Gabriel S. Sanchez - Opus Publicum

December 19, 2017 Catholic Social Thought, Economics

Uplifting Year-End Thoughts – Part 1

A strange phenomenon seems to be overtaking the Catholic world, or at least that minority portion of the Catholic world that spends way too much time on web-logs, online magazines, and other forms of social media. Just as it seems that conservative-to-traditional Catholics are prepared to shake off liberalism once and for all, there has been a noticeable decline in thoroughgoing Catholic critiques of economic liberalism. That is not to say they’ve disappeared altogether. The Distributist Review, for instance, still publishes, and Thomas Storck has a new book out. However, the waters have been muddied a bit. The ill-conceived, ill-designed, and ill-executed Tradinista! “project” (debacle) seems to have taken the wind out of some Catholics’ sails. Maybe a few too many have bought into the idea that to oppose markets is to embrace socialism, something which the Tradinistas! had no qualms over.

Some thought, with the election of Donald Trump, that Catholics no less than other conservatives would begin to embrace economic populism. The problem with this “hope” is that few seem to understand what economic populism is. Moreover, Trump isn’t really interested in that line of thought anyways; his presidency is one built upon contradictions and fueled by the ever-dwindling hope that the blue-collar workers and rural poor who helped get him elected will be better off economically by 2020 than they were in 2016.

Catholics, as best as I can tell, haven’t paid much mind to such things. Liberal Catholics, of course, continue to advocate for economic centralism with a thick, federally backed menu of entitlements and welfare transfers. They are rightly suspicious of not simply economic populism, but the rolling back of government funding for everything from healthcare to food stamps. They see Trump’s economic vision, and the economic vision of the Republican Party, as antithetical to Catholic social teaching (CST). Maybe. The problem is that instead of critically reviewing the economy as a whole, seeing where liberalism has created serious moral and material pitfalls, they naïvely look to the federal system to correct market failures and inequality. Starting from the top and working back down is exactly what CST recommends against; but unsurprisingly the liberal Catholicism’s ignorance of true social principles matches that of their slightly estranged conservative brethren.

Traditional Catholics, historically, were the torch bearers of CST, albeit with some occasional blind spots. Unlike conservatives who love to latch onto the “Lockean” portions of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum and rework John Paul II’s social magisterium into an apologia for free-market capitalism, traditionalists see a golden thread in CST running from the pontificate of Pius IX all the way through Pius XII. Rerum Novarum is great, but so, too, are papal documents such as St. Pius X’s Notre Charge Apostolique and Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno. The Catholicism nurtured by these cornerstone teachings and, indeed, the Church’s millennia-long theological and philosophical reflections on society, politics, economics, etc. produced, in the first half of the 20th century, a rich body of literature on (re)building Christendom from the ground up. Where has that thinking gone today?

Sadly, the temptation to be “relevant” has gripped the contemporary Catholic imagination, even the imaginations of those who find so many aspects of liberalism abhorrent. These Catholics will go on about the importance of the environment, abolishing the death penalty, and other social-justice issues, but they have little to say about how to make small businesses flourish; the corrosive nature of the ostensibly “free market” on communities and ecclesiastical life; the immorality of peddling inessential goods and services on Sundays; and so on and so forth. They are silent on the social rights of Christ the King and perils of democracy. They may speak of what “the Gospel” dictates while texting on their smart phones, filling their online shopping bag at J. Crew, and positing pictures of their dinner n’ drinks online in order to broadcast an unearned air of “sophistication.” If this is the brain trust of the Catholic Church and, more specifically, CST, then any hope of vanquishing economic liberalism as a justifiable “option” for committed Catholics is, at best, a fool’s hope.

