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A Century of Catholic Social Teaching
By Charles E. Curran

 

“Four areas of concern will need to be dealt with in the future approach of the hierarchical teaching office to the social teaching of the Church in the area of social-ethical methodologies: an explicitly Christian approach as contrasted with an inclusively human approach, an emphasis on an organic and ordered society as distinguished from a more conflictual model, a multiplicity of different methodological approaches, and the discrepancy between the ethical methodologies currently employed in Catholic social teachings and in teachings on sexual issues. “

On May 15, 1891, Pope Leo XXIII issued an encyclical Rerum Novarum on the condition of workers.¹ This encyclical letter marked the beginning of a series of documents of the hierarchical Roman Catholic Church that have now come to be known as modern Catholic social teaching.² The centenary of this body of

Charles E. Curran is the newly appointed Scurlock Professor of Human Values at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. For several years, he was Professor of Moral Theology at The Catholic University of America, Washington, but in 1986, because of his controversial views on sexual ethics, he was forbidden by the Vatican to teach moral theology. In the meantime, he served as Visiting Professor of Catholic Studies at Cornell University, and, more recently, as Eminent Scholar in Religion at Auburn University, Alabama. Once again, he became the center of controversy when the university president, James A. Martin, for undisclosed reasons, rescinded the original tenure invitation. Dr. Curran is the author of several works on moral theology and ethics, including an essay, “Catholic Social and Sexual Teaching: A Methodological Comparison,” in THEOLOGY TODAY (Jan. 1988). This present essay is a revised version of Dr. Curran's presidential address at the 1990 Princeton meeting of the American Theological Society.
¹Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novaruma, in David M. Byers, ed., Justice in the Marketplace: Collected Statements of the Vatican and the United States Catholic Bishops on Economic Policy, 1891-1984 (Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 1985), pp. 9-41.
² There is no official canon, , but the following documents are usually regarded as basic: Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891); Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (1931); Pope John XXIII, Mater et Magistra (1961); Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris (1963); Vatican Council II Gaudium et Spes (1965); Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio (1967); Pope Paul VI, Octogesima Adveniens (1971); Synod of Bishops, Justitia in Mundo (1971); Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975); Pope John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis (1979); Pope John Paul II Laborem Exercens (1981); Pope John Paul II Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987). David M. Byers, ed., Justice in the Marketplace contains all the documents except for the last one. Other collections include: Joseph Gremillion, ed., The Gospel of Peace and Justice Catholic Social Teaching Since Pope John (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1976); David J. O'Brien and Thomas A. Shannon, eds., Renewing the Face of the Earth: Catholic Documents on Peace, Justice, and Liberation (Garden City: Doubleday Image Books, 1977); Michael Walsh and Brian Davies, eds., Proclaiming Justice and Peace, Documents from John XXIII - John Paul II (Mystic, Conn.: Twenty-third Publications, 1984).

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official social teaching provides the occasion for an evaluation. In general, the approach of these documents can be described as moderate reforming. Official Catholic social teaching usually does not take a radical approach to social teaching in terms of proposing completely new and different structures. This reforming approach coheres within many emphases in the Catholic theological tradition.

This evaluation of a hundred years of official Catholic social teaching will concentrate on the future, but I claim no ability to know what the future holds. My analysis will be much more modest than attempting to predict what will happen. This essay will raise up some unresolved tensions in official Catholic social teaching at the present time that will have a bearing on the future direction of the teaching. The material will be discussed under three headings: theological aspects, ecclesiological aspects, and the methodology of social ethics.

I

Eschatology and anthropology. Eschatological and anthropological approaches result in differing perspectives on what might be called a more optimistic or a more pessimistic view of the world. A more realized eschatology and a Christian anthropology that recognizes a true goodness in creation and the presence of redemption even now overcoming the power of sin will tend to come down on the more optimistic side. An eschatology that contrasts the present and the future and an anthropology that gives more significance to sin will be more pessimistic about human life in this world and the possibility of justice and reform.

Almost by definition, the natural law methodology that served as the basis for this official teaching through the early 1960s tends to be a more optimistic view. Human beings on the basis of human reason examining human nature and the world are able to discover what is just and right. Pacem in Terris, the last document (1963) to use an exclusively natural law approach, can be criticized for what has been called a natural law optimism. Pacem in Terris bases its approach on the order that the Creator has imprinted on the human heart and that conscience reveals and calls for acceptance.³ But disorder, sin, pride, and other evils also exist in the human heart and in human society because of which we are not able to live in peace and harmony with one another. The very title of the encyclical indicates optimism, but then and even now one could perhaps just as easily write an encyclical entitled War in the World. Although there have been no worldwide conflicts, wars have frequently been waged in all parts of our world.⁴

³ Pacem in Terris, pars. 5-7; Byers, p. 151.
⁴ This very point was made in a fascinating Vatican document of lesser importance that points out changes that occurred in the ten years since the publication of Pacem in Terris. See Cardinal Maurice Roy, “Reflections on the Occasion of the Tenth Anniversary of the Encyclical Pacem in Terris of Pope John XXIII,” (April 11, 1973), pars. 91, 92, in Gremillion, p. 548.

