Category: Catholic Social Thought

Faithful Catholics owe John Zmirak a debt of gratitude. Not only did he put the term “illiberal Catholicism” into circulation, thus giving folks such as myself a convenient self-descriptor, he continues to serve as a shining example of what happens when you blend a superficial understanding of Catholicism and Christian history with an unabashed love for liberalism and all of its works. His latest, “The Myth of Catholic Social Teaching,” attempts no nuances nor dabbles in distinctions when it comes to rejecting Catholic Social Teaching (CST). He just does it. Unfortunately Zmirak’s “reasoning” is old hat. Starting from the (correct) premise that not everything a pope says or writes carries magisterial force, he then moves to the erroneous conclusion that nothing (or practically nothing) in CST requires assent — absolute, religious, or otherwise. CST is nothing more than the private opinions of certain popes which are subject to change over time. To help bolster his claim, Zmirak points to apparent shifts in papal teachings on usury, torture, and slavery without reflecting on the context from which those teachings — or changes in teaching — emerged. Indeed, Zmirak goes so far as to claim that Dignitatis Humanae overturned the Church’s previous teaching on religious liberty, thus demonstrating — whether he knows it or not — his acceptance of the “hermeneutic of rupture” thesis. I doubt that would bother Zmirak much. He, like most Catholic liberals, depends on rupture to give his socio-political ideology a jumpstart without being inconvenienced by any incongruities which might exist between it and the Church’s teachings on faith and morals.

John C. Wright, a sci-fi novelist, has come out swinging against Distributism — or, more accurately, a certain caricature of G.K. Chesterton’s presentation of Distributism — over at his private web-log here. (Not surprisingly Joe Carter over at the Acton Power Blog has highlighted the piece.) Wright begins by highlighting two things: (1) He has studied economics “for many a year” (how many he doesn’t say, and what brand of economics is not disclosed); and (2) Chesterton’s pronouncements on Distributism are vague. With respect to the first point, it comes across as a lame attempt to assert intellectual superiority without actually going through the effort of demonstrating as much. In fact, nothing in Wright’s post shows that he has any more sophistication with economics than someone who has scanned a neoliberal tract which states, mantra-like, that the wealthy create wealth; that they deliver unprecedented value to society at large; and that any thought that the wealthy, as a class, would cooperate to maintain their position at the expense of other classes in society is absurd on its face. All of those claims are, of course, contestable. While Chesterton’s prose, hyperbolic and reactionary though it could be at times, doesn’t rise to the level of a social-scientific case against unfettered capitalism, it does marshall a powerful moral case against the miseries and degradation Chesterton witnessed first hand in early 20th C. England. Chesterton may be no economist, but it doesn’t appear as if Wright is much of one either.

In an earlier post, “Neoconservatism and Conceptual Clarity,” I discussed the first part of Artur Rosman’s interview with Patrick Deneen over at Ethika Politika. Today the second part of that interview was published. In it, Deneen has some strong words for those Catholics (and other Christians) — such as those associated with the Acton Institute — who denounce the possibility of a third way beyond capitalism and socialism/communism. (On the matter of “third ways,” see my earlier post here.) Here is a sample of Deneen’s thoughts concerning this line of thinking as it is applied to Distributism:

Economic liberals within the Catholic Church frequently cite Pope John Paul II’s social encyclical Centesimus Annus (CA) for the proposition that Catholic Social Teaching is not a “third way” between and beyond communism/socialism and capitalism. In fact, following CA, the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, writing for The Wall Street Journal, called this third-way view “a serious error.” On the 20th anniversary of the encyclical, George Weigel triumphantly boasted in First Things that CA had “abandon[ed] ‘Catholic third way’ fantasies[.]” Given that the term “third way” appears nowhere in CA, one might ask what is the textual basis of this audacious claim? Typically, the economic liberals quote the following:

Time constraints are not allowing me to dedicate as much time to this topic now as I would like, but it bears reminding some circles that casting a critical, even doubtful, eye on some of the occasional marks of our current Pontiff, Pope Francis, is not tantamount to a radical rejection of either his pontificate or the many instances in which he faithfully upholds the Catholic Church’s teachings on, inter alia, the devil, sin, just war, society, and economics. In fact, as Rorate Caeli noted not long ago, Francis and traditional Catholics, i.e., those traditional Catholics who faithfully adhere to Catholic Social Teaching (CST), are substantially united on economic matters. The problem, however, is that some traditionalists, like their (somewhat estranged) neo-Catholic and liberal Catholic brethren, fall into the trap of assuming that Francis is saying something radically new when he condemns usury or reminds world leaders that “the goal of politics and economics is to serve humanity.” Such claims rest on woeful ignorance of CST, particularly its modern formulation which, in large part, began with Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. 

Update 7/31/2014: At some point during July 30, 2014, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry deleted the “Tweet” that I quote below. Whether that deletion came in response to this post or for other reasons, I do not know. Please keep that fact in mind when reading the following.

Though unlikely, it is possible that Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (PEG) can’t read, or at least not well. After apparently reading yesterday’s post, “Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry’s Dissent From CST,” this is what he so charitably posted on Twitter:

Several recent off-blog inquiries have asked whether or not I setting off in a fundamentally new direction with this, Opus Publicum 2.0, since hitting the reset button just over a month ago. (For more on that, see “Rebegin.”) Given that the last couple of weeks has, with the exception of a single post on “Latinizations” in the Eastern Catholic churches, been dedicated to matters concerning international law and politics, it might seem to some that the previous blog’s concerns with intra-ecclesial affairs from a traditional Catholic perspective has faded away in favor of more neutral engagements on socio-political topics. I assure you that’s not the case, or at least not entirely.