October 22, 2017 Integralism

Integralism and Lefebvre

I have it on good authority that a new printing of They Have Uncrowned Him, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s masterful expose and critique of liberalism, is in the works. It is, if I recall corrective, the first Lefebvre book I picked up from the Society of Saint Pius X’s (SSPX) chapel in Oak Park on the border of Chicago in 2011. I went on to collect the rest of the Archbishop’s oeuvre in English, though nothing else resonated with me the way Uncrowned did. Not even Lefebvre’s dubia concerning religious liberty held such favor with me, perhaps because, by necessity, its presentation is dry and mechanical whereas, in reading, Uncrowned you can detect the moments when the Archbishop’s blood begins to boil. Never forget that Lefebvre was on hand during the Second Vatican Council and was instrumental in advancing, albeit unsuccessfully, conservative opposition to the novel doctrines being bandied about by periti and hierarchs who, only years earlier, were on the Holy Office’s radar.

Recently (as in today), my friends at The Josias released the second episode of their podcast with the primary subject being integralism. In the course of discussing the term and its background, nary a mention was made of Archbishop Lefebvre or the priestly society he founded nearly half-a-century ago. This strikes me as strange since giving an account of the history of integralism without mentioning either the Archbishop or the SSPX is like delivering a history of professional wrestling without mentioning the National Wrestling Alliance. Though Lefebvre and the priests and bishops of the Society have not always deployed the term “integrealism,” no other established forced within the Catholic Church has kept the spirit of integralism more alive than the SSPX. Indeed, without the Society, “integralism” would be a blanket epithet deployed by neo-Modernists and liberals to smear anyone and everyone they happen to disagree with. But to read Lefebvre, to listen to some of the sermons and talks of Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, and to take seriously the writings of many of the SSPX’s priests over the decades is to be inculcated with integralism at both a conceptual and practical level.

I make mention of this not to throw shade at The Josias, but to remind those persuaded by the integralist thesis to not ignore a reservoir of authentically integralist thought simply because—ironically—that thought came from a wellspring which, let’s be honest, is not exactly “politically correct.” Still, why should that matter? Integralism, which has been castigated recently as both reactionary and fascist, is hardly “politically correct” in a day and age where liberalism is not just considered normative, but inevitable. As one of The Josias podcast’s hosts points out, liberalism has this unsettling power to dissolve the imagination, rendering those living under it incapable of imagining a world without it. To be anti-liberal is not to be simply “backwards” or “simple,” but dangerous. For anything which opposes liberalism, regardless of whether or not it comes marching down the street with a jackboot, orchestrates famines, or preaches Christ crucified, is equally an enemy which must be eradicated in the name of “humanity.” Liberalism is not content to win an ostensibly neutral “battle of ideas” (for it cannot win it); it must instead demonize, degrade, and ultimately destroy that which calls liberal ideology into question. Conversion is out of the question.

For my part, I cannot conceive of seriously studying, and being persuaded by, integralism without taking a serious look at what Archbishop Lefebvre wrote and witnessed to over the course of his life. Integralism for the Archbishop, the priests he formed, their heirs, and the countless faithful who are attached to the SSPX is not an abstraction but a way of life. It is a way of life informed by the reality of Christ’s Social Kingship, a way of life which looks for the restoration of Chirstendom over an endless discussion over theological minutiae which rests on the peripheries of life.

While reasonable people can disagree over some of Archbishop Lefebvre’s words and decisions, and those of the SSPX as well, what cannot be denied is their indispensable role in keeping the integralist spirit alive during decades where liberalism appeared as the only horizon in both society and the Catholic Church. For that they deserve the gratitude of integralists everywhere.

October 11, 2017 Meta

It’s Wednesday (Lilla Will Return)

The desire to write, or more rather blog, has been in short supply as of late, the reasons for which are many. Since announcing that I planned to write on Mark Lilla’s recent work, The Last and Future Liberal, Islamic jihadists continue spreading terror in Europe, a lone nut job massacred over 50 people in Las Vegas, and the Major League Baseball Playoffs began. My personal life, which is undergoing more than a few upheavals, has, by necessity, been the center of my attention more than writing words or, sadly, reading books. My hope to make 2017 a “Year of 100 Books” jumped the rails a couple months back and at this point, I’m going to be happy if I hit 70 (though at this juncture, where I can’t seem to bring myself to finish one every two weeks, it’s going to be a struggle). The will right itself. It always does. Even now as I type I can see flashes of normalcy, even peace, in my life. How long that lasts remains to be seen; I am feeling uncharacteristically optimistic.