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The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World integrated the natural law into a more theological approach but still came out on the optimistic side.⁵ The eschatology definitely is realized, with the emphasis being on Christ who has come now as the new human being. The future aspect of the reign of God does not receive enough attention in the theoretical part of this document.⁶ The general evolutionary and developmental tones of the document follow from such a perspective.

Later documents have recognized, in theory, a greater presence of sin and have been strong in pointing out many of the problems and difficulties in the world. The survey of the contemporary world in Pope John Paul II's latest social encyclical, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987), spends twelve paragraphs dealing with the negative characteristics of the contemporary world, especially the widening gap between the north and the south that shows in so many different ways.⁷ Only one long paragraph is devoted to the positive aspects of the contemporary scene.⁸ In this context of a mainly negative picture of the present, John Paul II insists that the church must strongly affirm the possibility of overcoming the obstacles, which by excess or by defect stand in the way of development and true liberation. This affirmation is grounded in an anthropology that has confidence in humanity despite the presence and power of sin. The necessary qualities and energies exist in humans who are created in the image of God, placed under the empowering influences of Christ, and aided by the efficacious action of the Holy Spirit.⁹ One can accurately describe the approach found in these later documents as cautious or realistic optimism about human beings and human possibilities in the social order.

In the future, official Catholic social teaching must be willing to recognize the growing diversity within Roman Catholicism on the questions of anthropology and eschatology. A comparatively small but very significant Catholic social movement in the United States is the Catholic Worker Movement, originally founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. The movement, with its emphasis on voluntary poverty, witness, and pacifism, has been more negative in its view of the world and emphasizes the future aspect of eschatology.¹⁰ In the area of war,

⁵ For a fuller development of this point, see my Directions in Catholic Social Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), pp. 43-69
⁶ The future aspect of eschatology and the reign of God is absent from chapters 1 and 2 of Part I of Gaudium et Spes (pars. 22 and 32), but the future aspect is recognized in chapter 3 (par. 39). See Gremillion, pp. 260-261, 268, 273-274.
⁷ John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1987), pars. 14-25, pp. 21-43.
⁸ Ibid., par. 26, pp. 43-46.
⁹ Ibid., par. 47, pp. 94-95.
¹⁰ See William D. Miller, A Harsh and Dreadful Love: Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement (Garden City: Doubleday Image Books, 1974); William D. Miller, Dorothy Day.- A Biography (New York: Harper and Row, 1982).

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Catholic social teaching has now come to accept the more radical position of nonviolence as a legitimate option in some circumstances.¹¹ Similar recognition must also come in the area of social and economic teaching.

Christology. Christology has assumed a larger place in Catholic social teaching since the Vatican Council II introduced a more explicitly theological approach to social teaching. The Christology employed in recent church documents, especially those of John Paul II, is a Christology from above or a descending Christology. This has been the traditional approach in Roman Catholicism with its roots in the Johannine understanding and in the formulations of Chalcedon. Christ is the preexisting Logos who took on a human nature and saved us by the paschal mystery. Individual human beings share in the salvation brought by Jesus and in the satisfaction he wrought on the cross. Such a soteriology abstracts from the concrete historical and social realities; salvation is the gift communicated through the incarnation and redemption to all humankind.

John Paul II's first encyclical as pope was entitled Redemptor Hominis, the Redeemer of Humankind. Christ the redeemer of the world is the one who penetrated in a unique and unrepeatable way into the mystery of human beings and entered into the human heart. The pope then cites Vatican Council II to indicate that only in the mystery of the incarnate word does the mystery of the human being take on light. Christ as the new Adam in the revelation of the mystery of God, and of God's love, fully reveals the human person to oneself and brings to light the high human calling. By the incarnation, the Son of God in a certain way is united with every human being.¹²

Such a Christology has a different emphasis and different ramifications from the method of a Christology from below. A Christology from below begins with the historical Jesus and his life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Such a Christology is well exemplified in the work of Edward Schillebeeckx, which gives greater importance to the humanity of Jesus and brings Christology into heavy dependence on the Scriptures and their understanding today. Soteriology in this perspective is very concrete and social.¹³ Liberation theology exemplifies the emphasis of a Christology from below. Jesus is identified with the poor, the oppressed, the victims, and the outcast. Those who opposed Jesus were the powerful in society, but Jesus always sided with the victims. Discipleship calls for the Christian to follow Jesus and to carry on his work. Soteriology is very concrete and social. Such a Christology calls for an ever closer link between faith and daily life, between theory and practice. Jesus as a sign of contradiction provokes opposition and division. The abstract and ahistorical character of salvation gives way

¹¹ Gaudium et Spes, par. 78; Gremillion, p. 315.
¹² John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, par. 8; Walsh and Davies, p. 246.
¹³ Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (New York: Crossroad, 1981).

