Pope
Francis certainly makes things interesting.
Aside from keeping former kremlinologists employed trying to discern the
intent behind his appointments, he can’t seem to help saying things that get
people in an uproar. The most notorious
was an interview with Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari, in which the Pope
seemed to be endorsing a rather generous (i.e., relativistic ) concept of
conscience. As it turns out, however,
Scalfari, who is an atheist, did not record his discussion with the Pope nor
did he take notes; the “interview” was actually his own recollection of the
conversation (link). He eventually admitted “some of the Pope’s
words I reported were not shared by Pope Francis.” Oops. The Vatican removed the interview from its
website. The Pope, it appears, is
learning to be more careful.
More
surprising (perhaps) is the uproar over a statement in the Pope’s Encyclical Gaudium Evangelii (Joy of the Gospel) that seemed to be a condemnation of
Capitalism . . . at least that’s the way the press reported it, and considering
the great gaudium sinistro (Joy on the Left) that accompanied it, how
could they be wrong?
Easily,
as it turns out. We’ll get to that in a
moment, but we need a little context for the Church’s teaching on matters
economic. Let’s start with four
stipulations:
-1. The Magisterium of
the Church in general, and the Pope (any Pope) in particular, claims no
particular competence in economics.
-2. The Magisterium and the Pope do, however,
have the competence to teach authoritatively on moral principles that Catholics
are to apply in their economic life.
-3. Since Leo XIII’s
Encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891 the Popes have been developing a body of
Magisterial teaching on this topic.
-4. A pope cannot simply reverse prior magisterial
teaching, even in a formal proclamation such as an encyclical letter (of
course, he can’t say anything authoritative in a newspaper interview).
Given
that, the proper way to evaluate what Francis said about the free market
economy is to consider his remarks in the context of the existing
teaching. A good place to start is Pope
John Paul II’s 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, issued one
hundred years after Rerum Novarum (hence the name: “hundredth year”), in
which he looks back at Leo’s encyclical, Pius XI’s1931 encyclical QuadrigesimoAnno (“The Fortieth Year” – do you see a pattern here?) and the
economic events of the twentieth century.
While the scope of The Blessed (now Saint) John Paul’s encyclical is too vast to
explore here, we can at least get a glimpse at what he has to say about
socialism and capitalism.
Pope John
Paul tells us, first of all, that the “guiding principle of Pope Leo's
Encyclical, and of all of the Church's social doctrine, is a correct view of the
human person and of his unique value, inasmuch as ‘man ... is the only creature
on earth which God willed for itself”’ . . .and
“his essential dignity as a person.” (Centesimus Annus 5) Given that standard, socialism is
ruled out. John Paul quotes from Rerum
Novarum, which criticizes the socialists because they "encourage
the poor man's envy of the rich and strive to do away with private property”
and
their contentions are
so clearly powerless to end the controversy that, were they carried into
effect, the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are
moreover emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort
the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community. (Rerum
Novarum 99)
This is not to say that the Church favors an
unfettered free market:
There is certainly a
legitimate sphere of autonomy in economic life which the State should not
enter. The State, however, has the task of determining the juridical framework
within which economic affairs are to be conducted, and thus of safeguarding the
prerequisites of a free economy, which presumes a certain equality between the
parties, such that one party would not be so powerful as practically to reduce
the other to subservience. (Centesimus Annus 15).
The state’s role should be determined by the
principles of subsidiarity and solidarity:
. . . according to the
principle of subsidiarity, by
creating favourable conditions for the free exercise of economic activity,
which will lead to abundant opportunities for employment and sources of wealth.
Directly and according to the principle of solidarity,
by defending the weakest, by placing certain limits on the autonomy of the
parties who determine working conditions, and by ensuring in every case the
necessary minimum support for the unemployed worker. (Centesimus Annus 15)
The meaning of solidarity should be evident in the
passage above; subsidiarity is described by Pius XI in Quadrigesimo Anno 79 as
follows:
[I]t is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance
of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and
subordinate organizations can do. For every social
activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body
social, and never destroy and absorb them . . .
Pope John Paul also says:
It would appear that,
on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free
market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively
responding to needs . . . But there are
many human needs which find no place on the market. It is a strict duty of
justice and truth not to allow fundamental human needs to remain unsatisfied,
and not to allow those burdened by such needs to perish. It is also necessary
to help these needy people to acquire expertise, to enter the circle of
exchange, and to develop their skills in order to make the best use of their
capacities and resources. (Centesimus Annus 35)
Notice that the Pope is not describing a particular
system, but putting forward certain principles that should undergird the
system: a relatively free market, a state that protects property and ensures
the rule of law, protects the weak from exploitation, and in the process
respects the appropriate freedom to conduct their own affairs that everyone
possesses as part of his innate dignity as a human being made in the image of
God. The market is the best means of producing the
most prosperity for everyone, and as Christians we need to find ways to include
everyone in its benefits.
Which
brings us back to our starting point. No
system can take the place of the “unique value” of each human person. In the matter “of overseeing and directing
the exercise of human rights in the economic sector”, for instance” primary
responsibility in this area belongs not to the State but to individuals and to
the various groups and associations which make up society” (Centesimus
Annus 48). John Adams said of the
U.S. Constitution: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious
people. It is wholly inadequate to the
government of any other.” The same is
true of the market economy. No system can be truly just apart from the free
choices of those who populate it. As
Pope John Paul says in another place:
It is not therefore a
matter of inventing a "new program". The program already exists: it
is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as
ever. Ultimately, it has its center in Christ himself, who is to be known,
loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and
with him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem (Novo Millenio Ineunto 29).
Pardon the lengthy excursus into papal documents,
but this is the backdrop against which we need to examine Pope Francis’ remarks
on economic systems. In Evangelii
Gaudium 54 the Pope says, according to the official English
translation:
In this context, some
people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about
greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.
Catholic blogger extraordinaire Fr. Z rightly points
out (link) that the Spanish
phrase por mismo, translated “inevitably” above, is more accurately
rendered “by itself”. That is an
important distinction, although even with the less accurate translation any objective
observer can see that what Pope Francis is saying is completely consistent with
the teaching of the rigid, right-wing, authoritarian, pre-Vatican II
neo-Torquemada John Paul II in Centesimus Annus: The system can’t
do it alone: it can only provide the opportunity. In fact, the system is only as just as those people who animate it, who can only find true justice in the Good News of
Jesus Christ.
So,
what’s all the uproar about? The key
lies in the phrase “objective of observer.”
As I pointed out in an earlier post (link), those on the left, in the Church or in the secular
world, need to protect their worldview at all costs, and will often cite in
their own support authorities who, on even cursory inspection, don’t support
them at all. I once knew of a high
school campus minister who had previously been a 100% pro-abortion state
legislator, but nevertheless would brandish (I mean physically brandish) a copy
of John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae when arguing against capital punishement. She seemed unaware (or maybe she just didn't care) that abortion comes in for much harsher treatment in that document.
That’s
the story here. The secular press and
their religious counterparts will continue to snatch up and loudly trumpet any
remarks by this Pope that can even remotely be construed to support their
heterodoxy. If you want to know what the
pope really said, go to a more sober source.