Distracted though I have been, it has not been an unproductive state of distraction. One of the glorious side effects of steering clear of blogging and, by extension, most social media (outside of pro-wrestling forums and news streams) is that you can mostly avoid things like the senseless and hyperbolic fallout over the recent “Filial Correction” of Pope Francis or which Eastern Orthodox jurisdiction has broken communion with another. (Truth be told, I don’t know if this has happened recently; I just assume it’s a semi-annual occurrence.) I saw that the irascible David Bentley Hart gave a lecture on “Orthodoxy in America.” My suspicion, without having yet seen it, is that it ticked more than a few people off.

So, without religious news to fill my brain and crush my heart, I took time to read two recent books by that most edifying of American jurists, Richard A. Posner. (I forgot to mention that in my time away, he managed to shock the legal world by retiring as Senior Judge for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.) In the span of a month, Posner released two books on the federal judiciary (one self-published), neither of which is particularly flattering toward the American legal system. And that’s fine. While I found a great deal to disagree with in both books, including Posner’s childish swipes at legal theorist and Catholic convert extraordinaire Adrian Vermeule, it occurred to me that Posner has no heir apparent on the bench or in the academy. Sure, there are more than a few rookie and veteran legal academics who seek to publish at a Posnerian pace, but arguably none are close to achieving Posner’s gadfly status. As for the judiciary, while Posner’s jurisprudence has been maddeningly inconsistent, flippant, and self-absorbed at times (some would argue “most of the time”), his lucid writing style and frank approach to the inadequacies of law to contemplate an increasingly complex world will be missed. His decisionmaking? Eh, not so much.

Posner today, as he was for me over a decade ago, is really just a gateway drug into the larger world of legal scholarship—a world I have largely ignored for the past five years. Having put one foot back into the legal world recently, I have felt strangely compelled to start catching up on all that I’ve missed even if, practically speaking, most legal scholarship is bereft of utility. Lawyers, many of whom haven’t read a law review article since it was assigned to them in school, perhaps need toolkits comprised of basic economic knowledge, empirical research methods, and a bit of theory for flash, often lack the time and/or inclination to read anything they can’t bill a client for. (In fact, as I discovered recently, there are lawyers who, despite graduating law school and passing the bar, can’t be bothered to read court rules closely enough to realize that you must serve a complaint on an opposing party. Perhaps he thought people just regularly pop their heads into the local district court to see if there is a pending suit against them.) For my part, I would be pleased if lawyers just spent a bit of time learning Roman law, if only because it might assist them in putting together a coherent argument. But I digress…

Thank you as always dear reader(s) for reading the byproduct of my mental wanderings. I know that I have pledged to “get back on track” more times than any soul need recall, but maybe, just maybe, this is where I turn the corner. Or maybe life, as it is wont to do, gets in the way of simple pleasures like reflecting on the world around me and offering up a thought or two which, whether you agree or not, at least keeps you coming back for more.

September 5, 2017 Politics, Reading

Lilla on Liberalism – Prologue

Mark Lilla, whose attitude and intellectual posture generate equal parts admiration and annoyance for more than a decade, is never short of things to say. Whether its dismantling the cult of Derrida and introducing Americans to the “European” Leo Strauss in the pages of The New York Review of Books or chronicling the deep theologico-political problem afoot in contemporary France, Lilla rarely fails to bring his erudition to bear. Unfortunately, he sometimes brings his obnoxious arrogance as well. For instance, his review of Brad Gregory’s The Unintended Reformation was an unfortunate blend of generalizations and dismissals even if Lilla’s observations on narratives of decline wasn’t entirely off the mark. And that’s the thing: Lilla is seldom off the mark entirely; he just sometimes overlooks (or omits) arguments and facts unhelpful to his positions. Consider, for example, his brief book The Stillborn God. Ostensibly a critical history of the intersection of religion and politics in modernity, the work is guilty of the “slight oversight” of leaving out the Catholic Church.

