As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, two
great perils faced the Church of England in the early nineteenth century,
capitalism and its near-twin, socialism.
Not that the prime movers in the Oxford Movement saw it that way, of
course. It would never have occurred to
any of them, then or later, to give that much importance to the things of this
world . . . which made the problem even worse — there is, after all, no problem
so bad that it cannot get worse by ignoring it.
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| Belloc: Beware the Servile State |
At the same time, it is a truism that identifying and
defining a problem is more than halfway to a solution. The effectiveness of the Oxford Movement,
however, was hampered from the beginning by the fact that it simply did not
occur to any of the people involved that the common good of the Church of
England — its institutional culture and environment — was a virtual mirror
image of the common good of the surrounding culture: the established
institutional environment of early nineteenth century English civil society. The Church of England was both in the world
and of it.
Early nineteenth century English civil society was in turn
formed by the development and rapid spread of capitalism. This was necessarily accompanied by the alienation
of ordinary people from the means of leading productive lives except at the
behest of others. This is what Hilaire
Belloc would a century or so later term “the Servile State,” a system
characterized by concentrated economic and thus political power, established,
supported, and maintained by the wage system.
The paradox, of course, is that capitalism, which
exemplifies English type liberalism, was threatened by socialism, which is
based on French or European type liberalism — and capitalism and socialism are
more closely related than adherents of either system care (or are able) to
admit. At the same time, the system of
the Church of England was also based on English type liberalism and was therefore
threatened by the spread of European type liberalism through the actions of a
Whig (liberal) government, as demonstrated to the satisfaction of the prime
movers of the Oxford Movement by the suppression of a number of Irish
bishoprics.
For it must be kept firmly in mind that socialism, which
is the highest expression of European type liberalism, is not and never was
merely an economic theory. Nor is it
purely a political system.
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| Ireland: Secularism is a religion of sorts |
Socialism — whatever its particular creed or sect — is,
was, and always will be a religion,
and as Archbishop John Ireland (1838-1918) said of secularism, a particularly
intolerant one. It was invented
specifically as a materialist alternative to traditional forms of Christianity,
Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox. That
is why Pius XI declared,
If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which,
moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on
a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true
Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory
terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist. (Quadragesimo
Anno, § 120.)
Perhaps not surprisingly, the civil powers did not realize
that the European liberal attack on the established church — which strengthened
the English liberal civil control over religious society — was the same thing
that was wreaking havoc in the economic and political spheres in civil society. One form of liberalism was undermining
another form of liberalism and was shifting economic and political power from
the monarchy and aristocracy to the new capitalist plutocracy.
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| Gladstone: the Queen was not amused. |
That is, they did not seem to realize it consciously. Still, Queen Victoria (1819-1901, ascended
the throne in 1837) always found herself for some reason unable to tolerate the
liberal William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898) as prime minister. She always favored the conservative Benjamin
Disraeli (1804-1881), even though — or because — Gladstone’s liberalism tended
to the American type (“Gladstone,” The
Atlantic Monthly, July 1898, Vol. 82, No. 489, 1-22) that was directed
toward breaking up concentrations of power, whether political or economic, with
a heavy dose of religious toleration thrown in for good measure. In English liberal (Tory) eyes, anything that
threatened the status quo was a
danger on the level of anarchy.
Nor did the powers-that-be in the Church of England
realize just how much conditions in civil society, especially the economic
disenfranchisement of ordinary people and the forcing of so many people into
the wage system, were affecting the interpretation of religious doctrine. It was, of course, only a matter of time — scarcely
a decade from the closing of the Oxford Movement — before the government began
dictating religious doctrine as the established church came increasingly under
civil control and its influence on civil society in matters of faith and morals
declined to the vanishing point.
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| Pope Pius XI: social justice defined precisely. |
In the meantime, however, those who loved the Church of
England made a heroic effort to restore it and strengthen it for what they
viewed — with a great deal of wisdom, even of prophecy — as the beginning of
the end if nothing were done. And what
they did, although none of them would have used the term, was an almost
textbook example of social justice a century before Pope Pius XI defined the
term with scientific precision.
Before we can appreciate or even understand what the
Oxford Movement accomplished, however, we need to know more about social
justice. The definition used by the
interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ) is a good place to
start:
Social justice encompasses economic justice. Social justice is the virtue which guides us
in creating those organized human interactions we call institutions. In turn, social institutions, when justly organized,
provide us with access to what is good for the person, both individually and in
our associations with others. Social
justice also imposes on each of us a personal responsibility to work with
others, at whatever level of the “Common Good” in which we participate, to
design and continually perfect our institutions as tools for personal and
social development.
It is important to realize that social justice operates
within strict parameters, “laws” if you will, and has certain characteristics
by means of which it can be identified.
To summarize briefly, the “laws” are:
·
That the
Common Good Be Kept Inviolate. However great our desire or need, we may not usurp the
institutions of the common good to serve our private ends. We may not, for example, redefine a natural
right such as private property or violate even an unjust law on our own
initiative. (William J. Ferree, Introduction to Social Justice. Washington, DC: Center for Economic and
Social Justice, 1997, 35.)
