While researching
the origins of Rerum Novarum (1891),
probably Pope Leo XIII’s best-known encyclical, we came across something that
needs a little explanation, especially in the twenty-first century. No, we’re not talking about how Leo XIII’s
careful analysis of the evil of socialism and mandated alternative of
widespread capital ownership was transformed by vested interests into a
condemnation of capitalism.
That’s
self-evident from seeing the ecstatic praise heaped these days on socialism in some
Catholic and all liberal quarters, and the hysteria about the satanic nature of
capitalism. For the record, we do not
endorse capitalism, but even at its ugliest — and it’s hard to make it even look pretty — it beats the glamor of
socialism, albeit by a tiny margin.
Plus, it must be
noted that the Catholic Church condemns socialism flat out, no qualifications,
while it “only” condemns the evils of
capitalism, not capitalism itself. That
may come across to many as a difference that makes no difference, but socialism
is directly contrary to natural law, while capitalism “only” grossly distorts
it. The end results may be
indistinguishable for all practical purposes for most people, but it’s a difference that
actually makes a great deal of difference.
 |
| Pope Gregory XVI |
No, today we’re
looking at some condemnations of the “new things” contained in Pope Gregory
XVI’s 1834 encyclical, Singulari Nos,
“On the Errors of Lamennais.” As far as
we can tell, Singulari Nos marked the
first use of the term “rerum novarum” in connection with alleged truths found
only outside the Catholic Church. It’s
in § 8 of the encyclical, if you’re interested.
Now, it must be
understood that the Catholic Church claims a “fullness of truth,” not a
monopoly. That means that all truth, wherever
found, has a place in the Catholic Church, which assumes as a given the first
principle of reason, “That which is true is as true, and is true in the same
way, as everything else that is true.”
Church folks might have to argue for a few centuries or so to decide if
something really is true, but once it has been determined to be true, then it
is accepted.
Thus, while the
Catholic Church does not claim to have the cosmic totality of truth, or to be
the sole repository of truth, it does declare necessarily false the idea that there
is any truth that can be found only outside the Catholic Church. According to the Catholic Church, if it’s
true, the Church accepts it. If it’s
false, the Church rejects it.
 |
| Lamennais, Founder of Neo-Catholicism |
Now, who was
“Lamennais”? He was the Abbé Hugues Félicité
Robert de Lamennais (1782-1854). As a
young man fresh from his reconversion to Catholicism from rationalism, he had
vowed to defend the Church from State encroachment and the scourge of
rationalism. He demanded the abolition
of the monarchy and the establishment of a democratic theocracy with the pope
as the final arbiter in matters both civil and religious. Largely because he espoused the sovereignty
of the people, he quickly became possibly the most popular priest in
France. He is revered today as the
forerunner of liberal or social Catholicism.
Unfortunately, de
Lamennais’s political and religious philosophy was based on his “theory of
certitude.” According to Lamennais, only
the collective has reason. Individuals
must accept the collective wisdom of humanity as dictated by the Catholic
Church on faith; individual human reason is an illusion. (After Lamennais left the Church in 1833 and
founded his own religion he replaced the Catholic Church with the collective will
of the people in his system.)
 |
| Charles Fourier, Founder of Associationism |
De Lamennais’s
theory of certitude is substantially the same as the socialist, modernist, and
New Age principle that natural rights — which are discernible by individual
human reason — reside only in the collective (and are therefore not discernible by individual human
reason), and are doled out to actual human beings as deemed necessary or
expedient. Most forms of Christian
socialism trace their origins to de Lamennais, or to his predecessors, François Marie Charles
Fourier (1772-1837), and Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon
(1760-1825), all three of which left the Catholic Church and founded
their own religions.
There is thus no
mystery surrounding Gregory XVI’s condemnation of the “new thing” that had just
begun to be called socialism. Interestingly,
Pierre Leroux, a socialist and follower of Saint-Simon, coined the term socialism in 1833 or
1834 as a pejorative.
Very quickly,
however, “socialism” (socialisme)
became the term covering all forms of “democratic religion” (démocratie religieuse) that took
sovereignty away from individuals and vested it in the collective. That is why Karl Marx insisted that communism
and socialism, which share the same fundamental principle (the abolition of
private property in capital), are “really” different things. All
socialism prior to Marx was “religious socialism,” even though the “religion”
might get pretty far fetched and, frankly, weird — check out “Éliphas Lévi,” if
you want to see where one branch of de Lamennais’s “Neo-Catholicism” ended up. (See, e.g.,
Dr. Julian Strube, “Socialism and Esotericism in July Monarchy France,” History of Religions, July 2016.) (When de Lamennais left the Catholic Church, of course, he declared that he was no longer the Apostle of the Catholic Church, but the Apostle of the People; Lévi's aberrations used de Lamennais's Neo-Catholicism instead of his secular humanism as the starting point for his version of socialism and the new universal religion — of which many were popping up all over the place in the first half of the nineteenth century.)
 |
| Saint-Simon, Founder of the Church of Saint-Simonism |
One of the other
things Gregory XVI condemned, however, sounds like a serious mistake to modern
ears: freedom of conscience. Seeing
that, we had to take a second look. Then
a third. Then we decided to find out
what the pope meant. After all, we’ve
seen in fairly recent series on this very blog that terms can change meaning
over time. “Progressive” used to mean
something good. Plus, many people have
the habit of assuming that what they
mean by something is what others mean
by something, even if it is clearly something different; they tend to judge
others by their own principles, not with the principles of the others.
It turns out that
in condemning “freedom of conscience,” Gregory XVI was not saying people should
not be free from coercion in religious matters, or that the State should
enforce religious law or practices. No,
it turns out that “freedom of conscience” had a different connotation, similar
to the way “free love,” another term coming into vogue at the time, didn’t
quite mean what it sounds like it should mean.
Shouldn’t love be
free? Of course, or it isn’t love . . .
except that most people know that “free love” is a euphemism for unbridled
sexual promiscuity, which Charles Fourier (though not the bulk of his American
followers until the twentieth century) advocated, along with treating gluttony
as a virtue.
 |
| Éliphas Lévi's Neo-Catholic Baphomet |
Similarly,
“freedom of conscience” as it was being used in the early nineteenth century
had nothing to do with religious freedom.
Rather, it meant that people should be able to believe anything they
liked and act on it, whether or not it is
true, contradictory, or even nonsense, as long as they are able to get
other people to go along with it. In the
context of the times, “freedom of conscience” meant that might makes right, all
truth is relative, and that there are therefore things that are true in one set
of circumstances or at one level of consciousness that are
not true in another set of circumstances or at other levels of consciousness. (See E.F. Schumacher, Guide for the Perplexed, 1979.)
In short, what
Gregory XVI condemned when he anathematized “freedom of conscience” was moral
relativism, the “triumph of the will.”
This always leads to
totalitarianism, at least according to people like Heinrich Rommen, Mortimer
Adler, and Pope John Paul II.
So it turns out
that the “conservative” Gregory XVI was actually more truly liberal than the
liberals by insisting that truth was, well, true. Anyone doubting that might want to check out In
Supremo Apostolatus, his 1836
encyclical condemning slavery . . . which the Catholic bishops in the southern
United States where there might have been a few Catholics who owned a slave or
two, hastened to assure their flocks did not really apply to them, and which some Catholics even today think
meant something other than a condemnation of slavery.
And wait until
you find out what Gregory XVI really
meant when he condemned “separation of Church and State” . . . .
#30#