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to very concrete and historical approaches.¹⁴ In the future, Catholic social teaching must give more importance to a Christology from below that will also entail recognizing the different ramifications of such an approach.

II

The ecclesiological aspects of Catholic social teaching will also call for attention in the future. Here we consider five aspects of ecclesiology-the church-sect typology, universal and particular aspects of the church, the process of formulating official church teaching, the tension between the church as mission and as institution, and justice within the church.

The church-sect typology. In the view of Ernst Troeltsch and Max Weber, the sect is understood as a small, exclusive, religious group emphasizing rigorous ethical standards and seeing itself in opposition to the world and to the culture with a determination not to compromise its ideals. The church, on the other hand, is a universal community, open to embrace all, calling its members to live in the world and to transform it. Such an institution promotes a social teaching to guide life in this world where members of the church work together with others for a more just human society. By definition, such an approach is less rigorous and less radical than the sect type. Troeltsch rightly saw in Roman Catholicism the best illustration of the church type. Official Catholic social teaching in the last century well exemplifies the church type, for such teaching is proposed for members of the Catholic Church and for all other people of good will in an attempt to create and work for a more just society.¹⁵

In the last few decades, there have been developments within Catholicism that resemble the sect type. Nonviolence and pacifism have definitely become more influential in Catholic contemporary life, although, traditionally, these approaches have been associated with the sects. For the first time in modern Catholicism, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World recognized that, in the Catholic approach, individuals but not nations might opt for nonviolence. But this document immediately adds a condition to its acceptance of nonviolence that clearly shows unwillingness to embrace a sectarian understanding. Nonviolence is praiseworthy “provided that this can be done without injury to the rights and duties of others or of the community itself.”¹⁶ The American Catholic bishops in their 1983 letter on peace and war went even further for they put no conditions

¹⁴ Jon Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1978); Matthew Lamb, Solidarity with Victims (New York: Crossroad, 1982).
¹⁵ Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, 2 vols. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960). Troeltsch distinguishes three main sociological types-the church, the sect, and mysticism.
¹⁶ Gaudium et Spes, par. 78; Gremillion, p. 315.

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on the acceptance of nonviolence by individuals.¹⁷ Catholic life and experience in America have witnessed a greater emphasis on pacifism and also seen other approaches having some similarities to traditional sectarian options. The Catholic Worker Movement is a good illustration of this emphasis with its voluntary poverty, pacifism, and personalism.

In the future, Catholic social teaching will have to recognize a greater pluralism in this area. The church type must be big enough to incorporate some aspects traditionally associated with the sect. Does that mean that Catholicism will become both a church and a sect at one and the same time? How can these diverse aspects within Roman Catholicism be understood and explained?

The Troeltschean church-sect typology, like most typologies, has often been blurred in practice. Perhaps such a typology is not the most useful way to understand how Catholicism can incorporate within itself some approaches that seem to have affinities with traditional sectarian attitudes. In my own judgment, Catholicism can never withdraw from the world and consider its own existence as a community apart from the world and life in the world. By its very nature, Catholicism emphasizes the universal, and its involvement in the world.

Perhaps these developments now, and even more so in the future, can be understood in categories somewhat different from the churchsect typology. Some have seen monasticism in Catholicism as an illustration of a sectarian approach. H. Richard Niebuhr in his classical study, Christ and Culture, put monasticism into the type of “Christ against culture.”¹⁸ But I do not think that monasticism really fits into that category. To understand monasticism as a flight from the world is not accurate. I have often mused that some of the best liqueurs and wines in the world have been named after monks and monasteries. Monks believed in celebrations and recognized that good wine and good food should be appropriate elements of their celebrations. Medieval monks were devoted to scholarship and preserved in art and manuscript much of the culture of the Western world. Contemporary monks, such as Thomas Merton, have not seen the cloister as a Right from the world.¹⁹

I understand monasticism to emphasize and bear witness to important attributes that will also have a bearing and influence on the world. The traditional religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience involve a commitment to three very significant attitudes or values in the Christian approach that also has importance and significance for the world. So, too, some are called to bear witness to peace through a

¹⁷ National Conference of Catholic Bishops, “The Pastoral Letter on War and Peace: The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response,” par. 118, Origins 13 (1983):12
¹⁸ H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1975), pp. 56ff.
¹⁹ Michael Mott, The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984).