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| Father William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D. |
·
Cooperation,
Not Conflict. Given the uniqueness of each human person, the particular
good of each individual is different.
Any particular good that is falsely made into an ultimate principle and
exercised without any limits whatsoever must necessarily be in conflict with every other particular
good. (Ibid., 36.)
·
One’s
First Particular Good is One’s Own Place in the Common Good. The first particular good of every
individual or group is that that individual or group find its proper place in
the common good. The human race as a
whole is political, and not merely
social. Many animals are social, while
humanity seems unique (at least on earth) in that we ideally structure our
particular societies so as to combine respect for individual rights within a
social context, not individualistically.
·
Each
Directly Responsible. Pius XI explained that the individual is frequently
helpless when confronted with socially unjust situations. That being the case, putting personal
responsibility for the whole of the common good on each and every individual is
an unconscionable burden. Given
humanity’s political nature, however, when confronted by a situation that is
impossible for the individual, the solution is first to organize at that level
of the common good, even all the way up to the whole of the common good itself,
if that is what is required to bring the proper forces to bear on the problem.
·
Higher
Institutions Must Never Displace Lower Ones. No institution in
the vast hierarchy of institutions that makes up the common good can take over
the particular actions of an institution or person below it. This is the “principle of subsidiarity.” It is not that the lower order(s) are always
right, or the State taking over when individuals prove to be helpless in an
unjust situation. Rather, it is a case
of action being carried out by individuals and groups at the most appropriate level of the common
good. This is the individual or group
that is “closest” to the problem, that which “subsists” within the milieu or
institution, hence “subsidiarity.”
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| Liberty a fundamental human right. |
·
Freedom
of Association. “Liberty” or “freedom of
association” is a natural right, so important as to be ranked with the triad
life, liberty, and private property as the means whereby each individual
pursues happiness, that is, acquires and develops virtue, fulfilling the
purpose for which the social order exists.
·
All Vital
Interests Should be Organized. All real and vital interests of life should be deliberately
made to conform to the requirements of the common good. Since man is a “political animal,” all
actions are in a sense social, bound up with the lives of others. When he neglects to see to it that his actions
contribute to the common good of those others with whose lives they are bound
up, he does not change his nature. He
remains a political animal, and his actions are bound up with the lives of
those around him. The principle that every
vital and real interest of life must be organized for the Common Good does not
impose a new way of life upon anyone but does impose a new purpose in life upon
all; namely, the purpose of promoting the Common Good of one’s neighbors, of
those with whom one’s life is bound up.
Having the “laws” of social justice, we need to know the
characteristics of the virtue so that it can be properly implemented. First and foremost, of course, it must
clearly be understood that social justice is something specifically social, and this fact must be kept in
mind at all times.
·
Only by
Members of Groups. Social justice
cannot be performed by individuals as
individuals, but only by individuals as
members of groups.
 |
| Social justice takes time. |
·
It Takes
Time. Social justice moves slowly
and gradually. It requires organization,
consensus building, more organization, solidarity, attention to the principle
of subsidiarity — all the details of working with actual human beings rather
than abstract concepts such as the collective.
·
Nothing
is Impossible. In social justice
there is never any such thing as
helplessness. “No problem is ever too big or too complex, no field is ever
too vast, for the methods of this social justice. Problems that were agonizing in the past and
were simply dodged, even by serious and virtuous people, can now be solved with
ease by any school child.”
·
Eternal
Vigilance. Because human situations
and conditions change, institutions must constantly be restructured and
reformed to meet the new conditions.
·
Effectiveness. Work for the common good must be effective,
that is, actions must result in an improvement in society as a whole. A mere “good intention” that the common good
be benefited is not sufficient.
·
You Can’t
“Take it or Leave It Alone”. Each
person is directly and individually responsible for the common good and must
organize with others for the common good.
 |
| The usual suspects, the pre-Oxford Movement, 1832. |
This, then, was the framework within which the members of
the Oxford Movement were operating, even it they did not actually articulate
it. It is not, after all, essential to
know a detailed philosophical analysis of why you are doing the right
thing. What matters in the end is that
you did the right thing in the right way.
As Father Ferree noted a century after the Oxford Movement ended,
None of the elements of this theory are new. Institutions,
and institutional action, the idea of the Common Good, the relationship of
individual to Common Good — all these things are as old as the human race
itself. There is nothing more new in those things than in the school boy’s
discovery that what he has been speaking is prose; nor must we ever believe
that God made man a two-legged creature, and then waited for Aristotle to make
him rational. Moreover, much of the actual application of these
principles to practical life is to be found in older writers under the heading “political
prudence.”
When all that is admitted, there is still something
tremendously new and tremendously important in this work of Pope Pius XI. The
power that we have now to change any institution of life, the grip that we have
on the social order as a whole, was always there but we did not know it
and we did not know how to use it.
Now we know.
That is the difference.
(Ferree, Introduction to Social Justice, op. cit., 56.)
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