Reflections

Sunrise doesn’t last all morning

On December 10, the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews issued “The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable,” an explicitly non-magisterial, non-doctrinal “reflection” on the theological questions that have cropped up after Nostra aetate.

Paragraphs 41 through 44 of the reflection have gotten a lot of attention in the press. Essentially, “The Gifts and the Calling” is an institutional expression of the so-called Two Covenant Theory, which holds that the covenant between God and the Jewish people remains in force, notwithstanding the New Law. This idea—which draws upon Paul’s Letter to the Romans—is an awfully complicated question, and a relatively recent development. On the other side of the question, Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, for example, held that the Old Law was abolished in favor of the New Law by Christ’s death on the Cross. (It is unfortunate that the Commission did not address Mystici Corporis and other magisterial documents that preceded Nostra aetate, which would no doubt have been on the Council fathers’ minds as they debated the question.) But all of this is hugely complicated—to say nothing of how sensitive the whole matter is in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust—and well beyond our limited theological knowledge.

However, Father John Hunwicke has been posting and reposting a series of reflections on the Commission’s document and Nostra aetate. One of these reflections makes the very interesting point that Christ’s actions were pointed toward Temple-based Judaism and its strongly sacrificial aspects, and Christianity, as found in Christ’s Church, supersedes that form of Judaism. Fr. Hunwicke quotes Rabbi Jacob Neusner, an eminent scholar who has spent a lot of time thinking about Christian-Jewish relations, who argues the institution of the Eucharist was intended to replace the sin-offerings at the Temple. And, of course, Christ referred to himself as the Temple in John’s Gospel when challenged by leaders of the Jewish community. Thus, when one discusses supersessionism, one must, as Fr. Hunwicke says, be precise about what supersedes what.

All of this is a hugely interesting question, and while the Commission’s document has been criticized harshly for the points made in paragraphs 41 through 44, we think that the document, to the extent that it prompts reflection and discussion—particularly interfaith discussion among scholars who know from what on these matters—on these issues is a valuable contribution to dialogue. Even if it is explicitly non-magisterial and non-doctrinal.

Ottaviani, Döpfner, and Article 33 § 1 of the Ordo Concilii

The history of the Second Vatican Council—which is to say, the nitty-gritty, technical stuff—has largely receded into inaccessibility. While the faithful are told—and told and told and told—how important the Council was to the life of the Church. It was a second Pentecost, a rebirth of the Church, and any number of other things. But the how and why of the Council are so poorly understood that this seminal event in the life of the Church might as well have happened on the dark side of the Moon. For our part, given our deficient formation in Church history, we have endeavored to find out more about what actually happened during the Council, including, when possible, the technical aspects of the events. While these technical aspects are, of course, interesting from an antiquarian standpoint, we think that there are lessons that can be drawn from them that may well be applicable today.

For reasons perhaps obvious to you, dear reader, we have followed the arguments of Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, then the secretary of the Holy Office (popes were their own prefects in those days). The first session of the Second Vatican Council did not go well for Cardinal Ottaviani. Not only did he find himself outmaneuvered by the Modernists and progressives but he also found himself humiliated openly during sessions of the Council. Perhaps the most notable incident occurred on October 30, 1962, during the debate over the draft constitution De Sacra Liturgia, which, after amendment, was issued as Sacrosanctum Concilium. Ottaviani rightly apprehended that the progressives were aiming at a complete revision of the Mass, widespread use of the vernacular, and communion under both species, among other things. (Acta Synodalia I.2.18–20.) And he said so. And in saying so, he ran over the allotted time for interventions. (The allotted time wasn’t exactly a hard-and-fast rule, either: the Ordo Concilii, art. 33 § 3, provided, merely: “Quilibet Pater de una eademque re, ex regula, semel tantum loqui potest, idemque rogatur decem momenta ne excedat.”) But Bernardus Cardinal Alfrink, a confirmed progressive, was presiding on October 30, and he ordered Ottaviani’s microphone cut—to applause in the hall, which was noted, perhaps cruelly, in the Acta Synodalia.

But the indignity suffered during the debate over De Sacra Liturgia would not be Cardinal Ottaviani’s last battle during the first session of the Council. The progressives, recognizing that some of the approved schemata prepared by the preparatory commissions would not achieve the sweeping changes they demanded, began to prepare and circulate their own draft schemata. The progressive Jesuit Henri de Lubac, in his Vatican Council Notebooks, reports that the Germans, including Jesuit Karl Rahner, prepared an alternate draft of the doctrinal schema almost as soon as they hit the ground in Rome. (Among the bright young priests helping Fr. Rahner draft an alternate schema was a young priest of Munich and Freising and rising theologian, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger. What a life the cloistered monk of Mater Ecclesiae has led!) The alternate schemata were, of course, circulated among sympathetic Council fathers. It goes without saying that Ottaviani objected to this practice.

The issue really began to come to a head on November 14, 1962, in the context of the hugely contentious discussion of Cardinal Ottaviani’s schema De Fontibus Revelationis. (One could write a book on the disastrous course of events surrounding De Fontibus Revelationis and its eventual replacement, Dei Verbum.) Ottaviani did not read the relatio personally—Msgr. Salvatore Garofalo, a professor at the Urbaniana and a member of the theological commission read the relatio, as a matter of fact—but he did make some prefatory remarks, including a very pointed comment about the alternate schemata then circulating:

Circumferuntur quaedam schemata quae essent substituenda schemati officialiter proposito. Hoc mihi non videtur congruere cum dispositione can. 222, par. 2, quae unice Summo Pontifici reservat materiam disponendam, et non esset reverens et obsequiosum erga Summum Pontificem, qui dedit discutiendum propositum schema officialiter, et igitur mens eius est ut hoc schema discutiatur, non alia quae privatim proponuntur. Si sunt correctiones faciendae, huic schemati fiant. Est liberum omnibus proponere correctiones, emendationes. Sed super hoc schema debet fieri discussio, non super alia.

(Acta Synodalia I.3.27.) In fact, Ottaviani’s spoken remarks on this issue were more pointed than his prepared text (cf. Acta Synodalia I.3.28). The theological commission had prepared—not without controversy—schemata for the Council to consider. The Council was supposed to consider the official schemata!

In support of his argument on this point, Ottaviani cited canon 222 § 2, which provided:

Eiusdem Romani Pontificis est Oecumenico Concilio per se vel per alios praeesse, res in eo tractandas ordinemque servandum constituere ac designare, Concilium ipsum transferre, suspendere, dissolvere, eiusque decreta confirmare.

(Emphasis supplied.) In Ed Peters’s indispensable translation of the 1917 Code, this is rendered:

It is for this same Roman Pontiff to preside himself or through another over the Ecumenical Council, to establish and designate the matters that are to be treated and the order to be observed, and to transfer, suspend, dissolve, and confirm the Council and its decrees.

(Emphasis supplied.) That is to say, the pope sets the agenda for ecumenical councils and determines what they will consider.This remains, essentially, the law of the Church today (can. 338 § 2). Cardinal Ottaviani could well have also cited chapter 8 of the Ordo Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II Celebrandi, which plainly anticipates that the official schemata would be discussed and amended through debate in the public sessions. Regardless of the legal authority, Ottaviani had a point: when John XXIII distributed the commissions’ draft schemata, he “establish[ed] and designate[d] the matter . . . to be treated.”  In Cardinal Ottaviani’s opinion, the Council fathers were therefore obligated to consider the “official” schemata, not agitate for the alternatives, such as the one prepared by Karl Rahner and his collaborators.

