Development of the Personalism Theme in Catholic Social Teaching

        Rerum Novarum promulgated by Pope Leo XIII on 15 May 1891 is fundamental to Catholic Social Teaching. The encyclical points to “new things” or “revolutionary changes in the modern world” (McCarthy 55). For centuries the Church’s message was directed primarily to agricultural societies characterized by cyclical rhythms. Industrialization coupled with the rise of Marxism prompted the Church to consider the ever urgent worker question. Rerum Novarum is a “defence of the inalienable dignity of workers, connected with the importance of the right to property, the principle of cooperation among the social classes, the rights of the weak and the poor, the obligation of workers and employees and the right to form associations” (Compendium 119).

        Human work has two dimensions: objective and subjective. In the objective sense, “it is the sum of activities, resources, instruments and technologies used by men and women to produce things, to exercise dominion over the earth, in the words of the Book of Genesis.” The objective dimension of human work is always subject to change over time as well as under different political, social, cultural and technological situations. However, in its subjective sense, “work is the activity of the human person as a dynamic being capable of performing a variety of actions that are part of the work process and that correspond to his personal vocation: Man has to subdue the earth and dominate it,” because he is created in the image and likeness of God. In this subjective sense, human work represents a stable dimension, “since it does not depend on what people produce or on the type of activity they undertake, but only and exclusively on their dignity as human beings” (Compendium 120). In Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII made it clear that all men are created equal in the image of God, and so “there is here no difference between rich and poor, master and servant, ruler and ruled, for the same is Lord over all” (RN 40). As such, the human dignity of the worker as a person must be respected. In fact, Jesus, the Son of God, spent a great part of his life as a carpenter. In his healing miracles, Jesus taught the crowd that “the Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28). He asked, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4) Healing to save a man’s life on the Sabbath is therefore a blessing for both the one who heals and the one who is healed. Human person is always the subject of work.

        In confronting Marxism which appeared to be attractive to the working class of his time, Pope Leo XIII put special emphasis on the right to private property. “Every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own … the principle of private ownership, as being pre-eminently in conformity with human nature …” (RN 6-11). The Pope affirmed that it is the right of man, the subject of work, to own private property which is acquired through work. Quoting from St. Thomas Aquinas, he also introduced the concept universal destination of goods: “Man should not consider his material possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need” (RN 22). Again, property should not be deemed the subject of work, but an object which is being used by the subject, the human person to serve other people (other subjects) in need.

        Pope Pius X who succeeded Leo XIII, took a different track from his predecessor. His papal motto was “Instaurare omnia in Christo – to restore all things in Christ.” He focused on parish-level spiritual activities: “frequent reception of Communion, reinvigoration of Gregorian chant during Mass, catechesis practiced in every parish, etc.” Notably, his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis (8 September 1907) condemned the errors of Modernists’ thoughts, which is often seen as a step back from Leo XIII’s social vision. Nevertheless, from a more holistic viewpoint, Pius X has supplied a “needed emphasis on spirituality” of the Church Social Teaching for its subsequent development (Lecture Notes for Lesson 6).

        Forty years after Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum, Pope Pius XI promulgated his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno on 15 May 1931. Besides reiterating Leo’s defence of private property, the rights of workers for a fair wage to support one’s family and sound working conditions, and formation of workers’ and professional associations, Pius XI also pointed out the Catholic social thought actually addressed economic issues better than the socialists who claimed to be able to solve them. This is because the Church supplies the spiritual component of social justice that Socialism obviously lacks. The Pope stressed that the first and most necessary remedy for “the root of these many evils” (of the capitalist economic regime) is “a reform of morals” (QA 98). On the one hand, he put heavy emphasis on the need to attain “common good” of the society (by mentioning the term 20 times in the encyclical), while on the other hand, he considered the means to achieve common good is for all individuals to “return openly and sincerely to the teaching of the Gospel, to the precepts of Him Who alone has the words of everlasting life, words which will never pass away, even if heaven and earth will pass away” (QA 136). Moreover, the Pope elaborated on the principle of subsidiarity in his encyclical. Smaller and subordinate organizations formed by individuals ought to play their own roles in the society and should not be “absorbed” into the larger organizations.

It is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them (QA 79).

