Month: July 2017

Ralliement and the common good

With his 1892 encyclical on the Church and state in France, Au milieu des sollicitudes, Leo XIII instructed Catholics, who opposed the firmly anti-Catholic Third Republic, to begin cooperating with the regime. This new direction, known as ralliement, was based upon a distinction Leo drew between the civil power itself, which comes from God, and the political means of exercising and transmitting this power. As we shall see, Leo’s argument was based also on the common good. That is, Leo argued that the common good required French Catholics to cooperate with the Third Republic. In some respects, this is argument based upon a profoundly Thomistic understanding of government and the common good. However, it is not an argument without some perplexities, as we shall see. Most notable is the sense that engagement with liberalism will result in benefits to the Church. This is perhaps a departure from the Thomism otherwise on display in Au milieu and Leo’s follow-up letter to the French cardinals, Notre consolation. It is this sense that has been most strongly and most credibly criticized, as we shall see.

First, a historical note. The legacy of Au milieu des sollicitudes was almost immediately complicated. Roberto de Mattei has observed that Leo’s policy of engagement with the Third Republic failed disastrously. The French state, despite Leo’s encouragement to French Catholics to support the government, embarked on a vicious campaign against the Church. Indeed, the French government attacked directly even the Concordat of 1801. In response, St. Pius X made a series of allocutions condemning in the most stringent terms various actions by the French government. On November 14, 1904, he gave the allocution Duplicem on the Concordat. Then, on March 27, 1905, the allocution Amplissimum coetum. Then, on February 21, 1906, he condemned the law on the separation of Church and state in the allocution Gravissimum. He followed these statements up with a series of encyclicals beginning with his February 1906 encyclical on the law of separation, Vehementer nos. He followed it in the same year with his encyclical condemning the associations of worship, Gravissimo officii. Then, in 1907, Pius returned to the question of the French separation of Church and state in the encyclical Une fois encore, answering certain criticisms leveled against the Church by supporters of the French state. It is clear from this brief sketch of Pius’s statements that he was deeply concerned about the French question. But in all of it, Pius makes it clear that the depredations of the French state are to be resisted, come what may. De Mattei observes that Pius’s uncompromising resistance to the actions of the French government probably leavened the impact of the unjust laws on the Church. However, the impact on Au milieu was clear: as a policy, it failed.

Pater Edmund Waldstein has argued, following Petrus Hispanus, that ralliement was doomed to fail because it was an imprudent strategy. You can read Pater Waldstein’s argument at The Josias, but it ultimately boils down to this: cooperation with liberalism is a nonstarter because liberalism reduces everything to proceduralism. The idea behind ralliement was that Catholics, setting aside once and for all the dream of restoring the monarchy, could use the procedural machinery of the Third Republic to obtain a more favorable settlement for the Church instead of fighting the Republic itself. Indeed, according to Étienne Lamy, quoted at length by Pater Waldstein, Catholics could obtain a more favorable settlement for the Church using the very ideals of the Republic: Liberty, Fraternity, Equality. However, it did not work that way, and, De Mattei argues, it was only Pius X’s uncompromising insistence on Catholic truth that prevented the French state from enforcing its tyrannical laws.

In this, we see the value of the ralliement debate for Catholics today. The cry from liberals of all political persuasions is that machinery of liberalism can be harnessed and employed to the benefit of the Church. Just vote for the right candidate, just vote for the right ballot initiative, just demand the right judge, Catholics are told, and the tide can be turned back. But, Waldstein and Petrus Hispanus argue, that is not in the logic of liberalism. Cooperation invariably results in confinement to the liberal procedural norms that form the shared basis for discussion. In other words, ralliement did not prevent the French state from taking ever more anti-Catholic steps, and Catholic participation in liberalism today will not prevent a western state from taking ever more anti-Catholic steps. That is not how liberalism works. And to a certain extent, the argument has merit.

Nevertheless, Leo’s argument for ralliement deserves independent consideration, not least because of its fundamental connection to his other encyclicals on the Christian constitution of the state. Now, De Mattei argues that Au milieu represents at least a practical contradiction of Immortale Dei, Diuturnum illud, and Libertas praestantissimum.  As De Mattei puts it, Leo might have been illiberal in his doctrine, but he was certainly a liberal in his praxis. This is not a cheerful prospect. At the very least, one cannot say that Leo did not know his own mind, and, therefore, if there is a contradiction between his great, illiberal political encyclicals and Au milieu, we must attempt to resolve the contradiction—one way or the other. To analyze the question, one ought, in fairness to such a great pope, consider his thought in full. To clarify Au milieu des sollicitudes, one should turn to Notre consolation, the letter Leo sent to the French cardinals shortly after his encyclical was issued. This letter, as far as we know, has never been issued in English. As usual, we will not translate it here, not out of a sort of showy erudition, but because our French is not up to the task and we think you can get a machine translation as well as we can. At any rate, Notre consolation is Leo’s response to the reception of Au milieu in France. It would be important for that reason alone. However it is also important because Leo clarifies the basis of the acceptance of the new regime in France set forth in Au milieu.

In Notre consolation, Leo says:

Nous l’avons également expliqué et Nous tenons à le redire, pour que personne ne se méprenne sur Notre enseignement: un de ces moyens est d’accepter sans arrière-pensée, avec cette loyauté parfaite qui convient au chrétien, le pouvoir civil dans la forme où, de fait, il existe. Ainsi fut accepté, en France, le premier Empire, au lendemain d’une effroyable et sanglante anarchie ; ainsi furent acceptés les autres pouvoirs, soit monarchiques, soit républicains, qui se succédèrent jusqu’à nos jours.

Et la raison de cette acceptation, c’est que le bien commun de la société l’emporte sur tout autre intérêt; car il est le principe créateur, il est l’élément conservateur de la société humaine ; d’où il suit que tout vrai citoyen doit le vouloir et le procurer à tout prix. Or, de cette nécessité d’assurer le bien commun dérive, comme de sa source propre et immédiate, la nécessité d’un pouvoir civil qui, s’orientant vers le but suprême, y dirige sagement et constamment les volontés multiples des sujets, groupés en faisceau dans sa main. Lors donc que, dans une société, il existe un pouvoir constitué et mis à l’œuvre, l’intérêt commun se trouve lié à ce pouvoir, et l’on doit, pour cette raison, l’accepter tel qu’il est. C’est pour ces motifs et dans ce sens que Nous avons dit aux catholiques français: Acceptez la République, c’est-à-dire le pouvoir constitué et existant parmi vous; respectez-la ; soyez-lui soumis comme représentant le pouvoir venu de Dieu.

(Emphasis supplied.) Leo connects ralliement with the common good. He reminds us that government is required to order society toward its common good. Where there is government, then, it has the authority to order society toward the common good, and for this reason, the government must be accepted. In the words, the supremacy of the common good requires that the government, which is responsible for ordering the state toward the common good, be accepted. Leo also reminds us of an important point from Au milieu,

Qu’on veuille bien y réfléchir, si le pouvoir politique est toujours de Dieu, il ne s’ensuit pas que la désignation divine affecte toujours et immédiatement les modes de transmission de ce pouvoir, ni les formes contingentes qu’il revêt, ni les personnes qui en sont le sujet. La variété même de ces modes dans les diverses nations montre à l’évidence le caractère humain de leur origine.

