Incompetent Pontificating
The cast of characters escapes me at the moment, but I’m sure the combox commentariat will fill in the details. The ideas of a certain Jesuit were condemned by a Pope. The Jesuits continued studying the book claiming that the ideas condemned by the Pontiff weren’t the ones in the book. The Pontiff rejoinded by noting that he was able to read and not an idiot. The story reminds me of much of the reaction to the latest encyclical.
Underlying most objections to any Vatican claim or any claim for that matter is the objection of competence. We saw this claim about the Iraq War frequently. In one case the claim was that the Vatican didn’t know one way or the other whether Iraq had chemical weapons. I never found the Vatican’s case to be resting upon the veracity of such a claim, but that is a valid objection. More often the objection was that the Vatican did not understand how to address the problem of rogue states with weapons that could be utilized by terrorists on populations half way around the world. This objection could be reasonable, but often it was carried with an arrogance unbecoming of respectful debate. In many cases the Vatican has better information (for example when Israel attacked Lebanon, the Vatican had priests and bishops on the ground whereas U.S. citizens were dependent on AP reports) than her critics. It’s odd that many people hold the Vatican up on a pedestal when discussing such things treatments within the womb, in vitro fertilization, or stem cell research in mind numbing detail, but believe the foreign policy and social justice offices are seat of the pants opinion brokers. (Such isn’t to say that officials within those offices can’t offer opinions of the seat of their pants.)
On the question of economics, one of the big problems in American Catholic debate is that we take it as a given that laissez faire economics is a sound way to build an equitable and stable economy. That opinion is not hold in South America or Asia. It was rejected in Europe around the time of World War II. Every time I hear a libertarian bemoan the Vatican not being familiar with Austrian economics, the desired retort is that they are indeed familiar with it and reject it, or, to put it better, they don’t believe it is the best prism for understanding economic relations. Friedman (not an Austrian, but a classicalist none-the-less) may have had a profound effect in the American academy, but there is a lot more debate outside America.
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Well, the MO you describe antedates current problems in the Society of Jesus: it was the MO of the Jansenists, who claimed they did not teach what the Popes condemned them for teaching.
Nobody in Austria cares about “Austrian economics” :) Ludwig Mises, after working for the fascist government, left in 1934. He later hung out with Otto Habsburg. Schumpeter did his part to support the economy – he greatly benefited the Viennese prostitution industry – but left even earlier than Mises. Austria features democratic socialism, the pope’s favorite system, as it were. Not without its flaws, mind you. But it’s certainly nice to keep one’s health insurance. It’s really the US that’s the odd man out among Western nations, from crime to war to cutthroat business. A sense of solidarity is missing for the most part – California Republicans, to name a particularly loathsome group, would rather see millions of people destitute than raise taxes.
The American Catholic Right mainly likes the pope when it comes to a) sex-related matters and b) Latin & lace. Everything else is “prudential judgment” :-P It’s really a bunch of run of the mill reactionaries who happen to have a penchant for festive worship.
Would you be willing to go around to the house of each of your neighbors, point a gun to each of their heads, and demand money for some cause you think is noble … like feed the poor?
If not, why is it alright for your politicians to do it for you in the form of taxation?
Only VOLUNTARY giving is spiritually beneficial to both giver and receiver. Forced giving benefits no one. See:
http://spirituallibertarian.blogspot.com/
I stand corrected Liam.
If not, why is it alright for your politicians to do it for you in the form of taxation?If not, why is it alright for your politicians to do it for you in the form of taxation?
Just because you subscribe to your ideology’s myths does not mean others do.
Only VOLUNTARY giving is spiritually beneficial to both giver and receiver. Forced giving benefits no one.
And making justice determinate upon charity is the antithesis of justice.
Gerald, you really have no clue, do you? Benedict rejected the idea of statism and socialism in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, particularly when he discusses Jesus’ temptations. Jesus rejected meeting his material needs and rejected the allure of power. To paraphrase the Holy Father, Jesus did not come to clothe the poor or feed the hungry. He came to bring God. Did He heal those who needed it? Yes, only after they came to Him. Did He feed those who hungered? Yes, only after they came to Him.