The principle of subsidiarity “presupposes that individuals and communities have proper activities, social functions with intrinsic integrity and value.” In other words, certain forms and activities of the social order, e.g., marriage, family and organizational hierarchies, are in the natural order having particular functions and responsibilities. As such, subsidiarity “is not so much a principle about rights – the license to act without interference from above – as it is about duties or vocational responsibilities.” In its authentic sense, it is about a mission, a vocation, a gift of service, a principle which “regulates the plurality of gifts within a community” (McCarthy 120-121). In the Pope’s view, the restoration of social order depends largely on the practice of virtues by individuals as the principal means of realizing common good as well as the reinvigoration of the civil society through respect of the principle of subsidiarity by the State (Benestad 156-158).

        During the brief pontificate of John XXIII from October 1958 to June 1963, the Pope was most recognized for convening the Second Vatican Council which commenced in October 1962. This was emphasized by the aggiornamento (a bringing up to date) theme that characterized the discussions and teachings arising from the Council. Although John XXIII died in the middle of the Council in June 1963 and was unable to see it to completion, the Council has far-reaching implications on the reform of the Catholic Church in the areas of liturgy, ecclesiology, central role of the Scripture, and the Church’s teaching on humanity’s relationship to society. Indeed, Pope John XXIII’s contribution to bringing the Church in positive dialogues with the modern world has been widely acknowledged. His encyclical Pacem in Terris (11 April 1963) is the first encyclical addressed to “all men of good will,” in addition to addressing conventionally to bishops, clergy and the lay faithful. Until John XXIII, popes were often seen as shepherds for the flock within the Catholic Church. But John XXIII saw his role as the shepherd of the Church and the world, with the mission to bring peace to the world through a consolidation of efforts from all fronts.

        The Pope began Pacem in Terris with the dignity of man who is created in the image of God and redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. As such, it is by the natural law that “every man has the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are suitable for the proper development of life” (PT 11). The encyclical essentially echoes the “rights language” of Rerum Novarum promulgated by Pope Leo XIII. Yet John XXIII also put special emphasis that rights come with corresponding duties, and most obviously are acknowledging and respecting the rights of others. “Those, therefore, who claim their own rights, yet altogether forget or neglect to carry out their respective duties, are people who build with one hand and destroy with the other” (PT 30). Similar to Pius XI, John XXIII also appealed to the moral nature of individuals for building a well-ordered society. A civil authority must operate on moral force and appeal to the conscience of individual citizens in order to enable them to collaborate to achieve common good (PT 48). The Pope extended the moral order to the whole human family and urged different nations to seek “universal common good” and “lend mutual assistance to others in their efforts for improvement.” But to achieve this end, the Pope stressed that although “individuals will be found to differ enormously, in knowledge, power, talent and wealth, no justification is ever found for those who surpass the rest to subject others to their control in any way” (PT 87). The Pope strongly advocated that “there can be no peace between men unless there is peace within each one of them” (PT 165).

        Pacem in Terris certainly has a strong influence on the Magisterium social teachings of the Second Vatican Council, especially Gaudium et spes which stipulates the Church constitution on humanity’s relationship with the society. With John XXIII opening the windows of the Church to the world, his successor Pope Paul VI who convened the remaining sessions of the Second Vatican Council which ended in December 1965, issued the encyclical Populorum Progressio in 26 March 1967 on the developments of peoples, with a particular emphasis on the poor and marginalized to appeal for “a more active improvement of their human qualities.” Again addressing to “all men of good will,” the Pope stated that in the light of the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, the Church develops “a renewed consciousness of the demands of the Gospel, (which) makes it her duty to put herself at the service of all, to help them grasp their serious problem in all its dimensions, and to convince them that solidarity in action at this turning point in human history is a matter of urgency” (PP 1). The Pope echoed the social doctrines of his predecessors, Leo XIII, Pius XI and John XXIII on the importance of recognizing human and work dignity as well as moral progress and spiritual growth on top of purely economic and technological developments: “economics and technology have no meaning except from man whom they should serve. And man is only truly man in as far as, master of his own acts and judge of their worth, he is author of his own advancement, in keeping with the nature which was given to him by his Creator” (PP 34).