In other words, while the civil power is from God, this does not mean that the mechanism by which that power is transferred is necessarily of divine origin.

Leo expands this point in terms of history. The rise and fall of governments, Leo assures us, is proof that there is a separation between the civil power from God and the transmission of that power.

Il y a plus, les institutions humaines les mieux fondées en droit et établies dans des vues aussi salutaires qu’on le voudra, pour donner à la vie sociale une assiette plus stable et lui imprimer un plus puissant essor, ne conservent pas toujours leur vigueur conformément aux courtes prévisions de la sagesse de l’homme.

En politique, plus qu’ailleurs, surviennent des changements inattendus. Des monarchies colossales s’écroulent ou se démembrent, comme les antiques royautés d’Orient et l’Empire romain; les dynasties supplantent les dynasties, comme celles des Carlovingiens et des Capétiens en France ; aux formes politiques adoptées, d’autres formes se constituent, comme notre siècle en montre de nombreux exemples. Ces changements sont loin d’être toujours légitimes à l’origine : il est même difficile qu’ils le soient. Pourtant, le critérium suprême du bien commun et de la tranquillité publique impose l’acceptation de ces nouveaux gouvernements établis en fait, à la place des gouvernements antérieurs qui, en fait, ne sont plus. Ainsi se trouvent suspendues les règles ordinaires de la transmission des pouvoirs, et il peut se faire même, qu’avec le temps, elles se trouvent abolies.

(Emphasis supplied.) However, Leo argues that the “supreme criterion” of the common good and public order require the acceptance of governments after the rise and fall of governments. After all, the common good prevails over any other interest (“le bien commun de la société l’emporte sur tout autre intérêt”).

To a certain extent, Leo is reinforcing and distilling the central argument he made in support of ralliement in Au milieu des sollicitudes. Here is the relevant passage:

However, here it must be carefully observed that whatever be the form of civil power in a nation, it cannot be considered so definitive as to have the right to remain immutable, even though such were the intention of those who, in the beginning, determined it.… Only the Church of Jesus Christ has been able to preserve, and surely will preserve unto the consummation of time, her form of government. Founded by Him who was, who is, and who will be forever, she has received from Him, since her very origin, all that she requires for the pursuing of her divine mission across the changeable ocean of human affairs. And, far from wishing to transform her essential constitution, she has not the power even to relinquish the conditions of true liberty and sovereign independence with which Providence has endowed her in the general interest of souls . . . But, in regard to purely human societies, it is an oft-repeated historical fact that time, that great transformer of all things here below, operates great changes in their political institutions. On some occasions it limits itself to modifying something in the form of the established government; or, again, it will go so far as to substitute other forms for the primitive ones-forms totally different, even as regards the mode of transmitting sovereign power.

And how are these political changes of which We speak produced? They sometimes follow in the wake of violent crises, too often of a bloody character, in the midst of which pre-existing governments totally disappear; then anarchy holds sway, and soon public order is shaken to its very foundations and finally overthrown. From that time onward a social need obtrudes itself upon the nation; it must provide for itself without delay. Is it not its privilege – or, better still, its duty – to defend itself against a state of affairs troubling it so deeply, and to re-establish public peace in the tranquillity of order? Now, this social need justifies the creation and the existence of new governments, whatever form they take; since, in the hypothesis wherein we reason, these new governments are a requisite to public order, all public order being impossible without a government. Thence it follows that, in similar junctures, all the novelty is limited to the political form of civil power, or to its mode of transmission; it in no wise affects the power considered in itself. This continues to be immutable and worthy of respect, as, considered in its nature, it is constituted to provide for the common good, the supreme end which gives human society its origin. To put it otherwise, in all hypotheses, civil power, considered as such, is from God, always from God: “For there is no power but from God.”

Consequently, when new governments representing this immutable power are constituted, their acceptance is not only permissible but even obligatory, being imposed by the need of the social good which has made and which upholds them. This is all the more imperative because an insurrection stirs up hatred among citizens, provokes civil war, and may throw a nation into chaos and anarchy, and this great duty of respect and dependence will endure as long as the exigencies of the common good shall demand it, since this good is, after God, the first and last law in society.

(Emphasis supplied.) In other words, Notre consolation clarifies the point in Au milieu that the acceptance of a new regime is ultimately a question of the primacy of the common good.

Leo’s emphasis on the common good is profoundly Thomistic in many regards. Whatever the ultimate judgment on Leo’s ralliement policy, we must admit that his premises were, at least, consistent with the Common Doctor’s thought. We know from the De Regno (and Aristotle) that society necessarily implies government. We also know that government must direct the state toward its common good—that is, unity and peace. And the common good is the end toward which all elements of society must be ordered. Indeed, the society will collapse without something moving it toward the common good. Let us follow Thomas’s argument for a moment:

Si ergo naturale est homini quod in societate multorum vivat, necesse est in hominibus esse per quod multitudo regatur. Multis enim existentibus hominibus et unoquoque id, quod est sibi congruum, providente, multitudo in diversa dispergeretur, nisi etiam esset aliquis de eo quod ad bonum multitudinis pertinet curam habens; sicut et corpus hominis et cuiuslibet animalis deflueret, nisi esset aliqua vis regitiva communis in corpore, quae ad bonum commune omnium membrorum intenderet. Quod considerans Salomon dicit: ubi non est gubernator, dissipabitur populus.

Hoc autem rationabiliter accidit: non enim idem est quod proprium et quod commune. Secundum propria quidem differunt, secundum autem commune uniuntur. Diversorum autem diversae sunt causae. Oportet igitur, praeter id quod movet ad proprium bonum uniuscuiusque, esse aliquid quod movet ad bonum commune multorum. Propter quod et in omnibus quae in unum ordinantur, aliquid invenitur alterius regitivum. In universitate enim corporum per primum corpus, scilicet caeleste, alia corpora ordine quodam divinae providentiae reguntur, omniaque corpora per creaturam rationalem. In uno etiam homine anima regit corpus, atque inter animae partes irascibilis et concupiscibilis ratione reguntur. Itemque inter membra corporis unum est principale, quod omnia movet, ut cor, aut caput. Oportet igitur esse in omni multitudine aliquod regitivum.

(Emphasis supplied.) In English in Fr. Eschmann’s translation:

If, then, it is natural for man to live in the society of many, it is necessary that there exist among men some means by which the group may be governed. For where there are many men together and each one is looking after his own interest, the multitude would be broken up and scattered unless there were also an agency to take care of what appertains to the commonweal. In like manner, the body of a man or any other animal would disintegrate unless there were a general ruling force within the body which watches over the common good of all members. With this in mind, Solomon says [Eccl. 4:9]: “Where there is no governor, the people shall fall.”

Indeed it is reasonable that this should happen, for what is proper and what is common are not identical. Things differ by what is proper to each: they are united by what they have in common. But diversity of effects is due to diversity of causes. Consequently, there must exist something which impels towards the common good of the many, over and above that which impels towards the particular good of each individual. Wherefore also in all things that are ordained towards one end, one thing is found to rule the rest. Thus in the corporeal universe, by the first body, i.e. the celestial body, the other bodies are regulated according to the order of Divine Providence; and all bodies are ruled by a rational creature. So, too in the individual man, the soul rules the body; and among the parts of the soul, the irascible and the concupiscible parts are ruled by reason. Likewise, among the members of a body, one, such as the heart or the head, is the principal and moves all the others. Therefore in every multitude there must be some governing power.