Benedict is not an economic liberal. He is the Supreme Pontiff, and a very close friend and associate with John Paul II. Despite the seeming “progressive” tone of his encyclical, he does not outright reject the clear and consistent teaching of the Magesterium concerning anything, especially the preference toward a free-market (not capitalism).
Christian Prophet
Sounds like you are channeling the ghost of Ayn Rand….
“In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has in any case made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness.”
Joseph Ratzinger
Maybe Americans are wont to not knowing the difference between socialism and democratic socialism. The latter is what much of the West espouses. You know, when you lose your job you still have health insurance. All the things that go without saying in every other Western country.
Only VOLUNTARY giving is spiritually beneficial to both giver and receiver. Forced giving benefits no one.
Silly. Forced giving can lead to voluntary giving. Like going to Mass out of obligation can lead to full, active, conscious participation.
“On the question of economics, one of the big problems in American Catholic debate is that we take it as a given that laissez faire economics ”
Of of the bigger problems in the American Catholic debate is that the term “laissez faire economics” is thrown about way too freely. We are really going to get nowhere is we keep doing that. It is about as irratating as proclaiming everything socialist of communist all the place.
I think the Pope was quite wise not to use the Captialism at all yesterday since it in the view of the beholder it has way too many meanings can be misunderstood.
Ireally think we Catholics need no matter what our poltical leaning need to be careful in throwing these terms around (often used a subterfuge as a slur).
I am not saying you are slurring people but it happens way to often
“California Republicans, to name a particularly loathsome group, would rather see millions of people destitute than raise taxes.
The American Catholic Right mainly likes the pope when it comes to a) sex-related matters and b) Latin & lace. Everything else is “prudential judgment” :-P It’s really a bunch of run of the mill reactionaries who happen to have a penchant for festive worship”
Gerald I think the problem In California is run a way spending that has never been going on forever. At some point you got to say stop. But that is another topic
I think that particular portrayal of the American right is misleading. I am not sure what the Latin Mass has to do it with it. In fact in that group you will note many people that are very much social justice wise very open. Most on the Catholic right don’t go to a “Latin Mass”
THe real world devotees of the Austian School on the “right” are very few. In fact get a hundred right leaning Catholics in the room and mention the Austria School and how many would know what it was? Four maybe five?
Anyway they are way too Paleo for many. It is ironic looking at this dicussion but many from that branch were in firm oppostion to the Iraq war and other things.
“Only VOLUNTARY giving is spiritually beneficial to both giver and receiver. Forced giving benefits no one.”
I actually agree with Michael in the comments on this to a certain degree. When I was Baptist the “Tithe” was big thing. True they were not kicking you out if you did not do it but in a way at times there was a lot of pressure to do in a informal pressure strong arm type way. I think overall for both of the health of the CHurch and the persons spirtuality it was helpful.
Forced giving can lead to voluntary giving. Like going to Mass out of obligation can lead to full, active, conscious participation.
Except that conscience enforces the obligation to atend Mass, whereas “forced giving” is an obligation enforced by the state and its monopoly on the use of violence. If the state enforced the obligation to attend Mass by means of armed force, does anyone doubt that it would retard full, active, conscious participation?
On another thread here, I said this:
…To the degree that I believe I understand what he’s saying, it’ll put Catholicism WAY outside the mainstream of current American poltico-economic thought to the extent that there’ll be no possible alliance with either the right or the left in America.
And one “Kurt” said in response:
That would be unfortunate, I think. Better it somewhat influence both the right and the left than be totally outside of mainstream thought
–which, I think, just about encapsulates the real problem with Catholicism in America: that it is more interested in forming POLITICAL alliances of the right and the left than it is in developing alternatives that are authentically Catholic and which challenge the society there, by example, to change AWAY from the generally disastrous course that it has been setting for the last half-century.
Until we Catholics get our house in order and agree on fundamentals and agree to make at least gestures of compromise with each other (“dissent” is NOT a bad thing, though), there will be no viable alternatives offered from a genuinely Christian perspective—only ones offered from the camp of the well-heeled, neo-Calvinist and Protestant-heretical position that Wiegel and Novak actually represent.