The debate over De Fontibus Revelationis went badly. As soon as the relatio was over, Cardinals Liénart and Frings, two leaders of the progressive faction, rose to attack the schema on various issues. (One can read the Acta Synodalia to see exactly why the progressives hated Ottaviani’s De Fontibus Revelationis, needless to say the effects of such a clear, precise statement of Catholic doctrine on ecumenism were deplored.) The battle continued on November 17. Julius Cardinal Döpfner, the young archbishop of Munich and another confirmed progressive, rose to criticize Cardinal Ottaviani’s points. In fact, he argued for a major revision to the procedure of the Council that would open the door to the alternate schemata:

Hanc disceptationem minime timeamus—ceteroquin in quaerenda veritate spectaculum unionis et caritatis in Spiritu Domini praestantes—neque ut irreverentia erga Summum Pontificem censenda est talis discussion. Nam in Ordine ab ipso Summo Pontifice dato legimus (art. 33 § 1), quemvis Patrem de unoquoque schemate admittendo vel emendando vel etiam reiciendo verba facere posse. Ex quo constat: ex laboribus praeparatoriis nullum oritur praeiudicium, et omnino intactum remanet nobis munus diiudicandi quid fiat de unoquoque et etiam de hoc schemate… Post disceptationem in genere autem fiat suffragium, utrum schema ut totum accipiatur an non. Quo suffragio peracto, videbimus quomodo ulterius procedendum sit. Si revera praesens forma schematis maioritati competenti Patrum placuerit, uti subiectum ulterioris laboris adhibeatur; si non, novum schema elaboretur. Et hoc, secundum meum humile iudicium, praeferendum esse videtur, quia a punctis diversis tendentiis et curis magis approprinquante exordium sumeretur.

(Acta Synodalia I.3.125) (Some original formatting omitted.) In other words, according to Cardinal Döpfner, because the Council fathers could, under article 33 § 1 of the Ordo Concilii, urge the rejection of a schema, there was no presumption in favor of the official schemata. And, based upon this lack of presumption, Döpfner took took the argument a step farther: after the general discussion of an official schema, there should be a vote whether the schema should be taken up or not. Obviously, as a German Council father, Döpfner knew that there were alternate schemata circulating, especially Rahner’s draft of a doctrinal schema. And given the course of the debate over De Fontibus Revelationis, one wonders whether Döpfner knew something the rest of the Council fathers didn’t.

Cardinal Ottaviani intervened shortly after Cardinal Döpfner’s speech and responded to the German’s points, suggesting that Döpfner simply did not understand how the preparatory commissions worked. (Acta Synodalia I.3.131.) Ottaviani also responded to Döpfner’s extraordinary suggestion that the schemata receive a general up-or-down vote after the initial debate:

Quod attinet ad novam propositionem factam quando iam labores sunt in fine istius constitutionis, quando iam maioritas…, fortassis cuidam non placet quod iam maioritas se expendit pro approbatione in forma generali cum emendationibus utique istius constitutionis; nunc fit propositio, ut respuatur. Hoc mihi videtur contrarium canoni 222, § 2. Videtur contrarium etiam ipsi dignitati istius consessus.

(Id.at I.3.132.) Once again, Ottaviani raised canon 222 § 2 as an objection to the notion that the Council could reject an official schema. The pope sets the agenda of an ecumenical council and the pope proposed the official schemata.

But Döpfner’s position got an unexpected boost against Ottaviani’s canon 222 § 2 argument. Norman Cardinal Gilroy, an Australian, was in the chair on November 17, and he read a note, responding to Ottaviani’s remarks:

Aliquis Pater conciliares mihi tamquam praesidi scripsit: «Enixe rogo em.mum praesidem congregationis ut attentionem Patrum dirigat ad canonem 33, sectionem primam. Est quod sequitur: “Quivis pater verba facere potest de unoquoque proposito schemate vel admittendo vel reiciendo”. Attentio dirigatur ad verbum reiciendo».

(Id.) (Emphasis supplied.) It is apparent, then, article 33 § 1 is therefore a significant procedural rule for this moment in the history of the Council: Cardinal Döpfner cited it as in support of his argument that no presumption existed in favor of the official schema, and it was the basis of the note passed to Cardinal Gilroy to shut Ottaviani down. And, given that the debate over De Fontibus Revelationis turned out to be a tremendously significant moment in the first session of the Council—indeed, the whole Council—one might say that article 33 §1 is a significant procedural rule for the history of the Council as a whole. But what does it say?

One must look for a copy of the the Ordo Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II Celebrandi, as it was during the first session of the Council. (The Council’s procedures were later revised during the Council itself on a sort of ad hoc basis, including during the debate over De Fontibus Revelationis.) However, the 1962 Ordo Concilii can be found in Latin as an appendix to John XXIII’s motu proprio Appropinquante Concilio, helpfully available in Latin and Spanish on the Vatican’s website. There, you find article 33 § 1:

Quivis Pater verba facere potest de unoquoque proposito schemate vel admittendo, vel reiciendo, vel emendando, suae orationis summa Secretario generali saltem tres ante dies scripto exhibita.

It’s a procedural provision. The Council fathers could make an intervention urging the adoption, rejection, or amendment of an official schema so long as they provided a copy of their written text to the Council general secretariat. That’s all. It is certainly not a mandate for an anything-goes discussion. And the progressives at the Council probably knew that, since they assiduously avoided quoting the final clause of the provision: suae orationis summa Secretario generali saltem tres ante dies scripto exhibita.

If the procedural aspect of article 33 § 1 weren’t clear enough from its words, the remaining provisions of article 33, make it clear:

§ 2. Oratio ita ordinanda est ut prius de principiis generalibus, postea vero de particularibus dispositionibus agatur, schematis ipsius. semper ordine servato.

§ 3. Quilibet Pater de una eademque re, ex regula, semel tantum loqui potest, idemque rogatur decem momenta ne excedat.

§ 4. Si orator obiecti vel temporis assignatos limites praetergrediatur, potest a Praeside ad eosdem revocari.

§ 5. Qui emendationes proposuit, absoluto sermone, scriptam relationem eandemque a se subscriptam Secretario generali tradere debet.

§ 6. Qui singula verba vel paragraphos schematis emendanda censuerit, scriptam formulam proponere tenetur, prioribus substituendam.

In other words, article 33 simply sets forth the procedure of debate in the Council aula. One doubts very much that it was intended to have the substantive significance that Cardinal Döpfner attached to it during his intervention. Certainly, the text, when it isn’t silent, seems to assume that the Council will be debating the official schemata, not preparing and circulating alternate schemata. However, when Döpfner made his intervention and when Gilroy read out the note essentially restating Döpfner’s position, the implication that article 33 § 1 abolished any presumption in favor of the official schemata went almost unchallenged. Almost: on November 20, Bishop Luigi Carli—later to become the subject of some controversy during the debate over Nostra aetate—intervened at length regarding the interpretation of article 33, and he argued against the broad interpretation articulated by Döpfner. (Acta Synodalia I.3.231–33.) Too late, though.

All of this is, of course, interesting in its way. Certainly, the inside baseball of the Council is fascinating, not least since it adds context to the documents the Council ultimately handed down. It also fosters enormous sympathy for Cardinal Ottaviani, who was, it seems, outgunned by the organized progressives at every turn. But there is, it seems to us, another reason for interest in this episode: the progressives’ approach to the law.

Consider what happened in outline form. Ottaviani cited canon 222 § 2 against the practice of preparing alternate schemata. Döpfner quoted part, but not all, article 33 § 1 of the Ordo Concilii in support of the argument that the official schemata enjoyed no presumption and that the Council should take an up-or-down vote on each official schema after the general debate. Ottaviani returned to canon 222 § 2 during the debate, and someone passed a note to Gilroy also quoting part, but not all, of article 33 § 1, and implying that it authorized that sort of practice. In other words, Döpfner’s selective quotation of the rule was used to justify a revolution in procedure plainly not foreseen by anyone but the progressives.

Laws, which ought to be construed harmoniously, were turned against each other. And it largely worked. It seems to us that one can find examples of this sort of activity in various circles today. This, then, is a reason why it behooves traditionally minded Catholics to familiarize themselves with the events at the Council.