(Emphasis supplied.) Leo is not wrong, therefore, in Notre consolation to observe that society implies government to order that society to the common good. Aristotle and Thomas tell us that man is a political animal; that is, it is natural for man to live in society. It is, therefore, necessary for some governing power to order that society toward the common good, otherwise the society would collapse.

And what is the common good toward which society must be ordered? As we have previously noted, it is peace—that is, unity and good order. Thomas teaches us:

Ad hoc enim cuiuslibet regentis ferri debet intentio, ut eius quod regendum suscepit salutem procuret. Gubernatoris enim est, navem contra maris pericula servando, illaesam perducere ad portum salutis. Bonum autem et salus consociatae multitudinis est ut eius unitas conservetur, quae dicitur pax, qua remota, socialis vitae perit utilitas, quinimmo multitudo dissentiens sibi ipsi sit onerosa. Hoc igitur est ad quod maxime rector multitudinis intendere debet, ut pacis unitatem procuret. Nec recte consiliatur, an pacem faciat in multitudine sibi subiecta, sicut medicus, an sanet infirmum sibi commissum. Nullus enim consiliari debet de fine quem intendere debet, sed de his quae sunt ad finem. Propterea apostolus commendata fidelis populi unitate: solliciti, inquit, sitis servare unitatem spiritus in vinculo pacis. Quanto igitur regimen efficacius fuerit ad unitatem pacis servandam, tanto erit utilius. Hoc enim utilius dicimus, quod magis perducit ad finem. Manifestum est autem quod unitatem magis efficere potest quod est per se unum, quam plures. Sicut efficacissima causa est calefactionis quod est per se calidum. Utilius igitur est regimen unius, quam plurium.

(Emphasis supplied.) In English:

This question may be considered first from the viewpoint of the purpose of government. The aim of any ruler should be directed towards securing the welfare of that which he undertakes to rule. The duty of the pilot, for instance, is to preserve his ship amidst the perils of the sea. and to bring it unharmed to the port of safety. Now the welfare and safety of a multitude formed into a society lies in the preservation of its unity, which is called peace. If this is removed, the benefit of social life is lost and, moreover, the multitude in its disagreement becomes a burden to itself. The chief concern of the ruler of a multitude, therefore, is to procure the unity of peace. It is not even legitimate for him to deliberate whether he shall establish peace in the multitude subject to him, just as a physician does not deliberate whether he shall heal the sick man encharged to him, for no one should deliberate about an end which he is obliged to seek, but only about the means to attain that end. Wherefore the Apostle, having commended the unity of the faithful people, says: “Be ye careful to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” Thus, the more efficacious a government is in keeping the unity of peace, the more useful it will be. For we call that more useful which leads more directly to the end. Now it is manifest that what is itself one can more efficaciously bring about unity than several—just as the most efficacious cause of heat is that which is by its nature hot. Therefore the rule of one man is more useful than the rule of many.

(Emphasis supplied.) Now this much we have discussed previously, and it’s relatively basic in terms of principle. The temporal common good is peace, and peace is unity and good order. Up to a point, Leo’s argument in Au milieu and Notre consolation is intuitive. If peace is the common good, then what serves peace—that is, unity and good order—will serve the common good. And resisting the temporal power, illegitimate or not, is not consistent with unity and good order.

Moreover, Thomas teaches us that there may be practical reasons to tolerate a tyrannical (or revolutionary) government. In the De Regno, he argues:

Et quidem si non fuerit excessus tyrannidis, utilius est remissam tyrannidem tolerare ad tempus, quam contra tyrannum agendo multis implicari periculis, quae sunt graviora ipsa tyrannide. Potest enim contingere ut qui contra tyrannum agunt praevalere non possint, et sic provocatus tyrannus magis desaeviat. Quod si praevalere quis possit adversus tyrannum, ex hoc ipso proveniunt multoties gravissimae dissensiones in populo; sive dum in tyrannum insurgitur, sive post deiectionem tyranni dum erga ordinationem regiminis multitudo separatur in partes. Contingit etiam ut interdum, dum alicuius auxilio multitudo expellit tyrannum, ille, potestate accepta, tyrannidem arripiat, et timens pati ab alio quod ipse in alium fecit, graviori servitute subditos opprimat. Sic enim in tyrannide solet contingere, ut posterior gravior fiat quam praecedens, dum praecedentia gravamina non deserit et ipse ex sui cordis malitia nova excogitat. Unde Syracusis quondam Dionysii mortem omnibus desiderantibus, anus quaedam, ut incolumis et sibi superstes esset, continue orabat; quod ut tyrannus cognovit, cur hoc faceret interrogavit. Tum illa: puella, inquit, existens, cum gravem tyrannum haberemus, mortem eius cupiebam, quo interfecto, aliquantum durior successit; eius quoque dominationem finiri magnum existimabam: tertium te importuniorem habere coepimus rectorem. Itaque si tu fueris absumptus, deterior in locum tuum succedet.

(Emphasis supplied). And in English:

Indeed, if there be not an excess of tyranny it is more expedient to tolerate the milder tyranny for a while than, by acting against the tyrant, to become involved in many perils more grievous than the tyranny itself. For it may happen that those who act against the tyrant are unable to prevail and the tyrant then will rage the more. But should one be able to prevail against the tyrant, from this fact itself very grave dissensions among the people frequently ensue: the multitude may be broken up into factions either during their revolt against the tyrant, or in process of the organization of the government, after the tyrant has been overthrown. Moreover, it sometimes happens that while the multitude is driving out the tyrant by the help of some man, the latter, having received the power, thereupon seizes the tyranny. Then, fearing to suffer from another what he did to his predecessor, he oppresses his subjects with an even more grievous slavery. This is wont to happen in tyranny, namely, that the second becomes more grievous than the one preceding, inasmuch as, without abandoning the previous oppressions, he himself thinks up fresh ones from the malice of his heart. Whence in Syracuse, at a time when everyone desired the death of Dionysius, a certain old woman kept constantly praying that he might be unharmed and that he might survive her. When the tyrant learned this he asked why she did it. Then she said: “When I was a girl we had a harsh tyrant and I wished for his death; when he was killed, there succeeded him one who was a little harsher. I was very eager to see the end of his dominion also, and we began to have a third ruler still more harsh—that was you. So if you should be taken away, a worse would succeed in your place.”

(Emphasis supplied.) In other words, prudence may require a people to endure a tyrant for fear of what will come after the tyrant. All these reasons, therefore, bolster Leo’s argument that the government must be accepted. Government is necessary for life in society, and there may be prudential reasons to accept and endure a bad government rather than seek a change in government.