And, if you doubt what I say about the latter, just re-read what Wiegel and Novak have written about the recent encyclical and consider their versions’ implications about Benedict XVI Ratzinger’s character. He’s certainly not my favourite pope, and I think he’s got real issues regarding human sexuality, but never, ever would I call him intellectually dishonest, which is essentially what Wiegel has done.
Until we Catholics get our house in order and agree on fundamentals and agree to make at least gestures of compromise with each other (“dissent” is NOT a bad thing, though), there will be no viable alternatives offered from a genuinely Christian perspective—only ones offered from the camp of the well-heeled, neo-Calvinist and Protestant-heretical position that Wiegel and Novak actually represent.
Yes, and more insulting, divisive language like this is just the way to go about achieving reconciliation and compromise. I mean, do you even read what you write?
…whereas “forced giving” is an obligation enforced by the state and its monopoly on the use of violence.
To repeat, just because you subscribe to your ideology’s myths does not mean others do.
You repeat because you are out of ideas, and since you have no idea what my ideology is, you resort to the ad hominem. Now, how do you interpret the “forced” in “forced giving?”
Do you know what a social contract is?
The idea of the State being the only one who can take your property by force is a coup de grace of libertarians. It is not an ad hominem to note the category of an argument.
How can Ayn Rand and Objectivism be taken up by Catholics?
digbydolben,
in my view you are too pessimistic about the various American catholic affairs. Sure enough at the tail end of the previous rather disastrous administration the catholic webwaves are still soaked with shrill voices of – how did Gerald so wonderfully described some of them- “really a bunch of run of the mill reactionaries who happen to have a penchant for festive worship.”
But realistically of course folks left- right -middle do not leave their social and political inclinations at the church door – as nice as this would perhaps be.
In my view if you wish of course you can find plenty of very reasonable, kind,humble, deeply catholic voices in America.
In my view you draw too far reaching negative conclusions from your personal painful experience in the US .
“In my view you draw too far reaching negative conclusions from your personal painful experience in the US.”
grega,
Perhaps you are right, on one level.
But I believe if you ask deeper questions of those “kind, humble, deeply catholic voices in America” you will find that digbydolben has a powerful criticism to make. There are characteristics we all share because of our Puritan and Calvinistic roots. We cannot escape them. American Catholicism tends to perch atop American culture. As a matter of course, it is not the other way around.
The Church’s social teaching inspired people briefly after Vatican II, but it has become monologal again, no longer based on broad consultation of the Church’s life (remember how Liberation Theology was silenced). Thus it no longer convincingly conveys persuasive Christian and evangelical wisdom. The new encyclical is just another incident in the long effort to rewrite Vatican II to make it less prophetic and evangelical. George Weigel is just the critic such efforts deserve — the whole thing is just ideological shadow-play.
Recall how Populorum Progressio began:
“The progressive development of peoples is an object of deep interest and concern to the Church. This is particularly true in the case of those peoples who are trying to escape the ravages of hunger, poverty, endemic disease and ignorance; of those who are seeking a larger share in the benefits of civilization and a more active improvement of their human qualities; of those who are consciously striving for fuller growth.” Contrast this with the opening paragraphs of the new encyclical and you’ll get an idea of how Benedict XVI is trying to recuperate a document long disliked by Vatican conservatives.
According to Benedict, Paul VI ‘taught that life in Christ is the first and principal factor in development (par. 8). What Paul VI actually said in the passage footnoted is:
“16. Self-development, however, is not left up to man’s option. Just as the whole of creation is ordered toward its Creator, so too the rational creature should of his own accord direct his life to God, the first truth and the highest good. Thus human self-fulfillment may be said to sum up our obligations. Moreover, this harmonious integration of our human nature, carried through by personal effort and responsible activity, is destined for a higher state of perfection. United with the life-giving Christ, man’s life is newly enhanced; it acquires a transcendent humanism which surpasses its nature and bestows new fullness of life. This is the highest goal of human self-fulfillment.”
