Roman Catholic Social Thought Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Catholic social thought is a systematic Christian reflection on the social order. Neither Jesus nor the early church sought the cooperative agency of the state, sharply delineating the two realms. Seeking to strip politics and the state of divine pretensions, the church, under Pope Gelasius I, in 494, formalized the doctrine that there were two authorities, ecclesiastical and civil, each legitimate in its own realm.

Classical Formulations: Augustine And Aquinas

In De civitate Dei, Saint Augustine articulated what would be the defining Christian attitude toward politics. Until the end of time, there are two cities, the heavenly and earthly, the former comprised of those who love God, the latter by those who love themselves and the world without reference to God. Political life is always the mingling of the two. Coupled with Augustine’s conviction that the majority is unconverted, Augustine’s views of politics are rooted in the grim realism that human beings, weakened by original and actual sin, can only attain a very limited justice in this world. Willed by God as a necessary, partial remedy for human sinfulness, the state’s role is largely coercive and punitive, limiting sin but unable to treat the roots of the disorder in the human soul. Although incorporating essential Christian insights into the human condition, Augustine’s theology ran the risk of promoting an unduly negative view of the state’s role.

Saint Thomas Aquinas is generally regarded as providing the needed corrective that renewed the Augustinian tradition through reappropriating the best of the Aristotelian corpus. Government’s functions are not limited to the remedy of human deficiency, but include the essentially positive functions of choosing the means to and material requirements of the common good, and securing justice. He underlined the case for Christian support of constitutional government by affirming Aristotle’s preference for a mixed regime, claiming that Scripture supported the ideal as well. Aquinas’ theory of law would become Catholic patrimony, particularly in his classic statement on natural law, a law imbedded in human nature, discernible by reason, by which we can attain a sure knowledge of fundamental and universal moral principles; these properly condition and limit all human, political law.

Modern Formulations: Natural Rights And Papal Encyclicals

In the sixteenth century, Spanish Thomists in particular would develop two of the most influential doctrines for the subsequent development of Western political thought: popular sovereignty and natural rights. Jesuit scholastics, Francisco Suárez and Robert Bellarmine in particular, developed the former in the process of rejecting the divine right of kings, denying the proposition that God directly chose either political rulers or regimes. Historian Brian Tierney (1997) has shown how Francisco Vittoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas played equally fundamental roles in arguing the case for universal natural rights in the process of defending the rights of native peoples at the time of the colonization of the Americas.

Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891) begins the systematic exposition of Catholic social teaching as an authoritative and comprehensive body of doctrine. This landmark papal encyclical was a response to both the perceived injustices against the working class as a result of the Industrial Revolution and the challenge of Marxism. It has been followed by a number of others, as well as documents released by groups of Catholic bishops that interpret and apply its principles in local settings. Perhaps the most significant of these was The Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops, held in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968. In rather stark and prophetic language, the bishops condemned poverty in Latin America as an inhuman scourge resulting from institutionalized injustice, calling for profound economic and political reform. Catholic political engagement increased significantly in the subsequent two decades. In addition, the Catholic bishops in the United States emerged as serious participants in debates over war and peace (The Challenge of Peace, 1983), the economy (Economic Justice for All, 1986), and in the promotion of national health care (provided it avoids government funding of abortion).

The teaching is comprehensive of the social order. The most fundamental principle is the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death, exemplified by John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, which translates into an abolitionist approach to abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, as well as a severely circumscribed support of the death penalty, limiting it to cases when a given society would have no reliable alternative way of protecting itself from violent criminals. This document provided a comprehensive explanation of the Vatican’s efforts at the UN Conference at Cairo (1994) and elsewhere to reject the inclusion of abortion and the other named practices from the generally recognized list of universal human rights. Related to this is the insistence on the family as the most essential social institution and a rejection of same-sex marriage and divorce.

Philosophically, the church has insisted on the essential complementarity of the principles of autonomy and solidarity, resisting both individualism and collectivism. The church came to insist on the valid rights of conscience, particularly in religious matters, a development highlighted by the landmark document Dignitatis Humanae (1965), despite the objections of a small percentage of the world’s bishops who continued their preference for a “confessional state.” In addition to the clear embrace of religious freedom, the church came to recognize a broad list of human rights as a legitimate outgrowth of its long-standing commitments to natural law, as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Catholic social teaching rejects moral relativism, in which it sees the negation of the objective moral order, which alone can properly support a universal philosophy of human rights.