And Leo, in Notre consolation, makes a gesture in the direction of endurance, observing that to accept a revolutionary government is not to accept every act of the government, especially those at variance with the divine and natural law: “Après avoir solidement établi dans notre Encyclique cette vérité, Nous avons formulé la distinction entre le pouvoir politique et la législation, et Nous avons montré que l’acceptation de l’un n’impliquait nullement l’acceptation de l’autre; dans les points où le législateur, oublieux de sa mission, se mettait en opposition avec la loi de Dieu et de l’Église.” (Emphasis supplied.) However, where Thomas counsels what amounts to an endurance turned toward God, Leo counsels engagement with the regime, in an attempt to persuade the government to withdraw from its wicked acts:

Et, que tous le remarquent bien, déployer son activité et user de son influence pour amener les gouvernements à changer en bien des lois iniques ou dépourvues de sagesse, c’est faire preuve d’un dévouement à la patrie aussi intelligent que courageux, sans accuser l’ombre d’une hostilité aux pouvoirs chargés de régir la chose publique. Qui s’aviserait de dénoncer les chrétiens des premiers siècles comme adversaires de l’Empire romain, parce qu’ils ne se courbaient point devant ses prescriptions idolâtriques, mais s’efforçaient d’en obtenir l’abolition?

(Remember Pater Waldstein’s extensive quotation of Lamy?) This points toward the fundamental problem, according to De Mattei and others, with Au milieu des sollicitudes and Notre consolation: whatever the Thomistic foundations of Leo’s argument, he still argues that Catholics should participate in liberal political processes in hopes of, as it were, persuading the regime to order itself the the divine and natural law, without which it will be impossible to pursue the common good. This, we think, is a sharp departure from Thomas’s thought. At the very least it is a point of difference.

And is in consequence of this difference that we find ourselves back to Pater Edmund Waldstein’s point: cooperation with the liberal regime invariably results in a reduction to liberal proceduralism. And we see, following De Mattei, from the historical example of France—the laws resisted by St. Pius X but a few years after Au milieu and Notre consolation—that participation in the liberal regime by Catholics does not necessarily dissuade the regime from acting contrary to God’s law. However, we can see that the Thomistic principles that motivated Leo’s great encyclicals on the Christian constitution of the state are present in large part in Leo’s teaching on the situation in France. One need not set Au milieu and Notre consolation against the others necessarily. One may instead acknowledge that in places Leo comes to different conclusions than Thomas.

Some introductory sources on integralism

In the wake of Fr. Antonio Spadaro and Rev. Marcelo Figueroa’s essay at Civiltà about American fundamentalist protestants and Catholic integralists—about which we have written here and elsewhere—there has been some discussion of integralism. It remains our contention that Spadaro and Figueroa never actually defined integralism and seemed to think, as Matthew Walther observes in a column at The Week, it is somehow the same thing as being conventionally conservative. This is flatly wrong. However, instead of criticizing Spadaro and Figueroa again, though there is much to criticize there, we thought we would point to some sources on integralism.

Before pointing to sources, a word on the project. Reclaiming integralism in 2017 is almost necessarily a project for autodidacts, and, therefore, it runs the risk of all projects for autodidacts. That is, one can accumulate a bunch of scraps of knowledge and imagine that one has mastered the field. Worse, one can accumulate a bunch of scraps of knowledge and imagine that one knows more than most. It is important, we think, to emphasize that integralism is simply Catholic political thought until the 20th century. One must, therefore, take care to think with the Church and with the Church’s authorities when one begins to look to integralism. This is not to say that one should not educate oneself on these matters; one will like have to take the initiative. Instead, it is to urge anyone interested in questions of integralism to proceed slowly and choose the best sources.

What are the best sources? Why, the ones we identify.

The best source is Pater Edmund Waldstein’s “Integralism in Three Sentences” at The Josias. One can get into the weeds quickly on this stuff, but Pater Edmund boils the theory down to its basic contentions. It’s a dense three sentences, requiring one to know more than nothing, but most educated Catholics can pick up the argument.

Also by Pater Edmund is the essential “The Good, the Highest Good, and the Common Good,” also at The Josias, which explains some of the terms that are used not only by integralists but also by Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the popes. Indeed, it is impossible to discuss these matters without a clear understanding of the good, the highest good, and the common good. One will quickly lose the thread without such an understanding.

Taking a step into the realm of the philosophers and the theologians, Charles De Koninck’s The Primacy of the Common Good Against the Personalists is an important text for integralists. Likewise, St. Thomas Aquinas’s De Regno. There are obviously other texts, such as Fr. Henri Grenier’s influential manual, Thomistic Philosophy, but it is by no means necessary at first to get into the weeds of the literature. However, with St. Thomas and De Koninck, one will be able to articulate in a very general way some of the philosophical and theological arguments behind integralism. We assume, by the way, that educated readers will have some familiarity with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. If not, it would behoove the interested reader to go back and get some familiarity with those texts, which are widely available in any number of formats.

Turning from the philosopher and theologians to the magisterium, Leo XIII’s encyclical on the Christian constitution of states, Immortale Dei, and his encyclical on the origin of civil power, Diuturnum illud, set forth some of the crucial magisterial teachings in support of integralism. While there are many other magisterial teachings that contribute to what we call integralism, Immortale Dei and Diuturnum illud are probably the most important. (His encyclical on Christians as citizens, Sapientiae christianae, is also important, but it develops upon Immortale Dei and Diuturnum illud and is perhaps not essential reading at the outset.) Leo’s style is clear, direct, and forceful. As we say, integralism is simply Catholic political teaching up until the 20th century and Leo, coming at the end of the 19th century, had an opportunity to restate that teaching. One will not go far wrong following Leo in these matters.

This is not a comprehensive introduction by any means, but we think it will provide the reader with enough of an understanding of integralism—that is, the Church’s traditional political thought—to weigh the matter intelligently. We offer, finally, this passage from St. John Paul II’s 1998 encyclical on the relationship between faith and reason, Fides et Ratio:

Eclecticism is an error of method, but lying hidden within it can also be the claims of historicism. To understand a doctrine from the past correctly, it is necessary to set it within its proper historical and cultural context. The fundamental claim of historicism, however, is that the truth of a philosophy is determined on the basis of its appropriateness to a certain period and a certain historical purpose. At least implicitly, therefore, the enduring validity of truth is denied. What was true in one period, historicists claim, may not be true in another. Thus for them the history of thought becomes little more than an archeological resource useful for illustrating positions once held, but for the most part outmoded and meaningless now. On the contrary, it should not be forgotten that, even if a formulation is bound in some way by time and culture, the truth or the error which it expresses can invariably be identified and evaluated as such despite the distance of space and time.

(Emphasis supplied.)