There is a difference between “first and principal factor” and ultimate goal. It looks as if Benedict is allowing his Christological battles to interfere with a clear setting-out of the situation of humanity as it seeks development.
Benedict says that the Church’s social doctrine is part of her mission of proclaiming truth. Paul VI put himself more on the same level as humanity, adopting the hopes and aspirations of the modern world, and not subordinating this embrace to a mission to proclaim doctrine. Putting Christological doctrine or the mission of truth first and seeing social doctrine as an aspect of this doctrinal mission is, in this context, to put the cart before the horse.
“Man does not develop through his own powers, nor can development simply be handed to him” (par. 11) — stale Augustinianism that Paul VI had too urgent a sense of reality to indulge in.
Like Populorum Progressio the new encyclical has some well-informed suggestions on particular topics such as immigration, finance, labor unions, technology. the UN etc. But the prophetic edge of Paul VI is gone.
The heavy emphasis on the Church’s social teaching as a ‘doctrinal corpus’ whose consistency and continuity must be upheld (including Mirari Vos. the Syllabus of Errors and a whole string of such retrograde interventions?) is academic, ideological, and far removed from any sincere attempt at dialogue with the needs of the modern world.
He also saddles his recuperation of Populorum Progressio with the albatross of Humanae Vitae. Again, this seem to show more concern for upholding Vatican authority than for social values. The targets he hits at in par. 14 are vaguely defined, typical specters of a German professor.
Benedict’s par 16 puts a strange conservative spin on Paul’s par. 15. He makes out that the Church would have no right to comment on human development if this were not a divine vocation first and foremost.
The principal reason why Pop Prog is “still timely”, says Benedict. is because it stresses God. (par. 16) A nice way of blunting Paul’s message.
Certainly Paul wrote : “42. The ultimate goal is a fullbodied humanism. And does this not mean the fulfillment of the whole man and of every man? A narrow humanism, closed in on itself and not open to the values of the spirit and to God who is their source, could achieve apparent success, for man can set about organizing terrestrial realities without God. But “closed off from God, they will end up being directed against man. A humanism closed off from other realities becomes inhuman.” (de Lubac)
True humanism points the way toward God and acknowledges the task to which we are called, the task which offers us the real meaning of human life. Man is not the ultimate measure of man. Man becomes truly man only by passing beyond himself. In the words of Pascal: “Man infinitely surpasses man.”"
But is this why Pop Prog is remembered? And Benedict emphasizes all this at the start of his encyclical is an way that occludes the horizons put to the fore by Paul VI and Gaudium et Spes. There is a distortion of theological perspective, it seems.
For what it’s worth, Maimonedes classified charity according to eight ranked levels. Giving unwillingly does come in dead last, right after giving inadequately with a smile. That being said, it still makes the list. I vaguely recall a Catholic classification of levels of charity, but the details escape me.
Also for what it’s worth, “the greatest level, above which there is no greater, is to support a fellow Jew by endowing him with a gift or loan, or entering into a partnership with him, or finding employment for him, in order to strengthen his hand until he need no longer be dependent upon others…”
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/45907/jewish/Eight-Levels-of-Charity.htm
Somehow, Christ can tell Jews that they should pay their taxes to a Roman authority that oppresses them, St. Paul can call Nero a legitimate authority, and some modern Catholics think that “taxes are theft” is reconcilable with their faith.
Read Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno:
Wherefore the wise Pontiff declared that it is grossly unjust for a State to exhaust private wealth through the weight of imposts and taxes. “For since the right of possessing goods privately has been conferred not by man’s law, but by nature, public authority cannot abolish it, but can only control its exercise and bring it into conformity with the common weal.”[36] Yet when the State brings private ownership into harmony with the needs of the common good, it does not commit a hostile act against private owners but rather does them a friendly service; for it thereby effectively prevents the private possession of goods, which the Author of nature in His most wise providence ordained for the support of human life, from causing intolerable evils and thus rushing to its own destruction; it does not destroy private possessions, but safeguards them; and it does not weaken private property rights, but strengthens them.
