Social Credit and the Teachings of the Popes

by Alain Pilote

Applied Christianity

Clifford Hugh Douglas, the Scottish engineer who founded Social Credit, once said that Social Credit could be defined in two words: applied Christianity. A comparative study of Social Credit and the social doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church shows indeed how wonderfully the Social Credit financial proposals would apply the Church's teachings on social justice.

Primacy of the human person

The social doctrine of the Church can be summarized in this basic principle: the primacy of the human person:

“The Church's teaching on social matters has truth as its guide, justice as its end, and love as its driving force... The cardinal point of this teaching is that individual men are necessarily the foundation, cause, and end of all social institutions.”(John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Mater et Magistra, May 15, 1961, nn. 219 and 226.)

Systems at the service of man

Social Credit shares the same philosophy. Clifford Hugh Douglas wrote in the first chapter of his first book, Economic Democracy:

“Systems are made for men, and not men for systems, and the interest of man, which is self-development, is above all systems.”

And Pope John Paul II wrote in his first Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis (The Redeemer of Man, March 4, 1979, n. 16):

“Man cannot relinquish himself or the place in the visible world that belongs to him; he cannot become the slave of things, the slave of economic systems, the slave of production, the slave of his own products.”

All systems must be at the service of man, including the financial and economic systems:

“As a democratic society, see carefully to all that is happening in this powerful world of money! The world of finance is also a human world, our world, submitted to the conscience of all of us; for it too exist ethical principles. So see especially to it that you may bring a contribution to world peace with your economy and your banks and not a contribution — perhaps in an indirect way — to war and injustice!” (John Paul II, homily at Flueli, Switzerland, June 14, 1984.)

The bankers control money

Money should be an instrument of service, but the bankers, in appropriating the control over its creation, have made it an instrument of domination:

“This power becomes particularly irresistible when exercised by those who, because they hold and control money, are able also to govern credit and determine its allotment, for that reason supplying, so to speak, the lifeblood to the entire economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of production, so that no one dare breathe against their will.”(Pius XI, Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931.)

The creation of money as a debt by the bankers is the means of imposing their will upon individuals and of controlling the world:

“Among the actions and attitudes opposed to the will of God, the good of neighbour and the «structures» created by them, two are very typical: on the one hand, the all-consuming desire for profit, and on the other, the thirst for power, with the intention of imposing one's will upon others.”John Paul II, Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, Dec. 30, 1987, n. 37.)

Since money is an instrument that is basically social, the Social Credit doctrine proposes that money be issued by society, and not by private bankers for their own profit:

"There are certain categories of goods for which one can maintain with reason that they must be reserved to the collectivity when they come to confer such an economic power that it cannot, without danger to the common good, be left to the care of private individuals.”(Pius XI, Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno.)

Unrepayable debts

The obligation of paying back to the banker money which he did not create, brings about unrepayable debts:

“Debtor countries, in fact, find themselves caught in a vicious circle. In order to pay back their debts, they are obliged to transfer ever greater amounts of money outside the country. These are resources which should have been available for internal purposes and investment and therefore for their own development.

“Debt servicing cannot be met at the price of the asphyxiation of a country's economy, and no government can morally demand of its people privations incompatible with human dignity... With the Gospel as the source of inspiration, other types of action could also be contemplated such as granting extensions, partial or even total remission of debts... In certain cases, the creditor States could convert the loans into grants.

“The Church restates the priority to be granted to people and their needs, above and beyond the constraints and financial mechanisms often advanced as the only imperatives.”(An Ethical Approach to the International Debt Question, Pontifical Justice and Peace Commission, Dec. 27, 1986.)

“It is not right to demand or expect payment when the effect would be the imposition of political choices leading to hunger and despair for entire peoples. It cannot be expected that the debts which have been contracted should be paid at the price of unbearable sacrifices. In such cases it is necessary to find — as in fact is partly happening — ways to lighten, defer or even cancel the debt, compatible with the fundamental right of peoples to subsistence and progress.”(John Paul II, Encyclical Centesimus Annus, May 1, 1991, n. 35.)

The imperialism of money

The Church condemns both liberal capitalism and Marxist communism. Note that it is not capitalism in itself that the Church condemns, but “liberal capitalism”, “a type of capitalism”. For the Church makes a distinction, in capitalism, between the producing system and “the calamitous system that accompanies it,” the financial system:

“This unchecked liberalism led to dictatorship rightly denounced by Pope Pius XI as producing `the international imperialism of money'. One cannot condemn such abuses too strongly, because — let us again recall solemnly — the economy should be at the service of man. But if it is true that a type of capitalism has been the source of excessive suffering, injustices and fratricidal conflicts whose effects still persist, it would be wrong to attribute to industrialization itself evils that belong to the calamitous system that accompanied it. On the contrary, one must recognize in all justice the irreplaceable contribution made by the organization and the growth of industry to the task of development.”(Paul VI, Encyclical Populorum Progressio on the development of peoples, March 26, 1967, n. 26.)

Private property

The faults the Popes find in present capitalism do not derive from its nature (private property, free enterprise), but from the financial system it uses, a financial system that dominates instead of serving, a financial system that vitiates capitalism. Far from wishing the disappearance of private property, the Popes rather wish its widespread diffusion to all:

“The dignity of the human person necessarily requires the right of using external goods in order to live according to the right norm of nature. And to this corresponds a most serious obligation, which requires that, so far as possible, there be given to all an opportunity of possessing private property... Therefore it is necessary to modify economic and social life so that the way is made easier for widespread private possession of such things as durable goods, homes, gardens, tools requisite for artisan enterprises and family-type farms, investments in enterprises of medium or large size.”(John XXIII, Encyclical Mater et Magistra, nn.114-115.)

Everyone a capitalist

It would be possible for everyone to be a real “capitalist” and to have access to earthly goods with the Social Credit dividend, which would apply in concrete terms this other basic principle of the Church's social doctrine: the goods of this world are intended for all men:

“God intended the earth and all that it contains for the use of every human being and people. Thus, as all men follow justice and unite in charity, created goods should abound for them on a reasonable basis.”(Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Church Gaudium et Spes, n. 69.)

The Social Credit dividend is based on two things: the inheritance of natural resources, and the inventions from past generations:

“Through his work man enters into two inheritances: the inheritance of what is given to the whole of humanity in the resources of nature, and the inheritance of what others have already developed on the basis of those resources, primarily by developing technology, that is to say, by producing a whole collection of increasingly perfect instruments for work. In working, man also “enters into the labor of others”.(John Paul II, Encyclical Laborem Exercens on human work, Sept. 15, 1981, n. 13.)

The machine: an ally or enemy of man?

In the present system, only those who are employed in production can get an income, which is distributed in the form of wages and salaries. The income is tied to employment. But this is contrary to the facts, since, thanks to new inventions, technology, progress, there is less and less need for human labour, workers, to produce goods: it is computers, robots, that do the job in our place.

Is technology an evil? Should we rise up and destroy the machines because they take our jobs? No, if the work can be done by the machine, that is just great; it will allow man to give his free time over to other activities, free activities, activities of his own choosing. But all of this, provided he is given an income to replace the salary he lost with the installation of the machine, of the robot; otherwise, the machine, which should be the ally of man, will become his enemy, since it deprives him of his income, and prevents him from living:

“Technology has contributed so much to the well-being of humanity; it has done so much to uplift the human condition, to serve humanity, and to facilitate and perfect its work. And yet at times technology cannot decide the full measure of its own allegiance: whether it is for humanity or against it... For this reason my appeal goes to all concerned... to everyone who can make a contribution toward ensuring that the technology which has done so much to build Toronto and all Canada will truly serve every man, woman and child throughout this land and the whole world.” (John Paul II, homily in Toronto, Canada, September 15, 1984.)

Full employment is materialistic

But if one wants to persist in keeping everyone, men and women alike, employed in production, even though the production to meet basic needs is already made with less and less human labour on top of that, then new jobs, which are completely useless, must be created. And in order to justify these useless jobs, new artificial needs must be created, through an avalanche of advertisements, so that people will buy products they do not really need. This is what is called “consumerism”.

Likewise, products will be manufactured to last as short a time as possible, in the aim of selling more of them and making more money, which brings about an unnecessary waste of natural resources, and also the destruction of the environment. Also, one will persist in maintaining jobs that require no creative efforts whatever, jobs that require only mechanical efforts, jobs that could well be done by machines, jobs where the employee has no chance of developing his personality. But, however mind-destroying this job is, it is the condition for the worker to obtain money, the licence to live.

Thus, for him and a multitude of wage-earners, the meaning of their jobs comes down to this: they go to work to get the cash to buy the food to get the strength to go to work to get the cash to buy the food to get the strength to go to work... and so on, until retiring age, if they do not die before. Here is a meaningless life, where nothing differentiates man from an animal.

Free activities

What differentiates man from an animal is precisely that man has not only material needs, but also cultural and spiritual needs. As Jesus said in the Gospel: “Not on bread alone does man live, but in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Deuteronomy 8:3.) So to force man to spend all his time in providing for his material needs is a materialistic philosophy, since it denies that man has also a spiritual dimension and spiritual needs.

But, then, if man is not employed in a paid job, what will he do with his spare time? He will spend it on free activities, activities of his own choosing. It is precisely in his leisure time that man can really develop his personality, develop the talents that God gave him, and use them advisedly.

Moreover, it is during their leisure time that a man and a woman can take care of their religious, social, and family duties: raising their family, practising their Faith (to know, love, and serve God), and help their brethren. Raising children is the most important job in the world. Yet because the mother, who stays at home to raise her children, receives no salary, many will say that she does nothing, that she does not work!