Augustine on peace, order, and inequality

From Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, 19.13.1:

Pax itaque corporis est ordinata temperatura partium, pax animae irrationalis ordinata requies appetitionum, pax animae rationalis ordinata cognitionis actionisque consensio, pax corporis et animae ordinata vita et salus animantis, pax hominis mortalis et Dei ordinata in fide sub aeterna lege oboedientia, pax hominum ordinata concordia, pax domus ordinata imperandi atque oboediendi concordia cohabitantium, pax civitatis ordinata imperandi atque oboediendi concordia civium, pax caelestis civitatis ordinatissima et concordissima societas fruendi Deo et invicem in Deo, pax omnium rerum tranquillitas ordinis. Ordo est parium dispariumque rerum sua cuique loca tribuens dispositio. Proinde miseri, quia, in quantum miseri sunt, utique in pace non sunt, tranquillitate quidem ordinis carent, ubi perturbatio nulla est; verumtamen quia merito iusteque sunt miseri, in ea quoque ipsa miseria sua praeter ordinem esse non possunt; non quidem coniuncti beatis, sed ab eis tamen ordinis lege seiuncti. Qui cum sine perturbatione sunt, rebus, in quibus sunt, quantacumque congruentia coaptantur; ac per hoc inest eis ordinis nonnulla tranquillitas, inest ergo nonnulla pax. Verum ideo miseri sunt, quia, etsi in aliqua securitate non dolent, non tamen ibi sunt, ubi securi esse ac dolere non debeant; miseriores autem, si pax eis cum ipsa lege non est, qua naturalis ordo administratur. Cum autem dolent, ex qua parte dolent, pacis perturbatio facta est; in illa vero adhuc pax est, in qua nec dolor urit nec compago ipsa dissolvitur. Sicut ergo est quaedam vita sine dolore, dolor autem sine aliqua vita esse non potest: sic est quaedam pax sine ullo bello, bellum vero esse sine aliqua pace non potest; non secundum id, quod bellum est, sed secundum id, quod ab eis vel in eis geritur, quae aliquae naturae sunt; quod nullo modo essent, si non qualicumque pace subsisterent.

In translation, this is rendered:

The peace of the body then consists in the duly proportioned arrangement of its parts. The peace of the irrational soul is the harmonious repose of the appetites, and that of the rational soul the harmony of knowledge and action. The peace of body and soul is the well-ordered and harmonious life and health of the living creature. Peace between man and God is the well-ordered obedience of faith to eternal law. Peace between man and man is well-ordered concord. Domestic peace is the well-ordered concord between those of the family who rule and those who obey. Civil peace is a similar concord among the citizens. The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. The peace of all things is the tranquillity of order. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal, each to its own place. And hence, though the miserable, in so far as they are such, do certainly not enjoy peace, but are severed from that tranquillity of order in which there is no disturbance, nevertheless, inasmuch as they are deservedly and justly miserable, they are by their very misery connected with order. They are not, indeed, conjoined with the blessed, but they are disjoined from them by the law of order. And though they are disquieted, their circumstances are notwithstanding adjusted to them, and consequently they have some tranquillity of order, and therefore some peace. But they are wretched because, although not wholly miserable, they are not in that place where any mixture of misery is impossible. They would, however, be more wretched if they had not that peace which arises from being in harmony with the natural order of things. When they suffer, their peace is in so far disturbed; but their peace continues in so far as they do not suffer, and in so far as their nature continues to exist. As, then, there may be life without pain, while there cannot be pain without some kind of life, so there may be peace without war, but there cannot be war without some kind of peace, because war supposes the existence of some natures to wage it, and these natures cannot exist without peace of one kind or other.

(Emphasis supplied.)

Spadaro and Figueroa against Francis?

Fr. Antonio Spadaro and Marcelo Figueroa have a piece in Civiltà complaining about “the surprising ecumenism” between Catholic integralists and evangelical fundamentalists. As we are never not reminded, Civiltà is reviewed in the Secretariat of State before publication, and, more than that, Spadaro has been a leading hype man for the Holy Father’s projects. (He is also a devoted consumer of pop culture.) Figueroa is an Argentine protestant pastor whose primary claim to fame is that he is friends with the Pope. Spadaro and Figueroa write in some ways the standard left-liberal piece about politics and religion in America. In fact, every educated American has probably read this piece a thousand times over, as it was a very popular piece during the presidency of George W. Bush. That Spadaro and Figueroa feel the need to deliver themselves of it in 2017 betrays their fundamental ignorance of American politics, culture, and the intersection of both with religion. No American editor with half a clue would have accepted their pitch, unless he was trying to ingratiate himself with the Pope’s buddies.

It is hard to describe just how hackneyed this piece is, but, for you, dear reader, we will try. (Assuming you don’t want to read it, which is a perfectly reasonable reaction.) It begins with a potted history of Christian fundamentalism in the United States. It meanders into dominionism and apocalypticism. Next, we turn to the prosperity gospel; bizarrely they talk about Norman Vincent Peale but not Joel Osteen. Why do they mention the prosperity gospel? Who knows. Then we hear about the ecumenism between these protestants and some Catholics on the hot-button social questions of abortion and same-sex marriage. Of course, Spadaro and Figueroa omit to discuss the history of this relationship or some of its central figures, such as Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. Pastor Figueroa could perhaps be excused for not knowing the Church’s doctrine or history on these points, though the Pope has named him editor of the Argentine edition of L’Osservatore Romano, but it is less understandable why Fr. Spadaro is confused by the alliance. Or something. We then turn into a long discourse on spiritual war, which is not hugely clear, but the thrust of which seems to be that Michael Voris’s Church Militant is very bad.

Spadaro clarifies nothing in the interview he did with America about the piece. As we say, any educated American has read the article about fundamentalism and politicians a thousand times, the article about the prosperity gospel a thousand times, and the article about socially conservative Christians putting aside confessional differences to try to stop abortion and same-sex “marriage” a thousand times. What is new, other than the fact that Spadaro and Figueroa are seen as close collaborators of the reigning Pope, is the suggestion that Donald Trump, who is manifestly not hugely interested in religion nor even able to mouth the sorts of religious platitudes that American presidents are usually expected to mouth, somehow fits into this structure. They mention Steve Bannon, but only in passing and with no insight. And this is the primary problem with the essay: Spadaro and Figueroa plainly have no insight into the American political and religious scenes. They simply want to argue that Pope Francis and liberalism are good and integralism is bad.

Unfortunately, and even if you disagree that their piece has been done to death over the last seventeen years (and you’d be wrong), their argument is hamstrung by its mediocrity. For one thing, they never actually get around to discussing the Church’s historical position on the question of integralism. It is argued that Francis rejects it, but they make no effort to demonstrate that such a rejection is consistent with the Church’s social doctrine more generally. But that doesn’t really matter, since they never get around to defining “Catholic integralism.” All that matters for them is that it is extremely bad. It is probably unreasonable to expect them to engage with a tradition that they don’t even define. Moreover, they do not engage with the liberal tradition within American Catholicism, exemplified by the Jesuit John Courtney Murray, which might have provided an interesting strand in their argument—not least because it remains the dominant strand in American Catholicism. That article has itself been written many times, but not so many times as the article Spadaro and Figueroa turned in. It may even have been interesting.

However, even if they had made a halfway intelligent argument, grappling with the liberal tradition in Catholicism, they still would find themselves in opposition not only to the tradition of the Church but also to the pope they want to vindicate. The crux of their essay is this:

The religious element should never be confused with the political one. Confusing spiritual power with temporal power means subjecting one to the other. An evident aspect of Pope Francis’ geopolitics rests in not giving theological room to the power to impose oneself or to find an internal or external enemy to fight. There is a need to flee the temptation to project divinity on political power that then uses it for its own ends. Francis empties from within the narrative of sectarian millenarianism and dominionism that is preparing the apocalypse and the “final clash.” Underlining mercy as a fundamental attribute of God expresses this radically Christian need.

Francis wants to break the organic link between culture, politics, institution and Church. Spirituality cannot tie itself to governments or military pacts for it is at the service of all men and women. Religions cannot consider some people as sworn enemies nor others as eternal friends. Religion should not become the guarantor of the dominant classes. Yet it is this very dynamic with a spurious theological flavor that tries to impose its own law and logic in the political sphere.

