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Pope Leo XIII published his now famous encyclical letter Rerum Novarum, which analyzed the conflicts between capital and labor through the lens of Catholic thought. His successors continued similar interventions on social questions such that, forty years later, Pius XI could think of the Catholic Church’s social doctrine as a unified set of teachings. Subsequent popes continued to develop Catholic social teaching (CST) into a powerful tool for thinking about faith and politics. However, Catholic pronouncements on contemporary social questions have become increasingly incoherent. The founding principles of CST are still present, but the Church’s varied attempts to weigh in on pressing issues make it seem like a kind of conceptual grab bag in which policy preferences are clear, justifications murky, and apparent contradictions unacknowledged.
This is present in recent social encyclicals, such as last year’s Fratelli Tutti, and in the Catholic faithful’s reception of CST. In America at least, the breakdown of Catholic discourse—especially on Twitter—has turned CST into a weapon for attacking the religious bona fides of one’s opponents. Yes, you oppose gay marriage and abortion but, gotcha!, what about the death penalty and health care—or vice versa. It need not be so. Real strengths remain in CST, but changes in its development are necessary in order for it to deliver what it promises.
Social Thought and Theology
The strongest critique of CST comes from one of its greatest scholars. In a recent lecture, Russell Hittinger, sometime Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, traces out how CST went from being a coherent body of doctrine to a “confetti of principles.” The coherent body of doctrine began under Pope Leo XIII, most notably in Rerum Novarum. Leo’s successors developed his thinking and, beginning with Pius XI, considered the Church’s social doctrine as a unified set of teachings. This was because they shared “a common philosophical infrastructure,” that of the Thomistic neo-scholasticism regnant at the time, with the precision of its many distinctions and definitions.
Before Vatican II, popes addressed their social encyclicals to all bishops. But John XXIII and Paul VI wrote for “all people of good will.” In Octagesima Adveniens, his letter marking the eightieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Paul VI abandoned the Leonine philosophical infrastructure and its universal validity for something more locally applicable:
Continued below.
Recovering Catholic Social Teaching - Nathaniel Peters
This is present in recent social encyclicals, such as last year’s Fratelli Tutti, and in the Catholic faithful’s reception of CST. In America at least, the breakdown of Catholic discourse—especially on Twitter—has turned CST into a weapon for attacking the religious bona fides of one’s opponents. Yes, you oppose gay marriage and abortion but, gotcha!, what about the death penalty and health care—or vice versa. It need not be so. Real strengths remain in CST, but changes in its development are necessary in order for it to deliver what it promises.
Social Thought and Theology
The strongest critique of CST comes from one of its greatest scholars. In a recent lecture, Russell Hittinger, sometime Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, traces out how CST went from being a coherent body of doctrine to a “confetti of principles.” The coherent body of doctrine began under Pope Leo XIII, most notably in Rerum Novarum. Leo’s successors developed his thinking and, beginning with Pius XI, considered the Church’s social doctrine as a unified set of teachings. This was because they shared “a common philosophical infrastructure,” that of the Thomistic neo-scholasticism regnant at the time, with the precision of its many distinctions and definitions.
Before Vatican II, popes addressed their social encyclicals to all bishops. But John XXIII and Paul VI wrote for “all people of good will.” In Octagesima Adveniens, his letter marking the eightieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Paul VI abandoned the Leonine philosophical infrastructure and its universal validity for something more locally applicable:
Continued below.
Recovering Catholic Social Teaching - Nathaniel Peters