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commitment to pacifism. Such an emphasis would not necessarily involve a “Christ against culture” typology or a flight from the world. In fact, such a witness tries to speak to the world and to be recognized.

Now and increasingly so in the future, Catholicism should embrace attitudes and approaches that have often been associated with sects. But I do not think Catholicism should become sectarian in terms of seeing itself as an isolated community over against the world. Nonviolence, voluntary poverty, and other similar approaches can be understood in a way that sees the church as relating to and trying to bring about greater justice in the world.

The church: universal and particular. Another important aspect of ecclesiology involves the universal and the particular, or local, aspects of the church. Catholicism has traditionally stressed the church universal. But since Vatican Council II, more emphasis has been given to local churches and to regional and national groups of churches. Catholicism will always have a petrine office but it must be seen together with bishops in individual dioceses and with the whole college of bishops in union with the bishop of Rome. These hierarchical officers, in turn, must be seen as serving the entire people of God, for the church is primarily and above all the people of God. At the present time, Roman authorities are insisting on a very centralized understanding of the church, but I hope that in the future greater acceptance will be given to local and national church bodies.²⁰

A greater importance to local, national, and regional churches has been very evident in Catholic social teaching. The bishops of Latin America have issued many significant documents on liberation theology, beginning with the Medellin documents in 1968. These writings have set the tone for the pastoral and social involvement of the church in Latin America in the last few decades.²¹ Similar pastoral documents have been issued by other groups of bishops throughout the world. The American Catholic bishops have come out with documents on social questions during this past century. However, the process, timeliness, and content of their recent pastoral letters on peace and the economy have given great public attention to these documents.²² On the issue of peace and war, many other bishops' conferences also issued pastoral

²⁰ For the contemporary debate about the role of national conferences of bishops, see Thomas J. Reese, ed., Episcopal Conferences: Historical, Canonical, and Theological Studies (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1989).
²¹ Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops, The Church in the Present-Day Transformation of Latin America in the Light of the Council, vol. 2: Conclusions (Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 1973); John Eagleson and Philip Scharper, eds., Puebla and Beyond (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1979).
²² For a collection of earlier statements by the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States, see J. Brian Benestad and Francis J. Butler, eds., Quest for Justice: A Compendium of Statements of the United States Catholic Bishops on the Political and Social Order 1966-1980 (Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 1981); “The Pastoral Letter on War and Peace,” Origins 13 (1983): 1-32; National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All; Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy (Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 1986).

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letters about the same time as the one proposed by the United States bishops.²³

The ecclesiological emphasis on the local, national, and regional church coheres with the ethical recognition of the growing diversity throughout the world and the difficulty of making statements that have applicability all over the world. Here, too, one can note a growing recognition of this problem in the documents themselves. In 1931, Pope Pius XI proposed a plan for the reconstruction of the social order that he thought could be implemented throughout the world. This plan, which was often called moderate corporatism or solidarism, was seen as a model to avoid the problems of both socialism and capitalism.²⁴

Within thirty years, it was recognized that such a plan was not workable.²⁵ Contemporary Catholic social teaching has not attempted to produce a plan or a blueprint that could be followed throughout the world but has proposed a set of criteria based on human dignity and human rights to evaluate and reform existing systems.²⁶ In his apostolic letter, Octogesima Adveniens, Paul VI was forthright: “In the face of such widely varying situations, it is difficult for us to utter a unified message and to put forward a solution which has universal validity. Such is not our ambition nor is it our mission. It is up to the Christian communities to analyze with objectivity the situation which is proper to their own country, to shed on it the light of the gospel's unalterable word, and to draw principles of reflection, norms of judgment, and directives for action from the social teaching of the church.”²⁷ In the future, it seems that a greater role must be given to local communities without, however, denying some place for more universal documents and statements.