David Bentley Hart on “Laudato si'”

Orthodox writer David Bentley Hart has a piece at First Things this month, wondering why American Catholics of a conservative bent, as he calls them (we tend to say, “Catholics on the American political right,” which we think better captures the phenomenon) have such distaste for the Holy Father, especially his recent social encyclical Laudato si’. He notes,

I suppose that in America, such sentiments [as those expressed in Laudato si’ – pjs] might sound a bit outrageous. We tend to think that all enterprise is of a piece, that the small business that produces a useful product and creates needed jobs exists in some sort of inviolable continuum with global corporate entities of every kind, and that we cannot affirm the former without defending the latter. Even “conservative” Christians who deplore the cultural costs of late modernity treat any critique of its obvious material basis as practically blasphemous. But everywhere else in the world, those same criticisms would simply, and correctly, be described as “true.” They would even be regarded as simply “Catholic.” Laudato Si positively trembles from all the echoes it contains of G. K. Chesterton, Vincent McNabb, Hilaire Belloc, Elizabeth Anscombe, Dorothy Day, E. F. Schumacher, Leo XIII, John XXIII, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and (above all) Romano Guardini; its native social and political atmosphere is that rich combination of Christian socialism, social democratism, subsidiarism, distributism, and anti-materialism that constitutes the best of the modern Catholic intellectual tradition’s humane alternative to all the technologisms, libertarianisms, corporatisms, and totalitarianisms that in their different ways reduce humanity to nothing more than appetent machines and creation to nothing more than industrial resources.

(Emphasis supplied.) Read the whole thing there; it won’t take long. He’s pretty much right, too.

One point where Hart is light is on the history—even the fairly recent history—of American Catholicism’s resistance to the Church’s social teaching. For example, John XXIII’s Mater et Magistra prompted the jibe “Mater si, magistra no.” And, more recently, American Catholics bent over backward either to explain why Benedict didn’t write all of Caritas in veritate or to make the same old (tedious at this point) arguments about how the Church doesn’t have same authority in matters of state and economy as it does in matters of faith and morals. (How Pius IX would have laughed at them! Right before handing them copies of Syllabus.) All this is to say that Francis is not the first pope to encounter resistance to his social teaching from Catholics on the American political right, though he might be the first pope to wade into a debate still very active in American political circles with his social teaching. (Maybe. Quadragesimo anno certainly addressed issues that were very much au courant in 1931.) Indeed, resistance to the Church’s social teaching might be a major characteristic of American Catholicism.

Did Paul VI change the Church’s teaching on socialism?

In an earlier post, we unpacked Paul VI’s statement in Octogesima adveniens, which apparently permitted Christians to engage in what the Pope called “socialist currents.” He was suspicious of them, to be sure, but he acknowledged that Christians could, provided, of course, that they retained a clear-eyed understanding of both the ideological aspects of socialism and the fundamental inseparability of those ideological aspects from the political expressions of socialism and its larger goals, discern the extent to which they could commit themselves along socialist lines. In other words, Paul VI seemed to acknowledge that it was possible for Christians to reach a via media with socialism.

After some reflection on this statement, it seems to us that Paul’s statement in Octogesima adveniens may represent a significant departure from the prior social teaching of the Church. In fact, the great Pius XI in Quadragesimo anno explicitly excluded cooperation between Christians and socialists. (We’ll explore what, precisely, he said infra.) And Papa Ratti’s bright-line exclusion of cooperation was taken up in the manualist tradition. So, Paul’s statement, at the very least, does not explicitly reiterate that bright-line exclusion. And, as is so often the case with teaching after Pius XII, it will be seen infra that Paul’s statement admits of two interpretations. On one hand, his statement is a narrow opening for cooperation, which represents a departure from Pius’s teaching. On the other hand, his statement is merely an oblique reference to that teaching. However, as we have observed, failure to explicitly reaffirm doctrine is functionally equivalent to changing doctrine. It is, as Benedict XVI might say, a question of which hermeneutic one prefers: continuity or rupture.

(We will add some section headings for convenience, perhaps a professional weakness.)

1. Paul VI Apparently Opened the Door to Cooperation in Socialism in Octogesima adveniens. 

But let’s look at the question in detail. Recall first what Paul VI said in Octogesima adveniens:

Some Christians are today attracted by socialist currents and their various developments. They try to recognize therein a certain number of aspirations which they carry within themselves in the name of their faith. They feel that they are part of that historical current and wish to play a part within it. Now this historical current takes on, under the same name, different forms according to different continents and cultures, even if it drew its inspiration, and still does in many cases, from ideologies incompatible with faith. Careful judgment is called for. Too often Christians attracted by socialism tend to idealize it in terms which, apart from anything else, are very general: a will for justice, solidarity and equality. They refuse to recognize the limitations of the historical socialist movements, which remain conditioned by the ideologies from which they originated. Distinctions must be made to guide concrete choices between the various levels of expression of socialism: a generous aspiration and a seeking for a more just society, historical movements with a political organization and aim, and an ideology which claims to give a complete and self-sufficient picture of man. Nevertheless, these distinctions must not lead one to consider such levels as completely separate and independent. The concrete link which, according to circumstances, exists between them must be clearly marked out. This insight will enable Christians to see the degree of commitment possible along these lines, while safeguarding the values, especially those of liberty, responsibility and openness to the spiritual, which guarantee the integral development of man.

We have previously discussed this passage, and we will not belabor the point unnecessarily. Paul says that Christians—conscious both of socialism’s ideological tenets and of the inseparability of those ideological tenets from political expression and broader goals—can discern “the degree of commitment” along socialist lines.

It bears noting, and is most relevant for our discussion here, that nothing in Paul’s teaching in Octogesima adveniens explicitly excludes cooperation between Christians and socialism. Paul advises caution, but, one gets the real sense (we do, at any rate) that if all the conditions are met, then there is a possibility for cooperation.

2. Henri Grenier’s Thomistic Philosophy Is a Good Example of the Church’s Prior Teaching, Which Was Based on Pius XI’s Quadragesimo anno. 

Perhaps the easiest way into Pius’s teaching is to look, first, at Canadian Thomist Henri Grenier’s Cursus Philosophiae—translated into English as Thomistic Philosophy. Grenier’s manual was a hugely significant treatise in seminaries and colleges in its day. However, time just gets away from us, as Charles Portis says, and it is unlikely that Grenier is much read in the seminaries these days, except perhaps by a few devoted Thomists. Grenier was a major opponent of personalism, which took off in earnest after 1945 for obvious reasons, and also an important influence on Charles De Koninck and the so-called Laval School of Thomism. (A topic best left to the experts.) At any rate, the third volume of his Philosophy addresses various social questions in detail, including possible cooperation between Catholics and socialists. Grenier also demolishes the possibility of economic liberalism a few pages later, to give you an idea of what you’re dealing with there.

Now, let us consider what Grenier said,

Some Catholics have unwarrantably wondered about the possibility of a «middle course» between mitigated Socialism and the principles of Christian truth, so that Socialism could be met, as it were, upon common ground.

For, first, they have felt, class warfare, on condition that it refrains from enmities and mutual hatred, can gradually become an honest discussion of differences, which is a principle of social restoration and peace.

Secondly, the war declared upon the ownership of private property, if attenuated, can be directed not towards the abolition of the possession of productive goods, i.e., the means of production, but towards the restoration of order in society, namely, when, according to the principles of sound philosophy, certain forms of property are reserved to the State, the private ownership of which would be at variance with the common good.

Pope Pius XI settled very definitely any doubts in this matter by solemnly declaring that Socialism, even in its more moderate form, is irreconcilable with the teachings of Christianity.

(3 Thomistic Philosophy § 1150, 3º, trans. O’Hanley) (footnote omitted.) In other words, some Catholics have explored the possibility that, if socialism abandons class warfare in favor of “honest discussion of differences,” and if socialism permits private property except where the common good requires property to be under public control, then there may be room for cooperation between socialism and Christ’s Church. The via media! No such luck, Grenier says. Socialism, even moderate socialism, is “irreconcilable” with Christianity. We see that, at least as Grenier understands the situation, there is no possibility for the sort of via media that Paul marks out.