Now Lilla returns with a bit of political soul searching, The Once and Future Liberal. Lilla, who self-identifies as a liberal in the largely American sense, believes that liberalism has foregone a vision of the common good in favor of tethering itself to identity politics. At the same time, it is also a critique of the individualism of contemporary liberalism, specifically where politics is bound up with the self and what is good for the individual based on his preferences, whims, orientations, etc. The Once and Future Liberal is as pithy as it is powerful; it is a call to action, nay, repentance for American liberalism, one which will no doubt be difficult to hear at this juncture in history.

Not being a liberal in any sense whatsoever, I approached Lilla’s work with integralist, but not unsympathetic, eyes. It is rare that any political, social, or religious movement comes to terms honestly with its own failures in the hope of building itself back up. While portions of Lilla’s book contain obvious finger pointing, it is not unfair finger pointing. Liberal elites within the Democratic Party and society at large should be held accountable for the bad ideological bets made since the collapse of the New Deal-Great Society project in the 1970s. The question now is whether there are liberals with Lilla’s knack for self-criticism and imaginative rethinking who are willing to take up his call for a refreshed liberalism.

In the next four web-log posts, I will consider Lilla’s argument in The Once and Future Liberal on a chapter by chapter basis, including the Introduction. Are there important details Lilla omits from his work? What, if any, lessons can Catholics faithful to the Church’s social magisterium take away from Lilla’s observations? And, above all, is Lilla’s hope for liberalism renewed even desirable at this stage in history? Or does his critique ultimately point beyond itself to what comes after liberalism?

August 28, 2017 Church

Some More Unpopular Remarks on Alcohol

A post from last month, “An Unpopular Remark on Alcohol,” received some negative feedback on social media, partially because certain individuals thought I was calling for a return to the temperance movement. Nothing could be further from the truth. Still, I would be remiss if I did not state that I continue to be suspicious of the “alcoholism-as-Catholicism” mentality that is still present in and around the Church. Moreover, no one with eyes to see can deny the “drink [insert craft spirit/beer]-as-sign-of-sophistication” posturing that is all the rage these days, not just among Catholics, but certain brands of hipster Protestants and Eastern Orthodox as well. Far be it for me, of course, to ruin anyone’s fun. For the life of me, I don’t know how anyone is supposed to imbibe from the wells of contemporary Catholic writing without a stiff chaser. However, instead of single-barrel bourbon or the latest quadruple hops IPA, let me suggest that the tripe which fills Catholic bookshelves today is best paired with either Wild Turkey or Miller High Life.

In 1933, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) linked arms with a pro-temperance movement to stop the purchase and use of alcohol and tobacco. According to the account from Stepan Bandera: The Life and Aftermath of a Ukrainian Nationalist, “OUN activists urged Ukrainians to publicly pledge that they would not drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. Drinkers who could not resist buying alcohol were beaten up. Taverns were demolished.” Ah, the good old days.

In reality, the OUN had little concern with temperance per se, even though Bandera, their leader, was not a fan of alcohol. What’s striking about this little snippet from history is that it would likely appall many Catholics today to learn that any of their religious forebears could not only perceive problems with alcohol, but would take active measures to see its use diminished within society. I have heard over the years from more than a few gents that to be “anti-alcohol” is, in essence, to be “anti-Catholic.” When I pressed one young fellow on this point, he ultimately defended his position by pointing to the alcohol content in communion wine. This is where we are in 2017, folks.

At the close of business, it is less alcohol per se which is the problem and more the attitude most Catholics believe they have to have toward it. How many of us have heard, “I can hold my liquor, I’m [insert random ethnic identity here]”? I wonder how many of them still feel “Chestertonian” when they are vomiting last night’s gin into the toilet the following morning.

