Catholic Social Teaching: In the Context of a Post-Communist Country
By László Lukács
[Professor Emeritus at Sapientia Theologische Ordenshochschule, Budapest, Hungary]
1.From the Gospel to Catholic Social Teaching
The mission of Jesus Christ is summarized by the Gospels in the following sentence: “He went round the whole of Galilee teaching in the synagogues, proclaiming the news of the kingdom...” Matthew, however, adds: “and curing all kinds of disease and illness among the people” (Mt 4,23). Jesus invited all people to the eternal life of salvation, yet the Kingdom of Heaven, the “life beyond” was not his only concern: he sympathized with all the people in trouble and went out to help them to have a better life here on earth, too. What is more: far beyond the individual needs and miseries, he condemned all types of social injustice and the oppression and exploitation of the poor. He proclaimed his Father to be the God of justice and mercy. The fundament of a sane society is justice: “Every kind of wickedness is sin” (1 John 5,17). “The Lord is the upright judge” (2Tim 4,2). Nobody can be exempt from the law of justice in a society.
Following the example of its founder the church serves the eternal salvation of humankind but at the same time tries to assist human development. The role of the church is to proclaim the Gospel and to promote human development. It is to serve “man’s temporal welfare and his eternal welfare”, as Pope John Paul II put it. Or as Cardinal Basil Hume remarked: “The Church advocates a just social order in which the human dignity of all is fostered, and protests when it is in any way threatened”. The twofold task of the church was solemnly declared by the Second Vatican Council. Christians have to be engaged in human development: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially, those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.”[1] “This council exhorts Christians, as citizens of two cities, to strive to discharge their earthly duties conscientiously and in response to the Gospel spirit. They are mistaken who, knowing that we have here no abiding city but seek one which is to come, think that they may therefore shirk their earthly responsibilities. For they are forgetting that by the faith itself they are more obliged than ever to measure up to these duties, each according to his proper vocation.”[2] “The Church believes she can contribute greatly toward making the family of man and its history more human.”[3]
Moral theology examines, first, questions of personal responsibility, the good or bad actions of the individual. Throughout the centuries the Church made some moral statements concerning social and public affairs as well; yet a systematic, all-round social doctrine was developed only in recent centuries. The popes, starting with Leo XIII, issued encyclicals about social and economic issues. The contribution of the church to the common good is apparent in the development of the Catholic Social Teaching (CST) in the past 120 years. Papal encyclicals, from Rerum novarum (1891) by Leo XIII to Caritas in veritate (2009) by Benedict XVI, prove the special concern of the church calling for social justice and the common good for all, for solidarity and subsidiarity and the dignity of the person, protesting against all types of discrimination and exploitation.
CST is not restricted to the highest magisterium of the church, it is elaborated on regional and national levels, too. “The option for the poor” is put into practice in various ways in different parts of the world. The general principles of CST were applied and concretized in the social-economic context of a particular country or a continent by social pastoral letters published by bishops’ conferences (USA: 1986; England and Wales: 1996; Hungary: 1996; Germany 1997). The most powerful voice was that of the Latin-American Bishops’ Conference (CELAM) with its famous documents (first-of-all Medellín: 1968; Puebla: 1979).
2. The Development of CST
In the past 200 years the social-economic situation of the world has dramatically changed. It is more than natural that there is an enormous development in the social teaching of the magisterial documents too. Three fundamental phases can be distinguished in the development of the social teaching. The first step was taken by Pope Leo XIII, who in his encyclical forcefully criticized the exploitation of the working class and the social injustices caused by the industrial revolution. He declared that workers have the right to defend themselves by forming trade unions and other interest groups. On the other side, however, he defended private property as belonging to the fundamental rights of all human persons.
A turning point in the row of encyclicals was brought by Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio. He went a great step further than his predecessors, adjusting his views to the changing world he lived in. He took into consideration the whole of humanity and every human person. The pope claimed for a just world order on a global level and the right of each human being to lead a full human life. “Today no one can be unaware of the fact that on some continents countless men and women are ravished by hunger and countless children are undernourished. Many children die at an early age; many more of them find their physical and mental growth retarded. Thus, whole populations are immersed in pitiable circumstances and lose heart.” The church “must foster the development of each man and of the whole man”.[4] Social problems cannot be resolved only by legislation and economic measures: they have a deep moral root as well. “The Church has never failed to foster the human progress of the nations to which she brings faith in Christ.”[5] The pope pleaded for “a new humanism” for all peoples and individuals: “This is what will guarantee man's authentic development—his transition from less than human conditions to truly human ones.”[6] “We must make haste. Too many people are suffering. While some make progress, others stand still or move backwards; and the gap between them is widening.”[7]
The Pope wanted to put into practice the principles given in the encyclical. For that purpose, he created the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in the same year to follow the rapidly changing economic and social life. By that time, the fundamental principles of CST had crystallized: the dignity of the human person, solidarity, and subsidiarity. These principles were proclaimed as valid for all people and states, for all political and social situations – without being committed to any economical theory or political system. Consequently, none of the ideologies or political-economical systems could appropriate them as their own. It is a moral teaching and by no means a political or economic program. It does not want to give concrete proposals but interpret social and economical phenomena in the light of Christian faith and morality.
