Pope John Paul I was head of
the Catholic Church for only thirty-three days.
Even in that short period of time, however, he made it abundantly clear
not only that he was a “Vatican II pope,” but a “Vatican I pope,” with all that
implies — something we hope to make clear in this brief series.
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| Pope John Paul I |
One thing we also need to
make clear is that this is not a “Catholic” analysis of the pontificate of John
Paul I. It is, rather, a “catholic” one,
that is, an examination of his few statements concerning the social teachings
of the Catholic Church from an Aristotelian-Thomist natural law orientation.
That being the case — and
necessarily understood properly only within that context — “Catholic” social
teaching applies to every child, woman, and man on the planet Earth, no ifs,
ands, or buts. To say (as one
commentator did some years ago) that — and this is an exact quote — “Jews because they are Jews have nothing in
common with Catholic social teaching” is to miss the whole point of Catholic
social teaching by a couple of country miles, as well as to be spouting some
exceptionally nauseating nonsense.
Even to call Aristotelian-Thomist
natural law social teaching Catholic
instead of catholic is misleading to
a degree. Of course, any Catholic who
knows his or her faith would and should disagree with that statement. Such a Catholic (at least one who knows that the
Church teaches something because it’s true, it’s not true because the Church
teaches it!) would naturally (and quite accurately by Catholic belief) argue
that the universality of his or her Church’s social teaching is just one more
instance of the universality (in the sense of fullness, not completeness) of
Catholic teaching in every sphere of faith and morals.
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| Aristotle |
That is because Catholic
social thought, in common with Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy, is based on the
dignity and sovereignty of the human person under God. Nor is that a meaningless phrase that can be
twisted to mean whatever someone in power wants it to mean. It has, rather, a specific meaning based on
the meaning and purpose of human life itself.
And that is?
As Aristotle put it in the
opening of his Nichomachean Ethics,
all things by nature seek the good. The
whole of Aristotle’s ethics — his moral philosophy — is based on that
principle, and nowhere is that more true than with human beings.
That is because — per
Catholic belief — each human being is made in “the image and likeness of God” .
. . which does not mean we are clones of a deity. No, it means every human being has the
potential, but only the potential, to
be perfect as God is perfect, “perfection” meaning absolute and complete
conformity to God’s Nature.
Put another way, “the image
and likeness of God” means that where God is infinitely perfect, human beings are infinitely perfectible. The paradox of
human existence is that we must strive to conform ourselves ever closer to that
which is perfect, knowing all the while that we can never get there.
Now, while that is a very
profound thought on which to meditate, and every human being worth his or her
salt should meditate on it . . . what does it mean? It means simply this: that the meaning and
purpose of human life is to become more fully human.
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| Saint Thomas Aquinas |
That is not a “tautology,” a
statement that simply says something again, often just using different words, e.g., “an old antique” or “the reason is
because.” No, it is a reflection of the
fact that where human beings have the infinite capacity to acquire and develop
virtue (“human-ness”) and thereby conform more and more to their own nature,
God is infinite virtue, and is-was-ever-shall-be
already fully conformed to His own
Nature.
(If we may insert a
parenthetical comment here, we just had an example of how difficult it is even
to discuss God using mere human language and concepts, and why this blog series
is going to confine itself to purely human principles that apply to everyone,
regardless of religious belief or lack thereof.
To say that God “is-was-ever-shall-be” is a very, very weak way of trying to convey that God hasn’t merely existed
for all time, exists now, and will always exist, the concept of time itself is irrelevant to Him . . . and there we
go again — is “Him” adequate in any way?
God is necessarily “outside” time altogether. Nor can you say that God exists in all times
and places at once, i.e., “God is
everywhere,” for He is also “outside” place as well as time. And even saying
“outside” or “apart from” isn’t right, either.
Rather than go insane trying to figure out how to talk about that which
you can’t really talk about, we’ll stick to human concepts and leave God to
God, as least for the purposes of this discussion.)
Returning to our point, given
that the meaning and purpose of life is to become more fully human, and that we
become more fully human by acquiring and developing “human-ness” or virtue (for
that is what “virtue” signifies — it means
literally “man-ness,” but it signifies
“human-ness”), how do we acquire and develop virtue?
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| George Mason of Gunston Hall |
As American statesman George Mason hinted in his draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776, human beings acquire and
develop virtue by exercising their rights under natural law, primarily life,
liberty, and private property. “Human
dignity,” therefore, consists in respecting the natural rights of every child,
every woman, and every man . . . and yet again we run up against more words
that we need to understand before we can even start discussing Pope John Paul
I’s social doctrine:
Common good:
that vast network of institutions within which human beings as “political
animals” acquire and develop virtue.
Institution: a
“social habit,” a “social tool” such as an organization, law, custom,
tradition, even the most important social tool (in the civil sense, not the
religious), the State itself that provide the specific environment that
encourages the acquisition and development of virtue.
Liberty:
freedom, exemption from extraneous control.
In this context, it includes “civil liberties” enjoyed by members of a
society, freedom of association, and freedom of contract. It does not
mean doing whatever you want.
Natural law:
the general code of human behavior, determined by applying reason to the
evidence of our senses. Natural law
consists of conforming one’s self to — that is, building the habits of —
prudence, temperance, fortitude, and, above all, justice, justice being the highest
natural virtue.
Private Property:
property is not the thing owned, but the natural right to be an owner, and the
socially defined bundle of rights that define how an owner may use what is owned
within a specific set of circumstances.
The right to be an owner is absolute in every human being, while the
rights of property must be limited and adapted to circumstances. The most important rights of property are
control and enjoyment of the fruits.
That is, an owner may generally do as he or she wishes with what he or
she owns as long as he or she does not harm him- or herself, other individuals,
groups, or the common good as a whole, and is entitled to all income generated
by what is owned, just as he or she suffers any loss.
Right, Natural:
a general norm based on observations of human nature that no human law may
legitimately violate; fundamental human rights that must be adapted to every
human circumstance without exception, and thus take an infinite number of
forms, but that are inherent in each human being simply because each human
being is human. Chief among the natural
rights are life, liberty, and private property.
Right: the
power to do or not do some act or acts in relation to others. A duty is the obligation to do or not do some
act or acts in relation to others. Every
right has a correlative duty, just as every duty has a correlative right. It is impossible to speak of a right without
a duty laid on others, or a duty where others have no right.
That’s enough for
starters. Next week we’ll get into the
definitions of justice, which is where so many people manage to get off track. And after that we may get to a discussion of
Pope John Paul I’s social doctrine . . . once we have the words and concepts we
need to understand it.
#30#