THE CATHOLIC APOLOGISTS FOR SOCIALISM SHOULD READ THE SOCIAL ENCYCLICALS
Neither Left not Right, but Catholic
THE CATHOLIC APOLOGISTS FOR SOCIALISM SHOULD READ THE SOCIAL ENCYCLICALS
By Stephen M. Krason
We have been seeing articles in the last year or so in certain supposedly Catholic publications by writers identifying as Catholic arguing for socialism—even Marxism. They have tried to tell us not only that Catholicism and socialism are compatible, but that Catholic teaching provides a basis for socialism.
In one of these, Brianne Jacobs writing in America magazine, says “human dignity”—a term that can be twisted any which way—justifies socialism. Jacobs, who identifies herself as a millennial—a generation that seems disproportionately to be captivated by socialism—says that what she claims is Catholic teaching of “people over markets,” “people over labor,” and “people over profit” opens the door to socialism. She is dismissive of the thinking of the baby-boom generation, who she says associates socialism with Communist authoritarianism. Millennials, she says, associate it with western and northern European countries. She squarely says that democratic socialism conforms to Catholic social teaching.
Jose Mena, writing in a U.K. Catholic publication, is another self-proclaimed “Catholic socialist” who says that papal teaching at bottom line rejects capitalism. What seems apparent is that he identifies a laissez faire notion (economic liberalism) with capitalism per se. He claims that socialists promote the common good, that capitalist countries “construct monstrous and inhuman regimes of property,” that socialism promotes all the things the papal encyclicals call for (such as a just wage, eliminating class conflict, and not allowing human labor to be treated as a mere commodity). He seems almost to have a confused conception of what socialism is, identifying it—perhaps thinking it best embodies—the notion of private property ownership, but social use (i.e., using it for not just one’s own purposes but for the good of others and the community). He also gives a troublingly broad definition of socialism to mean a range of positions that oppose his exaggerated conception of what capitalism is, and jumps to the conclusion that even though some versions of socialism are unacceptable to Catholic teaching it is still desirable to embrace it. He seems to think that a correct understanding of Catholic social teaching leads one to embrace socialism.
Then there was the astonishing article by Dean Dettloff in America magazine called “The Catholic Case for Communism”—not just socialism, but its extreme variant, communism—that has attracted much commentary. Detloff, another millennial (a group that I find to be ignorant about twentieth century history, which includes the Cold War), says that Catholics can readily make common cause with Communists and that, in fact, there is no problem simultaneously being Catholic and Communist. He acknowledges that communism has made “tragic mistakes” and caused “human and ecological suffering,” but—this is reminiscent of those who claimed that we couldn’t judge communism from the way Stalin acted, that he was somehow a deviation—it is really benevolent. Capitalism is the real culprit, “responsible for the ongoing suffering of millions.” He calls a capitalist economy “violent” and “an economy of death.” His disregarding of the realities of what communism stands for and what it has meant wherever it has gained power is strikingly seen when he quotes The Communist Manifesto’s saying that it will lead to the “free development of all.” He claims, against all the historical facts, that it leads to “better ways of being together in society.” In spite of his cushy picture of communism, he perhaps conveys his disguised awareness of the violence, oppression, and brutality that is synonymous with communism when at the end of the article he says, “It is when the communists are dangerous that they are good.”
When we look at what the popes have actually said about socialism and communism we can see that, even apart from the atheism that is at their core, they are anything but compatible with Catholic teaching. We can recall the blunt phrase from Pope Pius XI’s great social encylical Quadragesimo Anno: “No one can at the same time be a sincere Catholic and a true socialist.” Papal encyclicals from the time of Pius IX have repeatedly condemned socialism, both in its more extreme and its supposedly moderate forms, for its fundamentally materialistic premises, essential opposition to private property, support for antagonism among classes (which is just the opposite of what Mena claims), its basic atheism, its seeing of the individual as just a part of a socialized mass, and its readiness to resort to compulsion to secure its objectives. Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical, Quod Apostolici Muneris, scored socialists for their convoluted notion of equality, their egalitarianism. He said that men are equal in the sense of having the same human dignity and being subject to the same moral law and facing the same judgment by God about whether they have upheld it, and that all must be guaranteed equal opportunity in society. God willed, however, that there “be various orders in civil society…some nobler than others.” He said that the Church also recognizes that people will have inequality of wealth and possessions springing from their different talents and abilities. While the Church does not outright condemn efforts to redistribute wealth by public authorities, especially to lift those in situations of extreme need, certain moral conditions would have to be met to do this and the wealth and property of the rich cannot simply be assaulted.
Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Divini Redemptoris—translated Atheistic Communism—explains the Church’s consistent condemnation of communism. It is attacked for its atheism, gross materialism and rejection of anything spiritual, exploitation of the antagonisms existing among classes in society and “consequent violent hate and destruction,” assaulting of liberty and human dignity, removing of all moral restraints, unwillingness to recognize “any right of the individual in his relations with the collectivity,” denunciation of private property, repudiation of the spiritual and natural origins of marriage and the family, and denial of the inherent right of parents to educate their children. This hardly shows even an iota of compatibility of Catholicism with communism.
John Paul II’s Centisimus Annus was promulgated in the aftermath of the collapse of European Communist regimes. In it, the pope who lived under communism explained why this happened: the regimes that were supposed erected for the working class suppressed worker’s rights, their economic inefficiency, and the spiritual void caused by their atheism. Communist regimes rejected transcendent truth, rejected the Church, absorbed all lesser associations by their collectivist reach, and claimed that the state or the Communist party is the repository of all truth. When in such a gnostic fashion, “people think they possess the secret of a perfect social organization which makes evil impossible, they also think that they can use any means, including violence and deceit, in order to bring that organization into being.” Detloff should particularly take note of John Paul’s saying how “the sincere desire to be on the side of the oppressed” has led many believers “to seek in various ways an impossible compromise between Marxism and Christianity.”
The documents on liberation theology that were promulgated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under John Paul II—the Congregation was then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—made clear that a Marxist-inspired notion of “liberation” as a way to supposedly elevate peoples in the underdeveloped world is at odds with a Catholic understanding of liberation. While Marxists claim that flawed social structures are the cause of all oppression, the Church says that eventhough there can be “structures of sin” they reflect the sin of individuals—something foreign to the Marxist mind.
The sweeping, unqualified condemnation of capitalism of self-proclaimed Catholic defenders of socialism is also not in line with papal teaching. Pius XI spoke about the legitimacy of profit and Centesimus Annus explains that earning a profit shows that “productive factors have been properly employed” and “human needs satisfied.” John XXIII says in Mater et Magistra, “where private initiative of individuals is lacking, political tyranny prevails” and “much stagnation occurs in various sectors of the economy.” John Paul echoes this in Centesimus Annus, saying that when self-interest is “violently suppressed”—as happens under communism—“it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control which dries up the wellsprings of initiative and creativity.” The Church certainly embraces what he calls the “social function” of property—that is, the social use of property mentioned above. “Private ownership, social use” is the tradition predating even Christianity, going back at least to Aristotle. Stressing this is not something that requires socialism, as Mena claims. In fact, socialism distorts this tradition because it repudiates in different degrees private ownership.
Centesimus Annus states the Church’s traditional assessment of capitalism: if it means an unrestrained market, unrestrained self-interest, and an unrestrained pursuit of profit it is to be rejected—but if it involves “an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, and private property” it is desirable. As Pope Francis says in Laudato Si, what’s responsible for the first notion of capitalism is “the culture of relativism.” If, then, those who call themselves Catholic socialists really want to end economic injustices they should turn their attention to confronting the secular culture that exults moral relativism and work to restore traditional Christian ethics.
As mentioned, the Church has rejected socialism even in its supposedly moderate forms. So the socialism of the European countries that Jacobs touts, which are essentially large-scale welfare states, also runs afoul of Catholic social teaching. As John Paul says in Centesimus Annus, the welfare state—he also calls it the “social assistance state”—“leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.” He also raises the specter that it could violate subsidiarity, one of the central principles of social ethics.
In short, the Catholics who are espousing socialism or even Marxism—or at least are opening the doors to it—need to read the papal social encyclicals. More basically, they need to ask themselves if they are being faithful to the Church and her teachings or have allowed themselves to be seduced and swept away by ideologies that have long since been discredited.
Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” column appears monthly (sometimes bi-monthly) in Crisis. He is Professor of Political Science and Legal Studies and Associate Director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is also co-founder and President of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists and a lawyer. Among his books are: Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution; Liberalism, Conservatism, and Catholicism; The Transformation of the American Democratic Republic; Catholicism and American Political Ideologies, and a Catholic political novel, American Cincinnatus. The views expressed here are his own.