3. Pius XI in Quadragesimo anno Held that Socialism Is Incompatible With Christianity, Even if Socialism Moderates Its Policies of Class Struggle and War on Private Property. 

In support of this proposition, Grenier cites Pius XI’s Quadragesimo anno. Indeed, Quadragesimo anno is, it seems, itself sufficient  to answer the Catholics who have “unwarrantably wondered” about a possible via media between socialism and the Church’s social teaching. We come, therefore, to the heart of the matter. The brief portion of Quadragesimo anno that Grenier quotes in a footnote comes near the end of a considerably longer passage, which ought to be considered in full, because Pius does something very clever in it. Pius begins,

One might say that, terrified by its own principles and by the conclusions drawn therefrom by Communism, Socialism inclines toward and in a certain measure approaches the truths which Christian tradition has always held sacred; for it cannot be denied that its demands at times come very near those that Christian reformers of society justly insist upon.

For if the class struggle abstains from enmities and mutual hatred, it gradually changes into an honest discussion of differences founded on a desire for justice, and if this is not that blessed social peace which we all seek, it can and ought to be the point of departure from which to move forward to the mutual cooperation of the Industries and Professions. So also the war declared on private ownership, more and more abated, is being so restricted that now, finally, not the possession itself of the means of production is attacked but rather a kind of sovereignty over society which ownership has, contrary to all right, seized and usurped. For such sovereignty belongs in reality not to owners but to the public authority. If the foregoing happens, it can come even to the point that imperceptibly these ideas of the more moderate socialism will no longer differ from the desires and demands of those who are striving to remold human society on the basis of Christian principles. For certain kinds of property, it is rightly contended, ought to be reserved to the State since they carry with them a dominating power so great that cannot without danger to the general welfare be entrusted to private individuals.

Such just demands and desire have nothing in them now which is inconsistent with Christian truth, and much less are they special to Socialism. Those who work solely toward such ends have, therefore, no reason to become socialists.

That’s a neat trick, there at the end, isn’t it? If socialism, Pius says, has moderated class struggle into mere dialogue between classes and renounced public ownership of the means of production in favor of the recognition that the public authority has the right to govern capital, then there’s no reason to become a socialist, since those doctrines aren’t uniquely socialist. And this is, of course, a point that is difficult to answer: if socialism is about, say, mere economic justice and solidarity within and among classes, then there is very little to distinguish socialism from other political tendencies. Almost no mainstream political tendency wants economic injustice and conflict among classes for its own sake.

Paul seems to contradict this point pretty squarely in Octogesima adveniens, doesn’t he? Paul says,

Distinctions must be made to guide concrete choices between the various levels of expression of socialism: a generous aspiration and a seeking for a more just society, historical movements with a political organization and aim, and an ideology which claims to give a complete and self-sufficient picture of man. Nevertheless, these distinctions must not lead one to consider such levels as completely separate and independent. The concrete link which, according to circumstances, exists between them must be clearly marked out.

Under Pius’s teaching, if socialism is only “a generous aspiration and a seeking for a more just society,” then there is no reason to cooperate with socialism, because neither of those things are uniquely socialist. And he is probably right, as we said. Paul, on the other hand, seems to leave the door open.

But it probably doesn’t matter much, since Pius doubts that socialism really has moderated class struggle or renounced public ownership of the means of production:

Yet let no one think that all the socialist groups or factions that are not communist have, without exception, recovered their senses to this extent either in fact or in name. For the most part they do not reject the class struggle or the abolition of ownership, but only in some degree modify them. Now if these false principles are modified and to some extent erased from the program, the question arises, or rather is raised without warrant by some, whether the principles of Christian truth cannot perhaps be also modified to some degree and be tempered so as to meet Socialism half-way and, as it were, by a middle course, come to agreement with it. There are some allured by the foolish hope that socialists in this way will be drawn to us. A vain hope! Those who want to be apostles among socialists ought to profess Christian truth whole and entire, openly and sincerely, and not connive at error in any way. If they truly wish to be heralds of the Gospel, let them above all strive to show to socialists that socialist claims, so far as they are just, are far more strongly supported by the principles of Christian faith and much more effectively promoted through the power of Christian charity.

Since socialism is likely to retain some of its uniquely socialist character, can’t the Church moderate its doctrines a little to find that via media? Of course not! Pius offers a variation on his neat trick from before. Here, he says that the way for Christians to interact with socialists is to show them—without departing from the doctrine of Christ’s Church—that there is no just socialist claim that is not supported and advanced better by the Church. In other words, it is the Christian’s duty to show the socialist that his just aims are really the Church’s aims and that the Church is better able to actually achieve those aims. The Christian is the perfect socialist, or, to put it in a less polemic manner, the Christian has perfectly what the socialist has imperfectly. Cooperation with socialism is therefore nothing more or less than bringing the Gospel to socialists.

Pius then circles back to the idea that socialism can moderate its distinctive aspects—class struggle and the public ownership of the means of production—sufficiently to permit cooperation between the Christian and the socialist.

But what if Socialism has really been so tempered and modified as to the class struggle and private ownership that there is in it no longer anything to be censured on these points? Has it thereby renounced its contradictory nature to the Christian religion? This is the question that holds many minds in suspense. And numerous are the Catholics who, although they clearly understand that Christian principles can never be abandoned or diminished seem to turn their eyes to the Holy See and earnestly beseech Us to decide whether this form of Socialism has so far recovered from false doctrines that it can be accepted without the sacrifice of any Christian principle and in a certain sense be baptized. That We, in keeping with Our fatherly solicitude, may answer their petitions, We make this pronouncement: Whether considered as a doctrine, or an historical fact, or a movement, Socialism, if it remains truly Socialism, even after it has yielded to truth and justice on the points which we have mentioned, cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth.

(Emphasis supplied.) Even if socialism moderates itself to the point of class dialogue and public authority over certain private property, socialism is still diseased. This seems to be contradicted even more strongly by Paul, doesn’t it? Paul seems to hold that

But why does Pius say this?

[A]ccording to Christian teaching, man, endowed with a social nature, is placed on this earth so that by leading a life in society and under an authority ordained of God he may fully cultivate and develop all his faculties unto the praise and glory of his Creator; and that by faithfully fulfilling the duties of his craft or other calling he may obtain for himself temporal and at the same time eternal happiness. Socialism, on the other hand, wholly ignoring and indifferent to this sublime end of both man and society, affirms that human association has been instituted for the sake of material advantage alone. 

Because of the fact that goods are produced more efficiently by a suitable division of labor than by the scattered efforts of individuals, socialists infer that economic activity, only the material ends of which enter into their thinking, ought of necessity to be carried on socially. Because of this necessity, they hold that men are obliged, with respect to the producing of goods, to surrender and subject themselves entirely to society. Indeed, possession of the greatest possible supply of things that serve the advantages of this life is considered of such great importance that the higher goods of man, liberty not excepted, must take a secondary place and even be sacrificed to the demands of the most efficient production of goods. This damage to human dignity, undergone in the “socialized” process of production, will be easily offset, they say, by the abundance of socially produced goods which will pour out in profusion to individuals to be used freely at their pleasure for comforts and cultural development. Society, therefore, as Socialism conceives it, can on the one hand neither exist nor be thought of without an obviously excessive use of force; on the other hand, it fosters a liberty no less false, since there is no place in it for true social authority, which rests not on temporal and material advantages but descends from God alone, the Creator and last end of all things.

(Footnotes omitted and emphasis supplied.) In other words, the fault with socialism is its concept of society as ordered toward the efficient production of goods, and, in Pius’s view, that fault is inseparable from socialism. This fault has two consequences: it requires excessive force and creates false liberty.