August 14, 2017 Catholic Social Thought, Integralism

A Remark on the Racist Right

A great deal has been made of this past weekend’s events in Charlottesville, Virginia where the “Unite the Right” rally descended into violence. That’s not surprising. What is surprising, however, is how many pundits and social-media “experts” are only now coming to the realization that racism and bigotry in the United States is not confined to fever swamps and southern mountains. For decades, civilized white America has patted itself on the back with the self-confident belief that racism, by and large, had been eradicated from everywhere except the peripheries of society. The election of Barack Obama in 2008, so the story went, proved that America had overcome the race problem. All the while disparate groups identifying as neo-Nazi, neo-Confederate, nationalist, and, eventually, alt-right had begun leaning on increasingly more subtle and complex arguments for why race—and indeed racism—still mattered. America, they claim, is on the verge of losing its white-European-Christian-whatever identity; the time to stand up and fight has finally arrived.

Of course, how many “soldiers” of this particularly distasteful manifestation of the Right are available is something of an open question. By most accounts, only a few hundred folks attended the “Unite the Right” rally. And while there are plenty of racist trolls lurking around social media, many are anonymous, cowardly, and lacking anything resembling a coherent outlook. So now the media, indeed white America as a whole, is at risk of compensating for its prior dismissal of the race issue by overblowing the extent to which ideological racism shapes the thinking and political choices of a noticeable swathe of Americans. The reason this is a risk is because racial issues, like gender issues, tend to obscure one of the deepest problems in the United States (if not the West), namely class. But few people want to talk about that.

There is another risk that should also be noted: giving the racist Right a deeper (but ultimately false) sense of their own power and influence. Make no mistake about it: “Unite the Right,” a rally involving anything but a proper sampling of the American population, is now being heralded as a victory for no other reason than it has upset the Left so. Those who adhere to the true principles of the Right or, rather, principles often associated with the Right but only have coherence and meaning if moored to the Catholic tradition should worry about this. While there can be no doubt that civilizations must be defended if they are to be preserved, it is only Catholic civilization—Christendom—which warrants defending. The racist Right’s nationalism, fueled by such idiotic pieties as “Southern pride” and “Western values,” is devoid of any sense of the common good; whatever its purposes, the salvation of souls is not among them.

Unfortunately, too many Catholics (meaning any Catholic, anywhere) have been enchanted with the racist Right and its wobbly nationalistic outlook. Instead of identifying with the Church and working for the restoration of all things in Christ, they cling to the useless hope that by marginalizing minorities, mindlessly halting immigration, and touting the “glories” of America, they are somehow engaged in a holy crusade that finds favor with God. The reality is that the only thing pleasing to God is the re-Christianization of society, of bringing to Christ His lost sheep (of which there are hundreds of millions in America alone).

Although it should go without saying that integralists can have nothing to do with the raw nonsense spouted by the racist Right, certain remarks popping up on social media compel me to point to an early piece I wrote for The Josias that makes clear the racism and nationalism being promoted in certain circles has nothing to do with integralism or Catholicism. Catholics are not concerned with the color of man’s skin but the state of his soul. The civilization we seek to rebuild has nothing to do with the heritage of a country infused with the false principles of liberalism, but everything to do with the timeless principles articulated and defended by the Church for centuries. Ultimately, we have no use for secular presidents and legislative bodies that serve the interests of elites. It is Our Lord Jesus Christ, not liberalism, which we wish to see reign over society, and until He does again, our work for the rights of God, modest though they be for the time being, will never cease.

August 8, 2017 Catholic Social Thought, Politics

John Zmirak’s Silliness Continues

At this point there is little use highlighting how out-of-step John Zmirak is with the Catholic Church’s social doctrine. For years, Zmirak has attempted to blend his idiosyncratic form of the Catholic religion with secular liberalism, choosing to side with the latter when any conflict presents itself. In a recent piece for The Stream, a garbled mess of hysteria and hyperbole, Zmirak once again takes umbrage with Catholics who, following the timeless teachings of the Church, oppose liberalism. For reasons which are difficult to discern, Zmirak opens his salvo by attacking the “Tradinista!” collective which, if you haven’t heard, went belly up months ago due to petty infighting and intellectual incoherence. By the close of his article, Zmirak conflates the positions of these wannabe socialists with those advanced over at The Josias. Perhaps someone should have informed Zmirak that The Josias, through its editor Elliot Milco, never had much time for the inanities of the “Tradinista!” project.