Most recently the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004) offers a complete overview of the doctrinal corpus of Catholic social teaching. It presents "in a complete and systematic manner, the Church’s social teaching, which is the expression of the Church’s constant commitment to the grace of salvation and in loving concern for humanity’s destiny". The basic insights can be summed up in four points: 1. The Church opposes totalitarianism because it oppresses people and deprives them of their freedom. – 2. While recognizing the importance of wealth and the right for private property, the Church denounces any abuses of economic power such as those which deprive employees of what is needed for a decent standard of living. – 3. The Church also rejects the view that human happiness consists only of material wellbeing, and states that achieving material welfare alone cannot be the goal of any government. – 4. If a government pays too much attention to material welfare at the expense of other values, it may advocate policies which reduce people to a passive state of dependency on welfare. Equally, if a government gives too little priority to tackling poverty, ill-health, poor housing and other social ills, the human dignity of those who suffer these afflictions is denied. In every society respect for human dignity requires that, so far as possible, basic human needs are met. The systematic denial of compassion by individuals or public authorities can never be a morally justified political option.
In the middle of the 20th century, during the time of the cold war, two dominating economic theories were put into practice by the two superpowers of the world: on one side (in the “West”) liberal capitalism was based on a free market economy with its self-regulating function (“the invisible hand”), where the state has only a very limited role; on the other side (in the “East”) in the Soviet model, there was a strictly centralized and planned state economy. The Church's social doctrine adopted a critical attitude towards both liberal capitalism and Soviet-Marxist collectivism. In its own way each of the two blocs tended to a kind of “imperialism”, or to some form of neo-colonialism: an easy temptation to which they frequently succumb, as history, including recent history, shows.
The cold war ended with the victory of Western capitalism and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet the theoretical (and, in many respects, practical) debate has continued ever since by protagonists of the two economic theories. In its extreme formulation: either a free market, without government control, or a strong government regulating economic life. Naturally most countries seek some type of balance between the two extremes, and, due to the present economic crisis, a remarkable shift is to be observed between the two poles.
Hungary, as one of the satellite states under Soviet oppression was forced to adopt the planned state economy for 40 years (1948-1989). After the political changes in 1989-1990, freshly gained political independence, the transition from dictatorship to free democracy was followed by the introduction of the market economy almost overnight. At first a false euphoria reigned: most people expected a quick improvement in their living standard. The myth of freedom and of free market was followed by bitter disillusion. 20 years have passed since the political and economic changes: it is time to create a balance of the two systems and draw the conclusions. Hungary thus could serve as a type of experiment, a public laboratory where both systems can be examined in the light of CST. How do they fulfil the exigencies of CST? In the following an attempt is made to answer this question enumerating eight key principles of CST and examining their realization both in the 40 years of communism and in the 20 years of capitalism.
The following list is by its nature simplified and, as a result, distorted in some places yet it can give a glimpse into the actual system of both a totalitarian regime and a capitalist free market economy. The communist and capitalist implementation of eight major principles of CST are compared.
3. Key Principles of CST Examined in the Hungarian “Laboratory”
3.1. Human dignity
The principle: Each person is made in the image of God with inherent dignity. Human life is sacred. Everybody should have equal rights to life, to freedom, to food, shelter, employment, health care and education. Protection and promotion of the dignity of every person (women included!). But also: duties and responsibilities to one another, to our families, and to the larger society, the common good of all. Human dignity can be protected, and a healthy community can be achieved only if human rights are protected, and responsibilities are met.
Its communist implementation: Brutal oppression of individual citizens by the communist state, basic human rights neglected or denied. Great numbers of people were deprived of their freedom in different ways and were imprisoned or taken into labor camps. Private properties (land, enterprises, factories etc.) were confiscated to make the party-state the sole owner of the whole country.
Its free-market implementation: human life is threatened by abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, cloning, the death penalty, gender ideology. In a consumer society the very core of the human personality is in danger. Excessive individualism ignores the common good, the good of other persons.
