If you had asked me as a young Baptist boy to explain the difference between Protestants and Catholics, I would have said that Catholics were the Christians who “have to do what the Pope tells them to do.” Now I’m an old Baptist and realize how naive I was. (I’m more likely to agree with the Pope than some American Catholics I know.)
I’m still unclear, though, on where Catholics draw the line of demarcation between complete freedom of conscience and deference to magisterial authority. After all, if a Catholic can support abortion and still receive communion, what is off-limits?
One area that I had assumed was clearly in the optional category was papal social teaching. But at Evangelical Catholicism, M.J. Andrew argues that’s the latest encyclical is binding on all Catholics:
The error that both Leo XIII and Pius X are correcting is one that is still made today in Catholic circles, namely, that the social teaching of the Church is in someway optional, non-binding, and/or merely prudential. Indeed, in many respects our inclinations and political proclivities, which often are merely products of our locale and social environment, are met by a powerful counterweight in Catholic social teaching. And rightly so. If, as the two aforementioned popes assert, our social life (i.e., family, political, and economic activity) are primarily religious and moral in nature, then the Church, by virtue of her authority in matters of faith and morals, is our touchstone for learning how to conduct that social life. . . .
Yet, we still encounter the stubbornly persistent opinion among Catholics that the Church’s social doctrine is not binding–and if it is authoritative, then it is not as important or consequential as doctrines of faith. But this position is certainly not to be found in Catholic teaching. Indeed, it is simply a pernicious prejudice.
Andrew proffers an intriguing argument (persuasive enough to convince this Protestant). But is he right? If so, why do so many Catholics ignore—much less dismiss—this encyclical?
July 8th, 2009 | 10:13 am
While waiting for a Roman Catholic to respond, I will note that my Roman Catholic friends (and brothers in Christ) often appear to me to be American first (‘I did it my way’) and Catholic second. I too am “more likely to agree with the Pope than some American Catholics I know.”
July 8th, 2009 | 10:25 am
I usually turn to the Catholic Encyclopedia for such questions. On encyclicals, it notes:
“As for the binding force of these documents it is generally admitted that the mere fact that the pope should have given to any of his utterances the form of an encyclical does not necessarily constitute it an ex-cathedra pronouncement and invest it with infallible authority. The degree in which the infallible magisterium of the Holy See is committed must be judged from the circumstances, and from the language used in the particular case.”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05413a.htm
So, absent a more in-depth analysis, the answer is that which is given by any good lawyer when presented with a general question: “It depends.”
July 8th, 2009 | 10:31 am
As an Evangelical and Baptist who grew up Catholic and still lives in a country dominated by the Roman Catholic Church, the answer to the question, “Why do so many Catholics ignore church teaching” is tied to what I consider that church’s greatest weakness:
The notion that a person who subjected to the ceremony of water baptistm as an infant is then a Catholic Christian and a member of the RCC, regardless of whether s/he ever personally appropriates what that ceremony signified, leads to a church full of unbelievers.
Now, I know all the Catholic answers to that statement, and they don’t impress me. Let me just mention and answer two of them:
– In Catholic understanding, baptism like all sacraments doesn’t merely signify something, it effects or confers something, so that according to Catholic teaching these baptised are really regenerate Christians. Fine, but in that case the church falls down on church discipline in a major way, because, as Joe Carter points out, most Catholic supporters of abortion rights, for example, have no trouble receiving communion, and that quite openly — Father probably shares their pro-choice position.
– And of course these baptised are supposed to be brought to the point, by catechesis, of appropriating the faith for themselves, and to affirm that in confirmation. However, in my country at least I have yet to hear of a young person being denied confirmation because of a lack of personal faith, and as a result we have people who are not only baptised but confirmed as well, without ever having come to personal faith.
As a result we do have a church full of baptised unbelievers:
– In my country, it is Catholic retreat and adult education centers, many of which are affiliated with Catholic religious orders, who are most active in offering all sorts of new-agey courses, and Catholic bookstores which sell books by authors from Shirley McLaine to the Dalai Lama.
– The “conservative” positions of Benedict XVI, which are the reason why Joe Carter and many other Evangelicals often feel like cheering on this Pope, are openly being jeered at by prominent Catholics, even priests — and the bishops mostly just look on.
– In this country, there is a wide-ranging consensus that abortion should be legal during the first trimester. Very few Catholic voices are raised in opposition to that; those that speak out are considered mavericks and not representative of the church. I am not aware of any pressure from Rome that this needs to change.
– We don’t need to go into clerical misconduct; let’s hope that the reforms of recent years will bear fruit, but some of the scandals of the recent past are indicative of not only unbelieving church members, but unbelieving clergy.
More than any of the doctrinal issues which divide Evangelicals and Catholics it is those things which make it virtually impossible for someone like myself, who grew up nominally Catholic like most Austrians and then came to a living, personal faith through the witness of Evangelicals, to even consider swimming back across the Tiber.
And it leaves us with no surprise at all when we realize that the new encyclical, like so many other pronouncements out of Rome, are being widely ignored by Catholics.
July 8th, 2009 | 10:35 am
The web site http://www.thecatholicthing offers an excellent reflection on the encyclical by James V. Schall, S.J. It also offers this comment from Robert Royal: “The Church is not some uber-school of …economics…. And previous popes as well as this one are quick to point out that the Church has no technical solutions to propose. The encyclical offers “caritas” as the first principle of Catholic economic practice. The individual believer must prayerfully seek the gifts of the Holy Spirit and then proceed to act as a free “acting person”.