(Emphasis supplied and footnote omitted.) It would be impossible to unpack all of the errors contained in these two paragraphs. For example, Spadaro and Figueroa apparently intend to deny outright the doctrines contained in Leo XIII’s Libertas praestantissimum, Immortale Dei, and Diuturnum illud, to say nothing of St. Pius X’s Fin dalla prima nostra and Notre charge apostolique. They also intend to deny the authority of the Church to pronounce on matters of political economy set forth by Leo XIII in Rerum novarum, Pius XI in Quadragesimo anno, and Pius XII in La solennità della Pentecoste. They also apparently intend generally to deny the condemnations of liberalism contained in Gregory XVI’s Mirari vos and Bl. Pius IX’s Quanta cura and Syllabus. No doubt they see in Gaudium et spes, Dignitatis humanae, Nostra aetate, and Unitatis redintegratio the rejection of such tedious anti-liberal doctrines. We may say then that Spadaro and Figueroa oppose not only Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII, but also Benedict XVI, who taught that the Council could not be read in opposition to those good and holy popes.

More to the point, Spadaro and Figueroa set themselves against Pope Francis himself when they articulate a bizarre liberal atomization of man. According to Spadaro and Figueroa, in church, man is a believer; in the council hall, he is a politician, at the movie theater, he is a critic; and he is apparently supposed to keep all of these roles separate. The believer and the politician can never communicate, nor the critic and the believer, nor the politician and the critic. However, in April of this year, Francis gave an address to a conference in Rome on Populorum progressio in which he said:

It is also a matter of integrating in development all those elements that render it truly such. The various systems: the economy, finance, work, culture, family life, religion are, each in its own way, a fundamental circumstance for this growth. None of them can be an absolute, and none can be excluded from the concept of integral human development which, in other words, takes into account that human life is like an orchestra that performs well if the various instruments are in harmony and follow a score shared by all.

It is also a matter of integrating the individual and the community dimensions. It is undeniable that we are children of a culture, at least in the Western world, that has exalted the individual to the point of making him as an island, almost as if he could be happy alone. On the other hand, there is no lack of ideological views and political powers that have crushed the person; they have depersonalized the individual and deprived him of that boundless freedom without which man no longer feels he is man. There are also economic powers interested in this conformity; they seek to exploit globalization instead of fostering greater sharing among people, simply in order to impose a global market of which they themselves make the rules and reap the profits. The ‘I’ and the community are not in competition with each other, but the ‘I’ can mature only in the presence of authentic interpersonal relationships, and the community is productive when each and every one of its components is such. This is even more the case for the family, which is the first cell of society and where one learns how to live together.

It is lastly a matter of integrating among them body and soul. Paul vi previously wrote that development cannot be restricted simply to economic growth (cf. n. 14); development does not consist in having goods increasingly available, for physical wellbeing alone. Integrating body and soul also means that no work of development can truly reach its goal if it does not respect that place in which God is present with us and speaks to our heart.

(Emphasis supplied.) It is clear that Francis, like his predecessors, rejects the notion that the various aspects of human life can be atomized and compartmentalized. Instead, he sees human life as “an orchestra that performs well if the various instruments are in harmony and follow a score shared by all.” This is not the rhetoric of a pope who “wants to break the organic link between culture, politics, institution and Church,” as Spadaro and Figueroa say. This is the rhetoric of a pope who understands the vital importance of this organic link and wishes to foster it.

Moreover, we are far from convinced that Francis is as liberal as Spadaro and Figueroa would have us believe. Consider Laudato si’. Pater Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., a great friend of Semiduplex and a leading light among Catholic integralists, has argued conclusively that Laudato si’ is a deeply anti-modern, anti-liberal encyclical. Rusty Reno, editor of First Things, has likewise articulated the case that the Francis of Laudato si’ is deeply suspicious of modernity and liberalism. Indeed, the liberal atomization that Spadaro and Figueroa want to exalt is one of the central problems with modernity that Francis dissects brilliantly in Laudato si’. Francis teaches us:

A misguided anthropocentrism leads to a misguided lifestyle. In the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, I noted that the practical relativism typical of our age is “even more dangerous than doctrinal relativism”. When human beings place themselves at the centre, they give absolute priority to immediate convenience and all else becomes relative. Hence we should not be surprised to find, in conjunction with the omnipresent technocratic paradigm and the cult of unlimited human power, the rise of a relativism which sees everything as irrelevant unless it serves one’s own immediate interests. There is a logic in all this whereby different attitudes can feed on one another, leading to environmental degradation and social decay.

The culture of relativism is the same disorder which drives one person to take advantage of another, to treat others as mere objects, imposing forced labour on them or enslaving them to pay their debts. The same kind of thinking leads to the sexual exploitation of children and abandonment of the elderly who no longer serve our interests. It is also the mindset of those who say: Let us allow the invisible forces of the market to regulate the economy, and consider their impact on society and nature as collateral damage. In the absence of objective truths or sound principles other than the satisfaction of our own desires and immediate needs, what limits can be placed on human trafficking, organized crime, the drug trade, commerce in blood diamonds and the fur of endangered species? Is it not the same relativistic logic which justifies buying the organs of the poor for resale or use in experimentation, or eliminating children because they are not what their parents wanted? This same “use and throw away” logic generates so much waste, because of the disordered desire to consume more than what is really necessary. We should not think that political efforts or the force of law will be sufficient to prevent actions which affect the environment because, when the culture itself is corrupt and objective truth and universally valid principles are no longer upheld, then laws can only be seen as arbitrary impositions or obstacles to be avoided.

(Emphasis supplied and footnote omitted.) Francis sees what Spadaro and Figueroa do not: “the organic link between culture, politics, institution and Church” is necessary for living well. The “objective truths and sound principles” provided by the Church ought to inform our lifestyle, our culture, and our political activities; indeed, these truths are necessary for our culture and our political activities, lest they fall into sickness and tyranny.

Spadaro and Figueroa, so far from expressing the mind of Francis, seek to articulate the misguided lifestyle Francis warns us about.

 

 

 

John Paul II on private property

We have been reading John Paul’s 1981 encyclical on human labor, Laborem exercens, which was a commemoration of the 90th anniversary of Rerum novarum. There are interesting resonances with earlier thinkers that we will, we hope, have time to draw out later. However, for now, we present this lengthy excerpt on private property as, perhaps, a mere provocation:

The historical process briefly presented here has certainly gone beyond its initial phase, but it is still taking place and indeed is spreading in the relationships between nations and continents. It needs to be specified further from another point of view. It is obvious that, when we speak of opposition between labour and capital, we are not dealing only with abstract concepts or “impersonal forces” operating in economic production. Behind both concepts there are people, living, actual people: on the one side are those who do the work without being the owners of the means of production, and on the other side those who act as entrepreneurs and who own these means or represent the owners. Thus the issue of ownership or property enters from the beginning into the whole of this difficult historical process. The Encyclical Rerum Novarum, which has the social question as its theme, stresses this issue also, recalling and confirming the Church’s teaching on ownership, on the right to private property even when it is a question of the means of production. The Encyclical Mater et Magistra did the same.