3.2. Solidarity and the Common Good
The principle: Human beings are social by nature: they are not only individuals but persons living in community, linked to one another by a whole network of relationships. Everybody has a responsibility to contribute to the common good, to the good of the whole society. Marriage and family are the central social institutions that must be supported and strengthened, not undermined. People have a right and a duty to participate in society, seeking together the common good and the well-being of all, especially of the poor and vulnerable. The obligation to "love our neighbor" has an individual dimension, but it also requires a broader social commitment.
Its communist implementation: Collectivism was forced by the dictatorial government. Education was centralized, children were to be raised by the state to become a “homo sovieticus”. No free civil associations could exist, the Communist Party ruled the whole society. Obedience to the Party was required instead of free individual responsibility.
Its free-market implementation: Excessive individualism is widespread, private interests suppress the responsibility for others and for the common good, family bonds have been weakened (growing divorce rate, being single as the modern way of life, uni-sex partnerships). Consumerist thinking gains strength together with an overwhelming profit- oriented market.
3.3. Subsidiarity
The principle: Society is based on organizations or communities ranging from small groups to national and international institutions. Individuals and smaller social groups have the right and duty to make their own decisions and accomplish what they can by their own initiative. A higher level of community or authority should only interfere to support them in cases of need, and to coordinate their activities with the rest of society with a view of the common good.
Its communist implementation: The “patron state” suppressed the notion of subsidiarity by providing all the necessary goods for everybody. Yet a certain freedom was maintained in small groups: families and friends’ groups practiced a type of spontaneous subsidiarity, though with scant regard to the interests of society at large.
Its free-market implementation: Overwhelming globalization weakens or destroys local or even national initiatives. Multinational mega-companies oppress individual initiatives, ruin small enterprises. Local communities are gradually dissolved, more and more people are moving to big cities, losing their individual and group identity.
3.4. Constructive role of the government and economic justice
The principle: The purpose of the government is to promote the common good, to ensure human rights, social justice, and equity. “There are needs and common goods that cannot be satisfied by the market system. It is the task of the state and of all society to defend them. An idolatry of the market alone cannot do all that should be done” (John Paul II). CST rejects the idea that a free market automatically safeguards justice. Competition and free markets are useful elements of economic systems. However, markets must be kept within limits, because there are many needs and goods that cannot be satisfied by the market system.
Its communist implementation: The party-state was the only proprietor and effective power in the country. In its planned economy the government controlled and regulated the whole of economic (and political) life: the production, distribution, and price of goods. The totalitarian system with its government-controlled economy was doomed to failure and necessarily led to the collapse of the system in the Soviet Union and in the Soviet Bloc countries.
Its free-market implementation: The transition to the free-market system went on without any proper regulation or former experience. The process of privatization was directed by the former party leaders and foreign investors. The party leaders changed their political influence into economic advantages: big properties (factories, real estates, enterprises) were bought up by them at low prices, often with the help of foreign investors. Due to the lack of proper legislation, corruption and fraud were present in many commercial transactions. As a consequence, a small group of new capitalists became billionaires within a few years, while the majority of the population were impoverished: the gap between the rich and the poor increased.
3.5. The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers
The principle: The economy must serve people, not the other way around. Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected – the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions, to private property, and to economic initiative.
Its communist implementation: According to the official propaganda the working class was the owner of all goods and the leading force of the country. In fact, the party and its leaders were the only authority to make decisions. The “working class” had no real rights or freedom; trade unions functioned as allies to the party instead of defending the rights of the workers. “Unemployment within the walls”: most people had a job, but without any real productive work. Wages and salaries were low but provided a small income for most people.
Its free-market implementation: Rapidly growing unemployment: due to the reorganization and modernization of production, great masses of unskilled workers have lost their jobs. Immense riches have been achieved via the black market and corruption. The wealth of the country is sold out to foreign investors and former party leaders. The average income of the average citizen is about one seventh of the European standard. More and more professionals migrate to find a job in Western Europe or the USA.
3.6. Option for the poor and vulnerable
The principle: In a society with deep divisions between rich and poor the Gospel instructs us to put the needs of the poor and vulnerable first. CST proclaims that the moral test of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. This calls us to look at public policy decisions in terms of how they affect the poor. Presently a minority of 20% of the people control more than 80% of the world’s resources, leaving few resources to be shared by the majority of the people (cf.: liberation theology!).