4. Henri Grenier Summarizes and Clarifies Pius’s Argument Against Socialism’s Concept of Society.

Now, this ought to be carefully considered. Socialism has one body of doctrine, Pius seems to tell us, and two key aspects of that doctrine are class struggle and the public ownership of the means of production. But there is more to socialism than those two points—including the idea that society is ordered toward production—and even if socialism moderates the two big points, the remaining doctrine is poisoned by socialism’s concept of society. There is, then, no way in Pius’s mind for the Christian to cooperate with the socialist, even if the socialist moderates the leading aspects of socialism.

The importance for Pius of the socialist concept of society cannot be understated. And it may help to clarify the argument a little to see what Pius is getting at. Grenier does just that. The thesis is that socialism is untenable. (We know Grenier’ll prove it, but don’t let that spoil the suspense.) Grenier unpacks the major and minor premises of Pius’s argument:

1° Man must live in society, in order to attain temporal and eternal happiness. But, according to Socialism, man’s only purpose in living in society is the acquisition of an abundance of temporal goods. Therefore.

Major.— The end of civil society is the temporal happiness of this life as directed to eternal happiness.

Minor.— For Socialism, in declaring even an attenuated kind of war on private ownership, is concerned only with the acquisition of an abundance of material goods, and thus shows no solicitude either for man’s higher goods, or for his liberty. For it teaches that man must be completely subject to civil society, in order that he acquire an abundance of material goods.

(3 Thomistic Philosophy § 1151, 1º.)  He proceeds to the conclusion, and explains the two antecedents to the conclusion, of Pius’s argument:

2° Society, as conceived by the Socialist, is, on the one hand, impossible and inconceivable without the use of compulsion of the most excessive kind; and, on the other hand, it fosters a false liberty. Therefore Socialism is untenable.

Antecedent — a) Society is impossible and inconceivable without the use of compulsion of the most excessive kind.— According to Socialism, the possession of the greatest possible amount of temporal goods is esteemed so highly that man’s higher goods, not excepting liberty, must be subordinated and even sacrificed to the exigencies of efficient production.

b) Society fosters a false liberty.— Society, according to the Socialistic conception of it, is based solely on temporal and material advantages. From this it follows that neither society nor its members are subject to God, the wellspring of all authority. In other words, Socialism, in which no place is found for true social authority, destroys all authority.

We may add that Socialism cannot, in virtue of its principles, abolish class welfare.

(3 Thomistic Philosophy § 1151, 2º.) We note briefly here that there is an interesting point raised by this argument: does Pius mean that the mere subordination of man’s higher goods to the possession of temporal goods itself constitutes the “obviously excessive use of force”? That is, if man’s higher good is subordinated to the possession of temporal goods without physical coercion, is that still the “obviously excessive use of force”? If so, this is a remarkably interesting and potentially fruitful line of argument. But that’s not exactly what we’re here for today.

To summarize, in Pius’s view, socialism is contradictory to Christian doctrine because of its views on class struggle and private property, but even if socialism moderates those views, it is still contrary to Christian doctrine because socialism rejects the proper end of civil society in favor of a purely materialistic concept of civil society. Worse than that, socialism, in order to implement its materialistic concept of society, both uses excessive force and fosters a false concept of liberty. In other words, the poison in socialism is fundamental. Therefore, Christians cannot cooperate with socialism.

5. Returning to Octogesima adveniens: a Hermeneutic of Continuity or a Hermeneutic of Rupture?

As noted above, this bright-line approach is not to be found in Octogesima adveniens. Or is it? Remember, again, what Paul said:

Too often Christians attracted by socialism tend to idealize it in terms which, apart from anything else, are very general: a will for justice, solidarity and equality. They refuse to recognize the limitations of the historical socialist movements, which remain conditioned by the ideologies from which they originated. Distinctions must be made to guide concrete choices between the various levels of expression of socialism: a generous aspiration and a seeking for a more just society, historical movements with a political organization and aim, and an ideology which claims to give a complete and self-sufficient picture of man. Nevertheless, these distinctions must not lead one to consider such levels as completely separate and independent. The concrete link which, according to circumstances, exists between them must be clearly marked out. This insight will enable Christians to see the degree of commitment possible along these lines, while safeguarding the values, especially those of liberty, responsibility and openness to the spiritual, which guarantee the integral development of man.

(Emphasis supplied.) It seems to us that one could argue that Paul kept Quadragesimo anno in mind when he wrote Octogesima adveniens, and when he talks about “an ideology which claims to give a complete and self-sufficient picture of man,” he could well be talking about socialism’s broader notions of society—notions which Pius held to be incompatible with Christianity. Furthermore, one could well argue that Paul pointed out that there is a link between, say, “a generous aspiration and a seeking for a more just society,” and those same broader, incompatible notions of society. Furthermore, one could argue that Paul’s injunction to safeguard integral values—including liberty—points toward Pius’s teaching that socialism simultaneously does violence to and promotes a false vision of liberty. (To say nothing of socialism’s materialistic outlook, which contradicts necessarily “openness to the spiritual.”) In other words, Paul’s admonitions to Christians fit into Pius’s teachings and result in Christians being unable to commit themselves along socialist lines. Paul reaffirms Pius.

But if that were the case, one wonders why Paul did not come out and reaffirm Pius’s bright-line noncooperation rule. One can just as easily read Paul as permitting some commitment or cooperation. Certainly such a reading finds support in the text and does not require lengthy analyses of Paul’s secret allusions to Quadragesimo anno. And one could quite reasonably say that Paul meant what he said, and what he said was that Christians could, keeping certain things in mind, come to a decision about the extent to which they could commit themselves along socialist lines. If he had meant that they could not so commit themselves, then he would have said so. And this reading is hard to answer, too. No means no, and maybe means maybe.

The question, then, is whether one prefers a hermeneutic of continuity or a hermeneutic of rupture. And that question seems to be answered largely by one’s broader political preferences. Obviously, Christians who seek a via media—or something more—will adopt the hermeneutic of rupture, arguing that Paul VI, perhaps considering certain changes in the state of socialism by 1971, softened the Church’s stance on cooperation or commitment. And Christians who reject socialism completely on political grounds will adopt a hermeneutic of continuity with Pius XI’s strict anti-socialist teaching.

 

 

Football and the necessity of immorality

Jamil Smith, at The New Republic, has written on “The Necessity of Football.“ After outlining what is all too clear—many football players have destroyed (and are destroying) their brains, to say nothing of “garden-variety” football injuries—Smith argues,

Every time I’ve thought about leaving the sport behind, I remember my favorite photograph: a black-and-white shot my mother took of me in my football uniform in the eighth grade, standing next to my father and smiling after a win. But nostalgia is a reason to love the game, not a reason to need it. Perhaps, then, this is where I should tell you why—even in the wake of Omalu’s revelations—I feel we still need football. Not to rescue the NFL’s largely black labor force from its humble origins, or to entertain the masses that refuse to let it go in the wake of mounting tragedies. We need it partially because football serves as a kind of fun-house mirror for our national character.

The reflection comes in various forms: social movements, national tragedy, political spectacle, and yes, our sports. And we are a dramatic country, so much so that the volume of theatrics we see in every corner of our lives dulls our senses. We need more, and we need it louder. And in spectator sports, we want to see the best versions of ourselves reflected back at us, or else why would we consider it entertainment? We want to believe that inside that arena, everything will be all right because our men are the strongest, and our fight is the hardest. This is why between 2012 and 2015 the Department of Defense paid 18 NFL teams a total of more than $5.6 million for marketing and advertising, including flying military bombers over stadiums at taxpayers’ expense. It’s also why we watch hit montages week after week, delighting in the crack of the pads or the punch of the music without wondering whether that player just got pushed a bit further toward CTE. Football marries artfulness to brutality, providing the most honest interpretation of American character that we have available, and I enjoy football despite its horrors because I have learned to do the same in my life in America.

(Emphasis supplied and hyperlink omitted.) Read the whole thing there.