Both contemporary Catholic ecclesiology, despite some reservations in Rome, and the diversity existing in our world point toward an approach that has long been associated with Catholic social teaching about the political order, namely, the principle of subsidiarity. According to this principle, the higher and more universal level should only intervene when the smaller and more local level cannot manage the task. The principle of subsidiarity in social morality tries to give a proper place to the role of individuals, of voluntary societies, and of local, state, and federal governments.²⁸ In the future, a similar

²³ For the text and commentaries on the letters by the West German and French bishops, see James V. Schall, ed., Out of Justice, Peace; Winning the Peace (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1984).
²⁴ Quadragesimo Anno, pars. 76-98; Byers, pp. 67-73.
²⁵ Richard L. Camp, The Papal Ideology of Social Reform: A Study in Historical Development, 1878-1967 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969), pp. 128-135.
²⁶ David Hollenbach, Justice, Peace, and Human Rights; American Catholic Social Ethics in a Pluralistic World (New York: Crossroad, 1988), especially pp. 87-100.
²⁷ Octogesima Adveniens, par. 4; Byers, p. 225.
²⁸ Quadragesimo Anno, par. 79; Byers p. 68; Mater et Magistra, pars. 53-58; Byers, pp. 114-115. Note that Mater et Magistra recognizes a need for a greater state intervention in the light of growing complexities and problems.

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approach should exist in Catholic ecclesiology and in the formation of Catholic social teaching despite present reservations in Rome. In an ideal future, I would also see the possibility that at times statements of regional or national churches might question and disagree with official Catholic teaching on the universal level. The collegiality of bishops will not be a reality in the Catholic Church until groups of bishops or individual bishops can publicly disagree with official church teaching that is not core and central to the faith.

The formulation of official church teachings. Official Catholic social teaching has always seen itself as speaking for the whole church as social teaching of the World Council of Churches sees itself as speaking to the church.²⁹ The Catholic approach claims to teach in a binding manner for the whole church, but I think it is fair to say that often the World Council of Churches' documents have been more prophetic and more specific because they do not see themselves as speaking for the whole church. Prophetic is a word that is often used and abused, but official teachers in the Catholic Church must be circumspect in what they say precisely because they are speaking for the church. There is always need to speak to the church, but that is not the primary pastoral teaching ministry of pope and bishops as employed in Catholic social teaching.

More attention must be given in the future to how universal teaching is composed, especially if it is meant to speak for the whole church. Papal documents up to now have usually been written in secret by only one or a few advisers. Some years ago, Oswald Von Nell-Breuning, the German Jesuit, told how he was commissioned to write what became Pope Pius XI's 1931 encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno. Von Nell-Breuning was not able to enlist any other collaborators in his work.³⁰ The United States bishops in their pastoral letters on peace and the economy offered an excellent example of a participative, open, and public way of composing church documents that better corresponds with an understanding of official teaching in the service of the entire people of God. An ecclesiology that emphasizes the church as the people of God can be seen in the composition of these pastoral letters. The drafting committees consulted widely with all interested parties and then made drafts public so that the whole world could comment on them. The process itself has turned out to be an excellent instrumentality, perhaps even as important as the final documents themselves.³¹

In the future, documents from the universal teaching office need to

²⁹ For a comparison of official Catholic social teaching and the statements of the World Council of Churches, see Thomas Sieger Derr, Barriers to Ecumenism: The Holy See and the World Council of Churches on Social Questions (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1983).
³⁰ Oswald von Nell-Breuning, “The Drafting of Quadragesimo Anno,” in Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick, Readings in Moral Theology No. 5; Official Catholic Social Teaching (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), pp. 60-68.
³¹ For a description of the process and the debates involved in the drafting of the pastoral letter on peace and war, see Jim Castelli, The Bishops and the Bomb: Waging Peace in a Nuclear Age (Garden City: Doubleday Image Books, 1983).

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be written and developed with a greater participation of and collaboration with the whole people of God. If documents speak for the church, they must be owned by the whole church. The church must educate its own members about its teachings. The question of handing on the faith to all the people of God, and especially to the younger generation has become a very significant issue in the life of the contemporary church.

The church as mission and as institution. A fourth ecclesiological problem for the future of official Catholic social teaching on the universal level concerns the tension between the church as mission and the church as institution. The tension has appeared many times in the past. To protect the church as an institution, some measures are taken that appear to be opposed to the church's mission. Perhaps the most celebrated example of this tension was the failure of church officials and others to speak out on the Holocaust. Church statements, if they speak for the gospel and out of the gospel, will at times criticize existing power structures and perpetrators of injustice and oppression. Such statements will not be well received by those who are so challenged. From my perspective, the church as institution is not something necessarily bad or negative. Catholic theology insists on the church as a visible human community. But at times, the urge for survival of the institution as institution can and does interfere with the true mission of the church.

A somewhat analogous question is the relationship between the church as church with its social mission and the church as a temporal society that is part of the diplomatic world of sovereign states. The dual role of the papacy as the center of unity of the universal church and as a temporal ruler creates a tension that can readily cause conflicts of interest. As a temporal ruler, for example, it is recognized that the pope must receive other heads of states and relate to them diplomatically, even if one might have strong disagreements with the policies of a particular person or government.