        Vatican II’s aggiornamento theme raised high expectations on change of all sorts in the Catholic religion. One of which was on birth control. In fact, the growing popularity of oral contraceptives around that time accelerated the need for a church response. And from 1957, moral theologians were publishing articles about birth control, with different questions being asked. Before John XXIII died in 1963, he appointed a theological commission to examine the issue. Paul VI expanded the group to include medical experts and some lay Catholics. Led by the Jesuit Josef Fuchs who was appointed by his peers as the principal draftsman of the report that represented the views of fifteen of the nineteen theologians, it recognized that “married people in conscience needed to determine whether the serious issue of birth control ought to be a means toward realizing themselves as responsible persons.” And that these people needed to be educated “to assume responsibility and not just to follow the law” (Keenan 3261). Nonetheless, Paul VI did not consider himself having the moral authority to overturn the birth control teaching of Pius XI in his encyclical Casti Conubii and eventually rejected the majority report (Keenan 3276). He issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae on 25 July 1968 to reinforce the teaching of Pius XI, which taught that under the precepts of the natural law, “each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life” (HV 11). Besides, it is by divine will that the unitive and procreative ends of the marital act are inseparable (HV 12). Following similar arguments as Pius XI, Pope VI taught that artificial birth control is intrinsically evil and may not be justified as a “lesser evil” (HV 14). The only lawful birth control method is to resort to infertile periods for engaging in marital intercourse (HV 16). The encyclical caused a major shock to lay Catholics and theologians. The former interpreted it as imposing a barrier on their conscience while the latter considered “married lay persons were in fact more competent to judge the moral liceity of birth control in their particular marriages” (Keenan 3345). Humanae Vitae was apparently a setback of the Church’s growing consciousness in respecting human dignity.

        Pope John Paul II, who succeeded John Paul I after his very brief pontificate, invented a new metaphor: “theology of the body” in a series of his teachings from 1979 to 1984. He emphasized on the married couple’s physical complementarily as an important part of God’s creation plan as well as their procreation through conjugal acts as participation in God’s creation of a new life. As such, artificial birth control acquires a spiritual significance – because it is a “direct denial of God’s gift to life.” Sex is not merely a material and physical encounter or otherwise persons will become “objects,” but married couples are “gifts” to each other with their children being another precious gift to both of them (Lecture Notes for Lesson 5). The “subject” and “object” themes are thus not only confined to human work, but to the entire human person – body and soul in unity. The Pope also extended this understanding to the family, the smallest unit of human community. In his encyclical Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991) to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, he described the family as the “sanctuary of life,” which is the place “in which life – the gift of God – can be properly welcomed and protected against the many attacks to which it is exposed, and can develop in accordance with what constitutes authentic human growth” (CA 39).

        In his encyclical Veritatis Splendor (6 August 1993), the Pope specifically strengthened the importance of the natural law in Catholic moral teaching and the inseparability of body and soul in determining the morality of an act. He condemned moral relativism of various natures as well as totalitarianism resulted from both Socialism and a “democracy without values” (VS 101). He called for a spiritual response to the difficult situation modern man are facing. Only with the help of divine grace as a result of the saving power of Jesus, we would be able to obey God’s command, overcome our weaknesses and evangelize the world (VS102-106). In his encyclical Evangelical Vitae (25 March 1995), the Pope combined the Church’s teachings in a number of social issues, including abortion, euthanasia, birth control and death penalty. Under the theme of “Gospel of life,” the Pope taught that every person of good will “should come to recognize in the natural law written in the heart the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree” (EV 2). Again, he put the human person at the center of his teaching, and a human person, in his entirety, should never be “used” as an object, but be respected and loved. While it is obvious that John Paul II has adopted a more personalist and less neo-scholastic approach in Catholic social teaching than his predecessors, some moral theologians were still quite angry with his implicit charge against them in advancing moral relativism (Keenan 3570).