The popes (e.g. Pius XI, Leo XIII, et al) defend private property against unfair confiscation, meaning that which impoverishes the owner; they never support, indeed they condemn, the notion that the state has no role to play in the distribution of property.
I actually think that the concept of “forced giving” that is in dispute here assumes a notion of private property as absolute. “What is mine is what is mine, no matter how much of it I have, and I can do with it as I please.”
But this notion of property is not a Christian one. On the Christian account, my property is mine only for my “use”, and not absolutely; and my “use” of that property is further constrained by the dictates of the common good. In other words, I cannot (morally speaking) just do anything with my property: what I do with it has to be directed to my own and my family’s sustenance and, once that is adequately ensured, to the community. Christian political philosophy has long accorded the State a legitimate interest in seeing that private property is directed toward the common good; progressive taxation–”forced giving”–is a legitimate means whereby the State attempts to ensure that distributive justice is achieved within the political community. Seeing as the top 1% of wage-earners in America owns %35 percent of all property in America, there is a prima facie case to be made that distribute justice is not being met and that, if anything, the State needs to do more rather than less in order to achieve a just redistribution of goods.
Note also that socialism means that the State owns the means-of-production; and that social-democracy means something else entirely. Americans tend to think that social-democratic countries are socialist, but this is rather like thinking that blue laws are about a color.
Do you know what a social contract is?
Yes, I do. And I personally accept the democratic social contract that grants the state the right to forcibly take property for the common good. My comment was in response to one made by the resident anarcho-pacifist on this blog, who rather blithely dismissed the implications of “forced giving.” That dismissal only reinforced a little axiom I find to be true: “Scratch an anarchist, reveal a statist.”
It is not an ad hominem to note the category of an argument.
It is when you dismissively assign a proscribed ideology to a specific person for the expressed purpose of shaming and shutting them up.
wj,
Yes, but the original question was whether “forced giving” yields spiritual benefits for both the giver and the receiver.
There is almost nothing in the encyclical but good common sense–which is often what you get when you look at something with no motivating factor other than good will toward men, which the Pope has a lot of, being the Vicar of Christ and all that (not being sarcastic).
Basically, the Pope is a social democrat, as he should be. Crypto-objectivists and liberation theologians alike, get over it.
“Only VOLUNTARY giving is spiritually beneficial to both giver and receiver. Forced giving benefits no one.”
Your position is similar to the rich man (as well as today’s liberatian tax-dodgers) portrayed in Jesus’ Lazarus parable. In the end voluntary giving leads to no giving and total ignorance on the welfare of the poor. I’d like to remind you what happened to him at the end of the parable:
Luke 16:19-31 “Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. A certain beggar, named Lazarus, was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores. It happened that the beggar died, and that he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried. In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom.
He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.’
“But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in like manner, bad things. But now here he is comforted and you are in anguish. Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that those who want to pass from here to you are not able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’
He said, ‘I ask you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house; for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, so they won’t also come into this place of torment.’
“But Abraham said to him,
‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’
“He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’
“He said to him, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead.’”
Michael J. Iafrate Says July 8, 2009 at 10:08 pm
“Only VOLUNTARY giving is spiritually beneficial to both giver and receiver. Forced giving benefits no one”.
“Silly. Forced giving can lead to voluntary giving. Like going to Mass out of obligation can lead to full, active, conscious participation”.
And then again it may not.
An important point is to do it because Our Lord says we are to do it.
Interesting, as the principle also applies to those who insist that Karl Rahner was not condemned for saying what he said that Paul VI condemned in _Mysterium Fidei_.
As for the rest, I don’t know many serious conservatives who adopt a truly “laissez-faire” philosophy anymore, just as liberals insist they’re not being socialist as the Democrats trudge onward towards taking over the banks, the auto industry, and healthcare.
I have been refraining from commenting on the new encyclical till I have a chance to read it, but I don’t understand how certain principles (cooperation of different faiths, forced charity without a specifically Christian context, and achievement of any positive goal by secular means) could be condemned by the Church as anathema–starting at least with the first encyclical condemning Freemasonry–and then suddenly permitted by Rerum Novarum, etc.