This particular tension would go away if the Vatican ceased stressing its double identity. I think that the Catholic Church would be better off if it retained only its unique religious identity and did not also insist that it is a sovereign state. The tensions between being a church and being a state are obvious and at times can easily distract from the religious mission of the church.

Justice in the church. Only in 1971 did official Catholic social teaching acknowledge the connection between justice in the world and justice in the church, The synod of bishops in 1971 recognized “that anyone who ventures to speak to people about justice must first be just in their eyes.” This document goes on to specify such subjects as the protection of the rights of all in the church, fair wages and working conditions for church employees, the right of women to participate in the life of the community, the right to suitable freedom of expression and thought,

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and justice that is speedy and gives the accused the right to know the accusers.³²

The ethical reasons for this recognition are obvious. One cannot preach to others what one does not practice. Pre-Vatican II ecclesiology did not and could not take such an approach. If the church is a perfect society, then there is no need for self-criticism. Vatican II emphasized the pilgrim nature of the church and to some extent even the sinful nature of the church. The human and sinful aspects of the church constantly call for criticism and conversion.

The need for the church to be critical about its own witness to peace, poverty, and justice will become even more prominent in the future. Many Catholics today do not think that the church itself lives up to what was said by the synod of bishops in 1971. At the present time and even more so in the future, the role of women in the church will be seen as a justice issue despite official denials to the contrary.

III

Four areas of concern will need to be dealt with in the future approach of the hierarchical teaching office to the social teaching of the Church in the area of social-ethical methodologies: an explicitly Christian approach as contrasted with an inclusively human approach, an emphasis on an organic and ordered society as distinguished from a more conflictual model, a multiplicity of different methodological approaches, and the discrepancy between the ethical methodologies currently employed in Catholic social teachings and teachings on sexual issues.

An explicitly Christian approach or an inclusively human approach. The papal encyclicals in the line of official modern Catholic social teaching until Pacem in Terris of John XXIII in 1963 employed a natural law approach. The basis for such a methodology is the doctrine of creation. The Creator has imprinted in human nature and in creation an order that human reason is able to discern and so human beings must act in accord with God's purpose .³³ Traditionally, Catholic ethics has been associated with such an approach. Natural law is a very complex principle, but one aspect concerns the difference between the theology and the philosophy of natural law. The theological aspect responds to the question of where do the Christian and Christian ethics find wisdom and knowledge. The answer: human nature reflecting on human nature arrives at ethical wisdom and knowledge. The Christian, the church, and moral theology do not have to appeal directly and immediately to the Bible or to specifically Christian sources of ethical wisdom and knowledge.

At Vatican II, a change occurred. In general, the Vatican Council II gave greater emphasis to the role of Scripture in the life, teaching, and

³² Justitia in Mundo, in Byers, p. 257.
³³ Pacem in Terris, pars. 5-7; Byers, p. 15 1.

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worship of the church. The council also called for moral theology to be more fully nourished by Scripture.³⁴ More specifically, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern World deplored the split between faith and daily life.³⁵ The pastoral constitution itself adopted a more explicitly Christian theological methodology by incorporating soteriology, Christology, and eschatology into its theological anthropology. Subsequent documents of official Catholic social teaching have continued to employ a more explicitly Christian theological approach but without denying an insistence on human reason.

The advantages and disadvantages of the two different approaches are obvious. The explicitly Christian methodology directly and immediately links Catholic social teaching to the life of faith and also to the worship of the community. Social ethics and the social mission of the church are seen as constitutive dimensions of what it means to be Christian and Catholic. But even here, very little has been done to integrate liturgy and the social teaching of the church. Such a lacuna probably comes from the division and compartmentalization that have separated social ethics from liturgy. When Catholics wanted to adopt a more explicitly theological perspective, they could and did learn much from the existing Protestant social ethical tradition, which appealed to Scripture and to specifically Christian sources, but it was not part of the Protestant tradition to appeal to the relationship of liturgy and sacraments to social teaching. Even within the more explicitly theological approach, Catholic social teaching in the future needs to give more importance to this connection between life and worship.

On the other hand, such a distinctively Christian approach loses the inclusivism of the natural law approach. Such a method is based primarily upon human reason and thus in principle open to all human beings. To bring about social change and moral reform, especially in our pluralistic society, Catholics and all Christians must be willing to work together with other people and believers. Christians alone can never accomplish the task. The natural law methodology appeals to all humankind and facilitates conversation, dialogue, and cooperation with all in the common effort to bring about greater justice in the world.