The above principle, as it was then stated and as it is still taught by the Church, diverges radically from the programme of collectivism as proclaimed by Marxism and put into pratice in various countries in the decades following the time of Leo XIII’s Encyclical. At the same time it differs from the programme of capitalism practised by liberalism and by the political systems inspired by it. In the latter case, the difference consists in the way the right to ownership or property is understood. Christian tradition has never upheld this right as absolute and untouchable. On the contrary, it has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation: the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone.

Furthermore, in the Church’s teaching, ownership has never been understood in a way that could constitute grounds for social conflict in labour. As mentioned above, property is acquired first of all through work in order that it may serve work. This concerns in a special way ownership of the means of production. Isolating these means as a separate property in order to set it up in the form of “capital” in opposition to “labour”—and even to practise exploitation of labour—is contrary to the very nature of these means and their possession. They cannot be possessed against labour, they cannot even be possessed for possession’s sake, because the only legitimate title to their possession—whether in the form of private ownerhip or in the form of public or collective ownership—is that they should serve labour, and thus, by serving labour, that they should make possible the achievement of the first principle of this order, namely, the universal destination of goods and the right to common use of them. From this point of view, therefore, in consideration of human labour and of common access to the goods meant for man, one cannot exclude the socialization, in suitable conditions, of certain means of production. In the course of the decades since the publication of the Encyclical Rerum Novarum, the Church’s teaching has always recalled all these principles, going back to the arguments formulated in a much older tradition, for example, the well-known arguments of the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas. 

(Emphasis supplied.)

Notes on the hymns of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary

We have previously outlined the great antiquity of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The hymns in the Little Office are no less ancient than the office itself. However, it may interest you, dear reader, to learn a little more about those hymns. As you no doubt know, the Little Office uses four hymns. At matins, Quem terra pontus sidera is sung; at lauds, O gloriosa virginum; and at vespers, the great Marian hymn Ave maris stella. At all the little hours and compline, Memento rerum conditor is sung. We shall see that these are all hymns of great antiquity, of Merovingian or Carolingian origin. However, we shall also see that these venerable hymns did not pass through Urban VIII’s reforms unharmed, despite the fact that the obligation to say the Little Office had been greatly reduced by St. Pius V. It is not our intention to present a complete history of the hymns of the Little Office; instead, we offer a few notes.

Matins: Quem terra pontus sidera and Lauds: O gloriosa virginum

Just as matins and lauds formed, traditionally, one office, so too do Quem terra pontus sidera and O gloriosa virginum form one hymn—a hymn of great antiquity. Walpole sets forth in his Early Latin Hymns, pp. 193–95, an argument for attributing this hymn, under its pre-Urban VIII incipit, Quem terra pontus aethera, to the great Merovingian poet, St. Venantius Fortunatus. It is Walpole’s argument that Quem terra pontus sidera, the Christmas hymn Agnoscat omne saeculum, and the long poem in elegiacs Walpole calls the Laus Mariae are all by one author. All three are very much in Venantius’s style, and this point Walpole finds conclusive, as he does not think it likely that anyone in the next couple of hundred years after Venantius’s death could have so ably imitated the master poet. There are, however, some metrical issues with both Agnoscat omne saeculum and Quem terra pontus sidera, but Walpole finds none of them dispositive. The bottom line is that the poems are “not unworthy” of Venantius, as Walpole puts it. If true, this means that Quem terra pontus aethera was composed no later than Venantius’s death at the very beginning of the seventh century, and it has remained in widespread use for over a thousand years.

Of course, the fact that Quem terra pontus aethera was a composition of Venantius, close to the heart of every Catholic in Europe for six hundred years, did not spare it from the revisions initiated by Pope Urban VIII in 1629 or so. (This was part of a broader project of revision initiated by Urban.) As you, dear reader, no doubt recall, Urban was a man of tremendous erudition and good taste, and he wished to correct the prosody of those good old Merovingian and Carolingian hymns. It seemed, we suppose, to him that the hymns of the Breviary were deficient insofar as they were not written by Horace. Unfortunately, Urban’s assistants—the Jesuits Strada, Gallucci, Sarbiewski, and Petrucci—went a little too far, and frankly mangled some of the most beloved hymns in Christendom. All told, they made about a thousand changes to the Breviary. Quem terra pontus aethera came through it all right, with aethera being replaced with sidera. Unfortunately, O gloriosa femina didn’t fare so well. The first stanza is almost unrecognizable in Urban’s text. They tinkered somewhat less with the second stanza, and almost not at all with the third.

It is too bad, too, as O gloriosa femina (O gloriosa domina is a known variant, per Walpole, attested by several sources) was a favorite hymn of St. Anthony of Padua, who learned it as a child from his mother. He died with it on his lips. One imagines that that saint was by no means alone in his devotion to the hymn. And, of course, if we say Venantius Fortunatus wrote it, we find ourselves with Quem terra pontus aethera being an expression of Marian devotion by the greatest Christian poet of his age. Either way, one may say both that Quem terra pontus aethera should have been spared the attentions of Urban’s Jesuits and that it is a preeminent example of their handiwork.

Little Hours and Compline: Memento rerum conditor

The authorship of Quem terra pontus aethera is just about the only question about that hymn. The same cannot be said for the hymn most used by the Little Office: Memento rerum conditor. We do not know who wrote it, nor when. Indeed, it is not a wholly original composition. Memento salutis auctor, the pre-Urban VIII version of Memento rerum conditor, takes its first stanza from the Christmas hymn Christe redemptor omnium. This is an anonymous hymn, part of the so-called New Hymnal of the Carolingian period, and it has had, over the past thousand years, a prominent place in the Christmas office. One imagines that the popularity of Christe redemptor omnium explains how one of its stanzas found its way into the Little Office.

But the second stanza, Maria mater gratiae, is not part of Christe redemptor omnium. It has been from time to time suggested that it is a continuation of Quem terra pontus aethera, or the second part of it, O gloriosa femina, said at lauds. It is thus found in Cardinal Quignon’s controversial breviary. However, Maria mater gratiae is not found in the text of Quem terra pontus aethera, and must be considered a later composition, whatever its source. It has been, however, a prayer close to the hearts of many Catholics down through the ages. For example, Fr. Henry Garnet, the English Jesuit hanged for his supposed complicity in the so-called Gunpowder Plot, died with it on his lips.

Memento salutis auctor also met with substantial revisions under Urban VIII. The first three lines of the first stanza were substantially rewritten into their present form, and in the second stanza, Mater misericordiae, a quotation perhaps of the Salve Regina, was changed into Dulcis parens clementiae. The Jesuit Hornsby, discussing this revision in the American Ecclesiastical Review, observed that, “though corrected in meter, it has lost some of its sweetness.”  While contemporary critics remarked accessit latinitas, recessit pietas, we think Hornsby has a nice way of putting it, too. It is telling, we think, that Dom Anselmo Lentini, when putting together the hymns for Paul VI’s Liturgia Horarum, rolled back the clock, stripping away Urban’s classicizing revisions. (And introducing some revisions of his own.)

