Founded in 1970, Orbis Books endeavors to publish works that enlighten the mind, nourish the spirit, and challenge the conscience. The publishing arm of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, Orbis seeks to explore the global dimensions of the Christian faith and mission, to invite dialogue with diverse cultures and religious traditions, and to serve the cause of reconciliation and peace. The books published reflect the views of their authors and do not represent the official position of the Maryknoll Society. To learn more about Maryknoll and Orbis Books, please visit our website at www.maryknollsociety.org. Copyright © 1992, 2010, 2016 by David J. O’Brien and Thomas A. Shannon Published by Orbis Books, Box 302, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0302. All rights reserved. Benedict XVI’s Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate copyright © 2009 and Pope Francis’s Encyclical Letter Laudado Si’ © 2015 by Libreria Editrice Vaticana are used with permission of Libreria Editrice Vaticana. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Queries regarding rights and permissions should be addressed to: Orbis Books, P.O. Box 302, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0302. Manufactured in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: O’Brien, David J., editor. | Shannon, Thomas A. (Thomas Anthony), 1940- editor. Title: Catholic social thought : encyclicals and documents from Pope Leo III to Pope Francis / edited by David J. O’Brien and Thomas A. Shannon. Description: 3rd Revised Edition. | Maryknoll : Orbis Books, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016017903 (print) | LCCN 2016028901 (ebook) | ISBN 9781626981997 | ISBN 9781608336654 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Christian sociology--Catholic Church--Papal documents. | Peace--Religious aspects--Catholic Church. | Economics--Religious aspects--Catholic Church. | Catholic Church--United States--Bishops. | Catholic Church--Doctrines. Classification: LCC BX1753 .C39 2016 (print) | LCC BX1753 (ebook) | DDC 261.8088/282--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017903 We dedicate this edition with deep gratitude to all of the Women Religious of the United States, who have done so much to make social justice a living reality. Contents Preface Introduction: Roman Catholic Social Teaching Part I The Classic Texts of Leo XIII and Pius XI Rerum Novarum: The Condition of Labor (Leo XIII, 1891) Introduction Text Quadragesimo Anno: After Forty Years (Pius XI, 1931) Introduction Text Part II Catholic Social Thought in Transition Mater et Magistra: Christianity and Social Progress (John XXIII, 1961) Introduction Text Pacem in Terris: Peace on Earth (John XXIII, 1963) Introduction Text Part III Vatican II and Post-Conciliar Catholic Social Teaching Gaudium et Spes: Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Second Vatican Council, 1965) Introduction Text Populorum Progressio: On the Development of Peoples (Paul VI, 1967) Introduction Text Octogesima Adveniens: A Call to Action on the Eightieth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum (Paul VI, 1971) Introduction Text Justice in the World (Synod of Bishops, 1971) Introduction Text Evangelii Nuntiandi: Evangelization in the Modern World (Paul VI, 1975) Introduction Text Part IV The Social Teaching of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis Laborem Exercens: On Human Work (John Paul II, 1981) Introduction Text Sollicitudo Rei Socialis: On Social Concern (John Paul II, 1987) Introduction Text Centesimus Annus: On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum (John Paul II, 1991) Introduction Text Caritas in Veritate: On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth (Benedict XVI, 2009) Introduction Text Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home (Francis, 2015) Introduction Text Preface Since 1978, when our previous collection of many of these documents, Renewing the Earth, was published, a great deal has happened in the Roman Catholic Church. For one thing, Pope John Paul II, himself now canonized, deepened the theological and cultural foundations of Catholic social teaching. He also broadened its reach, commanding attention as he traveled the globe, moving among the powerful and the powerless. At the same time, the pope and his curia challenged some developments of Catholic social theology, particularly in Latin America; they even more forcefully attempted to control the application of Catholic teaching in concrete political contexts. Where once there was a more or less top-down character to Catholic social teaching, as local churches and apostolic movements attempted to apply official doctrine to specific problems, there was often sharp debate between Rome, local churches, and theologians, about poverty and politics, about markets, economic growth, political pluralism, and many other issues. A preferred hierarchy of social issues was promulgated along with a somewhat muted desire for a church-confronting-culture model of social analysis. With the election of Pope Francis and his model of the church as a field hospital, the direction of social teaching has taken a clearer turn to a preferential option for the poor as well as an emphasis on the traditional teaching on mercy. The centennial of Rerum Novarum in 1991occasioned publication of a new collection of the basic documents, including the last social encyclical of Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus. This collection was then again updated in 2010 to include the social teachings of Benedict XVI with his encyclical Caritas in Veritate. Now, in 2016, we again update this volume to include the letter of Pope Francis on the environment, Laudato Si’. This is the first encyclical exclusively devoted to environmental issues and it fills a lacuna in Catholic social teaching. Because of the length of the book—to say nothing of its weight—we have made the difficult decision to drop the pastoral letters of the American bishops from this new edition. We explored a variety of ways to reconfigure the book but ultimately concluded that the texts that we finally included were classic, foundational texts and should be published in their entirety. We continue to hope that these documents give purpose and vitality to the church in the United States as well as to the universal church. Introduction: Roman Catholic Social Teaching The year 1991 marked the one-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s great encyclical on social questions, Rerum Novarum. Leo’s letter initially received only limited attention in the United States, as most educated Catholics, like other Americans, found little serious fault with the nation’s economy. Later, during the progressive era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, a few Catholic reformers, led by John A. Ryan, drew on the encyclical to encourage Catholic support for social reform. This effort reached its climax with the publication, in the name of the hierarchy, of the quite radical “Bishops’ Program of Social Reconstruction” in 1919. In the 1930s, when the great depression shook popular confidence in American capitalism, a significant number of priests, religious, and lay people found support for union organizing, social action, and New Deal politics in Catholic social teaching, now supplemented by Pope Pius XI’s 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno. Influenced by Ryan, the bishops championed the cause of reform while America’s largely blue-collar Catholics became solid backers of unions, moderate social welfare programs, and measured government intervention in the marketplace, what came to be called “bread and butter” liberalism. Nevertheless, the encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI were too rigid in their theology, too rooted in preindustrial and to some degree antidemocratic ideologies to be directly useful to Americans, at least without the drastic shifts provided by interpreters like Ryan. With Pope Pius XII’s endorsement of democracy and human rights, and especially with publication of Pope John XXIII’s Mater et Magistra in 1961, that began to change. The teachings of Pope John XXIII, the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI, and Pope John Paul II have much in common with those of the earlier popes, but they are informed by more flexible approaches to scripture and tradition and by a more positive assessment of the modern world. Leo XIII and Pius XI were filled with charity and passion for justice, but these qualities were smothered by triumphalist ecclesiology, antidemocratic political values, and a conservative, even negative understanding of natural law. The modern documents, in contrast, communicate a vision of the church as servant to humanity, a renewed concern for the human person and human rights, an increasing emphasis on popular participation, and a more open and humble acknowledgment of the historically conditioned character of human life and consciousness. The social teachings of the modern church also reflect the ideas and perspectives of the emerging Christian communities of the Third World. Still somewhat European-centered, the documents are nonetheless far more universal in origin, spirit, scope, and impact than ever before. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Catholic social teaching, like everything else Christian, begins with the person and message of Jesus. Jesus offered no specific economic message, of course; instead, he proclaimed the advent of the kingdom of God and the redemption of people from sin. The toil and suffering that marked the lives of most people, especially the poor, was not the ultimate reality. There was another, superior reality of grace and redemption, joy and love. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus confirmed this message and thus offered new meaning, a new vision of history and of human possibility. That good news, carried haphazardly by a remnant of quarrelling people, gave form and substance to humanity’s dreams in a considerable portion of the world. Still, the turbulent life of Christ’s followers over two millennia demonstrates that his legacy was at least ambiguous. For believers, the kingdom of God had indeed arrived, yet even the most committed experienced its new life only imperfectly. The kingdom was present and the Holy Spirit continued Christ’s work, yet in some sense the kingdom was not yet here but beckoned from the future. Jesus had taught his followers to pray that God’s kingdom would come on earth, yet he also taught that his kingdom was not of this world but somehow apart from it. Today, as in the days following Christ’s ascension to the Father, Christians live amid the mysteries of human life, knowing God as “through a glass darkly,” trying to live by Christ’s teachings completely, here and now, and at the same time trying to live as responsible