Economic Catholicism

The comment was controversial at the time and still is. Lots of people think religion should have no bearing on economics or politics, but Pius was making a point that is as valid today as it was during the Great Depression. The ultimate purpose of economic activity is to satisfy the temporal needs of man, all men and women, so that they have the freedom to devote time, energy, and thought to spiritual needs. Socialist principles of class struggle and confiscation of private property aren´t consistent with that. That some socialists of his day had softened those principles in response to the excesses of communism didn´t change anything. There is some truth in many lies and some good in many evils. There are people today who like to point out that Adolph Hitler built a wonderful highway system in Germany.

Pius had in mind what a just economy would look like and a socialist system didn´t fit the model. He saw a system where labor and management would form a partnership for the common good. Strikes and lockouts would be prohibited in favor of mandatory arbitration. Wages would be high enough to provide a decent standard of living but not so high as to raise levels of unemployment. The work week should be structured to provide ample leisure time for the development of family and cultural life as well as worship. All people should be free to form professional associations and cooperatives to promote the benefit of the group, but never at the expense of the public good. Always and everywhere people should be mindful of the needs of their neighbors, not just in charity but in providing opportunities for everyone to earn their own way in the dignity that is their right as creatures made in the image of God.

If socialism didn´t fit the bill neither does our modern economy. Pius saw progress even in the depths of the depression and we have made more progress since, especially in the developed world, but we fall far short of his ideal. He saw the rise of a new class of robber baron in the corporate executive who doesn´t own his company but controls it and uses that control for his own benefit at the expense of shareholders, employees, and the public. We see that all around us in managers who bankrupt their companies while flying around in corporate jets and paying themselves obscene bonuses. Pius would not have approved of the modern union either when they negotiate such high wages and benefits as to make their employers uncompetitive, then lobby for protectionist legislation to the detriment of the third world poor.

Pius wasn´t only dreaming of a better world or complaining about the one he saw. He was issuing a call to action. He knew he couldn´t change society simply by preaching to the choir. He asked the Catholic laity to educate itself on the principles of Christian social justice and take those principles with them into the work place and the political arena. There they can lead by example and serve as advocates for the common well being. They can influence their peers and elected representatives, many of whom may not be Catholic, or even Christian. That last is key. Catholics can´t do this by themselves. We need the cooperation of everyone in the community right up to and including the international community. We can accomplish a lot by appealing to mutual enlightened self interest and through political activism. But first we have to educate ourselves.

Thanks for posting this ,dear brother.

Are you going to convert to Catholicism soon?

Pope Pius XI was very aware and prophetic of liberalism leading to communism.

The following is excerpted from his 1937 encyclical on communism called Divini Redemptoris
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19031937_divini-redemptoris_en.html

“”God has likewise destined man for civil society according to the dictates of his very nature. In the plan of the Creator, society is a natural means which man can and must use to reach his destined end. Society is for man and not vice versa. This must not be understood in the sense of liberalistic individualism, which subordinates society to the selfish use of the individual; but only in the sense that by means of an organic union with society and by mutual collaboration the attainment of earthly happiness is placed within the reach of all. In a further sense, it is society which affords the opportunities for the development of all the individual and social gifts bestowed on human nature. These natural gifts have a value surpassing the immediate interests of the moment, for in society they reflect the divine perfection, which would not be true were man to live alone. But on final analysis, even in this latter function, society is made for man, that he may recognize this reflection of God's perfection, and refer it in praise and adoration to the Creator. Only man, the human person, and not society in any form is endowed with reason and a morally free will.

30. Man cannot be exempted from his divinely-imposed obligations toward civil society, and the representatives of authority have the right to coerce him when he refuses without reason to do his duty. Society, on the other hand, cannot defraud man of his God-granted rights, the most important of which We have indicated above. Nor can society systematically void these rights by making their use impossible. It is therefore according to the dictates of reason that ultimately all material things should be ordained to man as a person, that through his mediation they may find their way to the Creator. In this wise we can apply to man, the human person, the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles, who writes to the Corinthians on the Christian economy of salvation: “All things are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.”[12] While Communism impoverishes human personality by inverting the terms of the relation of man to society, to what lofty heights is man not elevated by reason and Revelation!

31. The directive principles concerning the social-economic order have been expounded in the social Encyclical of Leo XIII on the question of labor.[13] Our own Encyclical on the Reconstruction of the Social Order[14] adapted these principles to present needs. Then, insisting anew on the age-old doctrine of the Church concerning the individual and social character of private property, We explained clearly the right and dignity of labor, the relations of mutual aid and collaboration which should exist between those who possess capital and those who work, the salary due in strict justice to the worker for himself and for his family.

32. In this same Encyclical of Ours We have shown that the means of saving the world of today from the lamentable ruin into which a moral liberalism has plunged us, are neither the class-struggle nor terror, nor yet the autocratic abuse of State power, but rather the infusion of social justice and the sentiment of Christian love into the social-economic order. We have indicated how a sound prosperity is to be restored according to the true principles of a sane corporative system which respects the proper hierarchic structure of society; and how all the occupational groups should be fused into a harmonious unity inspired by the principle of the common good. And the genuine and chief function of public and civil authority consists precisely in the efficacious furthering of this harmony and coordination of all social forces.

33. In view of this organized common effort towards peaceful living, Catholic doctrine vindicates to the State the dignity and authority of a vigilant and provident defender of those divine and human rights on which the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church insist so often. It is not true that all have equal rights in civil society. It is not true that there exists no lawful social hierarchy. Let it suffice to refer to the Encyclicals of Leo XIII already cited, especially to that on State powers,[15] and to the other on the Christian Constitution of States.[16] In these documents the Catholic will find the principles of reason and the Faith clearly explained, and these principles will enable him to defend himself against the errors and perils of a Communistic conception of the State. The enslavement of man despoiled of his rights, the denial of the transcendental origin of the State and its authority, the horrible abuse of public power in the service of a collectivistic terrorism, are the very contrary of all that corresponds with natural ethics and the will of the Creator. Both man and civil society derive their origin from the Creator, Who has mutually ordained them one to the other. Hence neither can be exempted from their correlative obligations, nor deny or diminish each other’s rights. The Creator Himself has regulated this mutual relationship in its fundamental lines, and it is by an unjust usurpation that Communism arrogates to itself the right to enforce, in place of the divine law based on the immutable principles of truth and charity, a partisan political program which derives from the arbitrary human will and is replete with hate. “”

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