To be freed from the necessity of working to produce the necessities of life does not presume growing idleness. It simply means that the individual would be placed in the position where he could participate in the type of activity which appeals to him. Under a Social Credit system, there would be a flowering of creative activity. For example, the greatest inventions, the best works of art, have been made during leisure time. As C. H. Douglas said:

“Most people prefer to be employed, but on things they like rather than on the things they don't like to be employed upon. The proposals of Social Credit are in no sense intended to produce a nation of idlers... Social Credit would allow people to allocate themselves to those jobs to which they are suited. A job you do well is a job you like, and a job you like is a job you do well.”

Poverty amidst plenty

God put on earth all that is needed to feed everyone. But because of the lack of money, goods cannot meet the hungry; mountains of goods pile up in front of millions of starving people. It is the paradox of poverty amidst plenty:

“It is a cruel paradox that many of you who could be engaged in the production of food are in financial distress here, while at the same time hunger, chronic malnutrition and the threat of starvation afflict millions of people elsewhere in the world.”(John Paul II to the fishermen of St. John's, Newfoundland, Sept. 12, 1984.)

“No more hunger, hunger never again! Ladies and gentlemen, this objective can be achieved. The threat of starvation and the weight of malnutrition are not an inescapable fate. Nature is not, in this crisis, unfaithful to man. According to a generally accepted opinion, while 50% of cultivable land is not yet developed, a great scandal catches the eye from the huge amount of surplus food that certain countries periodically destroy for lack of a sound economy which could have ensured a useful consumption of this food.

“Here we are broaching the paradox of the present situation: Mankind has an incomparable control over the universe; it possesses instruments capable of exploiting its natural resources at full capacity. Will the owners of these instruments stay paralyzed in front of the absurdity of a situation where the wealth of a few would tolerate the persistent extreme poverty of many?... One cannot reach such a situation without having committed serious errors of orientation, be it sometimes through negligence or omission; it is high time one discovered how the mechanisms are defective, so as to correct, put the whole situation right.”(Paul VI at the World Conference of Food, Rome, Nov. 9, 1974.)

“It is obvious that a fundamental defect, or rather a series of defects, indeed a defective machinery is at the root of contemporary economics and materialistic civilization, which does not allow the human family to break free from such radically unjust situations.”(John Paul II, Encyclical Dives in Misericordia on Divine Mercy, November 30, 1980, n. 11.)

“So widespread is this phenomenon (poverty amidst plenty) that it brings into question the financial, monetary, production and commercial mechanisms that, resting on various political pressures, support the world economy. These are proving incapable either of remedying the unjust social conditions inherited from the past or of dealing with the urgent challenges and ethical demands of the present... We have before us here a great drama that can leave nobody indifferent.”(John Paul II, Encyclical Redemptor Hominis, n. 16.)

Reforming the financial system

The Pope denounces the tight-money dictatorship, and calls for a reform of the financial and economic systems, the establishment of an economic system at the service of man:

“Again, I want to tackle a very delicate and painful issue. I mean the anguish of the authorities of several countries, who do not know how to cope with the fearful problem of indebtedness... A structural reform of the world financial system is, without doubt, one of the most urgent and necessary initiatives.”(John Paul II, Message to the 6th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva, September 26, 1985.)

“One must denounce the existence of economic, financial and social mechanisms which, although they are manipulated by people, often function almost automatically, thus accentuating the situation of wealth for some and poverty for the rest.”(John Paul II, Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, n. 16.)

“I appeal to those in positions of responsibility, and to all involved, to work together to find appropriate solutions to the problems at hand, including a restructuring of the economy, so that human needs be put before mere financial gain.”(John Paul II to the fishermen of St. John's, Newfoundland, Sept. 12, 1984.)

“An essential condition is to provide the economy with a human meaning and logic. It is necessary to free the various fields of existence from the dominion of subjugating economism. Economic requirements must be put in their right place and a multiform social fabric must be created, which will prevent standardization. No one is dispensed from collaborating in this task... Christians, wherever you are, assume your share of responsibility in this immense effort for the human restructuring of the city. Faith makes it a duty for you.”(John Paul II to the workers of Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 3, 1980.)

The duty of every Christian

It is indeed a duty and an obligation for every Christian to work for the establishment of justice and of a better economic system:

“Anyone wishing to renounce the difficult yet noble task of improving the lot of man in his totality, and of all people, with the excuse that the struggle is difficult and that constant effort is required, or simply because of the experience of defeat and the need to begin again, that person would be betraying the will of God the Creator.”(John Paul II, Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, n. 30.)

“Such a task is not an impossible one. The principle of solidarity, in a wide sense, must inspire the effective search for appropriate institutions and mechanisms... This difficult road of the indispensable transformations of the structures of economic life is one on which it will not be easy to go forward without the intervention of a true conversion of mind, will and heart. The task requires resolute commitments by individuals and peoples that are free and linked in solidarity.”(John Paul II, Encyclical Redemptor Hominis, n. 16.)

“These attitudes and «structures of sin» are only conquered — presupposing the help of divine grace — by a diametrically opposed attitude: a commitment to the good of one's neighbour...”(John Paul II, Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, n. 38.)

Apostles

“All of you who have heard the appeal of suffering peoples, all of you who are working to answer their cries, you are the apostles of a development which is good and genuine, which is not wealth that is self-centered and sought for its own sake, but rather an economy which is put at the service of man, the bread which is daily distributed to all, as a source of brotherhood and a sign of providence.”(Paul VI, Encyclical Populorum Progressio, n. 86.)

Principles and implementation

Some will say that the Popes never publicly approved Social Credit. In fact, the Popes will never approve officially any economic system, since it is not part of their mission: they do not give technical solutions, but only set up the principles upon which any economic system that is truly at the service of the human person must be based. The Popes leave the faithful free to apply the system that would implement these principles in the best way.

To our knowledge, no other solution than Social Credit would apply the social doctrine of the Church so perfectly. That is why Louis Even, a great Catholic gifted with an extraordinary logical mind, did not hesitate to bring out the links between Social Credit and the Church's social doctrine.

Another one who was convinced that Social Credit is applied Christianity, that it would apply wonderfully the Church's teachings on social justice, is Father Peter Coffey, a Doctor in Philosophy and a professor at Maynooth College, Ireland. He wrote the following to a Canadian Jesuit, Father Richard, in March, 1932:

“The difficulties raised by your questions can be met only by the reform of the financial system of capitalism along the lines suggested by Major Douglas and the Social Credit school of credit reform. It is the accepted financing system that is at the root of the evils of capitalism. The accuracy of the analysis carried out by Douglas has never been refuted. I believe that, with their famous price-regulation formula, the Douglas reform proposals are the only reform that will go to the root of the evil...”

In 1939, the Bishops of the Province of Quebec, in Canada, had entrusted a commission of nine theologians to examine the Social Credit doctrine in the eyes of the Church's social doctrine, to determine if Social Credit was tainted with socialism or communism. The theologians concluded that there was nothing in the Social Credit doctrine contrary to the teachings of the Church, and that any Catholic was free to support it without danger. (See Appendix A for the full text of this study of the nine theologians.)

The Financiers were not pleased with this report of the theologians, and in 1950, a group of businessmen asked a Bishop of Quebec (out of respect for his memory, we won't mention his name) to go to Rome and get from Pope Pius XII a condemnation of Social Credit. Back to Quebec, this Bishop said to the businessmen: “If you want to get a condemnation of Social Credit, it is not to Rome that you must go. Pius XII said to me:`Social Credit would create, in the world, a climate that would allow the blossoming of family and Christianity'.”

All those who thirst for justice should therefore start to study and spread Social Credit, by soliciting subscriptions to the Michael Journal!

Read more...

Distributism, State Power and Papal Teachings

by Thomas Storck

Last spring an interesting dialog took place in the pages of The University Concourse on the subject of distributism, which is the economic system elaborated in the first half of the twentieth century by such Catholic writers as G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and Fr. Vincent McNabb. Its most complete exposition was in Belloc's book, The Restoration of Property (1936). In the latest round of this controversy there seem to be several points which are especially at issue. The first is the question of the role of the government in promoting a just economy, in particular, a distributist economy. For example, Dr. Kevin Schmiesing, in his article in the May 4 Concourse, advocates what he calls a "free economy," in which a just society would be brought about by "moral suasion in a call for simpler living, more generous aid and care for the impoverished and marginalized, and more voluntary efforts to ensure that all people participate in the productive process through ownership of property," and in which the government would have little role. And Mr. Philip Harold similarly warns against the "temptation" to rely overmuch on governmental power to implement a program of economic justice. Therefore we should first look at this question of the role of the state and of state power in creating and maintaining a just economic order.

THE ENTIRE ENCYCLICAL TRADITION

It would be easy for me and for the others who have taken part in this discussion to state our opinions about the degree and kind of governmental intervention in the economy which is justified. But in doing so we would too often be simply asserting our opinions. I suggest that the correct method of procedure for us as Catholics is to look to the entire encyclical tradition, that is, the tradition of modern papal social teaching beginning with Rerum Novarum in 1891 and embodied in encyclicals and other documents down to the present day. There we will find an interrelated body of doctrine addressing this very question, as well as other questions about the relationship between the moral law and the economy. In my previous articles I quoted several passages from these encyclicals, but I cannot recommend too highly to the readers of this journal that they return to the sources and read these seminal documents in their entirety, especially Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII, Quadragesimo Anno of Pius XI, and the present Holy Father's three social encyclicals, Laborem Exercens, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis and Centesimus Annus. Nor is it the case, as some have asserted, that somehow Centesimus represents the overturning of all the previous documents--as if the Church had suddenly disavowed all that she formerly taught. Centesimus is firmly in the same tradition as its predecessors.