For our part, we have already explained why we believe that a good-faith argument could be made that American football (and other extreme sports) is sinful, since it is contrary to the clear injunction of the Fifth Commandment and the Church’s teaching about similar dangerous activities. Moreover, we think that what makes football immoral is inextricably bound up with the positive aspects as Jamil Smith describes them. That is, it is impossible for spectators to watch players striving manfully on the gridiron without those men same heedlessly risking physical injury, either immediately or in the future. Thus, it seems to us that it is impossible to use football as a cultural mirror without embracing what makes football morally illicit. Thus, we are left with the question: is immorality ever necessary? The answer, of course, is no. Paul VI reminded us in Humanae vitae that good ends never justify sinful means.

Try imagining a place where it’s always safe and warm

Following up on our earlier post, which was devoted to an old hymn in honor of St. Andrew, we note that Vultus Christi has a wonderful piece about St. Andrew and the Cross. We read,

In the Antiphon that will be sung in today’s Office, Saint Andrew sings to the Cross, something that, apart from a special grace of God, we are incapable of doing.

O bona crux! O precious cross, of a long time have I desired thee and now that thou art made ready for me, my soul is drawn to thee, and I come to thee in peace and gladness.

“I come to thee in peace and gladness.” More often than not we come to our crosses in fear and heaviness of heart. Far from singing to them we approach them murmuring, or in the sullen silence of our unspoken resistances and inability to trust. Saint Andrew was able to sing a greeting to his cross; he was able to come to it in peace and gladness, because he recognized that by means of it he would pass over to God.

(Emphasis in original and quotation reformatted.)

It’s also late fall (or early winter or whatever you want to call it), in the United States at any rate, and it happens that travel and home are on everyone’s minds. Everyone is doing a lot of travel, going to and from various places for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, and for the rounds of Christmas parties with coworkers, with friends, and with family. And, of course, much of this travel involves home. Going home for Thanksgiving. Returning home after another dull party at the boss’s house. Splitting Christmas Eve and Christmas Day between in-laws homes, or, as is so often the (sad) case, between parents’ homes. But, more than that, home is on everyone’s mind, regardless of travel. We talk about going “home for the holidays,” whether it’s a happy prospect or not, and we talk about the importance of having “someplace to go” for Thanksgiving and Christmas, which seems to be home under another name. But we get the sense that home was very much on St. Andrew’s mind as he walked toward the Cross, too. But not quite the home of bright copper kettles, football, turkey, and Uncle Lewis’s latest political theories. Something better than that.

Consider some of the responsories from matins, which depict St. Andrew’s conversation with the Cross on his way to be martyred. For example, this one from the third reading:

R.Doctor bonus et amicus Dei Andreas ducitur ad crucem, quam a longe aspiciens dixit: Salve, crux * Suscipe discipulum eius, qui pependit in te magister meus Christus. 

V.Salve, crux, quae in corpore Christi dedicata es, et ex membris eius tamquam margaritis ornata.

Suscipe discipulum eius, qui pependit in te magister meus Christus.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.

Suscipe discipulum eius, qui pependit in te magister meus Christus.

Or this one, from the fifth reading:

R.O bona crux, quæ decorem et pulchritudinem de membris Domini suscepisti; accipe me ab hominibus, et redde me magistro meo: * Ut per te me recipiat, qui per te me redimit.

V.Beatus Andreas expansis manibus ad cælum orabat, dicens: Salva me, bona crux:

Ut per te me recipiat, qui per te me redimit.

Finally, this one from the eighth reading:

R.Videns crucem Andreas exclamavit, dicens: O crux admirabilis, o crux desiderabilis, o crux, quæ per totum mundum rutilas: * Suscipe discipulum Christi, ac per te me recipiat, qui per te moriens me redimit. 

V.O bona crux, quæ decorum et pulchritudinem de membris Domini suscepisti.

Suscipe discipulum Christi, ac per te me recipiat, qui per te moriens me redimit. 

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.

Suscipe discipulum Christi, ac per te me recipiat, qui per te moriens me redimit.

Indeed, it does seem strange to praise the Cross as beautiful as one is marching toward it to be martyred. It does seem like exactly the sort of thing for which one would require special grace. But the logic of St. Andrew’s praise is plain to see. The Cross was beautiful to him not only because it was where Christ suffered and died to save men, though that was in no small part its glory, but also because it was for him the way home—not to his birthplace or his house, but to Christ and to heaven, to the true home of all souls. (As Paul reminds us repeatedly.)

At any rate, St. Andrew, who never had to be talked into following Christ or, indeed, even told that it would be to his benefit to follow Christ, understood this point. And understanding it, he praised the Cross even as he walked forward to be martyred on it. It is, we think, well worth taking the Church’s hint and meditating on St. Andrew and his praise of the Cross as we go forward. As we prepare for Christmas—to remember the first coming of Christ and to prefigure his coming in glory at the end of the world—we ought to think about the Cross, too. It is, after all, the way home for us, too.

It may seem a little out of place, of course, to spend time meditating on the Cross during the cheery, fire-lit season of Advent, so full of cozy sights and smells, to say nothing of all the Christmas cheer in the air, and maybe it is. However, the road to Calvary begins in earnest in Bethlehem, and the nativity scene doesn’t mean much without the very different scene on Calvary. But, as St. Andrew tells us today, both are equally glorious.

 

And he carries the reminders

A very thoughtful acquaintance of ours asked, elsewhere, what the Church has to say about violent sports—think mixed martial arts (MMA) or professional football (NFL, not FIFA).

This is a very good question, which has been on our mind lately. At sports-gossip site Deadspin, Barry Petchesky has a piece, “Wes Welker Is Back and It Feels Terrible,” regarding wide receiver Wes Welker’s return to play for the St. Louis Rams. Petchesky writes,

By all accounts—his own, his teams’, and a top NFL-affiliated concussion specialist’s—Wes Welker is healthy and ready to play. St. Louis badly needs a receiver. Still, when the Rams announced they signed Welker to bolster their etiolated passing attack, my first reaction was disappointment. It’s a strange feeling, to hope that Wes Welker—a talented WR and by all accounts a decent guy—never plays football again.

It’s the concussions. At least six official ones in his career, maybe as many as 10.(That doesn’t count the ones he may not even know about.) He suffered three in nine months with the Broncos, leading one former teammate to publicly declare he wanted Welker to retire. The thing about concussions is that the more you’ve had, the more likely you are to receive more. Welker’s brain is especially fragile and vulnerable. If teams avoided signing the still-useful receiver this offseason solely because of his concussion history—and some very specifically did—it wasn’t necessarily just the potential bad PR in a sport that claims to take brain trauma very seriously. It was legitimate concern for Welker’s well-being.

(Emphasis supplied and hyperlinks omitted.) But Welker is not the only flashpoint for the concussion debate: the NFL has been grappling with the question—and fans have been grappling with the morality—for some time.

Add to this the recent coverage of UFC champion Ronda Rousey’s devastating loss to Holly Holm. Rousey, long touted as an unstoppable fighter, known for thirty-second takedowns of challengers, was knocked out cold by a thudding kick to the head by Holm. But only after Holm had slugged Rousey in the face long enough and hard enough to split her lip and leave her bloodied. (We did not watch the fight, but some observers said that Rousey looked punch drunk. We do not doubt it.) While perhaps not as serious as Welker’s years of concussion after concussion after concussion, which have been discussed repeatedly, the fact remains that Rousey was punched repeatedly in the face, pretty hard as such things go, and kicked in the head hard enough to knock her out. Perhaps we are oversensitive—and we admit that we are not that kind of doctor—but that pummeling cannot be good for the brain.

