The Economical Thought of the Roman Catholic Church: Part 2
Hey there peeps! (Btw, if any of you make it all the way through this post, you may congratulate yourselves on a very impressive accomplishment. :))
Okay, to continue just a little bit further with Part 1’s dealings with the Roman Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas’ ideas about the community of goods, allow me to begin this second part with a related quote from the late John Paul II’s 1987 encyclical “On Social Concern”:
Basically, then, Catholics consider a person’s private property as being on loan from the rest of the world’s population. The “universal destination of goods” is an extremely important principle in Roman Catholic economic thought - so important and exalted is this premise, in fact, that Paul VI states that all other rights “whatsoever” are subject to it:
That last phrase is very important, so read it again: “All other rights whatsoever, including those of property and of free commerce, are to be subordinated to this principle.” I wonder if Paul VI realized just how broad a statement he made. As John Robbins says, “All other rights whatsoever, of course, includes not only the right to private property and the right to free enterprise, but the rights to worship, speak, teach, write think, and publish freely—indeed, the right to life itself.” Do you begin to see the huge significance of this principle of the universal destination of goods in Catholic economic thought? And, to refer back to a statement I made in Part I, it is because they give this principle a place in the natural law that they are able to make statements like the above and the following, extracted from the Second Vatican Council:
There’s that call again that we first heard from Thomas Aquinas to go and simply “procure” whatever you need from the riches of others. Since the Catholic Church believes that private property is categorized in the positive law, they have no trouble at all concluding that it does not have any set, moral foundations backing it up and therefore is subject to human regulations and changes. We all know that complete, world economic equality is a status that is impossible to be reached. Someone will always have a little more of something than someone else. So, since inequality seems to be synonymous with need in the Catholic system from what we have seen so far, and since private property is at all times unequal, it would seem that according to Catholic doctrine, private property is an immoral institution.
Also notice the word “right” in the first sentence of the above quoted section of the Second Vatican Council. A right is something that is given by God and is natural to every man. To say, therefore, that it is the right of every man to take what he needs “out of the riches of others” implies that it was God who instituted such an idea. I find this very difficult to believe since the Bible, which is the Word of God, says nothing of such a right.
Okay, for the rest of Part II, I’d like to talk about how Catholicism and its economical ideas about the community of goods have influenced society within the last hundred or so years specifically. I’ll confine my discussion of this issue to two social establishments in particular:
1. Liberation Theology in Latin America starting in the late 1960s.
2. The Redistributive State and Interventionism found principally in the United States.
I may have to have a Part III here to cover Catholicism’s influence in America, but we’ll see what happens.
Liberation theology, especially in Latin America, is one of the most recent forms of collectivism that the Roman Catholic Church has helped put forth. This so-called “theology” has well been called a form of “Christian Socialism” (Yes, yes, I know, that’s a blatant oxymoron…) since it is, in the words of one scholar, “an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor's suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor.” It focuses on those parts of the Bible that appear to suggest that Christ came to physically liberate the oppressed from poverty and bring justice upon their oppressors. These passages are then sometimes used as justification for using arms and force to bring justice for the poor and suffering people. Some liberation “theologians” even go so far as to supplement the Bible as the sole premise for their actions with a few Marxist doctrines such as perpetual “class struggle” as they seek to find further justification for their beliefs and actions.
Economically and socially speaking, Catholicism completely agrees with what liberation theology is seeking to accomplish, and that is justice for the poor and equality of possessions. The only thing Catholics really disagree with is the secular and materialistic elements of liberation theology. They don’t promote the sometimes violent and extremist application of these ideas. So liberation theology is composed of principles which the Catholic Church agrees with, but it applies them in a way that the Catholic Church does not agree with, to put it simply.
An influential figure during the whole start-up of liberation theology was a man named Gustavo Gutierrez who was ordained a Catholic priest in the late 1950s and subsequently published a work titled “Theology of Liberation” in 1971. Mr. Gutierrez was never, despite some wishful thinkers who believe that the Roman Church has fundamental differences with liberation theology, admonished or reprimanded for his work. Why? Because on the whole, this branch of socialism in Latin America seeks to achieve goals which the Catholic Church has always approved of (as we have seen): social justice, the common good, and the universal destination of goods.
Let’s take a look at what John Paul II had to say in an interesting 1986 letter to the bishops in Brazil regarding this issue:
Furthermore, the Vatican itself endorsed the idea of the liberation movement’s “basic communities,” making no move to denounce the economic ideas of liberation theology. In fact, they reiterated its social doctrine as “a set of principles for reflection and criteria for judgment and also directives for action so that the profound changes demanded by situations of poverty and injustice may be brought about…”
My friends, there’s a very important thing that I wish all the high and mighty officials both in the Catholic Church and in governments around the world would realize. And it is this: It is none of their business to try and run people’s lives, even if it’s in an attempt to make life better for them. They certainly don’t have the right to take money and possessions from wealthier citizens and distribute them “evenly” as they see fit among poorer citizens in an effort to equalize the world’s produce so that no one has more or less that he needs.