At any rate, none of this answers the fundamental question: who wrote Memento salutis auctor, or, perhaps more precisely, who added the stanza Maria mater gratia to the stanza of Christe redemptor omnium selected for the Little Office? When did it happen? Walpole observes (p. 306) that Christe redemptor omnium is found in most manuscripts from the 10th century onward. We may guess that the stanza was excerpted and enlarged at about that time or shortly thereafter. Such would jive with what we know about the emergence of the Little Office generally. But that answers nothing. We are still left with questions upon questions about this little hymn.

Vespers: Ave maris stella

Little needs to be said about this great Carolingian hymn in honor of Our Lady. It is found already in the ninth century Codex Sangallensis 95, and it has been attributed to numerous authors, including Venantius, Paul the Deacon, and Bernard of Clairvaux (who could not have written it). However, its certain authorship remains a mystery. What is not mysterious is the preeminent place it has held in the Breviary, even down to the present day. It passed unscathed through Urban’s process of reform, a testament, we suspect, as much to its stature as to its prosody.

Never abrogated: ten years of “Summorum Pontificum”

At New Liturgical Movement, Gregory DiPippo has a lengthy post, arguing that the legal fiction that the two forms of the Roman Rite—ordinary and extraordinary—constitute one rite, is the legal achievement of Summorum Pontificum. It is basically his argument that the Mass of Paul VI is so different from the traditional Roman Mass that it is impossible to say that it is but a use of the Roman Rite in the same way as historic uses. Indeed, it appears, DiPippo says, to be another rite altogether, but the establishment of a new rite would in fact cause all manner of problems. Benedict’s establishment of forms, therefore, was an elegant legal solution to a vexing problem.

However, in our view, there is a much more significant legal achievement in Summorum Pontificum. It is in two words in article 1 of the motu proprio: numquam abrogatam—never abrogated. This is a recognition that at no point in Paul VI’s 1969 apostolic constitution Missale Romanum did that pope ever abrogate the Missal of St. Pius V and St. John XXIII. One can compare the language in Laudis canticum, Paul VI’s 1970 apostolic constitution promulgating the Liturgia Horarum to see just how ambiguous Missale Romanum is. And it is the recognition that the Mass of St. Pius V and St. John XXIII was never abrogated that served as the tool for Benedict to reorient the Roman Rite. Indeed, Summorum Pontificum simply follows the logic of this basic legal fact. If the traditional Mass was never abrogated, then surely any priest can say it. And surely the faithful who want it have a right to request it.

Of course, the signs were there all along. The 1984 indult, Quattuor abhinc annos, did not address the question directly, while authorizing diocesan bishops to permit use of the 1962 books under fairly onerous conditions. Likewise, John Paul’s 1988 response to the Écône consecrations, Ecclesia Dei adflicta, does not touch upon the status of the 1962 books, but encourages a broad application of the Quattuor abhinc annos indult. One could conclude from Paul VI’s ambiguity and Rome’s subsequent silence that the traditional Mass had never actually been abrogated, and that it remained valid and licit. But such a conclusion would be contrary to the attitude and behavior of both the liturgical experts and the various bishops who were staunch partisans of the post-Conciliar changes in the liturgy. Summorum Pontificum made it official, however: the traditional Mass was never abrogated.

As a result Benedict XVI was able to come along and liberalize its use. This was a great defeat for the liturgical progressives who, on the strength of some broad mandates in Sacrosanctum Concilium, completely remade the Roman Rite. As far as we can tell, they have not forgiven and will not forgive Benedict for the direct application of clear logic. But there is a lesson here for anyone who wants to do anything radical, as the liturgical progressives did: you have to do it. You cannot leave it implicit, you cannot rely on pressure, subtle or otherwise, and you cannot assume that everyone will always toe the line. Benedict shows us that Catholics’ common sense needn’t be checked in the vestibule. Not doing something is, in fact, not doing something.

Benedict went farther and explained that the traditional Mass could not have been abrogated. In his letter to the bishops regarding Summorum Pontificum, he famously observed:

In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place. Needless to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness.

(Emphasis supplied.) This point has been much repeated in the last ten years, but it bears repeating still. The Church is not a legislature or a court, which has the authority to change everything as needed. To be sure, our understanding of the tradition may deepen and the pastoral needs of the faithful may require different emphases, but that is not a commission to tear down and rebuild to suit the fashions of the world at any given moment.

This is, in fact, a supremely important legal achievement, going to the very heart of power in the Church. As anyone who has read Pastor aeternus knows, the pope is not an absolute dictator within the Church. There are limits on the authority of the Church. Benedict presents two of these limits. First of all, mere suggestion is not enough. Those in authority may not imply something and expect it to have the force of law. Second, the Church cannot suppress outright holy things in the tradition. The progressives and modernists will, naturally, consider these reactionary tenets, though both seem to us to be double-edged swords. Of course, DiPippo identifies an important legal question in Summorum Pontificum, but it seems to us that Benedict has as much to say about the very nature of law in the Church as he does about forms and uses and rites.

At CDF, Müller out; Ladaria in.

Everyone knows by now that Pope Francis declined to reappoint Gerhard Ludwig Cardinal Müller to another five-year term as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith. Rorate Caeli broke the news in English, and the sudden explosion of coverage yesterday following the scoop allegedly forced the Vatican to advance its timetable for announcing the reshuffle. It is somewhat unusual for Curial officials not to get reappointed as a matter of course, and, therefore, it is often forgotten that under Article 5 § 1 of St. John Paul’s apostolic constitution governing the Roman Curia, Pastor Bonus, prefects are appointed to five-year terms. There will, however, be no interregnum at CDF, as the Holy Father has appointed Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, S.J., as the next prefect.

Archbishop Ladaria, a talented theologian who has been working in Rome for over thirty years, was appointed secretary of CDF in 2008 by Benedict XVI when he appointed Angelo Amato prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. Amato had been Ratzinger’s last secretary before his election as pope in 2005. (Bertone was appointed archbishop of Genoa in 2002.) Ladaria had worked with Ratzinger’s CDF for years while serving as a popular professor at the Gregorian before his appointment. He has long been seen as a moderate, which is to say neither a reactionary nor a progressive, and a figure with strong affinities toward the project of patristic ressourcement. Shortly after the disastrous 2014 Synod, Archbishop Ladaria wrote a letter to a French priest reaffirming John Paul’s Familiaris consortio and rejecting the more radical interpretations put forth at that time. It will, of course, have to be seen what he does now that he’s the boss.

What is there to be said about Cardinal Müller? Whatever his views before his 2012 appointment as prefect of CDF, he became a figure, much like Ratzinger before him, apparently determined to arrest the drift of the Church into the currents of this age. But it was clear that, following the election of the Holy Father in 2013, Cardinal Müller was not an influential figure in the Curia. Frequently, as in the case of the SSPX, he found himself at loggerheads with both the Holy Father and his subordinates. We have no illusions: Cardinal Müller is widely seen as an opponent of some of the Holy Father’s projects, notably the Amoris laetitia project. The surprise for us is that Cardinal Müller was permitted to serve out his term.

Perhaps coincidentally we are reminded that June 16 was the twentieth anniversary of Radiohead’s seminal LP, OK Computer, which featured the track “Karma Police.” Later that summer, “Karma Police” was released as the second single off the LP. As you no doubt recall, the song includes the line “This is what you’ll get when you mess with love.” We cannot think why we cannot help but think of this right now. Pure coincidence, we’re sure.