Therefore, we think that our acquaintance’s question is not only a good question in itself but also a good important question for our time. The problem is that the Church does not appear to have pronounced officially—much less definitively—on the question professional football or MMA fighting or any of a whole host of physically punishing sports. (To our knowledge. If you, dear reader, are aware of something, please feel free to shoot us an e-mail or tweet at @semiduplex; we will gladly post any documents you identify.) But the Church has pronounced several times on dueling, and it seems to us that one can analogize profitably from dueling, especially nonlethal academic dueling, to these extreme sports. And from those pronouncements, some general conclusions may be drawn and applied to the question of these sports. The answer will probably not surprise you, though.

We begin with Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical to the bishops of Germany and Austria-Hungary, Pastoralis officii. It begins,

Mindful of your pastoral duty and moved by your love of neighbor, you wrote to me last year concerning the frequent practice among your people of a private, individual contest called dueling. You indicate, not without grief, that even Catholics customarily engage in this type of combat. At the same time your request that We, too, attempt to dissuade men from this manner of error. It is indeed a deadly error and not restricted to your country, but has spread so far that practically no people can be found free from the contagion of the evil. Hence, We praise your zeal. It is clearly known what Christian philosophy, certainly in agreement with natural reason, prescribes in this matter; nevertheless, because the vicious custom of dueling is being encouraged with greatest forgetfulness of Christian precepts, it will be expedient to briefly review these rules.

(Emphasis supplied.) Thus, the answers to the question of dueling were already evident in Christian doctrine. Leo simply summarizes them in response to the bishops’ request for guidance. Leo goes to say, and this is the interesting part:

Clearly, divine law, both that which is known by the light of reason and that which is revealed in Sacred Scripture, strictly forbids anyone, outside of public cause, to kill or wound a man unless compelled to do so in self defense. Those, moreover, who provoke a private combat or accept one when challenged, deliberately and unnecessarily intend to take a life or at least wound an adversary. Furthermore, divine law prohibits anyone from risking his life rashly, exposing himself to grave and evident danger when not constrained by duty or generous charity. In the very nature of the duel, there is plainly blind temerity and contempt for life. There can be, therefore, no obscurity or doubt in anyone’s mind that those who engage in battle privately and singly take upon themselves a double guilt, that of another’s destruction and the deliberate risk of their own lives. Finally, there is hardly any pestilence more deadly to the discipline of civil society and perversive to the just order of the state than that license be given to citizens to defend their own rights privately and singly and avenge their honor which they believe has been violated.

(Emphasis supplied.) There are two principles here that ought to be unpacked before moving on to some other sources.

One, the divine law—and the natural law, which is simply our participation in the divine law—forbids killing or wounding a man except in self defense. The Fifth Commandment tells us as much. Remember, too, what Aquinas taught us: a man, including his body, belongs to the community; therefore, injuring a man injures the community (ST IIa IIae q.65 a.1 co. & ad 2). The community’s sanction is needed to injure a man (id.) This goes for blows, too (ST IIa IIae q.66 a.1 co.).

Aquinas’s teaching is not squarely on point here, since Aquinas was talking about injury as chastisement or retaliation. However, the principle seems to hold even in the sporting context: a man is part of the community, to injure a man injures the community. Now, the injuries in this case can be fairly remote. Certain brain injuries, as we understand it, can take years to manifest themselves; nevertheless, if it becomes certain that certain sports result in these injuries, then it seems to us, for the purposes of moral reasoning, the sports activities are the proximate cause of the injuries, even if temporally remote. Remember the lesson of the Second Way: real causality is not “this happened, then this happened, then this happened,” and so forth (ST Ia q.2 a.3 co.). Thus, Leo’s teaching, if taken back to its source, seems to apply equally to football as dueling.

Two, one cannot risk death or injury rashly. As the old Baltimore Catechism tells us, “[w]e are commanded by the fifth Commandment to live in peace and union with our neighbor, to respect his rights, to seek his spiritual and bodily welfare, and to take proper care of our own life and health.” (Emphasis supplied.) And as St. Alphonsus Liguori tells us in his Instructions on the Commandments and the Sacraments, God is the lord of our lives and we have no right to throw away our lives or to injure ourselves wantonly. Thus, on this point, too, Leo’s teaching is squarely within the broader current of Christian moral theology. And, unlike the previous point, this point meets squarely the question of violent sports. The Fifth Commandment requires us to take care of ourselves, more or less well, and to avoid unnecessary injury. It seems to us that an argument could be made—convincingly—that an athletic contest does not quite rise to the level of gravity necessary for one to justly risk injury or death.

There are also a couple of decrees of the old Sacred Congregation of the Council, before its transformation to the Congregation for Clergy, regarding German academic dueling: a decree of February 10, 1923, AAS 15 (1923) 154–56, and a decree of June 13, 1925, AAS 18 (1926) 132–38. The latter decree has been excerpted in the current edition of Denzinger, at DH 3672, and it makes it clear that the prohibition on dueling applies even when death is unlikely. (German academic dueling, as we understand it, involved padding and protective gear that prevented serious injury but permitted the flamboyant facial scars seen on a thousand B-movie actors after 1945 or so.) Thus, at least according to the Sacred Congregation of the Council, which undoubtedly would have been aware of Pastoralis officii, the prohibitions on dueling were not affected by measures taken to mitigate the injury. And this makes sense. The Fifth Commandment prohibits this sort of reckless, almost injury-seeking, behavior. We acknowledge that the violation may be only venially sinful. But given the serious neurological disorders that have been mentioned in the popular press, to say nothing of the regular, gruesome injuries that football players suffer, it seems unlikely that one could hold, as a rule, that the violation is a venial sin. It seems that the question of gravity is, as is often the case, one of subjective imputability.

All of this is a long way of saying that, reasoning from the example of dueling and some general comments on the Fifth Commandment, we think that mixed martial arts and professional football are probably sinful. (Once again, if you’re familiar with a more definite pronouncement, let us know and we’ll be happy to draw attention to it, with credit!) Whether, as in the days of dueling, excommunications need to be handed down to players, coaches, support staff, and spectators is another question. What to do, though? Plainly people like extreme sports. While we prefer baseball for a variety of reasons, we enjoy professional football. We root for a team. We have favorite players. We watch games. We talk about games with other people. We are, we admit, football fans. Yet, we have for some time been increasingly bothered by the idea that we are watching men bash their brains out. One can Google very sad stories of ex-players reduced to poverty—or worse—as a result of neurological damage they attribute to football.

Does this mean it’s time to stop formally cooperating in sin? In other words, by turning on the TV or going to a game, it seems to us that an argument could be made that we are formally cooperating in what the players are doing. Buying tickets, watching commercials, or otherwise supporting the broader objectives of the major corporations behind these sports looks an awful lot like formal cooperation, though we would be happy to be corrected by a moral theologian. Is it time to stop? If not now, what would it take? A decree of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith? A papal encyclical?

As a matter of fact the wheels have stopped

Fr. Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., at his always-excellent blog, Sancrucensis, has a wonderful post today, “‘Reasoning Is Worse than Scolding.” In short, he uses Dickens’s David Copperfield to come to this conclusion,

As Fr Hunwicke recently remarked, “Anti-intellectualism is a stance people very often adopt when they propose to do something irrational,” and it is even more the stance that people adopt one when they do not want to have the unpleasantness of being rationally strict with others. But in the long run such a stance always leads to misery. Happiness can only come from conforming human life to right reason, and a cowardly and infantile refusal of the demands of reason leads to misery in this life, and eternal punishment in the next.

(Emphasis supplied and hyperlink omitted.) Read the whole thing there. It’s enough, by the way, to convince us that we have been perhaps unjust to David Copperfield, preferring A Tale of Two Cities and Bleak House.

We perhaps state the obvious when we say say that one cannot hope to live a virtuous life without constant application of reason—we note that Aristotle says as much. Moral excellence, Aristotle tells us, “is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.” (Ethic. II.6, 1106b36–1107a2 [emphasis supplied], Barnes ed. p. 1748.) But everyone knows this instinctively. (Cf., e.g., ST Ia IIae q.91 a.2 co. & ad 2–3.) It makes sense, intuitively, that you can’t know how to be good without reason, since being good involves regular application of reason. Not exactly earth-shattering stuff. But the upshot is this: Fr. Waldstein is right when he identifies an intrinsic connection between reason and happiness.