NEITHER MINIMIZING NOR MAXIMIZING STATE POWER

Suffice it to say that the general attitude taken by these documents toward the role of the state in the economy is one of neither minimizing nor maximizing state power. Certainly the principle of subsidiarity, which Dr. Schmiesing cites and which Pius XI formulated in Quadragesimo Anno--that the state should not assume tasks best left to lower groups--is of fundamental importance, but that same Pontiff in the same encyclical notes that the economic proposals of the moderate socialists of his day (1931) "often strikingly approach the just demands of Christian social reformers" (QA, no. 113) and that "certain forms of property must be reserved to the State, since they carry with them an opportunity of domination too great to be left to private individuals without injury to the community at large" (QA, no. 114).

I cite these remarks simply to show that the papal, and perforce the Catholic, approach to state power in the economy cannot be reduced to Dr. Schmiesing's principle of "less rather than more state intervention." But I do not want to start a war of papal quotations. I would prefer that all our readers look at the encyclicals themselves, and I trust to their good sense and open minds in doing so.

NO NEUTRALITY

Moreover, there is another aspect of the question of the government and the economy that we should keep in mind. This is that, no matter what a government does or does not do with regard to the economy, it is taking a stand. Just as a state that passed no laws condemning abortion could not take refuge in the sophistry that it was neutral on the subject, so a state that takes a hands off attitude toward the economy is taking a position on the economy just as much as the most statist regulatory regime that one can imagine. It is impossible for a government not to affect the economy, either by its laws or its lack of laws. There is no such thing as simply "allowing the economy to be itself," for the economy, like all the other creations of mankind, must have some framework in which to function. The question is, shall this framework be one that we try to make (as much as we can) a Christian framework, or one that follows the deistic philosophy of the eighteenth century?

Another point that was raised in our discussions concerns what are often called "occupational groups" or "guilds." These entities are not only an integral part of the distributist program, but have figured very largely in papal teaching. In Quadragesimo Anno Pius XI devoted a good deal of space to describing how these groups would function, and his successor, Pius XII, continued to champion them. Nor does John Paul II neglect them, as when, in Laborem Exercens, he refers to "intermediate bodies with economic, social and cultural purposes; they would be bodies enjoying real autonomy with regard to the public powers, pursuing their specific aims in honest collaboration with each other and in subordination to the demands of the common good...." (no. 14)

Anyone acquainted with the papal social tradition would immediately see here a reference to occupational groups.

However, I still must answer Dr. Schmiesing's question: Would the decisions of these groups be backed by the power of the government or would they be merely voluntary organizations such as the American Bar Association?

Pius XI contrasts the occupational groups with free associations such as the ABA, and pointedly notes that he hopes that a flourishing of free associations will "prepare the way and...do their part toward the realization of those more ideal vocational fellowships or 'groups' which We have mentioned" (QA, no. 87). Generally Catholic commentators on this question see the occupational groups as analogous to the medieval guild on this point, in that in order to practice a certain trade or profession one was required to be a member of the appropriate guild and abide by the decisions of the guild. And the power of the state stood ready to enforce guild decisions, if necessary. However, the government did not set guild policy nor appoint guild officials, who were elected by the members. This sort of arrangement often puzzles those accustomed to capitalism. They understand purely private entities and they understand the government. But the notion of some sort of intermediate body, with a real role to play in bringing order to the economy, yet not a department of the government is strange to them. But before concluding that such bodies are unnecessary or harmful to the economy, I would simply urge my readers to remember that the tradition of economic thought with which we Americans are most familiar stems ultimately from the deistic tradition of Adam Smith, a bitter enemy of the Catholic Church incidentally.(1)

Space unfortunately prevents me from going into detail about the role of occupational groups in the economy, but we must remember that they are not an example of state power, but of the natural grouping of those working to further the same endeavor.

ABUSES OF CORPORATE POWER

Dr. Schmiesing cites various examples of the abuse of state power. I deplore them as much as he does. But it would be as easy to bring up examples of the abuses of private corporate power, beginning with Rerum Novarum, which speaks of "a small number of very rich men [who] have been able to lay upon the masses of the poor a yoke little better than slavery itself" (RN, no. 2). Moreover, as I set out at more length in my first article (January 28), distributism is not a statist system. Just because it rejects the unrestrained competition of capitalism (something also rejected again and again by the Popes), does not mean that it makes use of the government to regulate the economy. Distributism calls for the wide ownership of private property, with the laws (for example, the tax code) designed to discourage the concentration of property in the hands of a few. It is hard to find anything in the Catholic tradition which is against such arrangements.

THE ROLE OF LAW

A third and very important point that is at issue in our controversy concerns the role of the law as coercive agent. Both Dr. Schmiesing and Mr. Harold warn that using the laws to promote economic justice must tend to become a violation of human freedom. And in the first place, I repeat that any attempt to establish a Christian economic order must be preceeded and accompanied by a renewed preaching of the Gospel. Men's hearts must turn to God if the society is to turn to God. But this does not mean that the law can never have a punitive effect. One last quotation from Pius XI in which he refers to the laissez-faire philosophy of the nineteenth century will illustrate what I mean.

A stern insistence on the moral law, enforced with vigor by civil authority, could have dispelled or perhaps averted these enormous evils. This, however, was too often lamentably wanting. For at the time when the new social order was beginning, the doctrines of rationalism had already taken firm hold of large numbers, and an economic teaching alien to the true moral law had soon arisen, whence it followed that free rein was given to human avarice.(2)

In most matters we recognize that the law is both teacher and restrainer of evil doers. Thus we want to prevent abortion even if we cannot convert the abortionist. Our Catholic ancestors applied the same philosophy to the economic order, and however much they strove to convert those who injured the common good by their greed, they also sought to restrain them precisely to protect the most economically vulnerable members of the society.

EFFECTS ON FAMILIES

Probably the biggest reason that Americans today have difficulty thinking about making fundamental changes in the economy is that we are convinced that our economy is doing so well. Every day we are bombarded with positive economic statistics from rising Dow Jones averages to increased GDP or worker productivity. But one way to put this in perspective is to ask, How many families can afford to live on the income of the father alone? If we accept that a normal family life allows a mother to devote herself full-time to the care and education of her children, what can we say about an economy that makes a normal family life so difficult for so many? Despite the statistics, I do not think such an economy can be regarded as healthy.

My plea and hope is that Catholics will allow themselves to ask some fundamental questions about the economy which go beyond the usual assumptions which we receive from the culture around us. Then we can look at what our Catholic tradition has said and perhaps find some surprising truths, but truths which are nonetheless part of the salvific message of Jesus Christ, as held and taught by his teaching Church until the end of time.


(c) Thomas Storck. All Rights Reserved.

Thomas Storck's latest book is Christendom and the West : Essays on Culture, Society and History. He is a contributing editor of The New Oxford Review and a member of the editorial board of The Chesterton Review. This article first appeared in the University Concourse, Franciscan University.

---------------------------------

Footnotes:

1 Adam Smith described the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages as "the most formidable combination that ever was formed against the...liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind...." The Wealth of Nations, bk. 5, chap. 1, pt. 3, art. 3.
2 Quadragesimo Anno, no. 133

© The University Concourse, October 3, 2000

Read more...

The Manifesto Of The King

by Msgr. Robert Mäder

It is for me as though Christmas had come again, a great hour of birth, the beginning of a new, strong and more beautiful time. I simply cannot get Pope Pius XI’s encyclical about the Kingship of Christ out of my head. My opinion is that it is a joyous message that belongs to the extraordinary graces of this age. The great Monarch Whom so many have longingly awaited is there. Christ the King! This manifesto of the eleventh Pius is the proclamation of the world monarchy of the Incarnate God over the nations!

Too long have we heard that “God is dead” from podiums and backstreets alike. He died in 1789, it is claimed, and the French National Assembly was the Sanhedrin that condemned Him. Since then His official role in the Sanhedrin of the peoples has been played out. The Middle Ages are long gone. The world has become liberal. Christ still ekes out an existence in the quiet chamber of private piety or as sacristy deity in a purely religious Catholicism; but as Sovereign of the Nations, as Lawgiver and Judge of the Peoples He has been forced to abdicate. The constitutions no longer know or acknowledge Him. At best He is a private person like any other before the law, but no longer the universal and absolute Monarch. By the state’s claim to power and the will of the people, religion and politics are separated and divorced.

“The King is dead,” says liberal politics. Officially He must not interfere in the temporal affairs of the nations. At least the economy does not use such radical language, although its effects are already disastrous. The economy says: “The King does not meddle in our affairs, the King is asleep! The King does not see what we’re doing. The King is deaf, dumb and lame. Christ does not bother about technology and business in everyday life. Commerce is a neutral zone, beyond good and evil,” it is claimed.

“Sunday may well belong to God, but weekdays belong to the repairman, the businessman, the farmer, the worker. What does Jesus have to do with the shops and factories, the offices and the department stores? What has He to do with price-fixing and wage questions, with rent contracts and balance sheets? God is too great to condescend to such little matters. Kings have better things to do.” So say Capitalism and Socialism.

“The King is not at home. The King is in Heaven,” sneers so-called ‘education’. On earth the professor reigns in His stead, and the school is his kingdom. Faith and science have nothing to do with each other. The classroom must be free territory, untouched by any religious influence and ecclesiastical domination. Each has his place: God in His Heaven, the scholar and free research in the school, or however else these people talk!

