reality.
Instead of focusing on what is ancillary to Pope Francis' marvelous Exhortation and criticizing his comments on what he clearly states are not his fundamental responsibility, I would rather take up his invitation to describe the contours of a system that is fully commensurate with the Gospel and his call to evangelization.
First, one must consider the authentic nature of man. Man is created in God's own image and thus, touched with the divine dignity. God is creator. So if man is formed in the divine image, his fundamental nature is as a creator. He rejoices and finds dignity in the work of his own hands, however humble it might be. For all the good Enlightenment thought produced, it fell prey to the fundamental error of reducing man to a mere consumer. To treat a man as if all he needs is food, shelter and such while reserving to a few the act of creating these things is to strip man of his essential dignity. It reduces men to the role of pets with a facility for language. A just system must make provision for all to enjoy the work of their own hands while providing for the basic needs of those who suffer.
The virtue of capitalism is not that it ensures that people may enjoy freely the fruits of their own labor, but that it makes it possible for them to do so. Crony capitalism, the modern euphemism for economic fascism, is a conspiracy between some corporatists and the state. The state erects barriers to entry to new competitors and confers benefits on the corporatists for political support of policies favored by the rulers. This sort of system is unjust at its very root - perhaps even worse than its toxic cousins, socialism and communism - for it offers the hope of dignity while denying the reality. An authentically just capitalist system is never trickle down, but always bubble up. By unleashing the creative force of all in society, all are enriched by the abundant overflow of that creative power.
Delving deeper into the nature of man, the Triune God of Christianity is not just a Person, but a community of Persons sharing a single will and nature. Thus, while each of us is an unrepeatable miracle, we live in community in family, with neighbors and with all humanity. There has to be some basic organizing principle. We could do far worse than to adopt the principle of subsidiarity as described by Blessed John Paul the Great in his marvelous encyclical,'Centesimus Annus.' Subsidiarity is simply the principle that every task should be performed at the lowest level of social organization possible, to keep it responsive to the people affected. When this is done the state is not the principle, secondary or even tertiary mediating institution in society. It fulfills the role of a stop light in traffic - having almost no role in deciding where the society should go, but maintaining essential order as it goes. The American founders refined this by necessity with the adoption of vigorous federalism. The national government was subordinate to the states in all things except defense of human rights, national defense, issuance of currency and settling disputes between sovereign states. This prevented the national government from assuming power over people's lives while giving states more latitude for regulation, always preserving the right of people to move freely from one state to another within the confederation. This gave immediate feedback to every state on what policies were effective and acceptable and encouraged the adoption of best practices, uniquely fitted to the local culture and mores. The federal government was designed to be an administrative unit of the collective will of the states when necessary: the states were never to be treated as administrative units of an overweening federal government.
Christ's command to us to love and care for one another is intimately personal. It cannot be abrogated to another entity on our behalf. Christian charity differs in quality from secular social work. Secular charity says we should care for the less fortunate as a condescension of the greater to the lesser - and often seems designed to make the prosperous feel good about themselves with any benefit going to the needy a secondary concern. Christian charity recognizes that we are all the less fortunate, burdened by the weight of original sin, and should care for each other as loving brothers and sisters, always living solidarity. How often does secular social work take away the names of the needy and replace them with file numbers? Any charity that does such is not Christian - and to call itself such is an abomination.
Finally, these principles and any others more elegantly devised than I am capable of, will be utterly barren if not practiced by a fundamentally moral and religious people. Everyone wants meaning in their lives and in what they do. That calls for transcendence, which is the sphere of the Church and the faithful. The Church must live its calling fully to joyfully evangelize and make room for all; to show the profound meaning that lies behind mundane, everyday tasks. It cannot outsource its duty to proclaim the Good News to merely secular agenicies, but must be the leaven in the dough, transforming and giving meaning and hope to all human endeavors.
As I read through Evangelii Gaudium, a thought kept coming to me. Every Christmas story is a love story - and every true love story is a Christmas story. Let us join with Francis. May each of us, living our own prudential responsibility well, live a great Christmas story of renewal and hope.
A Politically Conservative, Orthodox Catholic Defense of Evangelii Gaudium
By Charlie Johnston
Pope Francis has a knack for shaking people up. His official Exhortation,'Evangelii Gaudium,' hot off the presses, has a number of politically conservative and religiously orthodox commentators in a lather because of its blunt criticism of capitalism and tentative approval of some level of state control over the means of production. Politically conservative and religiously orthodox, myself, I was prepared to be alarmed as I slowly and carefully read it. While continuing to think he made some misdiagnoses, the deeper I got into it the more I wanted to dance and sing.
A sad by-product of our hyper-partisan times is that commentators often study serious documents in light of what is important to them rather than what is important to the author; what it is in itself - and are ever vigilant for any whiff of heresy. The pope's comments on socioeconomic political systems are mere ancillary aspects of this extraordinary document, which calls the faithful to a renewal of evangelical fervor and explains in detail how to do it effectively.
Pope Francis' criticism of modern capitalism is of a piece with the American founders' universal warning about the system they devised: that it is only suitable for a moral and religious people. Even the most elegantly designed system, when populated by those who have despaired of the possibility of transcendence, degenerates into a parody of itself. The pope is advocate of no 'ism' except evangelism. With striking humility, he notes at several junctures that it does not lie within his prudential responsibility to devise the specific socioeconomic systems to accomplish the ends he calls us to. He effectively invites lay leaders to contemplate and propose systems that, rooted in truth, acknowledge the fulness of the dignity of the human person while providing avenues for the joyful development of that dignity for all.