In Part I we talked about how Aquinas justified theft from wealthier persons, saying that the need of the poorer man automatically forfeited the wealthier man’s possessions. When I first read that I thought, “Nobody would ever have the nerve to actually act based on that belief, would they?” And then it occurred to me that people already have. And they have been for centuries. In the name of universal need, the government even in the United States has taxed the wealthy and put those taxes into universal goods distribution programs known more commonly as welfare, healthcare, food stamps, and the list goes on. The thoughts and writings of Thomas Aquinas are not just these theories to read about and then dismiss as nonsense. They are actually in action all over the world.
I repeat: It is a reality that, in the name of need, men justify theft and most people don’t even recognize it.
This is simply not the Biblical way to approach poverty. It is the individual Christian churches that are to watch over and shepherd their flocks, making sure that no-one is dying of hunger or being turned out in the streets. How do they do this? Charity. Not theft from the richer people in the same church, but charity and love for the person who is struggling. Individual people and business corporations can also, as we can see by looking at different large companies, give funds of their own free will to help those in need.
Heaven forbid if Matthew 25:35 was ever to be rewritten like Thomas Aquinas literature to sound as follows:
I pray it will always be understood just as it is written:
For a final question to advocates of Aquinas' system of beliefs: Why do you think Paul placed such a heavy emphasis on charity (or love, depending on your translation) when he wrote the famous I Corinthians 13 chapter if we are supposed to simply go and take whatever we need?
Okay, to continue just a little bit further with Part 1’s dealings with the Roman Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas’ ideas about the community of goods, allow me to begin this second part with a related quote from the late John Paul II’s 1987 encyclical “On Social Concern”:
“It is necessary to state once more the characteristics principle of Christian social doctrine: the goods of this world are originally meant for all. The right of private property is valid and necessary, but it does not nullify the value of this principle. Private property, in fact, is under a ‘social mortgage,’ which means that it has an intrinsically social function, based upon and justified precisely by the principle of the universal destination of goods.”
Basically, then, Catholics consider a person’s private property as being on loan from the rest of the world’s population. The “universal destination of goods” is an extremely important principle in Roman Catholic economic thought - so important and exalted is this premise, in fact, that Paul VI states that all other rights “whatsoever” are subject to it:
“…each man has therefore the right to find in the world what is necessary for himself. The recent Council [Vatican II] reminded us of this: ‘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.’ All other rights whatsoever, including those of property and of free commerce, are to be subordinated to this principle.” (Paul VI in his 1967 encyclical, “On the Progress of Peoples”)
That last phrase is very important, so read it again: “All other rights whatsoever, including those of property and of free commerce, are to be subordinated to this principle.” I wonder if Paul VI realized just how broad a statement he made. As John Robbins says, “All other rights whatsoever, of course, includes not only the right to private property and the right to free enterprise, but the rights to worship, speak, teach, write think, and publish freely—indeed, the right to life itself.” Do you begin to see the huge significance of this principle of the universal destination of goods in Catholic economic thought? And, to refer back to a statement I made in Part I, it is because they give this principle a place in the natural law that they are able to make statements like the above and the following, extracted from the Second Vatican Council:
“If one is in extreme necessity he has the right to procure for himself what he needs out of the riches of others. Since there are so many people prostrate with hunger in the world, this Sacred Council urges all, both individuals and governments, to remember the aphorism of the Fathers, ‘Feed the man dying of hunger, because if you have not fed him, have you have killed him.’”
There’s that call again that we first heard from Thomas Aquinas to go and simply “procure” whatever you need from the riches of others. Since the Catholic Church believes that private property is categorized in the positive law, they have no trouble at all concluding that it does not have any set, moral foundations backing it up and therefore is subject to human regulations and changes. We all know that complete, world economic equality is a status that is impossible to be reached. Someone will always have a little more of something than someone else. So, since inequality seems to be synonymous with need in the Catholic system from what we have seen so far, and since private property is at all times unequal, it would seem that according to Catholic doctrine, private property is an immoral institution.
Also notice the word “right” in the first sentence of the above quoted section of the Second Vatican Council. A right is something that is given by God and is natural to every man. To say, therefore, that it is the right of every man to take what he needs “out of the riches of others” implies that it was God who instituted such an idea. I find this very difficult to believe since the Bible, which is the Word of God, says nothing of such a right.
Okay, for the rest of Part II, I’d like to talk about how Catholicism and its economical ideas about the community of goods have influenced society within the last hundred or so years specifically. I’ll confine my discussion of this issue to two social establishments in particular:
1. Liberation Theology in Latin America starting in the late 1960s.
2. The Redistributive State and Interventionism found principally in the United States.
I may have to have a Part III here to cover Catholicism’s influence in America, but we’ll see what happens.