Like political pride and economic megalomania, academic arrogance does not want to hear about the sovereign and general Kingship of Christ. Whether one says: ‘the King is dead’, or ‘the King is asleep’, or ‘the King is absent’, the whole modern world together has sworn: ‘We will not have Him rule over us!’ It is the same refrain as on Good Friday: social deicide!

And then came Pope Pius XI with his encyclical Quas Primas and it sounded like the voice of many waters and the voice of mighty thunderings: “Alleluia! The King is not dead, the King lives! The King is not asleep, the King is awake! The King is not absent, the King is still there! Jesus lives, reigns and rules. We proclaim the unlimited, highest, all-embracing Kingship of Jesus not only over all persons, but also over all societies, states, peoples and governments. We proclaim the universal Monarchy of the Crucified over the entire modern world. We oppose 1789 with 1925! God’s Bill of Rights against the revolutionary Bill of Human Rights!”

The universal Kingship of Jesus over human society is no new dogma. It is simply the solemn manifesto of an ancient biblical teaching which is too often forgotten, but which belongs to that list of undeniable truths without which the human race cannot survive, if it does not want to commit suicide. The second Psalm already seems to have been made to order for the period after 1789. It paints a classic picture of the liberal century; furiously raging nations, peoples in revolt, conspiracies of princes against Christianity, the papacy and the laws of the Church: such is the content of its history. “Let us break their bonds asunder, and let us cast away their yoke from us.”

In reading the second Psalm one is transported into that summer night when the modern liberties were proclaimed - in vain! “He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them.” The ancient God lives yet. The Psalm continues. God holds fast to the universal Kingdom of Jesus even in the face of modern revolution and liberal democracy. The nations are to be the Messiah’s inheritance, the “uttermost parts of the earth” His possession. He shall rule them “with a rod of iron and shall break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Thus speaks the Psalm.

In the New Testament as well, the theme of the universal messianic kingship is stressed repeatedly. “Art thou a king?” asks Pilate. The answer could not be more explicit: “Thou sayest that I am a king. Rex sum ego! - I am a King.” And in another solemn moment Our Lord repeats: “All power is given to Me in Heaven and in earth” [Mt. XXVIII, 18]. “For He must reign, until He hath put all His enemies under his feet,” proclaims St Paul [I Cor. XV, 25]. Therefore is Christ the King, King in the complete sense of the word, without any limitations, not even in the sphere of secular power. We have no right to relate the clear texts of both the Old and the New Testament only to the spiritual Kingship of Christ. The whole Christ, God and Man, is King, fully and completely, over all things visible and invisible in Heaven and on earth. We repeat: Everything is subject to Him! Even politics! Even the economy! Even technology! Even commerce! Even science! Even the arts! The sovereignty of Christ knows no exceptions and no limits! [...]

He is King in word and in truth, not just a decorative figure like the constitutional monarchs. He is not merely Honorary Chairman of the United Nations. He is King not only according to right, but according to might. He really rules. He also uses His enemies, whether they are willing or not, in order to carry out, at least indirectly, His plans, and throws them away should they resist, like a broken vessel.

Long live Christ the King! Whether we are otherwise republicans or whatever, in this regard we must all be monarchists, because we are Catholics who have already sworn allegiance to the immortal King of the centuries. The King’s banner shall wave on all public squares, over all the schools, all the factories, all the city halls, from all the mountains! If in the future anyone asks us what policy we favour, we shall answer, ‘We know only one: Long live Christ the King!’

We know that it will not be easy. It is the way of sacrifice. It leads over the Mount of Olives to Calvary, the way to victory. But whoever is not ready to suffer and bleed for a cause is unworthy to live for it. Come! Let us go - let us die for Christ the King! †

The Catholic

Read more...

Distributism: The Neglected Tradition

by Damian Wyld

Distributism - a political creed popularised last century by Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton - is a decentralist alternative to monopoly capitalism and state socialism. It favours a "society of owners" - that is, one with a more widespread distribution of wealth, property and economic enterprises. Damian Wyld looks at Distributism's origins, its continuing appeal and its lessons for today.

The Industrial Revolution was a time of profound change in many different ways. In 19th-century Britain, as in other Western nations, the race of rapid industrialisation precipitated the growth of urban centres, matched by a corresponding decline in rural life as people left the land to look for work in the factories. Increasing work hours, coupled with decreasing pay, conditions and the general standard of living, resulted in a widened gap between rich and poor.

A variety of socialist groups came into existence to propose remedies to these social evils. Among them were various Christian Socialist groups; followers of thinkers as diverse as Karl Marx and William Morris; and of course the well-known Fabian Society which numbered among its leaders famous figures such as George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb and H.G. Wells.

Alternatives

We know, with the benefit of hindsight, what an abject failure socialism turned out to be. So it is interesting to look at other proposals which offered an alternative to the extremes of both state-run socialism and unbridled capitalism.

One such example was Guild Socialism. Originally developed by two Fabians, A.R. Orage and A.J. Penty, it was concerned not merely with material things, but rather that the substitution of machines for individual craftsmanship had led to a loss of spiritual well-being in the community.

Guild Socialism never gained much support, however, and it gradually faded from the ideological scene between the world wars.

Another important response to the problems of 19th-century industrialism came from the rich tradition of social and political thought contained within Catholic social teaching. Although its contribution has tended to be relatively neglected in political debate, it nevertheless has great significance and continues to have ramifications today.

In fact, even in the 19th-century, Catholic social teaching had a direct effect on some important ideas and movements which were still in their embryonic stages.

A number of papal encyclicals, such as Pope Gregory XVI's Mirari Vos (1832) and Bl. Pius IX's On Current Errors (Quanta Cura) (1864), tackled the twin errors of extreme individualism and collectivism.

Possibly the greatest papal pronouncement on these issues was Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, On the Condition of the Working Classes (Rerum Novarum). It not only built on its predecessors' condemnations of false ideas, but took the radical step of supporting trade unions and offering practical guidelines for alleviating social evils.

Two men who took up the challenge to devise a political program based on these principles were the well-known writers, Hilaire Belloc and Gilbert ("G.K.") Chesterton.

Belloc was born in France in 1870, shortly before he and his family fled from Paris to escape the invading Prussians. Despite the Belloc family's emigration to England, Hilaire still returned to France for national service and throughout his life remained loyal to the ideal of French - and Catholic - culture.

At Oxford, he had a distinguished career as a history student, become president of the Oxford Union and made a name as a public speaker.

He was elected to parliament in 1906, first as a Liberal and for a short time as an independent before retiring in 1910. His growing disillusionment with party politics, economics and society in general led him to write in 1912 possibly the greatest work of his long literary career - a work which led directly to the emergence of the Distributist movement - namely, The Servile State. He later expanded on these ideas in other notable works such as The Crisis of Civilisation (1937).

Chesterton was born in London in 1872 to a middle-class family. During his childhood, his parents were unfortunately caught up in the then society craze of spiritualism. Although nominally an Anglican, G.K.'s early life was plagued by a sort of "spiritual crisis" – perhaps a mirror to the widespread "fin de siècle" attitude of despair prevalent among British intellectuals at the time.

In matters of politics, he initially joined the Liberal Party while his younger brother Cecil became a socialist.

In matters of religion, he went through stages of scepticism before settling for a time on an acceptance of the general truth of Christianity. It would take several decades and major events in his life - and probably the influence of his good friend Belloc - to finally convert him to Catholicism.

It was during his time as a "wandering" Fleet Street journalist that he was first introduced to Belloc. They immediately became good friends and had much in common in their manner of thinking. George Bernard Shaw was later to collectively name them the "Chesterbelloc": a sort of two-headed creature formed of two distinct, yet inseparable parts.

While Belloc's influence over Chesterton's social thinking is probably undeniable, Chesterton was sometimes ahead of his friend in progressing towards definite goals. For example, his very influential What's Wrong With the World - published two years before The Servile State - pre-empts many of Belloc's ideas, although in a different guise. His book also tackles the deeper issues of property, proprietorship and the state of the common man.

Wage slavery

At the root of Distributism lies the conviction that there is (to paraphrase Chesterton) something wrong with the world. Modern man may be politically free, but he is certainly not economically free. The modern worker has been subjected to a form of economic servitude and is now a "wage slave" (a term known to us, and used by Belloc).

According to Belloc, the process began in the last days of the Roman Empire when the then widespread practice of usury destabilised society.

The decline of Roman institutions stood in stark contrast to the continuing spread of Christianity throughout the period. However, while critics like Edward Gibbon argue that this was not a coincidence (in other words, that pagan Rome was supposedly weakened by the influence of Christianity), Belloc argued that Rome was already doomed and that Christian culture actually salvaged what it could.

The new society which subsequently emerged was gradually influenced by Christian social thought with the result that slavery, whilst not forbidden, came to be viewed as being incompatible with a free Christian society. Through the Dark and early Middle Ages, according to Belloc, the serfs' social and economic condition slowly improved until there was a recognised status between worker and landlord.

The serf worked so many days a week on his lord's lands, but then had the remainder of the week to work his own land for a profit. During these times one of the most important institutions (in the eyes of the Distributists) arose - the guild.

It seemed as though, through improvement in the conditions and social standing of the worker and the establishment of regulatory bodies such as these guilds, the economic and social stability of Christendom was assured.

The Distributist analysis is not socialistic. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The socialist's solution is to make the problem even worse by confiscating all private property and giving it to the state. Chesterton wrote:

"The Socialist says that property is already concentrated in Trusts and Stores: the only hope is to concentrate it further in the State. I say the only hope is to unconcentrate it; that is, to repent and return; the only step forward is the step backward."