Its communist implementation: In the first years of communist rule all properties were confiscated, from the big land properties to the small farmers. Great masses lost all their incomes. The new wealthy group of the society is the party-elite. According to the official propaganda “flourishing socialism” defeats “decaying capitalism”, there is no need, no misery, no poverty in the country.
Its free-market implementation: There is a growing gap between the rich and the poor on a global level. A relatively great part of the society is unemployed (10-14% unemployment rate), the number of homeless people is growing, alongside with growing delinquency, violence, drug addiction and alcoholism. According to recent statistics. 25-30% of the Hungarian population is below the poverty line (2,8 million of a population of 10 million); 30% of children live in poverty.
3.7. Care for the created world
The principle: Entrusted with the stewardship of creation we are called to protect the planet and its inhabitants. This environmental challenge has fundamental moral and ethical dimensions. We have a responsibility to care for nature and the world’s goods as stewards and trustees, not as mere consumers, and users. Natural resources are limited and only partially renewable. Using them as if they were inexhaustible seriously endangers the planet Earth and. with it, human life today, but especially in the future.
Its communist implementation: ecology was practically unknown, there was hardly any protection of the environment in industrial production, housing or agriculture, partly due to ignorance, partly because of the expenses of protecting the environment. As a consequence, pollution is a large-scale problem in many parts of the country.
Its free-market implementation: Not long after the political changes the whole structure of production was changed: factories of heavy industry, mines etc. were closed. Foreign investors and the new post-communist elite launched, however, huge projects without taking into consideration the protection of the environment. A new boom of building plazas and hypermarkets and luxurious housing estates destroyed precious natural environments. Profit hunting frequently defeats ecological priorities.
4.8. Promotion of peace
The principle: Since the encyclical Pacem in terries, by Pope John XXIII in 1963, the promotion of peace be one of the main concerns in CST. The Second Vatican Council solemnly declared: “Peace is not merely the absence of war. Nor can it be reduced solely to the maintenance of a balance of power between enemies. Nor is it brought about by dictatorship. Instead, it is rightly and appropriately called ‘an enterprise of justice’ (Is. 32:7).”[8] Pope Paul VI. declared January the 1st the World Day of Peace in 1968 and since then a papal message calling for peace has been issued every year inviting all people of good will to join their efforts for peace in the world.
Its communist implementation: In the time of cold war and the arms race official propaganda insisted that communist countries “safeguarded peace”. The slogan “peace” was used for any possible purposes. For example, the clergy loyal to the communist government was forced to organize a pro-government “Peace Movement of the Catholic Clergy” (a movement that had absolutely nothing to do with the international Pax Christi movement).
Its free-market implementation: Armed conflicts including local or regional wars, civil wars, revolutions and revolts, rebellions, secessions, coups, acts of genocide, ethnic and political violence have been continuing up until now. A new phenomenon is worldwide terrorism of which. 9/11 has become a symbol. Now there is an almost continuous state of emergency in Western countries, not to speak about the frightening death toll in the Middle East.
4. Is there a Way-out? The Astonishing Answer of Pope Benedict XVI.
Hungary and the post-communist countries changed their centrally-planned economic system, introduced a free-market economy, started the privatization of state-capital at a time when the market economy had its boom. (The words of Margaret Thatcher are well-known: “TINA = There is no alternative”.) Yet more than once, especially in the recent past, the most developed countries had to realize that the state cannot be completely eliminated without serious dangers in the functioning of the society and even of the economy. This led to the “Soziale Marktwirkschaft” (social free-market economy) in Germany and then in other countries that try to find a balance between free-market and the state following the principle: “as much liberty as possible, as much state as necessary”. The market regulates itself through supply and demand and free competition. The state however, intervenes, to eliminate negative economic consequences, to create social equality and to support the socially weaker ones.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his Encyclical Caritas in veritate (2009), proposed an amazing new way in the dilemma of free-market vs state. He invited a third actor to play an important role in economy: “civil economy” and the “economy of communion”. “The continuing hegemony of the binary model of market-plus-State” has to be complemented with “civil economy”. The commutative justice and the commercial logic of the market “needs to make room for the principle of gratuitousness as an expression of fraternity" (35-46). The Pope’s conclusion: “The market of gratuitousness does not exist, and attitudes of gratuitousness cannot be established by law. Yet both the market and politics need individuals who are open to reciprocal gift” (39). This vision of the pope opened new horizons for CST. Up until recent times, the papal encyclicals pleaded first for social justice. Pope Benedict XVI, however, at the very beginning of his encyclical declares: “Charity is at the heart of the Church’s social doctrine. It is the principle, not only of micro-relationships (with friends, with family members or within small groups), but also of macro-relationships (social, economic and political ones)” (2).