workers and citizens. Then as now it is no simple matter. The early Christian community expected the Lord to return quickly. As a result they practiced a heroic ethic of uncompromising love, which allowed no adjustment to the demands of worldly life. But as Christianity spread through the Mediterranean world, millennial enthusiasm waned. With more members, the church drew closer to the society around it but kept its zeal for equality and justice to itself. Christians cared for one another and for the Christian poor, practicing a charity whose purpose was not to heal social wrongs but to awaken and express a spirit of love. There was no perception that Christians could or should make a specific contribution to the larger society. Although hope for the early arrival of the kingdom had faded, its anticipation still separated Christians from the temptations and responsibilities of ordinary economic and political life. By the time Christianity became the official religion of the empire, however, its new responsibilities had necessarily modified its earlier sectarianism. Primitive communism of property, for example, gave eloquent testimony to the equality of all believers, but such ideas could breed explosive social discontent. The subjection of property to religious authority and the denunciation of the rich, as in St. Ambrose’s charge “it is greed that has engendered the rights of property,” had to be toned down once Christianity assumed responsibility for social order. Private property and coercive human authority, it was argued, were required by God as a consequence of sin. Indeed, it increasingly appeared that the social order that existed had been ordained by God, so that discontent could only arise from sinful pride and selfishness. An organic social theory, strengthened by emerging ideas of natural law, provided a firm foundation for the specification by the church of rules governing social and economic activity, rules adapted to a society and economy oriented toward the efficient distribution of scarce resources. Medieval Catholic social thought reflected this shift from a community focused on its own expression of love to one which shared responsibility for the preservation of civilization. In the work of St. Thomas Aquinas, Christianity found a synthesis that could embrace both the radical demands of the primitive gospel and the pressing responsibilities of a religious establishment. Aquinas defined society as a system of mutual exchange of services for the common good. Society and government were part of nature, operating according to laws that reflected the universal structure of creation. Before the fall, harmony existed among persons, nature, and God; no laws or government were needed. After the fall, they were needed to regulate the community and restrain evil. This understanding of society fit into a two-story model of the universe; the first story the created world, now in a state of sin, the second the supernatural order, the goal and fulfillment of the natural world. Eternal law existed in the mind of God from all eternity. Natural law was the apprehension of eternal law by human reason, in theory capable of knowing God’s will and acting on it, but in practice flawed by sin. The state was both a punishment and a remedy for sin; it provided for the common good, most notably by the repression of evil. The church, of divine origin, possesses revealed truth and directs people and institutions to their final, supernatural end. The church is therefore superior to the state; it interprets the demands of natural law and imposes sanctions on both institutions and individuals. Some, called by God to a special vocation, practice the heroic virtues demanded by the gospel, while church and state cooperate to enforce more moderate, realistic moral demands on society at large. The person thus stands at the center of two intersecting lines, the natural and supernatural, united through the eternal and natural law and through the church and the state. On this basis Aquinas envisioned an organically unified universe in which there were transcendent norms to assist in understanding and evaluating human experience. There was in this universe a proper ordering of all things and harmony within and among the several orders. Individuals occupied particular roles or functions within a hierarchical society. They were bound to one another and to social institutions by duties inherent in their state of life. What held society together and gave it ethical discipline and coherence was a theory of social obligation that sprang from the very nature of society and was related to a hierarchical universe presided over by God. Social obligations thus took priority over individual desires and wants. After 1100 the economy of Western Europe entered upon a period of significant expansion, and the tension between the gospel ethic and social responsibility reappeared with renewed force. The money economy, the growing importance of trade, and vigorous competition all challenged the harmonious organic theories of the earlier era. Gradually, as conflicts sharpened, radical alternatives appeared. Exponents of primitive gospel simplicity, like Francis of Assisi, denounced the materialism of the towns and the arrogance of their merchant leaders, while religious apologists for the new classes bent gospel injunctions and ecclesiastical prescriptions in order to justify new economic activities. The later Middle Ages were thus a