He added:

"We can now only avoid Socialism by a change as vast as Socialism. If we are to save property we must distribute property ... If we are to preserve the family we must revolutionise the nation."

Neither Belloc nor Chesterton ever presented their ideas as a utopia - they were far too commonsensical for that. They also acknowledged that realising a Distributist State would be a long and arduous process, only achievable by the firm commitment of long-term government policy and the will of a majority of society.

Mondragon

The greatest existing example of how Distributist ideas can and have been put into practice is the famous Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in the Basque region of Spain.

While not avowedly Distributist itself in name, its governing principles certainly are. It saw its beginnings in 1956 when a Basque priest, Don José María Arizmendiarrieta, inspired five young engineering graduates to borrow money and begin an enterprise producing oil stoves and paraffin heaters. Rapid success and the need for further investment saw them establish a cooperative bank which, in turn, saw the multiplication of associated cooperatives.

Today it consists of 160 flourishing cooperatives, owned and managed by the workers employed in them. Together they form the largest business group in the Basque region and their annual sales total more than US$6.5 billion.

Mondragon's remarkable track record explodes the myth of the limited capabilities of the smaller unit and of individuals acting in cooperation rather than competition.

It moreover shows Distributist principles (in the words of one US commentator) "[flying] in the face of the Hobbes-Smith tradition which holds that the 'rational' economic person acts out of pure self-interest" - and furthermore proves that these principles can be applied to industrial concerns of any scale.

Where does this leave us today? Of what possible relevance to us are the common ideas of a century-old papal encyclical, two eccentric Englishmen and an obscure Basque priest?

I believe that each has a great deal to offer us:

(i) Leo XIII proposed the principles - a set of guidelines for a more just social and economic order.
(ii) Belloc and Chesterton are often said to be the prophet and missionary respectively of their creed.
(iii) Fr Arizmendiarrieta was a man of similar thinking who took up the challenge and proved through the establishment of the Mondragon cooperatives that it is indeed possible to live without complete dependence on either market or state for one's livelihood.

Damian Wyld is vice-president of the Thomas More Centre of South Australia. This article is an edited extract of a paper he delivered at the recent TMC Autumn School in Adelaide.

Read more...

Economic Science and Catholic Social Teaching

by Thomas Storck

Even among otherwise orthodox Catholics in the United States there is generally little knowledge of or interest in Catholic social doctrine, that body of Catholic teachings which concerns man in society, especially with reference to the political and economic orders. Since Leo XIII began vigorously to develop and apply this teaching to the changing conditions of the modern world, especially with his encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), Catholic social doctrine has seemed to many to constitute an alternative both to free-market capitalism and all forms of socialism and communism. But lately an objection to Catholic social teaching has arisen from an unexpected source, in fact, from some of those who claim to be especially devoted to Catholic life and tradition as it existed before the Second Vatican Council. This is ironic, for during that era Catholic social teaching was championed much more than it is today by the hierarchy, including the papacy, and was, I think, much more in the consciousness of the ecclesiastically literate Catholic. But the objection that has arisen from some who call themselves traditionalists is novel in one respect, yet in another respect not. It is novel in that it bases its explicit rejection of such doctrine on the supposed teachings of the science of economics. But it is not novel in that the hallmark of dissenters and heretics throughout the ages has been precisely to take some human science, theology or philosophy often, elevate it above the teaching magisterium of the Catholic Church and pose the false quandary: If I accept such and such a teaching of the Church I must go against my God-given reason. But since reason is from God, I cannot contradict it. Therefore I must reject this teaching of the Church.

The latest among those who take this approach is one Thomas Woods, Jr., who argues that Catholic social teaching and economic science are fundamentally at odds, and that it is the former that must yield to the latter. Woods is not shy about stating his position.

The primary difficulty with much of what has fallen under the heading of Catholic social teaching since Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (1891) is that it assumes without argument that the force of human will suffices to resolve economic questions, and that reason and the conclusions of economic law can be safely neglected, even scorned.... This attitude runs directly counter to the entire Catholic intellectual tradition, according to which man is to conform his actions to reality, rather than embarking on the hopeless and foolish task of forcing the world to conform to him and to his desires ["Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Law: An Unresolved Tension," paper delivered at the Austrian Scholars Conference at the Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama, March 2002, p. 4. The entire paper is available here].

And he dismisses as "perfectly nonsensical" the claim that his position "involves himself in `dissent' from Church teaching" ("The Trouble with Catholic Social Teaching," lecture delivered at the Austrian Scholars Conference, Mises Institute, Auburn Alabama, March 2004, p. 2.). Why? Because

In the absence of any attempt to address these issues [i.e., the issues that Woods considers important], it is difficult to see how the economic claims of the social encyclicals can actually constitute authoritative Catholic doctrine binding upon the consciences of all the faithful” ["Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Law: an Unresolved Tension," pp. 33-34].

And he goes on to say:

One hesitates to describe Catholic social teaching as an abuse of papal and ecclesiastical power, but surely the attempt to impose, as moral doctrine binding the entire Catholic world, principles that derive from the popes' intrinsically fallible reasoning within a secular discipline like economics, seems dubious. At the very least, it appears to constitute an indefensible extension of the prerogatives of the Church's legitimate teaching office into areas in which it possesses no inherent competence or divine protection from error [Ibid., p. 35].

This is the question in a nutshell: Thomas Woods believes that certain teachings of Leo XIII, Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II, teachings which these pontiffs certainly conceived of as part of their legitimate teaching authority, are wrong because he thinks they contradict the tenets of economics.

Now in the first place, I must agree with Woods, that both cannot be right. If these economic beliefs are correct then the papal teaching is wrong, for truth cannot contradict itself. Otherwise we would be headed toward the notion of a double-truth which was implicit in some of the theories of the medieval Latin Averroists, that is, that the same thing could be true in philosophy and false in theology. But as every loyal Catholic knows, there is not nor can there be any conflict between authentic Catholic teaching and the genuine findings of any human science. Such a thing is not possible.

What can one say in reply to Woods, then? First, that since a whole series of popes has taught certain moral truths connected with economics which they believed was entirely within their competence, it is monstrous for anyone claiming to be a Catholic to argue against this teaching, and second, that what Woods represents as the teaching of economics is in fact simply one economic view among many, and that thus it is not the science of economics that is at odds with Catholic doctrine, but simply one school of thought representing ultimately the fallible reasoning of human beings.

In the first place, then, any instructed and orthodox Catholic will have no difficulty in dismissing Woods' claims at once, even without investigating his arguments. When confronted, for example, with claims by psychologists or sociologists that the findings of their particular disciplines invalidate this or that teaching of the Church, we can know that their claims are not to be taken seriously. Of course, usually it is necessary to refute them in order to show those outside the Church, or those weak in faith, that the teachings of the Church have not been disproven. But in principle, Woods' claims are no different from those made by many another partisan of one pet theory or idea after another. The popes have been quite explicit about their competence to teach in these areas of economic morality. Let us look at just two of their statements.

We approach the subject with confidence, and in the exercise of the rights which belong to Us. For no practical solution of this question will ever be found without the assistance of Religion and the Church. It is We who are the chief guardian of religion, and the chief dispenser of what belongs to the Church, and We must not by silence neglect the duty which lies upon Us [Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, no. 13].

We lay down the principle long since clearly established by Leo XIII that it is Our right and Our duty to deal authoritatively with social and economic problems. It is not of course for the Church to lead men to transient and perishable happiness only, but to that which is eternal. Indeed "the Church believes that it would be wrong for her to inferfere without just cause in such earthly concerns"; but she never can relinquish her God-given task of interposing her authority, not indeed in technical matters, for which she has neither the equipment nor the mission, but in all those that have a bearing on moral conduct. For the deposit of truth entrusted to Us by God, and Our weighty office of propagating, interpreting and urging in season and out of season the entire moral law, demand that both social and economic questions be brought within Our supreme jurisdiction, in so far as they refer to moral issues [Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, no. 41].

Mr. Woods may think that they have overstepped the bounds of moral theology into technical economic questions, but that is not what they thought. When not just one, but even more so many supreme pontiffs teach the same truths and consider that they have a perfect right to do so without this constituting an "abuse of papal and ecclesiastical power," then surely any orthodox and loyal Catholic must accept the popes' own notions of the limits of their teaching authority. As I said above, every dissenter and heretic in the history of the Church elevates some idea of his own, which he feels he has good reason to accept, into a principle higher than Catholic teaching. What makes Woods different from them? If a psychologist or sociologist claimed that his knowledge made it impossible for him to accept Catholic teaching on sexuality, we would dismiss his arguments as worthless, and rightly so. But who is Thomas Woods to set up his own boundaries as to what is and what is not acceptable for the Church to teach? What are his credentials to constitute a parallel magisterium? The Catholic Church has been teaching in the area of economic morality for centuries. Mr. Woods' quarrel is not with a few recent popes but with the entire tradition of Catholic teaching on economic morality.

Lest anyone argue that the Church has never defined infallibly the social doctrines stated in papal encyclicals, we should remember that infallibility extends beyond merely the teachings of the solemn magisterium to the teaching of the ordinary and universal magisterium. (The First Vatican Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution, De Fide, chap. 3, taught: "Further, all those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal teaching [magisterium], proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed.") At least some of the contents of the papal social encyclicals, for example, the doctrine of the just wage, would seem to have been repeated enough times so that they qualify as part of the ordinary and universal magisterium. And even those matters which may not rise to the level of the universal magisterium, are by no means optional matters for Catholics. Pius XII authoritatively stated in his encyclical Humani Generis of 1950 the following:

Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority [Magisterium]. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority [Magisterio enim ordinario haec docentur], of which it is true to say: "He who heareth you, heareth me"... [No. 20].