        While Pope John Paul II is a prominent public figure “putting the Church’s voice and presence before the world,” his successor Benedict XVI adopted a quieter and more intellectual approach to his papacy (Lecture Notes for Lesson 6). In his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est (25 December 2005), the Pope reflected on the three Greek words on love: eros, philia and agape. While philia is used to express the relationship between Jesus and his disciples, the Pope noted that New Testament writers prefer the use of agape to eros in describing Christian understanding of love. However, he taught that eros, which is normally used to describe the love between a man and a woman, is nothing bad unless it is “reduced to pure sex, has become a commodity, a mere thing to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity” (DC 5). In fact, he saw agape – descending, oblative love (typically Christian) and eros – ascending, possessive or covetous love as inseparable. “Even if eros is at first mainly covetous and ascending, a fascination for the great promise of happiness, in drawing near to the other, it is less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other” (DC 7). In other words, eros, which is rooted in man’s very nature for sex and marriage, can be purified to become love with agape. In a certain way, Pope Benedict XVI further adds to the spiritual repository of marriage of John Paul II from the love perspective.

        In his encyclical Caritas in Veritate (29 June 2009), Pope Benedict XVI used an Augustinian approach to emphasize that love must be guided by truth, or else true integral human development cannot be achieved. “Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way … It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word love is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite” (CV 3). Discussing on economic development, the Pope stressed that “the economy needs ethics in order to function correctly – not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which is people-centred.” For genuine development, business ethics must be built on two pillars: respecting human dignity and recognizing the transcendent value of the natural law (CV 45). The Pope also saw the need for the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity to work together: “the principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa, since the former without the latter gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need” (CV 58). On the new developments such as globalization, social media and more critically bioethics, the Pope reiterated that economic and technological developments are grossly insufficient, but rather “development must include not just material growth but also spiritual growth, since the human person is a unity of body and soul, born of God's creative love and destined for eternal life” (CV 76). Essentially, the Pope argues that “the practice of the virtues by all participants in modern economies is more important for a functioning market than the pursuit of self-interest or any set of structures devised by policy makers” (Benestad 466).

        We see a progressive development of the personalism theme in papal social teaching since Pope Leo XIII introduced the concept in human work and right to private property in the late 19^th century – from more material based discussions to putting more emphasis on the integral development of the full human being in body and soul, with the spiritual component further strengthened by Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI; and from more personal or individual-based to a more community-based model, starting from the smallest unit of a family, since personalism also implies inter-personalism. Pope Benedict XVI rightly pointed out:

As a spiritual being, the human creature is defined through interpersonal relations. The more authentically he or she lives these relations, the more his or her own personal identity matures. It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with God (CV 53).

Although the concepts of subsidiarity and solidarity might have been first introduced to counter the socialist advocacy to centralization, they have also developed over time to focus not so much on the structural issues but on the spiritual aspects to ensure integral human development in tandem with political, economic, social and technological progress. Finally, while the neo-scholastic approach continues to be adopted by the recent popes, they have taken a more “historicist” mindset in applying reason in defending truths that are deemed unchangeable, recognizing that it has become ever more urgent in protecting them against modern errors, while at the same time evangelizing the world with the help of God’s grace.

Bibliography

Benestad, J. Brian. Church, State, and Society: An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011. Print

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. N.p.: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2014. Print.

Keenan, J. F. History of Catholic Moral Theology in the Twentieth Century. London: Continuum., n.d. Kindle file.

Marlett, Jeff. Lecture Notes for TH 581 Lesson 5 – From Life to Body and Back.

---. Lecture Notes for TH 581 Lesson 6 – John Paul and Benedict.

---. Lecture Notes for TH 581 Lesson 6 – Opening the Windows after the War

McCarthy, David Matzko. The Heart of Catholic Social Teaching: Its Origin and Contemporary Significance. Waco, TX: Brazos Press, 2009. Print.

Pope Benedict XVI. "Caritas in Veritate." Vatican, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016. <http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate.html>.

---. "Deus Caritas Est." Vatican, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016. <http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est.html>.

Pope John Paul II. "Centesimus Annus." Vatican, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016. <http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus.html>

---. "Evangelium Vitae." Vatican, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016. <http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html>.

---. "Veritatis Splendor." Vatican, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016. <http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor.html>.

Pope John XXIII. "Pacem in Terris." Vatican, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016. <http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.html>.

Pope Leo XIII. "Rerum Novarum." Vatican, n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2015. <http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html>.

Pope Paul VI. "Humanae Vitae." Vatican, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016. <http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html>.

---. "Populorum Progressio." Vatican, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016. <http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_26031967_populorum.html>.

Pope Pius XI. "Quadragesimo Anno." Vatican, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016. <http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno.html>.