Man proposes, the
internet (or at least email) disposes.
We were going to have a posting continuing the saga of John Henry
Newman, the Oxford Movement, and the act of social justice for today. At the last minute yesterday, however, we got
an email from a faithful reader in Canada alerting us to a book he came across on
Catholic social teaching . . . sort of.
As the book was published a few years ago and is not very well known, we
decided not to review it.
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| Hugues-Félicité Robert de Lamennais |
We did, however,
decide to correct a few of the facts and misimpressions in the book. Because the errors are pervasive, we won’t
name the book or the author. It would do
no good to hold up either to ridicule or criticism, especially since the author
has no opportunity of self-defense, and — as noted — the book is obscure,
anyway, and people would wonder why such a fuss is being made over something
nobody seems to care about particularly.
At the top of the
list of facts to be corrected is the widespread belief that Leo XIII’s 1891
encyclical Rerum Novarum was the
first “social justice encyclical.” “Social
encyclical” is the more usual term, but that is an extremely minor
quibble. The simple fact is that Rerum Novarum was not the first social
encyclical. The label Rerum Novarum (the title is “On Labor and Capital” in the current official English
translation) actually references the second
social encyclical from 1834, Singulari Nos
(“On the Errors of Lamennais”) which condemned the social theories being spread
by an apostate priest, Hugues-Félicité
Robert de Lamennais (1782-1854), who had repudiated his priesthood,
renounced Christianity, and attacked the pope in print.
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| Pope Gregory XVI |
Not by coincidence, the first
social encyclical, Gregory XVI's Mirari Vos (“On
Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism”) attempted to correct the errors of de
Lamennais and others without naming anyone specifically. Part of the problem, of course, is that there
are at least three distinct meanings of “liberalism,” one which is
condemned, one which is criticized, and one which is approved:
French
or European Liberalism/Democracy (condemned): the abstraction of the collective is sovereign
and vested with all rights. Actual human
beings only have such rights as those who control the collective choose to give
them. This is the liberalism
underpinning all forms of socialism, yes, “democratic socialism,” too.
English
Liberalism/Democracy
(criticized): while everyone technically is sovereign and has all rights, only an
élite, whether economic, political,
social, whatever, has the ability or capacity to exercise them properly (“properly”
meaning the way people with power want them exercised). This is the liberalism underpinning all forms
of capitalism (as defined by the socialist Louis Blanc), even “democratic
capitalism” or any other form that keeps ownership and thus power concentrated
in the hands of the few.
American Liberalism/Democracy
(approved): every individual is sovereign under God and is vested with all
natural rights. Any rights the
collective as the collective or an élite
as an élite have are theirs by
delegation from actual human beings, not by nature. (N.B.: European and English liberalism are so
unacceptable that the term “liberal” is not even used in Catholic social
teaching to refer to the American system.
It is also important to note that “American liberalism” describes the
way the system was set up to operate under the Constitution, not the way it
operates today.)
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| Equality, French style. |
This raises the
question as to why Rerum Novarum is
considered the first social encyclical.
It’s pretty obvious once you know what was going on behind the scenes,
so to speak, that is, the history that most people today simply don’t know.
The simple fact
is that after the Industrial and French Revolutions and the Napoleonic Wars society
was in chaos. The old economic, social, political,
and especially religious institutions appeared to be completely inadequate to
address the new conditions.
In desperation,
people began turning to new theories that purported to be more relevant to the
world than the old, outdated institutions.
While initially known by many names, such as “the New Christianity,” “Neo-Catholicism,”
“Associationism,” “the democratic religion,” and so on, by the time the
Revolutions of 1848 rolled around they were lumped together under the common
name of “socialism.”
The principal
difference between socialism and everything else is that, consistent with the
principles of European liberalism, rights came from society, they were not
inherent in the human person. That being
the case, life, liberty, and private property became prudential or expedient,
and could safely be redefined, suspended, or abolished outright if deemed so
for the greater good.
Not that
capitalism/English liberalism was much better.
It paid lip service to the theory that all human beings are as fully
human as all other human beings, but in practice denied this by restricting
capital ownership to a relatively small élite. Thus, capitalism was harshly criticized,
while socialism was condemned.
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| Human dignity, American style. |
It did not,
however, do much good, nor did any of the other early attempts at social reform. For example, In Supremo, Pope Gregory XVI’s 1837 encyclical condemning slavery
in the United States, was simply ignored by slaveowners in the American
south. The Latin referring to dealing, trafficking,
owning, or having anything to do with slavery was translated into English as
condemning the slave trade . . . which was immediately twisted to mean the
importation of new slaves. Since the
importation of new slaves had been illegal for many years by 1837, the Catholic
bishops in the American south assured their flocks that the encyclical did not
apply to them . . . when they were the whole reason for the encyclical in the
first place!
Even Leo XIII’s
first social encyclicals fell on deaf ears — and they were social from the very
first, reinforcing Gregory XVI’s and Pius IX’s condemnations of socialism,
modernism, and the New Age (which wouldn’t be called that for another twenty
years or so, but that’s what it was).
Clearly what was needed was a change in tactics . . . and that’s exactly
what the world got in 1891.
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| Henry George |
It did not happen
overnight, however. What seems to have
triggered the issuance of Rerum Novarum
was (believe it or not) the 1886 New York City mayoral campaign. The agrarian socialist Henry George ran for
mayor of New York on a platform of instituting utopia by abolishing private
property in land. He was supported by a
renegade priest, Father Edward McGlynn, also a socialist.
George did not
win the election, and it’s unclear exactly what he would have done had he won,
but the confusion spread by George and McGlynn over what the Catholic Church
really teaches regarding private ownership of land or anything else made it
clear that previous condemnations of socialism had been ineffective.
Why?
Because all they
did was condemn socialism and criticize capitalism without offering any
alternative. From his long political
experience, Leo XIII knew that the only way to counter the “new things” of the
modern world — socialism, modernism, and the New Age — is widespread direct
ownership of capital, whether land or technology.
So what seems to
have started in late 1886 as just another encyclical condemning socialism
became transformed over the course of four years into a new kind of social encyclical. Instead of just condemning, Rerum Novarum offered a specific
solution to the evil of socialism and the corruption of capitalism. As he declared,
If a workman's wages be sufficient to enable him comfortably to
support himself, his wife, and his children, he will find it easy, if he be a
sensible man, to practice thrift, and he will not fail, by cutting down
expenses, to put by some little savings and thus secure a modest source of
income. Nature itself would urge him to this. We have seen that this great
labor question cannot be solved save by assuming as a principle that private
ownership must be held sacred and inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor
ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people
to become owners. (Rerum Novarum, § 46.)
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| Pope Leo XIII |
This was a
phenomenal breakthrough in how the Catholic Church presented its
teachings. Instead of just condemning,
it gave a specific thing to do: work for widespread capital ownership.
Unfortunately,
Leo XIII left a loophole large enough to drive a paradigm through, and that
paradigm is one that has crippled economic and social development for thousands
of years. It allowed Catholics and
everyone else to avoid the real point of the encyclical, which was to enhance
human dignity by securing the means to personal empowerment: ownership of
capital as well as of labor. This was
similar to what had happened with In Supremo, which by a translation that
inserted vagueness allowed slaveowners to ignore the condemnation of slavery.
Leo XIII’s
unfortunate choice of words was to make a specific suggestion how widespread
capital ownership could be financed: increase wages. Increasing wages, however, has quite a few
problems . . . which we will address when we again look at this subject.
#30#