And the Second Vatican Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium of 1964, taught:

[A] loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given, in a special way, to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he does not speak ex cathedra in such wise, indeed, that his supreme teaching authority be acknowledged with respect, and sincere assent be given to decisions made by him, conformably with his manifest mind and intention, which is made known principally either by the character of the documents in question, or by the frequency with which a certain doctrine is proposed, or by the manner in which the doctrine is formulated” [No. 25].

Moreover, when one looks closely at this matter, one will discover that what Woods solemnly proclaims to be the teachings of economics are in fact only the opinions of one particular sect of economists. In fact, the Austrian school, to which Woods adheres, is a minority school of economists. It is true that many neoclassical economists would agree with many of Woods' criticisms, but there are other schools of economic thought whose findings harmonize well with Catholic social thought. Woods himself mentions, and excoriates, the German historical school. There is also the American institutionalist school, and there are others. Woods has no more right to consider his own economic ideas as equivalent to the entire field of economics than a Kantian philosopher has to regard the teachings of Kant as equivalent to the entire field of philosophy. If such a philosopher were to say, "There is a conflict between the teachings of the First Vatican Council and the science of philosophy on the ability of human reason to demonstrate the existence of God," we could easily point out to him that there are other schools of philosophy, such as Thomism, that have no such conflict, and that he is wrong to claim for his own school the mantle of philosophy as a whole. But this is exactly what Woods has done for economics. His own school says this, therefore economics as a whole says this. The faulty reasoning here should be evident. Woods quotes with approval the following statement of Professor William Luckey:

The fact that Catholic economic teaching, put forth as unchanging and required of belief, did not square with what Austrian economists know to be true, has created an agonizing crisis of conscience for such economists ["The Trouble with Catholic Social Teaching," p. 6, my emphasis].

Woods and Luckey have raised the fallible reasoning of a group of economists, a group which does not even command majority opinion within its own discipline, into an infallible voice of truth which they consider to be able to trump the teachings of the supreme pontiffs! Contrary to what Woods continually asserts, to question Austrian economics is not to question the validity of human reason; it is simply to question the validity of certain dubious conclusions reached by one group of men who enjoy no charism of infallibility.

Woods also makes much of the economic teaching of a group of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spanish theologians who have sometimes been claimed as precursors of Woods's views, or of something like them anyway. There is some reason to question whether this similarity between their views and his own has not been greatly overstated. (I will instance only one example. In his first paper Woods (p. 8) quotes a passage from Juan de Mariana on the folly and evil of a ruler attemping to set a price of a good "in such a way that the legal price should differ from the natural.... Men are guided in this matter by common estimation founded on considerations of the quality of things, and their abundance or scarcity." Now "common estimation" was a traditional scholastic way of discovering a just price. Common estimation was the common opinion of men in general as to what was a reasonable price, and though it might in many cases be based in part on factors that included certain market forces, such as the "abundance or scarcity" of the item in question, the important point to recognize is that common estimation and the market price of Austrian or neoclassical economics do not mean the same thing. That is, even if in some cases they might coincide, they do so for different reasons. Moreover, this subject opens up the entire question of what is a market price, since all markets are subject to legal and customary rules, and whether in fact it makes any sense to speak of a market price. Rather, the question is: what market price exists under such and such a legal and social regime.) In addition, I will point out two things. First, if it were the case that these theologians agreed completely with Woods, what would that mean? Absolutely nothing. They have no special status above other theologians, and against the teaching of the popes their views carry no weight whatsoever, any more than the myriad of theologians of today whose views are widely quoted against authentic papal teaching. And secondly, if, as Woods avers, the vicars of Christ have overstepped the bounds of moral theology by their teachings on economic morality, what gives these Spanish scholastics, who were theologians not economists, any particular authority in this field? Is Woods making an argument from authority? If he is it fails, for by his own claims theology has nothing to say on these particular questions. If, on the other hand, he is simply claiming them as intellectual precursors, and appealing to the weight of their arguments, then I do not see any reason why I should specially attend to them, particularly as they (according to Woods) teach contrary to the popes and are no more infallible than any other economic writers.

Woods is especially agitated because he thinks that without his own conception of economics it must cease to be a science. Although I know of nothing in scripture or tradition that guarantees that economics is a science, nevertheless what he says does not necessarily follow. Heinrich Pesch, the great Jesuit economist, whose thought provided the background for the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, and whom Woods criticizes, strongly defended the status of economics to be a science, but a human and a social science, one that depends at least in part on the free acts of human beings. We are not required to give up the claim that economics is a science if we accept Catholic social teaching.

Although it is not my primary intention to engage in an economic debate with Woods, I must say just a word to show how the economic arguments he makes are far from compelling. The model of an economy which both neoclassical and Austrian economics present, and the economic policies which Austrian economists usually champion, are not the obvious conclusions of economic reasoning as they would have us believe. For economic activity always takes place within a legal, social and technological framework, and the structure of that framework to a great degree conditions and determines the shape which economic activity takes in any particular society. There was no economic reason, for example, why the guilds of the Middle Ages, which controlled the urban economies of Europe and severely limited competition among craftsmen, need have come to an end, and the economy which resulted from the demise of the guilds was largely the creation of a changed intellectual climate, not the result of so-called economic laws. Nor are limited liability corporations, which currently dominate our economy and which were created only in the nineteenth century due to emerging state general incorporation laws, the inevitable products of economic forces, but rather were brought into being by the free acts of legislatures. Market forces always work within a certain framework, and economic outcomes depend more on how these frameworks are structured than on the market forces alone. Thus within broad limits human beings have the ability to structure the way in which they conduct economic activity, and the notion that there is only one way which is sanctioned by so-called economic laws is false. Human beings create their legal and social institutions and can alter them. There is no reason why these institutions cannot be designed or reformed in such a way so as to facilitate the application of Catholic social teaching. (A concrete instance of how market forces always work within an institutional framework is the story of the Nova Scotia fishermen from the 1930s. "Their catch of fish and lobsters was handled by local dealers who in many cases kept the fishermen in a state of peonage. While Maine fishermen were getting about fifteen cents a pound for lobsters, the Nova Scotian fishermen were receiving as little as two cents a pound. All other prices were scaled down in the same ratio. For everything they bought, however, from their scanty food purchases to nets and lines, they paid top prices, with the result that they were invariably bowed down with a load of debts. Appalling poverty, illiteracy, poor health and the worst possible housing conditions existed throughout this section." In order to better their condition, priests from St. Francis College helped the fishermen organize cooperatives. By means of marketing cooperatives they were able to bypass the local middlemen and deal directly with wholesalers in large cities. In their first shipment of lobsters to Boston they received fifteen cents per pound net. The distribution of income before the establishment of the cooperatives was not the result of the operation of economic laws, but rather of the legal and social institutions within which these economic forces operated. These institutions were changed and a new set of institutions was created within which market forces could operate. This is an illustration of the freedom men have to change the framework and thus change the way economic forces operate to bring about a more just distribution of income. See Bertram B. Fowler, The Co-operative Challenge (Boston : Little, Brown, 1947) pp. 128-29.)

Lest any reader be tempted to think that I am too exercised over this topic, and my disagreement with Woods is simply a small matter over different interpretations of Catholic social doctrine, let me quote from Pope Pius XI. In his first encyclical, Ubi Arcano of December 1922, Pius introduced the notion of "social Modernism." He spoke of those Catholics who give lip service to doctrine concerning the social order, including "Catholic teaching concerning...the rights and duties of laborers...in industry" but who "by their spoken and written word, and the whole tenor of their lives" disregard and belittle this teaching. Pope Pius says of this, "In all this we recognize a kind of moral, judicial, and social Modernism, and We condemn it as strongly as We do dogmatic Modernism." I am sure that Thomas Woods would not like to be placed among the dogmatic modernists, but Pius XI definitely places him among the social modernists. And thus that saintly and traditional pontiff condemns Thomas Woods' views, condemns them "as strongly as We do dogmatic Modernism."

Chronicles Magazine
©Copyright 2004

Read more...

The Three Big Tasks for the Catholic Press in England

by Hilaire Belloc

The function of the Catholic Press in England is of a special kind. It has work to do which none of the journals contemporary with it in this country can do, and it has work to do different from that of the Catholic Press in other countries, where Catholics are numerous and Catholicism is a powerful factor in Society. There seems to me to be three main activities for a Catholic paper in England. The first is one which has been excellently fulfilled by our weekly Press in the past, and especially by the Universe. It is the giving of Catholic news to Catholic readers, emphasising matters which might be only slightly dealt with in the general Press, and telling Catholics in this country things specially concerning their religion which they would not hear of at all, save through its offices.

The second thing it has to do is to present Catholic truths in general, or rather the truth itself in general, by which I mean the correction of the great mass of error on morals and history and philosophy in the midst of which we live; for the society in which we find ourselves is not only non-Catholic but is profoundly anti-Catholic, in spirit and in tradition.

The third piece of work lying before the Catholic Press of this country is the presentation of the outside world, and especially Europe, after a fashion in which the ordinary Press of the country is largely incompetent to act, and nearly always unwilling.

Working in a Hostile Atmosphere

The first of these three duties or departments of work has, as I have said been excellently done in the past and especially well done of recent years by the Universe. It has been a special mark of our Catholic weekly journals since they first arose with the revival of the Church in this country after the Irish famine. The task is a peculiar one and not easy to fulfil. We are a very small community, we are poor, even poorer than our small numbers might suggest, and our fellow-citizens know so little about the Catholic Church (however much they may dislike it) that the social atmosphere about us is hostile to all that the Catholic newspaper has to do. The business of the Catholic Press on this side is to keep all parts of the Catholic community in touch; to invigorate, as much as possible, the consciousness of the Catholic body.