Liberation theology, especially in Latin America, is one of the most recent forms of collectivism that the Roman Catholic Church has helped put forth. This so-called “theology” has well been called a form of “Christian Socialism” (Yes, yes, I know, that’s a blatant oxymoron…) since it is, in the words of one scholar, “an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor's suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor.” It focuses on those parts of the Bible that appear to suggest that Christ came to physically liberate the oppressed from poverty and bring justice upon their oppressors. These passages are then sometimes used as justification for using arms and force to bring justice for the poor and suffering people. Some liberation “theologians” even go so far as to supplement the Bible as the sole premise for their actions with a few Marxist doctrines such as perpetual “class struggle” as they seek to find further justification for their beliefs and actions.
Economically and socially speaking, Catholicism completely agrees with what liberation theology is seeking to accomplish, and that is justice for the poor and equality of possessions. The only thing Catholics really disagree with is the secular and materialistic elements of liberation theology. They don’t promote the sometimes violent and extremist application of these ideas. So liberation theology is composed of principles which the Catholic Church agrees with, but it applies them in a way that the Catholic Church does not agree with, to put it simply.
An influential figure during the whole start-up of liberation theology was a man named Gustavo Gutierrez who was ordained a Catholic priest in the late 1950s and subsequently published a work titled “Theology of Liberation” in 1971. Mr. Gutierrez was never, despite some wishful thinkers who believe that the Roman Church has fundamental differences with liberation theology, admonished or reprimanded for his work. Why? Because on the whole, this branch of socialism in Latin America seeks to achieve goals which the Catholic Church has always approved of (as we have seen): social justice, the common good, and the universal destination of goods.
Let’s take a look at what John Paul II had to say in an interesting 1986 letter to the bishops in Brazil regarding this issue:
“The Church does not hesitate to defend fearlessly the just and noble cause of human rights and to support courageous reforms, leading to a better distribution of goods, including earthly goods such as education, health services, housing, and so forth…. We are convinced that the theology of liberation is not only timely but useful and necessary. It should constitute a new stage of the theological reflection initiated with the apostolic tradition and continued by the great Fathers and Doctors, by the Magisterium and by the rich patrimony of the Church’s social doctrine, expressed in documents from Rerum Novarum to Laborem Exercens.”
Furthermore, the Vatican itself endorsed the idea of the liberation movement’s “basic communities,” making no move to denounce the economic ideas of liberation theology. In fact, they reiterated its social doctrine as “a set of principles for reflection and criteria for judgment and also directives for action so that the profound changes demanded by situations of poverty and injustice may be brought about…”
My friends, there’s a very important thing that I wish all the high and mighty officials both in the Catholic Church and in governments around the world would realize. And it is this: It is none of their business to try and run people’s lives, even if it’s in an attempt to make life better for them. They certainly don’t have the right to take money and possessions from wealthier citizens and distribute them “evenly” as they see fit among poorer citizens in an effort to equalize the world’s produce so that no one has more or less that he needs.
In Part I we talked about how Aquinas justified theft from wealthier persons, saying that the need of the poorer man automatically forfeited the wealthier man’s possessions. When I first read that I thought, “Nobody would ever have the nerve to actually act based on that belief, would they?” And then it occurred to me that people already have. And they have been for centuries. In the name of universal need, the government even in the United States has taxed the wealthy and put those taxes into universal goods distribution programs known more commonly as welfare, healthcare, food stamps, and the list goes on. The thoughts and writings of Thomas Aquinas are not just these theories to read about and then dismiss as nonsense. They are actually in action all over the world.
I repeat: It is a reality that, in the name of need, men justify theft and most people don’t even recognize it.
This is simply not the Biblical way to approach poverty. It is the individual Christian churches that are to watch over and shepherd their flocks, making sure that no-one is dying of hunger or being turned out in the streets. How do they do this? Charity. Not theft from the richer people in the same church, but charity and love for the person who is struggling. Individual people and business corporations can also, as we can see by looking at different large companies, give funds of their own free will to help those in need.
Heaven forbid if Matthew 25:35 was ever to be rewritten like Thomas Aquinas literature to sound as follows:
“For I was hungry and I TOOK your food; I was thirsty and I TOOK your drink; I was a stranger and I SECRETLY entered your house.”
I pray it will always be understood just as it is written:
“For I was hungry and you GAVE Me food; I was thirsty and you GAVE Me drink; I was a stranger and YOU took Me in.”Christ did not come bringing socialism, He came bringing salvation. His purpose here on earth was not to create a utopia of equality among men and to apply the universal destination of goods, but to save souls from the eternal fires of hell and to spread love, charity, peace, kindness, and goodwill among men.
For a final question to advocates of Aquinas' system of beliefs: Why do you think Paul placed such a heavy emphasis on charity (or love, depending on your translation) when he wrote the famous I Corinthians 13 chapter if we are supposed to simply go and take whatever we need?
posted by pete | 11:17 AM
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