Or he would have been right for pretty much the entire history of the West. Whether he is right today seems to be a different question. Certainly, there are any number of movements at large today that hold that happiness is contingent upon fundamentally irrational things. (We will omit, for our sensibilities as much as yours, naming them.) In other words, people insist that they will be happy only if they do something irrational. And the thing is, few people seem to object on this basis; they may object on other bases, but they do not insist that the thing the people want is irrational.

We have written a little bit about the Church’s process of losing things—for example, the Church seems to have lost a sense that the Divine Office ought to be part of her public worship—and it seems to us that society is on the verge of losing the ability to think in terms of reason and unreason. That is, we don’t criticize various ideas and proposals as being irrational. We criticize them as immoral or impractical or expensive or unbiblical or any of a whole host of things. But none of those criticisms is quite the same thing as the criticism that something is irrational.

At any rate, check out Fr. Waldstein’s post.

You’ll never watch your life slide out of view

David Mills, writing at Aleteia, has “A Marxist Lesson for Breeding Catholics.” His argument opens (and boils down to):

Only the affluent will find being open to life easy. For us, another child means an adjustment downward, but he doesn’t tip the family into poverty, or into deeper poverty. He may mean giving up a vacation if the family’s wealthy, or the Thursday family dinner out if the family’s middle class. Her arrival won’t mean giving up food, or rent or the parochial school that can make all the difference to his older siblings’ future.

Most of us who write about these things can afford to be romantic about them. Those in the Catholic chattering classes who compose warm glowing stories about the beauty of the Catholic teaching—as I have here, for example—tend to forget that we write from privilege. We forget what Marxism 101 would teach us, that we see the world from a specific place in society and favor its interests, and without great effort will be blind to the perspectives and interests of others, especially the poor.

There is in much Catholic writing on married sexuality a reflection of bourgeois good feeling; it treats the Catholic teaching as a pure blessing, with formulaic nods to its difficulty, when for others, not so privileged as we are, it can be a burden and a threat. Catholics who write and speak on sexuality tend to be perky.

(Emphasis supplied and hyperlink removed.) He goes on in this vein for a little while, coming to this conclusion:

It can’t be acceptable, from the Catholic point of view, that the marital act is so strictly bound by economic status that husbands and wives can enjoy the divine gift of sexual union only if they can afford the result. The Catholic teaching is not for the middle and upper classes alone.

We the comfortable, who speak so romantically of being open to life—because for us, with our privileges, it is a romance—could find ways to make it a romance, and not a terror, for others too.

(Emphasis supplied.)

The comments, perhaps predictably, have a roughly bimodal distribution. For our part, we think, on one hand, Mills’s comments are sort of trivial: yes, financial stability and reasonably good health may make the material and physical aspects of children easier; yes, the financially stable and reasonably healthy may have a particular set of biases that informs how they approach Church teachings; and, yes, Catholic commentators on these issues can be, as an acquaintance noted elsewhere, a little glib—even, horribile dictu, a little perky—about these issues. On the other hand, as another acquaintance noted, Mills seems to miss an obvious issue in this context: the extent to which the Church proposes solutions to the problems he identifies. We think that the Church’s social teaching—especially the Church’s economic teaching—provides important solutions to and conceptual frameworks for the problems Mills identifies.

Consider first this passage from Quadragesimo anno,

In the first place, the worker must be paid a wage sufficient to support him and his family. That the rest of the family should also contribute to the common support, according to the capacity of each, is certainly right, as can be observed especially in the families of farmers, but also in the families of many craftsmen and small shopkeepers. But to abuse the years of childhood and the limited strength of women is grossly wrong. Mothers, concentrating on household duties, should work primarily in the home or in its immediate vicinity. It is an intolerable abuse, and to be abolished at all cost, for mothers on account of the father’s low wage to be forced to engage in gainful occupations outside the home to the neglect of their proper cares and duties, especially the training of children. Every effort must therefore be made that fathers of families receive a wage large enough to meet ordinary family needs adequately. But if this cannot always be done under existing circumstances, social justice demands that changes be introduced as soon as possible whereby such a wage will be assured to every adult workingman. It will not be out of place here to render merited praise to all, who with a wise and useful purpose, have tried and tested various ways of adjusting the pay for work to family burdens in such a way that, as these increase, the former may be raised and indeed, if the contingency arises, there may be enough to meet extraordinary needs.

(Emphasis supplied and footnote omitted.) One can, if one is so inclined, also look to Rerum novarum itself for further guidance on the role of a just wage in supporting a family. But wherever one looks, the point is largely the same: workers are entitled to a just wage, suitable to permit those workers to support their families. And it seems to us that in this principle is the solution, at some level, to Mills’s basic problem regarding wealth and openness to life. Put another way, Mills says it cannot be acceptable to the Church that economic circumstances restrict couples’ openness to procreation according to God’s plan. And it isn’t acceptable. The Church says that workers are owed a just wage, and a just wage ought to be sufficient to support a family, if perhaps a little frugally. If economic circumstances are such that one cannot support a family, then it seems to us that one not being paid a just wage.

To expand upon this issue briefly: the question of just wages (or living wages or what-have-you) is politically a sensitive question in the United States today. However, it is, we think, safe to say that most jurisdictions have not adopted a living wage, and to the extent that a living wage is a just wage, those jurisdictions have not adopted a just wage. However, we acknowledge that following Quadragesimo anno, it is an open question whether a living wage is always a just wage, especially if the condition of the business (employer) is not taken into consideration in arriving at a living wage. However, in many cases, a living wage may approximate fairly reasonably a just wage. In this regard, therefore, these jurisdictions have failed to follow the teachings of the Church (or, more precisely, they have permitted employers to deviate from the demands of justice). And if this failure has caused the consequences Mills identifies—that is, economic circumstances chilling parents’ openness to procreation according to God’s plan—then it seems to us that those jurisdictions have a double responsibility to rectify their failure.

Mills also identifies a risk—to his way of thinking—for affluent Catholic parents:

The affluent for whom the Catholic teaching is not a great burden can fall to the temptations of their class, one of which is to think of their children as lifestyle accessories. The Catholic just has more of them than his secular and Protestant neighbors and can feel a little proud of it. It is easy to feel smug when you can say that you have X number of children when speaking to someone who has X minus 2 or X minus 3 children. You can feel that God rewarded your obedience and sacrifice by giving you more “toys” than your friends have.

(Emphasis added.) Now, consider this passage from Laudato si’:

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.

(Hyperlinks and footnote omitted and emphasis supplied.) It seems to us that the problem of children-as-reward—we have long called children in such unfortunate situations “trophy children”—is very much of a piece of the “misguided anthropocentrism” and “practical relativism” that puts the individual ahead of all others, including one’s children. In this case, the attitude Mills identifies has a certain spiritual dimension, especially since whether one has children and how many is a matter fundamentally left to God’s designs, but to the extent that one views one’s children as a reward or something like that, that attitude is essentially anthropocentric. While this insight is not as concrete as Pius’s discussion of just wages and their relationship to proper family life in Quadragesimo anno, it must be said that Francis provides a framework to think about the phenomenon of trophy children. Within this framework, it may well be possible to arrive at more concrete discussions of the problem.

In sum, the doctrinal issues that Mills identifies—particularly the economic pressures on procreation—are addressed, more or less directly, in the Church’s social teaching. Other issues can be understood better, if not solved, through other themes in the Church’s teaching. Now, we acknowledge that these doctrinal issues are not entirely Mills’s point, which is that healthy and wealthy Catholics tend not to understand that the Church’s teaching on procreation may be daunting to less healthy, less wealthy folks. However, it seems to us that the glibness, as one of our acquaintances put it, of some Catholics toward the question is a function of an incomplete understanding of the Church’s teaching on these issues.