All that, I say, has been well maintained. Whether it would be still better done if we had a daily paper, I doubt. A daily paper must be filled with a great mass of general news, though its general tone may be this or that. Such a paper might be Catholic, in the same sense in which, say, the Manchester Guardian of The Times are Protestant - yet its appeal would not be to specifically Catholic objects, but general. Now, such an appeal being general, it needs a very large circulation indeed, under modern English conditions to make a national daily paper pay; and if a daily paper does not pay, but loses, it loses gigantically and is rapidly extinguished. But a large daily circulation a Catholic paper of this kind could not have. The community is neither large enough, nor wealthy enough, nor concentrated enough to afford such an economic basis, and advertisement, which is the financial necessity of any paper in England, would necessarily be lacking.

When it would be Possible

If, indeed, people here were accustomed as they are in France and Italy to getting the best writing and the best news in a small space and on bad paper with inferior printing, then the conditions would be changed and we could have our Catholic daily paper as the small local minorities of the Continent have theirs. But the public taste of England in the material side of a newspaper is fixed and will not be changed. It demands a great deal of space, good paper and print rather than a high standard in the quality of what is printed, or in the selection of the matter presented; and things being so, a Catholic daily paper seems to be as yet impossible.

The second function of the Catholic Press, that of presenting general truth, and especially truth in history, has been less developed. It is done in part, but only in part, and our first business for the future would be the development and expansion of this side of our efforts. It would show itself especially in a high standard of reviewing, and especially of reviewing books on history, for it is on the side of history that the most continuous and most dangerous attack upon truth appears.

Medicine and Fiction

But it would be necessary to extend the effort to other fields. Thus, the field of medicine is exceedingly important to-day, socially and morally. So is the field of fiction. As things now are the literary weeklies, which deal regularly with hundreds of volumes poured out by the modern English publishing business, are completely anti-Catholic in tone. They are both ignorant upon and vituperative of Catholic culture abroad, they have hardly heard of it at home. They accept, as a matter of course the bad morals, bad philosophy and bad history of current fiction and there is very little Catholic reviewing done to meet the evil. Now, in my judgment, there is plenty of room for a great expansion in such work. Among the thousands who read literary weeklies there is a very large proportion which thoroughly disagrees with the morals, the philosophy and the history upon which such journals are based. But their readers have now hardly any choice.

For instance, when there appears such a book as Mr Trevelyan’s History of England there is no audible protest. When there appears, as there appears perpetually in volume after volume of fiction and of serious history, the ridiculously and unhistoric presumption that the English people desired and of their own choice achieved the destruction of religion in England 400 years ago, there is no audible protest. “When theory masquerades its fact in biology, there is no audible protest.

Now if we had a vigorous weekly review, not concerned with the details of Catholic life or with particular points of religious controversy, but informed throughout with Catholic morals, we should meet a need which is felt by plenty of people who are not Catholic, and we should have a good economic basis on which to work.

Misunderstanding And Ignorance

The last function with which a Catholic Press should deal is the proper presentation of the great world outside England and especially Europe. The task has hitherto been almost wholly neglected. There is ample room here for expansion. The outside world where it does not speak English is shockingly misrepresented or unknown in the general Press. Even the English-speaking world is misrepresented. A completely false view is given of American relations with this country, and we have only to recall the absurd picture given of Ireland in the past, and the disastrous results of that malinformation, to test the truth of what I say.

But with regard to information in Europe, things are still worse. The nations of Protestant culture are slightly known to us (yet they are always taking us by surprise). The nations of Catholic culture are hardly known at all. I cannot recollect one article in a hundred of late years which has helped the educated Englishman to understand the Fascist Movement in Catholic Italy, or the special problem of Alsace, or the key position of Catholic Belgium in the struggle between tradition and revolution. As for the comments on Catholic Poland, they are worse than useless: a mixture of incredible ignorance upon the past and hopeless misunderstanding upon the present.

Now in all this important department of public information, a Catholic Press has special opportunity. The Catholic Church is universal of its nature; it is international of its nature; and it is, in particular, European. It is the historical religion of the rest of Western Europe. It is the influence under which all our culture was framed. In the conversation of Catholics who travel, you find a comprehension of Europe, as a whole, which you find in no other conversation, but we have not as yet an effort in our Press corresponding to such conversation.

There is no doubt that, were the supply present, the demand would be found to absorb it. The educated public is not in love with the increasing ignorance shown upon foreign affairs, and especially upon European affairs in the average English paper and review. And not only is there an intellectual demand for proper information and comment and judgement upon Europe, but there is the immediate practical necessity for it. For example, a Catholic Press working upon a general knowledge of Europe could have made English people understand long ago what they do not understand to this day, the nature and strength of the Italian revolution.

The practical value of a right judgement in foreign affairs, especially for a nation situated as England has been since the war, cannot be exaggerated. But no one can give a true picture of Christendom save from the Catholic standpoint, and a press that would present such a true picture, must be a Catholic Press. There is a task of the utmost value lying right before us. It is an opportunity of the widest scope, and we have only to grasp it.

How the World Has Changed Since 1860

Outwardly, at any rate, we are living in a world that is almost entirely different from the world of 1860 into which the Universe was born. Motor cars were unknown. Telephones were unknown. Gramophones were unknown. Cables were unknown. The telegraph was unknown (it had not even reached the stage which inspired the hymn writer to talk about “the magic wire”, in God Bless Our Pope”). There were no cinemas, and there were no underground railways. The chronicle below shows some of the principal events of the past seventy years.

1860 Papal States seized.
1861 Victor Emmanuel proclaimed King of Italy
1863 London Underground Railway opened
1865 Death of Wiseman: accession of Archbishop Manning
1866 Atlantic telegraph cable completed
1867 First ship passes through Suez Canal
1870 Franco-German War
1870 Rome taken from Popes and made capital of Italy
1871 First dry plates for photography
1873 “Little Flower” born
1876 Graham Bell patents telephone
1877 Edison’s first phonograph
1878 Leo XIII, becomes Pope
1878 Hierarchy restored in Scotland
1880 First electric lamp
1883 First internal combustion engine motor car
1883 First electric train in London
1884 First photogravure process of reproducing pictures
1890 Forth Bridge opened
1890 Cinematography invented
1892 Death of Manning. Accession of Archbishop Vaughan
1895 X-ray discovered
1896 Marconi’s first wireless patent
1897 “Little Flower” died
1903 First aeroplane flights
1903 Death of Vaughan: Accession of Archbishop Bourne
1909 Bleriot flew channel 1909 Peary reached North Pole
1911 Amundsen reached South Pole
1912 Ceremonial entry into new Westminster Cathedral of Cardinal Bourne
1913 Welsh Church disestablished
1914 Benedict XV becomes Pope
1914 First liner passes through Panama Canal
1914-18 The Great War
1919 Atlantic flown
1922 Pius XI becomes Pope
1926 Catholic Relief Bill passed
1929 Papal sovereignty re-established by Lateran Treaty
1929 Centenary of Catholic Emancipation

Read more...

Lord Acton Tends to Corrupt

by Dr. John Rao

Lord Acton (1834-1902) was a nineteenth English historian, a Liberal Catholic who intensely disliked the counterrevolutionary direction down which the Church was headed under the leadership of Blessed Pius IX. He is a hero to many modern men and women who share his Enlightenment outlook on society, politics, and especially the meaning of freedom. These include the directors of a powerful and well-heeled American think tank, the Acton Institute, which has an enormous influence in Catholic circles around the entire western world.

Acton is most well known through his teaching that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power to corrupt absolutely. This dictum, repeated by constitutionalists and libertarians alike, is supposed to force those of us who justify Church and State use of power to face honestly the unpleasant truth about ourselves: that we are on the low road to becoming despicable tyrants or friends of tyranny. But it seems to me that a solid Catholic analysis of the Power Dictum leads to a quite different conclusion: that it is actually this teaching of Lord Acton which tends to corrupt, and the absolute dedication to promotion of his beliefs, represented by foundations like the Acton Institute, which corrupts absolutely. For the Actonian PD, in practice, reflects a Gnostic and Manichean vision totally incompatible with the one taught by the holy babe born in Bethlehem.

Gnosticism is an ancient world view which argues that matter is evil and brought into being through the work of wicked demigods. It is the antithesis of the Christian belief that Creation is the loving gift of a good God who even offered it redemption once human sin caused His supernatural plan to go astray. Mani (216-276), a Third Century Persian religious leader, gave his name to the most successful Gnostic movement known to history. Manicheanism has owed its strength through the ages to the writings and organizational ability of its founder and his disciples. Both have promoted an extremely effective strategy of superficially accepting the varied religious and cultural beliefs they encounter in their missionary labors, and then deconstructing and redefining them to serve their own subversive purposes.

Manichean Gnostics were very powerful in certain parts of Western Europe in the early Thirteenth Century. Many Christians were fooled by their policy of subtle cooption of familiar religious language to teach a message alien to orthodox Catholicism. But the Manichean Mayor of a well-known central Italian town found to his chagrin that one of his fellow-citizens had hit upon a sure-fire way of checkmating otherwise highly successful Gnostic maneuvers. The city was Assisi; the citizen, St. Francis; his tool, the crטche. St. Francis knew that thorough going Gnostics cringed at the thought of everything connected with childbirth and its announcement of the arrival of yet another lump of wicked matter into the universe. He counted on the fact that Manicheans from Assisi would turn away in disgust at the sight of the crטche, just as they literally spat at the feet of all pregnant women crossing their path. And when they did so, they would proclaim themselves to be implacable enemies to truly believing Christians, all of whom reacted lovingly to the babe in the crib, even when they could not grasp the import of intellectual attacks on the Incarnation.