Cooperation and conflict. The Catholic social ethics tradition long before 1891 insisted on an organic understanding of society. Catholic ethics emphasized that the state is a natural society insofar as human beings are called by nature to enter into social and political society in order to achieve their own good and fulfillment. This view understands society as an organism with all the different parts working together for the good of the whole. Such a view is opposed to all philosophical and societal positions that view political society as an evil restricting the

³⁴ Decree on Priestly Formation, par. 16, in Walter M. Abbott, ed., The Documents Of Vatican II (New York: Guild Press, 1966), p. 452.
³⁵ Gaudium et Spes, par. 43; Abbott, p. 243.

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freedom of the individual. The Catholic organic view often appealed to the metaphor of the body with the hierarchical ordering of all the parts working together for the good of the whole .³⁶ The moderate corporatism and solidarism that Pope Pius XI proposed for the economic order reflects such an organic position. Capital and labor should not be in opposition to one another, but all interested persons should work together harmoniously for the common good.

The traditional Catholic emphasis on an organic, hierarchically structured civil society explains the reluctance of Roman Catholic thought to accept democracy and basic human freedoms and rights. Catholics felt that democracy and human freedoms and rights were too individualistic and would result in corrosive and negative effects on the community. Pope Pius XII was the first Catholic pope to show a preference for democracy over all other forms of government.³⁷ It was only in 1965 that the Declaration on Religious Freedom of the Vatican Council II accepted religious freedom.³⁸ Pope John XXIII in 1963 in Pacem in Terris, proposed the first detailed explanation of human rights in official Catholic social teaching. To its credit, Pacem in Terris, also included social and economic rights, such as rights to food, clothing, and shelter as well as political and civil rights that were central to Enlightenment thinking.³⁹ Eventually, Catholic social teaching accepted freedom, equality, and participation as important aspects of the common good of society.⁴⁰ But even here, the Catholic tradition insists not only on “freedom from” but also on “freedom to.” Likewise, rights exist together with corresponding duties.

The heavy emphasis in the Catholic organic view of society was on order, cooperation, and working together for the common good, but conflict was not completely denied. The broader Catholic ethical tradition accepted killing in self-defense, the just war theory, and even tyrannicide. Official Catholic social teaching from its very beginning with Rerum Novarum in 1891 sanctioned the right of workers to organize and to work for their own betterment. Note that the emphasis of Catholic social ethics and of the official Catholic social teaching on order and harmony and the down-playing of conflict also coheres with Catholic ecclesiology. The church is universal and is called to embrace all who should be able to find a home in the church where they can live together in mutual love and respect. In theory, the church has never ceased to point out that in Christ Jesus, there is neither rich nor poor, male nor female, Jew nor gentile.

In recent times, more conflictual approaches have come to the fore. In the United States, perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Catholic

³⁶ For a classical understanding of the state in Catholic tradition, see Heinrich Rommen, The State in Catholic Thought (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1945).
³⁷ Donal Dorr, Option for the Poor A Hundred Years of Vatican Social Teaching (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1983), pp. 76-79.
³⁸ Abbott, pp. 675-696.
³⁹ Pacem in Terfis, pars. 9-45; Byers, pp. 151-159.
⁴⁰ Octogesima Adveniens, par. 22; Byers, pp. 234-235.

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social action has been the community organization approach developed by Saul Alinsky and now heavily supported by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Conflictual tactics have been a primary method employed by such groups. Catholic social ethics has given scant attention to what has probably been the most distinctive Catholic social action taking place in the United States today. In the 1950s, when Alinsky was actually working primarily with Catholic organizations in Chicago, some Protestant clergy and theologians strongly criticized his controversial tactics. Later, many Protestant thinkers and activists strongly supported the Alinsky method. The best illustration of a conflictual method in contemporary Catholic social ethics is the liberation theology that has emerged in Latin America.⁴¹

In the future, there will probably be a greater emphasis on more conflictual approaches. How can such an emphasis co-exist with the more organic society approach? First of all, the organic society approach has been modified somewhat over the years, as is evident in the greater recognition given to democracy, freedom, and human rights in the contemporary Catholic tradition. But the emphasis on people called to live in a community that seeks the common good flowing back to the good of the individuals has continued to be a fundamental position in official Catholic social teaching. I do not see how the Catholic tradition could ever adopt a totally conflictual view of civil society., There should be more emphasis on conflict as a tactic but not as an ultimate reality. Some conflict can be good and necessary as a means to a more just and fair social order. Gregory Baum, for example, has proposed a theory of partial solidarity that avoids the problems created by theories of class conflict.⁴² The organic model of society will continue to be modified but the basic emphasis on a communitarian understanding of human beings and society will remain.