time of ferment occasioned by the growing chasm between Christianity and economic practice. Unfortunately the church was deeply involved in the economic developments of the era; it was an economic institution of prime importance, encouraging trade, acquiring enormous debts, engaging itself in trade, investment, and profit. Its theologians and religious leaders struggled to reconcile this vigorous economic activity with the teachings of Jesus, sometimes in creative ethical formulations, at other times in expedient compromise. In this setting the Reformation churches arose, finding their strength in the major centers of economic modernization. It was natural for later observers to associate Protestantism with the supposedly new spirit of capitalism. Yet Protestantism’s social ethic represented the reawakening of older tensions within the Christian tradition. For example, Protestantism, and especially Calvinism, rejected completely the otherworldly asceticism of Catholic religious communities. No one was to live as a hermit or monk, but everyone was to live a life of disciplined self-control and mystical piety. Theirs was a worldly asceticism, carried into the marketplace, where one was to do one’s duty to God, to family, and to community, always with the inner life oriented completely toward God. Similarly, the reformers creatively recovered and revised ancient Christian ideas of vocation, or calling, and stewardship, and they did so within an understanding of Christian society that still supposed an integration of religion and culture, church and state. Perhaps most important, one of the major consequences of the breakup of the medieval unity of civilization was the perception that individuals stood in an adversary relationship to the larger society, a perception which, together with the opportunity for choice presented by contending religious factions, fostered a deeper sense of individual autonomy and personal worth. As a result of this new perception of the individual’s place in society, a new theory of the proper relationship between the individual and society was needed. This was provided over several centuries by the elaboration of contract theories of society, the most famous associated with Hobbes and Locke. While presenting diametrically opposed pictures of human nature, both theories emphasized individual rights as claims against society, and both looked at the individual as the bearer of certain rights that society should not contravene. This articulation of a theory of rights created a major change in social ethics. On the one hand, there was continuity with the medieval tradition in that contract theories were related to natural law understood as articulations of the demands of a permanent and universal moral order. On the other hand, there was discontinuity with medieval philosophy in that this theory of natural law based itself on inalienable rights inherent in each individual, with social and political obligations arising not from nature but from voluntary consent, even if exercised only in a mythic past. The implication of this was that forms of social organization were mutable and arbitrary, not dictated by the content of natural law. The value of the individual person was enhanced, because the individual, not society, became the locus of natural law. In medieval formulations obligation was associated with one’s state in life. In the contract framework, obligations resulted from positive law agreed upon by individuals. This gave rise to a situation in which there could be continual and inherent conflict between individuals and society. Such conflicts in fact appeared, first in churches, later in society, climaxing in the modern revolutions. For Catholics whose social thought and imagination remained grounded in premodern assumptions about individuals and institutions, the experience was one of rebellion against all authority, human and divine. Again and again the Catholic church faced a choice of adapting to new ideas of individual autonomy and popular participation, and almost always it chose to assert the need for order and hierarchy backed by a divinely constituted authority capable of announcing and enforcing the demands of nature and nature’s God. This tension between modernity—in religion, culture, and politics—and the Catholic church provides the basic context for the emergence of Catholic social thought a century ago. ON READING THE TEXTS Introductory statements appended to the documents in this text describe how Leo XIII, faced with new challenges posed by industrial capitalism, drew on this heritage and initiated modern Catholic social teaching. As this historical review indicates, no element of the contemporary church’s social teaching can be fully understood apart from the fuller body of teaching and belief on which it draws, a teaching that from the start has been torn between sectarian idealism and responsible moderation. To take but one example: Advocates of one or another of the modern church’s positions on peace and human rights are often concerned primarily with the prophetic integrity of the church’s witness and miss the broader “Catholic” dimensions of the teaching, its century-long effort to unify the church and enable it to exert a significant influence upon society as a whole. Critics who charge that church teaching on specific issues is too idealistic, in contrast, often miss the need for the church to preserve its prophetic integrity, to take the risk of