The message of that Incarnation is one of the need to redirect the entirety of fallen Creation to the glorification of God. Such a redirection is made possible through what St. Irenaeus calls the “recapitulation” of everything in Christ, the Word Incarnate. This recapitulation entailed Christ’s “gathering up” of each and every aspect of existence into one sublime effort to nurture and raise human persons to eternal life with the Trinity. That enterprise required recognition and redemption of all natural goods and relationships, in the manifold ways that history had developed and meshed them together, and with due respect for the intricate hierarchy of earthly and supernatural values.

A number of the great Church Fathers of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, the Cappadocian St. Gregory of Nyssa prominent among them, were fully awakened to what this message meant for Greco-Roman culture. They showed how an opening to the teaching of the Babe born in Bethlehem involved a new study of the thoughts and achievements of their civilization, from the time of Homer onwards, to see whether they might be mobilized to aid the task of salvation. What was required for the success of such an enterprise, they realized, was a docility to supernatural correction of their natural culture’s flaws, and a readiness to allow grace to guide its insights to uses much more exalted that anything it was capable of imagining when left purely to its own earthly devices.

One of the most important elements of the Greco-Roman Tradition that the mainline of the Church Fathers appreciated and sought to mobilize for Christ was its clear sense of the importance of familial and state authority. The value of such authority for identifying and gaining possession of all that was beautiful in human life, the evils befalling men who fled from its corrective application, and its troublesome and seemingly insoluble problems, were brilliantly presented in the writings of the great men of classical culture, its Hesiods, Solon the Lawgivers, Platos, and Aristotles.

Far from rejecting their brilliant insights, Christianity, with its teaching of submission to the authority of the Babe of Bethlehem, seemed to the Church Fathers to confirm them. Greco-Roman Christians were compelled to study, purify, complete, and transform what their forbears had already said and done in this realm. The Christian task was one of showing how a disciplining and coordination of all of the natural authorities developed by complex and troublesome human experience under the supernatural authority of the Incarnate Word and His Church could assure an infinitely more successful movement towards the True, Good, and Beautiful; a march from darkness to light which would be sublimely beneficial for society as a whole, all of its individual members, and the very holders of authority themselves.

Men and women presented with the opportunity or need to wield a social authority built upon natural Greco-Roman foundations and purified by Christian teaching and grace, do not tend to be corrupted by it. What they tend to become, instead, is much more aware of the enormity of the burden that such authority places upon them to serve those subject to their control. Yes, it is very possible that this heightened sense of awareness may then lead them into a sinful hunt for ways of fleeing clear responsibilities, or cynical and hypocritical masquerading of abuse of power. On the other hand, it is also very possible that it will guide them down the pathway to sanctity.

Those who meditate on the lessons of the crטche know that Mary and Joseph are there to press them down this road to holiness through willing acceptance of authority. The blessed couple of Bethlehem said “yes” to a sublime authority over Christ which it exercised for quite some time, raising the God-Man to adulthood and providing us the model for the Holy Family in the process. All parents and fathers of nations who embrace their varied forms of social authority under analogous circumstances cam be transformed in Christ and attain personal perfection through their decision. They can become ever more conscious of flaws they need to overcome in order to fulfill their responsibilities to their charges properly. They can, under the pressure of that responsibility, become ever more aware of inner talents that they had no previous knowledge of possessing.

Nineteenth century counterrevolutionary Catholics were part of a movement of rediscovery of the fullness of the Christian past leading them back to the insights of Church Fathers regarding the message of the Incarnation and the consequences for human perfection of the full cooperation of nature and grace. They eagerly applied what they learned to one of the burning questions of their own day, the relationship of authority and individual freedom. Article after article in journals such as the Jesuit review, La Civiltא Cattolica emphasized the conviction that strong natural and supernatural authority was a precondition for the perfection of personal liberty as well as all other human goods. For obedience to the fullness of authority was bound to ensure the fullest opportunity for self-correction and introduction to the Truth that really set men free. Rejection or limitation of the fullness of authority, on the other hand, entailed an opening to passion and a stubborn commitment to ignorance which was certain to work in favor of the strong, at the expense of the weak, but to the ultimate disadvantage and perdition of both.

"When the right of command, or authority, is exercised in all its fullness, then all individuals, even the most weak, may use in all fullness their own rights; with the result that the fullness of liberty corresponds precisely to the fullness of authority..." Taparelli, Di una apologia cattolica degli ordini rappresentativi”, ii, 1 (1853), 273n.

"And the truth is that this freedom, as any other unlimited liberty not circumscribed by anything, is nothing other than the privilege agreed upon for the strong to assassinate the weak. In this case, the freedom of the strong is offended, since he is given the arbitrary ability to abuse his faculty, and the freedom of the weak is offended, as he remains the undefended victim of the abuse." Curci, “Una censura della stampa”, iii, 1 (1856), 387.

Contemporary Catholics who have been led by their respect for the Incarnation to become conscious of the sublime importance of social authority for the work of raising society and men to God have precious little opportunity to wield this tool in any influential manner. What small authority they still possess, whether over themselves, their families, or their friends, should, however, be exercised to hammer out warnings against all dangers threatening corruption of mind and soul. And hence we return to what this article announced at the outset: the need to identify Lord Acton’s tendency to corrupt, and Institutes absolutely dedicated to spreading his ideas to corrupt absolutely.

A full discussion of the problem represented by Acton would require a theological, philosophical, and historical analysis of Protestantism and the Enlightenment, as well as an examination of the all too great influence these have had even in Catholic circles in the past few centuries. Suffice it to say, for the moment, that he, like the mainstream of heretical modern man, cannot endure nature as God really created it, nor the still more exalted goal given to it through Christ’s Redemption. Acton is particularly revolted by the crucial, positive role played in Creation and Redemption by social authority, both natural and supernatural. He wants to get rid of this role, and, in order to do so, he maligns it as something which tends to aim its possessors towards corruption.

But it is necessary at this point to note something very central to the particular corruption toward which the Actonian system actually tends. Acton speaks of “power” and not “authority”. If what he really intended to say was that a raw, stubborn, unbending power tended to corrupt, he would have been correct, and would not have encountered the criticism that he did from nineteenth century counterrevolutionary opponents in the Catholic camp. Unfortunately, what Acton meant by “power” was precisely the activity of that mesh of social authorities, guided by a sense of philosophical and religious responsibilities and hierarchical organization, developed by Greco-Roman culture and Catholic thinkers tying natural wisdom together with the message of the Incarnation. It was this mesh that had, through its tendency to heighten awareness of the burden and the exalted mission of authority, tamed illicit strength and hemmed in its possible misuse at the hands of passionate and ignorant men. What Acton, in his assault on a social authority incorrectly identified as raw power was, in fact, urging, was a flight from an accurate and responsible use of a tool demanded by God and well developed, as a “seed of the Logos”, in the natural world of Greece and Rome. What he was really calling for was creation of a social jungle in which the kind of truly raw power that ultimately destroys both the strong and weak would happily flourish. This wicked power, which definitely does tend to corrupt, and, if absolute, corrupt absolutely, would then be limited by absolutely nothing substantive. How could it be? For every effective attempt to control its evil would involve the use of authority of some kind or another, be it philosophical, religious, or traditional, and would be condemned by Acton as a step backwards into tyranny! The irony of this position is only surprising to someone unaware of the whole syllabus of ironies of the modern world that Acton loved so deeply. Remember, just to take one other example, that this civilization is one that praises as a glorious founder of the modern commitment to human liberty a Luther who believed that the concept of free will was a total absurdity.

I identified Acton’s position as a Gnostic one. On second glance, this appears to me as unfair to the Gnostics. They were much more logical in their approach. Acton is a selective and illogical enemy of nature as it really is, aiming his ire primarily at the essential tool of authority. It would, therefore, perhaps be better to label him a semi-Gnostic. But I stand by the comparison of the Acton Institute dedicated to the spread of his ideas in the Catholic world with Manicheanism. Like so many other conservative Catholic organizations today, it works with familiar Christian language. It can even defend itself against the charge of Gnosticism by pointing out how much it loves money. Meanwhile, it systematically works to deconstruct the essence of the Christian message and redirect it to the service of its own subversive purpose: the equation of our Faith with an unnatural, semi-Gnostic, Enlightenment concept of a self-destructive freedom destined to ensure the victory of the strong over the weak. For this is the ultimate goal of Acton’s contemporary followers: to make it seem that God created and redeemed the world in order to make it safe for the exercise of a raw power masquerading as true freedom.

If the sole consequence of an individual’s exercise of intellectual or spiritual authority today were to be the enlightenment of merely one other person to the tendency to corruption represented by Actonian thinking, this, to my mind, would be sufficient to justify his entire existence. Dangerous as that thinking is, it can still be defeated by the liberation of a handful of souls who understand the real power for transformation of the world contained by the Catholic message. And if a Catholic who senses its dangers despairs of finding the right arguments to lead a friend or family member away from it, let him take his student in this Christmas season to look at a crטche. Do Mary and Joseph really look like a libertarian mother and foster-father? Are they where they are because of their rejection of the authority of the Roman State? Does that Christ Child seem to be a victim of parents whose power over Him was bound to corrupt them, or one who wants us to be subject to the commands of His mother as much as He was?

©The Remnant, December 31st, 2005

Read more...