Zmirak’s confusion does not end there. One of the focuses of his piece is this idea that Catholics who reject liberalism—including integralists and those who follow the Church’s traditional doctrine on religious liberty—believe that the stae, the Church, or Church and state acting in concert should actively persecute non-Catholics. Nothing could be further from the truth. Regardless of what one thinks about the status of Dignitatis Humanae, it has never been maintained that the spiritual or temporal authorities should coerce non-Catholics into accepting beliefs against their will. The issue comes down to whether or not an individual or religion has the right to promulgate error. When Catholics speak of coercion, it is the coercion necessary, for example, to stop Mormons spreading error door to door or prevent Muslims from publicly rejecting Christ.

As for the Church’s right to coerce baptized Christians through penalties, Zmirak panics at this suggestion—but why? Has no one told him what excommunication is? Does he know nothing of the suspension of priests and bishops from their duties for certain infractions? The Church’s denial of the sacraments to Protestants and others who reject Catholic teaching is a form of coercion, arguably the most powerful form available. While I doubt that Zmirak would advocate for the Church to remove all ecclesiastical penalties from the table so as to not be accused of coercing anyone, it seems that he has not thought his position through with much rigor.

Or maybe he has. It’s not out of question that Zmirak knows that he is appealing to some of the basest prejudices of his readers in order to advance his private cause against those who take Catholicism more seriously than liberalism. By leaving the impression of angry mobs armed with pitchforks and torches marching toward the local synagogue in his readers’ minds, Zmirak may be trying to shame his opponents into walking back their ideas or, at the very least, making certain compromises with the liberal order. Thankfully, that is not going to happen. What Zmirak fails to understand is that illiberal Catholics (whatever their particular affiliation) did not set out on the hard path of resistance only to abandon the fight at its earliest stage. The Catholics Zmirak has no time for are the very sort who take the Church’s teachings seriously and will not forego the instructions of reason and revelation simply to get along with a socio-political ideology which, odds are, will recede into the darkness in the centuries (if not decades) to come.

Zmirak may not want to accept this, but it matters not. He can continue to pander to the lords of this world; the rest of us have business elsewhere.

August 7, 2017 Movies

A Remark on Malick’s Song to Song

Terrence Malick’s cinematic achievements, which includes nine films, have grown increasingly abstract, if not opaque, in recent years. After two decades of silence following his highly praised Days of Heaven, Malick returned with The Thin Red Line (TRL) and The New World (TNW) before falling silent again. Since 2011’s Tree of Life (TOL), Malick has been on something of tear, releasing four more films in the span of six years. Many critics, including some of Malick’s longtime admirers, were nonplussed. How could the man who had unsettled and enchanted audiences with nature’s indifference—and transcendence of—man’s inhumanity to man in TRL and created one of the greatest films of the 00s in TNW descended into student-film madness wrapped in trite philosophical-religious sentimentality devoid of coherent plots? Defenders of Malick argue that such criticism does not apply to TOL, and they’re probably right. While digressive and ethereal at points, TOL recapitulates portions of the Book of Job while returning to one of Malick’s favorite themes, namely the luminosity of creation and the grace to be found in everyday life.

Song to Song (STS), Malick’s latest offering, is far less easy to follow and comprehend than TOL or its predecessors. Set against the backdrop of the Austin, Texas music scene, STS primarily follows the destructive love patterns of four individuals—two male, two female—while blending in musician cameos from the likes of Iggy Pop, Flea, and Patti Smith. Michael Fassbender’s Cook, a philandering record producer whose immense wealth is inversely proportional to the vacuity of his soul, is a rarity for a Malick movie: a truly irredeemable character. Even Nick Nolte’s Colonel Gordon Tall in TRL, who orders a reckless and bloody assault in the hopes of impressing his superiors, is warranted some sympathy; after years of bootlicking and sacrifice, Malick’s version of the Battle of Guadalcanal is his final moment to shine, to prove to himself and his family that his martial life wasn’t a failure. Cook, on the other hand, feeds on the bodies and souls of those lured by his hollow promises of love and success. There is something almost satanic about Cook, the way he is often found leering at his prey, studying the faults of others before moving in to exploit them for his own personal satisfaction.