Teaching On The State: Option For The Poor And Subsidiarity

Concerning the state, Catholic social teaching has defined a position that avoids ideological characterization. On the one hand, it strongly condemned Marxism, defending in principle the rights of private ownership and economic initiative. On the other hand, from Rerum Novarum (1891) through Caritas in Veritate (2009), the church has consistently condemned laissez-faire capitalism for its violations of human

dignity, particularly with respect to the exploitation of workers. Moreover, it defends the rights of the state to intervene to protect the rights of workers to living wages and to organize collectively. The insistence that social policy reflect a “fundamental option for the poor” has become increasingly a central theme. In Latin America, from the late 1960s into the 1980s, a movement called liberation theology emerged, which placed considerable focus on this “fundamental option for the poor” in promoting social and political change as a constitutive dimension of the Gospel. Some theorists and practitioners adopted Marxist analysis and praxis to some degree, which led to two clarifications by the Vatican insisting on the religious, moral, and epistemological division between Marxism and Christianity, while affirming the pursuit of social justice (Libertatis Nuntius in 1984, Libertatis conscientia in 1986).

Nevertheless, one of the most distinctive features of the teaching is the principle of subsidiarity, which forbids higher associations (such as federal or state government) from taking away the legitimate functions of lower associations (such as a local level of government or the family). For example, if a family or local community can resolve issues pertinent to them, higher levels of government should not intervene. The principle does not, however, forbid government intervention when the order of justice demands the realization of conditions that lower forms of association are unable to bring about.

Rooted in subsidiarity, Catholic social teaching has, on the one hand, been sympathetic to the arguments that the social assistance state runs the risk of creating a demeaning clientelism among the disenfranchised. On the other hand, the most recent contribution to the social magisterium, Caritas in Veritate, clearly contends that in the context of the globalized economy, the proper role of the state in the promotion of social justice in the future most likely will be an expanded one. On economic matters, the person-centered approach insists on the priority of labor (the personal factor) over capital. The entire social order, the church insists, must serve the person, and never the other way around. The depth and breadth of the teaching permit scholars with leanings both left and right to work within the developing tradition. Some interpret subsidiarity as a generalized skepticism to an expanding state; others are more generally accommodating of a more European, social democratic approach. The church strongly resists nativist immigration, insisting that human dignity accompanies the person wherever he or she may go. Finally, the church recognizes the importance of being stewards of creation.

Bibliography:

Aquinas,Thomas. Summa Theologiae, I–II. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1948.
City of God. Translated by Gerald G.Walsh, Demetrius B. Zema, Grace Monahan, Daniel J. Honan, and Vernon J. Bourke. New York: Doubleday Image, 1958.
Benedict XVI. Caritas in Veritate. Encyclical letter on the problems of global development. June 29, 2009.
John XXIII. Mater et Magistra. Encyclical letter on Christianity and social progress. May 15, 1961.
John XXIII. Pacem in Terris. Encyclical letter on peace. April 11, 1963.
John Paul II. Laborem Exercens. Encyclical letter on human work. September 14, 1981.
John Paul II. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis. Encyclical letter on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Populorum Progressio, December 30, 1987.
John Paul II. Centesimus Annus. Encyclical letter on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of Rerum Novarum. May 1, 1991.
John Paul II. Evangelium Vitae. Encyclical letter on value and inviolability of human life. March 25, 1995.
Leo XIII. Rerum Novarum. Encyclical letter on the condition of the working classes. May 15, 1891.
Paul VI. Populorum Progressio. Encyclical letter on the development of peoples. March 26, 1967.
Paul VI. Octagesima Adveniens. Apostolic letter on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum. May 14, 1971.
Pius XI. Quadragesimo Anno. Encyclical letter on the ethical implications of the social and economic order. May 15, 1931.
Rourke,Thomas R. The Social and Political Thought of Benedict XVI. London: Lexington, 2010.
Tierney, Brian. The Idea of Natural Rights. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997.
Religion, Law, and the Growth of Constitutional Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Vatican Council II. Gaudium et Spes. An apostolic constitution. 1965.

This example Roman Catholic Social Thought Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.