In the turmoil of the end of the 19th Century Catholic Social Teaching (CST) was expressed in an encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. John W. Miller reports on the America Magazine website that he learned 10 things in a year of writing about the economy through the prism of Catholic social teaching.
Catholic Social Teaching Review
In a remarkable book scheduled to appear in January, Cathonomics (Georgetown University Press), Tony Annett, a former speechwriter for the International Monetary Fund and an Irish Catholic, traces the roots of Catholic social teaching from ancient Greek philosophy through Thomas Aquinas to Pope Leo XIII’s “Rerum Novarum” (1891).
1. Wages need to go up.
The biggest issue that bedeviled people in our economy was insufficient pay. .. a high-profile effort by some chief executive officers and companies to team up with the Vatican to promote changes to their business practices. Thus far, the Council for Inclusive Capitalism says it has “487 commitments from 200 organizations.” But only two private employers, Bank of America and the energy company BP, have promised the concrete thing that will really make a difference, wage increases. 1
2. Unions are back.
Some two-thirds of Americans “approve” of labor unions... “Unions lift up workers, both union and non-union, and especially Black and brown workers,” said President Biden, who is the most pro-union president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Leo XIII “correctly saw unions as necessary for protecting the dignity and rights of workers and their families, given that capitalists, who hold an imbalance of power over workers, often do not give workers their just due,” 1
3. Forgiveness creates prosperity.
What really changed the life of Ray Miles, an ex-prisoner and activist in Pittsburgh, was getting a full-time job that guaranteed income for the next 12 months. Many companies and governments refuse to hire ex-prisoners, keeping them stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty and crime. Coming out of jail is “like being in critical condition,” said Mr. Miles. “You need life support.”1
4. We need to save local news.
In a chaotic world, communities need local journalism. As Pope Francis said in a 2019 speech, local news helps citizens address “the same reality” and it spotlights “poverty, challenges [and] sometimes urgent issues” in families, neighborhoods and workplaces.1
5. Learning history can lead to justice.
Telling the story of our past can lead to justice. A moving example of this is the private reparations movement, which has led institutions and people to offer reparations to the descendants of victims of slavery, even as the national reparations movement has stalled. This is the result of decades of work by activists, scholars and writers to highlight the wealth gap created by slavery.1
6. Urban planning is loving.
learn of the easy convergence of urban planning and Catholic social teaching’s emphasis on building tighter communities. Robert Beauregard, for example, in his influential 2006 book, When America Became Suburban, takes the moral point of view that modern suburban life lacks “a moral center that would enable people to reach outside their communities and embrace diverse peoples” and also lacks “a widely shared sense of purpose.” When he looks at urban planning, Jamie Kralovec, an instructor in the urban and regional planning department at Georgetown University, said, he sees “this potential to build just and equitable use of the neighborhood, and bring about all these things Pope Francis talks about, like social friendship and solidarity.”1
7. Animals are important, too.
Pope Francis, along with many theologians, seems to be calling for an increased appreciation for animal rights. “Clearly, the Bible has no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures,” he wrote in “Laudato Si’,” … Advocates for animals say, is to make meat a delicacy that comes from small farms, instead of a factory-farmed staple of every meal.1
8. What and where we buy changes the world.
It is easy to forget that we did not always live in a world with one-click shopping… Americans and Europeans went for the cheap stuff, and gobbled up television sets, shoes, washing machines and a million other products from companies like Walmart, Target and the French retailer Carrefour. These companies helped create hyperglobalization, which is why American highways and neighborhoods have almost all the same big-box chain stores and fulfillment centers for shipping out online orders… The fair trade movement has created alternative supply chains that help small businesses around the world.1
9. Women still aren’t paid enough.
For modern interpreters of Catholic social teaching, there is little question that women deserve equal pay and a chance to build successful careers that align with their desires for family and home life. The Catholic solution to the gender pay gap requires affirming women’s right to equal pay while pushing back against a purely capitalist impulse. “We’re affirming women should be treated equally in work,” said Kate Ward, a professor of theology at Marquette University. “We’re not just saying that women should become better capitalists and have fewer families” and children.1
10. There are no utopias.
In Cathonomics, Mr. Annett emphasizes that Catholic social teaching resists utopian thinking, which is why the church rejects both communism and libertarian capitalism.1
Cindy Wooden writing for the Catholic News Service notes that Pope Francis issued his social encyclical, "Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship," in October 2020, then proceeded to explain and apply it in 2021 in meetings with migrants and refugees, in hosting religious leaders making a plea to governments to act on climate change and in setting out his vision for a synod process that listens to and relies on the prayers of all.
There, at the birthplace of the patriarch Abraham, the first person to believe in the one God and father of all, the pope called all believers to demonstrate their faith by treating one another as the brothers and sisters they are. "From this place, where faith was born, from the land of our father Abraham, let us affirm that God is merciful and that the greatest blasphemy is to profane his name by hating our brothers and sisters," the pope said. "God loves us as his children; he wants us to be brothers and sisters," the pope said Dec. 5 in the camp on the shore of the Mediterranean on the Greek island of Lesbos. "He is offended when we despise the men and women created in his image, leaving them at the mercy of the waves, in the wash of indifference." In a public service announcement in August, Pope Francis had said, "Being vaccinated with vaccines authorized by the competent authorities is an act of love. And contributing to ensure the majority of people are vaccinated is an act of love — love for oneself, love for one's family and friends, love for all people."2
Catholic Social Teaching as applied by the Church since Pope Leo XIII’s “Rerum Novarum” (1891), an encyclical that declared the church’s support of trade unions and collective bargaining, and established concepts like a living wage, worker safety and regular time off from work, has depended on example rather than exhortation for action among Catholics and people who share these concerns about the welfare of people.
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