Less revolting, though not completely so, is Ryan Gosling’s BV, a musician who locks arm with Cook while carrying on a painful romance with Cook’s former assistant, Rooney Mara’s Faye. Faye, as the story unveils, has—and continues—to carry on a sexual relationship with Cook even while trying to be with BV. Faye is as close to a central character as STS is allowed to have, and while many of her voiceovers early in the film come across as sophomoric brooding mixed with half-formed musings, by the film’s end she becomes Malick’s conduit for mercy, love, and forgiveness. Left on the peripheries is Natalie Portman’s Rhonda, STS’s only obvious Christian (albeit superficially so) whose relationship with Cook ends in tragedy.

While often linear, it should be noted that STS’s final act cuts back and forth in time, a device whose power is marred by Malick’s failure to draw clear lines of demarcation between past, present, and future. The ending, which borders on the fantastical, may be just that—an idea, a hope, a longing for a love that never ends, a love that endures all things with patience and humility. That message, though beautiful, is difficult to trace through the movie’s earlier acts, some of which are shockingly gratuitous for a Malick movie.. Love his work or hate it, Malick has often favored subtle intimacy over graphic depictions of sexuality. His choice to rely on the latter in this movie can be interpreted in a number of ways, the most charitable view being his desire to juxtapose transient carnality with transcendent love. The less charitable view is that Malick, now into his 70s, has simply become a dirty old man.

August 1, 2017 Catholic Social Thought, Political Economy

Joe Carter Doesn’t Get It

I have no idea if the Acton Institute’s Joe Carter has ever been described as a stupid man, but he’s making a pretty powerful case that he’s an ignorant one. In his second lamentation on the apparent rise of “socialism” among conservative Christians, he speculates why 20-somethings might be attracted to socialist ideas while ignoring the fact that many Christians (specifically Catholics) who oppose the Acton Institute and the free-market ideology it promotes are neither in their 20s nor have been “burned” by the marketplace. Carter, like so many free-market apologists, prefers to take a condescending approach to those who disagree with him by purporting to unveil psychological and material causes behind his opponents’ arguments. In the end, Carter might as well just called those who apparently hold to “socialist” ideas lazy, immature, and uneducated. And even if he did, he would still be missing the mark.

Those who stand fierce against the Acton Institute and all of its works are those who are committed not to their personal self-interest but rather to the social magisterium of the Catholic Church. Promoting just wages and solidarity isn’t an “option”; it is a duty that all faithful Catholics are bound to uphold. Even in an age where the capitalist system militates against the true principles of Catholicism, Catholics must, with prudence, do all they can to ensure that their public behavior comport with the social doctrine of the Church. It is to Christ, not capitalist greed, that Catholics look to, or at least should. Carter, through his association with Actonites, no doubt realizes that many Catholics have no compunction about ignoring what the Church teaches in order to make false deals with the world. Indeed, the Acton Institute itself is run primarily by Catholics who would rather sit at the feet of Mises and Rothbard rather than Leo XIII and Pius XI. It is nothing short of a scandal that these men can continue to work against what the Church teaches without reprisal.

As I have discussed before, for Carter, almost any form of public regulation of the market is “socialism,” which in effect means that the guidance offered up by Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII, etc. all falls under the banner of socialism since all of their writings contemplated the need for the state to step in under various circumstances to uphold the common good. As such, it is difficult to take his critiques very seriously. Perhaps he wrongly thinks that if he refers to a certain idea or instruction as “socialist,” it will instantly send Catholics running for the hills lest they be sullied by so terrible a term. Or maybe Carter thinks that he can lean on the Church’s longstanding condemnation of socialism in order to propagate the (false) idea that capitalism and capitalism alone provides the only sure and faithful path for Catholics to follow if they wish to fulfill the precepts of the Church. Certainly there are some Catholics like that, but their error cannot be taken as received wisdom. While socialism must be resisted at every turn, so does capitalism. This is what Carter cannot or will not understand. For him there are only two paths present, but those who are willing to open their hearts and minds to the Church know better.