What the pope did with enthusiastic vigor and wit was to exhort believers to go forth with joy, proclaiming the good news to a world weary with cynicism and exploitation. While recognizing the value of theology, piety, devotions, mysticism and charity as tools of evangelization, he warns against falling in love with the tools, themselves. All these things are useful only to the extent that they help others into direct, joyful encounter with Christ. Francis complains of Christians who act as if it is all Lent and no Easter. He says you cannot bring people the joy of the risen Christ while looking as if you just came from a funeral. He warns that religion cannot be a form of servitude or the Churches, toll houses. The Pope tells the faithful they should worry less about going astray than they should setting themselves up as harsh judges who begin to pharasaically impose heavy burdens on others. What other pope, before launching into instructions on how to make effective homilies, would joke in an official document that both the clergy and the laity suffer from homilies: the laity from having to listen to them and the clergy from having to preach them? If you have not read Francis' Exhortation, please do so slowly, so as to savor it. The debate over it is deeply impoverished, completely missing his point. It is as if one presented the American Revolution as primarily a dispute over the price of tea.
In a few places (and they are very few) the pope indulges a fantasy common to many Churchmen: that a benign state can impose virtue on people from above. This obscures two important realities. The first is that the state is always run by people who, themselves, are subject to the temptations of our fallen nature. The second is the value God assigns to free will - a quality so important to Him that He allows evil to exist rather than revoke it. If anything, the halls of power attract a disproportionate number of people given over to the most toxic spiritual disorders; preening, imperious vanity. A state powerful enough to offer a guaranteed income or health care for all is also powerful enough to order the Church to pay for abortion and euthanasia or to ban public professions of faith altogether. In practice, it has always done an incompetent job at the former while vigorously pursuing the latter. Even if it could be successful, all it would beget would be a grudging acceptance of the forms of virtue rather than a joyful embrace of the reality.
Instead of focusing on what is ancillary to Pope Francis' marvelous Exhortation and criticizing his comments on what he clearly states are not his fundamental responsibility, I would rather take up his invitation to describe the contours of a system that is fully commensurate with the Gospel and his call to evangelization.
First, one must consider the authentic nature of man. Man is created in God's own image and thus, touched with the divine dignity. God is creator. So if man is formed in the divine image, his fundamental nature is as a creator. He rejoices and finds dignity in the work of his own hands, however humble it might be. For all the good Enlightenment thought produced, it fell prey to the fundamental error of reducing man to a mere consumer. To treat a man as if all he needs is food, shelter and such while reserving to a few the act of creating these things is to strip man of his essential dignity. It reduces men to the role of pets with a facility for language. A just system must make provision for all to enjoy the work of their own hands while providing for the basic needs of those who suffer.
The virtue of capitalism is not that it ensures that people may enjoy freely the fruits of their own labor, but that it makes it possible for them to do so. Crony capitalism, the modern euphemism for economic fascism, is a conspiracy between some corporatists and the state. The state erects barriers to entry to new competitors and confers benefits on the corporatists for political support of policies favored by the rulers. This sort of system is unjust at its very root - perhaps even worse than its toxic cousins, socialism and communism - for it offers the hope of dignity while denying the reality. An authentically just capitalist system is never trickle down, but always bubble up. By unleashing the creative force of all in society, all are enriched by the abundant overflow of that creative power.
Delving deeper into the nature of man, the Triune God of Christianity is not just a Person, but a community of Persons sharing a single will and nature. Thus, while each of us is an unrepeatable miracle, we live in community in family, with neighbors and with all humanity. There has to be some basic organizing principle. We could do far worse than to adopt the principle of subsidiarity as described by Blessed John Paul the Great in his marvelous encyclical,'Centesimus Annus.' Subsidiarity is simply the principle that every task should be performed at the lowest level of social organization possible, to keep it responsive to the people affected. When this is done the state is not the principle, secondary or even tertiary mediating institution in society. It fulfills the role of a stop light in traffic - having almost no role in deciding where the society should go, but maintaining essential order as it goes. The American founders refined this by necessity with the adoption of vigorous federalism. The national government was subordinate to the states in all things except defense of human rights, national defense, issuance of currency and settling disputes between sovereign states. This prevented the national government from assuming power over people's lives while giving states more latitude for regulation, always preserving the right of people to move freely from one state to another within the confederation. This gave immediate feedback to every state on what policies were effective and acceptable and encouraged the adoption of best practices, uniquely fitted to the local culture and mores. The federal government was designed to be an administrative unit of the collective will of the states when necessary: the states were never to be treated as administrative units of an overweening federal government.
Christ's command to us to love and care for one another is intimately personal. It cannot be abrogated to another entity on our behalf. Christian charity differs in quality from secular social work. Secular charity says we should care for the less fortunate as a condescension of the greater to the lesser - and often seems designed to make the prosperous feel good about themselves with any benefit going to the needy a secondary concern. Christian charity recognizes that we are all the less fortunate, burdened by the weight of original sin, and should care for each other as loving brothers and sisters, always living solidarity. How often does secular social work take away the names of the needy and replace them with file numbers? Any charity that does such is not Christian - and to call itself such is an abomination.
Finally, these principles and any others more elegantly devised than I am capable of, will be utterly barren if not practiced by a fundamentally moral and religious people. Everyone wants meaning in their lives and in what they do. That calls for transcendence, which is the sphere of the Church and the faithful. The Church must live its calling fully to joyfully evangelize and make room for all; to show the profound meaning that lies behind mundane, everyday tasks. It cannot outsource its duty to proclaim the Good News to merely secular agenicies, but must be the leaven in the dough, transforming and giving meaning and hope to all human endeavors.
As I read through Evangelii Gaudium, a thought kept coming to me. Every Christmas story is a love story - and every true love story is a Christmas story. Let us join with Francis. May each of us, living our own prudential responsibility well, live a great Christmas story of renewal and hope.