Pluralism of social-ethical methodologies. Until the 1960s, Catholic social teaching insisted on a rather monolithic neo-scholastic natural law methodology. More recently, Catholic theology in general no longer claims to operate out of a perennial philosophy. From a theological perspective, official Catholic social teaching no longer employs a natural law aspect but has brought in appeals to scriptural and theological warrants. From the philosophical perspective, more recent documents employ a greater personalism, as illustrated in John Paul II's many writings, for example, Laborem Exercens, that emphasizes the person and the subjective aspect of work over the objective aspect of the work done.⁴³ A greater historical consciousness, with its use of a more inductive methodology, became more apparent in the tradition culminating in Octogesima Adveniens of Pope Paul VI, which

⁴¹ P. David Finks, The Radical Vision of Saul Alinsky (New York, Paulist Press, 1984) and Sanford D. Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel; Saul Alinsky-His Life and Legacy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989).
⁴² Gregory Baum, Theology and Society (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), pp. 32-47
⁴³ Laborem Exercens, par. 35; Byers, pp. 315-316.

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also employed the philosophical concepts of utopia.⁴⁴ John Paul II does not seem to be as open to historical consciousness as Paul VI.

The method of liberation theology is quite different from the method employed in the social encyclicals. Liberation theologians emphasize praxis, commitment, and a theological-liberative hermeneutics. In a recent book with a more conciliatory tone, Leonardo and Clodovis Boff insist on a very complementary relationship between official Catholic social teaching and liberation theology. The two sets of discourse operate on different levels and have different objectives. “But to the extent that the social teaching of the church provides broad guidelines for Christian social activity, liberation theology tries, on the one hand, to integrate these guidelines into its own synthesis, and, on the other, to clarify them in a creative manner for the specific context of the third world.”⁴⁵ I think such an understanding too readily passes over the glaring differences in the methodological approaches.

In the future, the greater pluralism of methodologies in Catholic social ethics will cause more strains for official Catholic social teachings on a universal level. Catholic social teaching obviously must choose one or another methodological approach. In the world of growing diversity in methodologies, it will be more difficult to propose official Catholic social teaching for the whole church.

Discrepancies between methodologies in Catholic social and sexual teaching. As noted earlier, official Catholic social teaching endorses a moderate or realistic optimism in its approach to questions of society. Such an approach has a basis in the anthropology, eschatology, and ecclesiology found in these documents. But the official documents proposing Catholic sexual teaching have a very different tone. Here the teaching of the Church is often proposed as countercultural and a sign of contradiction. The Church says “yes” to the “no” of the world. Catholic teaching is also described as being prophetic to show that it stands out from and is opposed to the teaching often found in the world. Pope John Paul II employs such an approach regarding artificial contraception and other Catholic positions in the sexual area.⁴⁶ The irony is that such teachings also claimed to be based on natural law available to all. One can readily see that a good way to defend church teaching that is not accepted by most people is to claim that the gospel, which is the basis for such teaching, is countercultural and will often be seen in opposition with the mores of the time. Such a practical defense and shoring up of the teaching raises questions of consistency both with the natural law basis for such teaching and with the attitude to the world found in official Catholic social teaching.

The more philosophical aspects of the methodologies of the two different types of documents also differ significantly. The documents

⁴⁴ Octogesima Adveniens, par. 37; Byers, pp. 239-240.
⁴⁵ Leonardo Boff and Clodovis Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988), p. 37.
⁴⁶ Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, pars. 29-30, pp. 47-49.

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proposing social teaching have gradually adopted a more personalistic, historically conscious, and relationality-responsibility approach to ethics. Official sexual teachings rely on a methodology that is more naturalistic, classicist, and legalistic. The differences in the methodological approaches are glaring.⁴⁷ We can grant that there are differences between personal and social ethics, but methodological differences cannot be easily explained. In the future, Catholic teaching will have to come to grips with the reality of these contrasts.

The tension between the methodology of personal or sexual ethics, on the one hand, and of social ethics, on the other hand, also exists in the world of Catholic moral theology in general as distinguished from official hierarchical teaching. For example, a recent reader in fundamental moral theology uses many different articles from different authors, but for the most part there is unanimity in proposing a more transcendental methodological approach with its emphasis on the subject.⁴⁸ Such an approach is not well suited to social ethics and is ordinarily not employed in social ethics. By its very nature, social ethics deals with the subject matter of the structures of society and ways to bring about structural change. Catholic moral theology, and not just Catholic official teachings, must face the problem of discrepancies and the clear differences of approach in the methodologies used in the personal sphere and in the social sphere.

⁴⁷ Charles E. Curran, “Catholic Social and Sexual Teaching: A Methodological Comparison,” THEOLOGY TODAY (Jan. 1988): pp. 425-440.

⁴⁸ Ronald P. Hamel and Kenneth R. Himes, eds., An Introduction to Christian Ethics; A Reader (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 49-307.