In the end there is no need for faithful Catholics to be bothered with Carter’s carping. He will, to the best of his ability, try and throw up accusations against those who reject the lies of economic liberalism, but to no avail. There can be no appeal to “economic science” or materialism or base self-interest which can overcome the truth which only Christ’s Church teaches. It is not to Wall Street but the Cross where we must go, and if that places us out of step with the present age, an age shaped around entertainment and greed, then all the better. Let the economic liberals have their home in this world, for they have received their reward. The rest of us can look to our final end, which is Heaven.

July 28, 2017 Catholic Social Thought, Economics, Political Economy

Strain, Carter, and Socialism

The kerfuffle over Andrew Strain’s recent First Things website article criticizing the idea of free markets is starting to die down despite the Acton Institute’s Joe Carter having a panic attack over the specter of socialism haunting ostensibly conservative Christian publications. Carter’s rebuke to Strain (and others) is nothing more than the same old, same old. Almost all forms of public regulation, by Carter’s lights, constitutes socialism. It’s not entirely clear where Carter draws the line, or if there is room in Carter’s liberal-economic outlook for measures like antitrust law, environmental protections, and labor standards. What rings strange in Carter’s ill-conceived attack is his insistence that Strain himself is a socialist for no other reason than the latter suggested that Pope Pius XI, author of the towering social encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, offers up alternatives to free-market capitalism. In a brief Twitter exchange with Carter, he made it known that Strain might consider reading later papal documents which condemn socialism. Carter is apparently ignorant of the fact that Pius XI, like his predecessors, condemned socialism outright and no Catholic thinker worth his salt has ever suspected Pius of harboring crypto-socialist ideas.

The real problem here is that Carter, like so many “Actonites,” subscribes to a Manichean worldview with the capitalists on one side (“Children of Light”) and the socialists (or communists) on the other (“Children of Darkness”). There can be no “third way,” nor apparently sensible regulation of the market. And by “sensible regulation” I mean nothing more than the sort proposed by some of Carter’s fellow, but far more learned, economic liberals. Consider, for instance, law professor Richard Epstein’s more balanced take on the market. While Epstein is a strong advocate for private law doing the heavy lifting of protecting rights and redressing wrongs, he has defended the use of antitrust law to prevent monopolization and other restraints on trade while leaving room open for some public regulation to address collective action problems and the tragedy of the commons. Although I remains skeptical of many of Epstein’s claims, not to mention his reliance on neoclassical economics, his consequentialist approach treats the market as an effective means of maximizing social welfare while not ignoring the market’s imperfections.

Beyond this, the crucial issue for Strain and other faithful Catholics (which excludes Carter) is what does the Church teach? For well more than a century, the Church’s social magisterium has set forth clear principles for the proper economic ordering of society. Although no pontiff has ever claimed to provide a sure-fire roadmap for how particular economies are organized, none have dismissed the fact that a just economy demands just wages for workers; social, moral, and religious protections; solidarity; and the application of the principle of subsidiarity. Although these principles are best upheld at the local level through intermediary institutions, some form of public regulation is expressly contemplated by the Church’s magisterium. Moreover, the Church has never been blind to the need for social safety nets for the least well off in society and that moderate taxation, rather than being a form of theft, is indispensable for maintaining public order and justice.

Granted, some Catholics in recent years have jumped the rails a bit on these measures, believing—wrongly—that what they find in the Church’s social magisterium is a mandate for highly centralized regulatory schemas, entitlements, and massive wealth transfers. Their errors, however, do not justify scrapping Catholic social teaching as a whole, nor setting aside what great pontiffs like Leo XIII, St. Pius X, and Pius XI taught. Sure, Pope Francis, with his penchant for off-the-cuff remarks and imprecise rhetoric, may have temporarily handed pro-socialist Catholics an apparent justification for their beliefs, but at the end of the day the timeless social principles of the Church—principles which cannot be squared with true socialism—remain to guide us up to the present day.