This amazing new aspect of CST, however astonishing it may sound, is not without antecedents in papal documents. Pope John Paul II urged people to create the “civilization of love”, as the only alternative for the “civilization of death”. The phrase “civilization of love” had already been used by Pope Paul VI; Pius XI had spoken about “social charity”, Leo XIII about fraternity in society. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church repeatedly stresses the role of charity as the highest form of human action in political, economic, and cultural life. Justice, itself, is insufficient: “humankind desperately needs the rule of the civilization of love”.
The idea of an “economy of love” can be traced to the development of Joseph Ratzinger’s theology, referring to his first encyclical Deus caritas est which can be taken as the summary of his immense theological oeuvre. Having examined the divine origin of love, the Pope draws the conclusion: “The ecclesial community becomes a witness before the world to the love of the Father, who wishes to make humanity a single family in his Son. The entire activity of the Church is an expression of a love that seeks the integral good of man” (19). Comparing the role of the state and of the church, he declares: “The just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibility of politics.” “Love – caritas – will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love” (28). His conclusion: “The Church can never be exempt from practicing charity as an organized activity of believers, and, on the other hand, there will never be a situation where the charity of each individual Christian is unnecessary, because, in addition to justice, man needs, and will always need, love” (29).
The Pope opens the immense transcendental horizon of humankind in the loving communion of the Holy Trinity, declaring all real human community has its source and goal in the community of divine love. – Reading his encyclical one cannot avoid the question: are his views only a type of wishful thinking, a majestic and pious homily of a churchman without any sense of reality? Is justice insufficient, in itself, without love? What is more: can love really excel justice? Is love the only possible fulfilment of justice? The Pope makes a straightforward statement in Caritas in veritate: “Truth needs to be sought, found and expressed within the ‘economy’ of charity, but charity in turn needs to be understood, confirmed, and practiced in the light of truth” (2).
Doubts and objections might appear to be well founded, yet two considerations can help us to assert a positive answer to the above questions. The first step is the predominance of solidarity in the life of each society and in the global village. Though solidarity is hardly known and acceptable in extreme forms of free-market systems where the highest possible profit margins are the only goal. The sphere of social security is excluded from the economy. The poor and marginalized – for whatever reasons they are in this miserable situation – are left alone or at best can be aided by a redistribution system operated by the state or by charity organizations. According to the encyclical the common good, integral, and authentic human development must be respected and desired by all actors of a society: “progress of a merely economic and technological kind is insufficient” (23). The “structures of sin” have to be changed into the “structures of solidarity”. All, and each of us, are responsible for the common good and for one another. As UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon stated at a conference in Morocco in October 2010: "Whatever else we learn from the crisis, this much is clear: global economic management can no longer afford to neglect the most vulnerable or the disadvantaged.”
Solidarity is a universal human requirement of all societies, but it is strongly recommended by CST, too. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Socio-economic problems can be resolved only with the help of all the forms of solidarity: solidarity of the poor among themselves, between rich and poor, of workers among themselves, between employers and employees in business, solidarity among nations and peoples. International solidarity is a requirement of the moral order; world peace depends in part upon this” (1940). Without the sense and practice of solidarity social and economic life can be destroyed in the long run: therefore solidarity belongs to a rightly interpreted self-interest.
A second aspect, however, is added by CST, the relatively new aspect so strongly emphasized by both Pope Benedict XVI and John Paul II: that of charity. It is not just an individual and personal attitude limited to one's circle of friends and relatives, but a universal guiding principle that ought to order society at large; it is also far more than a philanthropic attitude. The popes plead for a “person-based and community-oriented cultural process of world-wide integration”, they want “to steer the globalization of humanity in relational terms, in terms of communion and the sharing of goods” (Caritas in veritate 42).
Centrally planned economies can only be found in a few countries of the world now; the weakness and fragility of the globalized world economy has become apparent, among others, in the recent economic crises. The experience of Hungary is testimony to the evil consequences of both systems that are in contrast with the Catholic Social Teaching. Pope Benedict XVI has opened a new horizon by stressing the importance of gratuitousness and love in all dimensions of social and economic life.
Will it be accepted by the actors of the contemporary political and economic life? Are they “open to reciprocal gift”, to solidarity and charity?
Footnotes
[1] Constitution Gaudium et spes 1.
[2] Constitution Gaudium et spes 43.
[3] Constitution Gaudium et spes 40.
[4] Populorum progressio 45.
[5] Populorum progressio 12.
[6] Populorum progressio 20.
[7] Populorum progressio 29.
[8] Gaudium et spes 78.