July 8th, 2009 | 10:49 am
Faithful Catholics pay close attention to the pope, but know that he is infallible in only two areas: faith and morals. So he is infallible in teaching about the basics of Christian social morality, all of which come from Scripture in some way: the dangers of greed and envy, the duty to care for the least of our brothers, etc. Where he is not infallible is in policy prescriptions, especially in things like economics and politics. This is why we cannot ignore the pope when he speaks about the inseparable connection between truth and love, but we can roll our eyes at the notion of a supra-national authority. (Unless, of course, that supra-national authority is the Catholic Church, which does claim to be the Kingdom of Heaven present on earth, in mystery, i.e., in the sacraments).
July 8th, 2009 | 11:09 am
Dear Joe,
Are social encyclicals binding? Not everything in an encyclical, social or otherwise, is equally “binding.” Catholic teaching itself distinguishes different levels of authoritativeness for different kinds of teaching and different kinds of Church pronouncements. Some teaching is “de fide” (of faith) and must be accepted with “the assent of faith.” Such teaching is “binding” in an absolute and irrevocable way. Below that is teaching which, while not de fide, is nevertheless “authoritative.” Such teaching must be accepted with an “obsequium religiosum”, usually explained to mean “a religious assent of mind and will.” Authoritative teaching is also binding, but not in an absolute and irrevocable way. One can entertain as a real though remote possibility that the teaching is false, but the benefit of the doubt goes to the Church, and there is a strong presumption that the teaching is correct. Such authoritative-but-not-de-fide teaching is like that of good parents: it may not be infallible (as de fide teaching is), but it is highly reliable and one is subject to it.
Below that is teaching which, while not authoritative in the above senses, is nevertheless owed great respect. In an encyclical — any encyclical — one finds statements of various levels of authority. It is not a simple question of whether “an encyclical is binding”.
It is vaguely analogous to a decision of the Supreme Court. The holding of the Court is binding, but not everything written in the majority opinion(s) is equally authoritative.
In a social encyclical, one finds statements of general principles. These are the most authoritative. One also finds various analyses of particular political, economic, and social situations. These usually involve judgments of a prudential sort that are not binding in either the de fide or authoritative sense. They still merit respectful attention, as coming from the supreme earthly shepherd of the Church.
For example, the principles of “subsidiarity” and “solidarity”, the existence of and limits to the right to own private property, the principles regulating just warfare, and the like are highly authoritative. But the more one descends to particulars, the less one is dealing with “binding doctrine” and the more one is dealing with pastoral guidance.
I do think that it would be better if Catholics were not so disposed to pick these documents apart like an English teacher grading a student paper. A little more obsequium would be nice, even as we recognize that not everything in these documents is of equal weight.
If you want to read more about the different levels of authority, one can begin with Lumen Gentium (a document of Vatican II). There was also a document of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith a few years ago called Ad Tuendam Fidem, which is very helpful. A good discussion of the traditional categories of teaching is given in the beginning of Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. While written in the 1950s, his discussion is not essentially different from that of Vatican II and post-conciliar statements.
July 8th, 2009 | 11:25 am
I think the answer to the post’s question is found in that many American Catholics, influenced by the culture around them, tend to divide the economic sphere from the moral sphere. That is, they want to look at economic questions solely through the gaze of economic principles, so that (for example) they will promote third world factories under the idea that they provide an economic increase and are therefore.
Part of this encyclical especially clarifies that economics decision entail moral decisions and attitudes which are very much under the area of the Church. Indeed, Benedict argues that the Church is compelled to promote the truth, especially moral truths, and these truths most certainly have something to say about our economic activities and decisions. I for one hope that this encyclical convinces many Catholics previously hesitant to accept the social teachings to do so.
Of course, I think the reason many also hesitate is the political structure of America, where to be pro-life one almost has to be a Republican, but the republicans are very poor on many areas of social justice. This leads many to chose to promote the pope on issues of sexual morality but not social justice or to downplay sexuality morality for social justice. As the encyclical states, such a dichotomy is false.
To “Wolf”
I think Benedict has been moving to address the very problems you mention. He’s looking into nuns that have embraced the new age; the seminaries are being reformed, etc. I know that many of the new priests coming out of the seminary are very holy men, and they are emphasizing fidelity to the Church’s teaching. After Vatican II, there was a lot of confusion, and frankly a lot of lapses and sins. However, I think it’s getting better.
Of course, the presence of many non-believers does not mean that there are no believers nor does it mean the Church’s teaching is not true.
July 8th, 2009 | 11:28 am
“I’m still unclear, though, on where Catholics draw the line of demarcation between complete freedom of conscience and deference to magisterial authority. After all, if a Catholic can support abortion and still receive communion, what is off-limits?”
This is misleading on more than one count. Magisterial authority is one thing; canonical discipline and actual church practice are something else. The authoritative and binding nature of the Church’s teaching on abortion is not disputed even by dissenting theologians; whether dissenters ought to be, or actually are, admitted to communion is a separate question.
July 8th, 2009 | 11:29 am
The first “widely ignored” encyclical was Humanae Vitae 41 years ago. The American bishops made no effort to support it, and even encouraged dissent from it. In doing so, they were pulling the rug out from under their own feet. It didn’t take long for American Catholics to ask “If I don’t need to heed the teaching in this encyclical, what other teachings needn’t I heed?” and “If I’m free to ignore a clear statement from the Chair of St. Peter, why shouldn’t I be free to ignore his subordinates, i.e. the bishops and priests?”
This, along with the supremely awful state of Catholic CCD programs in the ’70′s and ’80′s, produced a couple of generations of American Catholics who largely didn’t know their faith and, with a lack of any type of real leadership from the bishops and many of the clergy, felt free to pick and choose from what they did know.
July 8th, 2009 | 11:35 am
The question “Are social encyclicals binding?” is really two questions. One goes to the authority of encyclicals, the other to the authority of the Church’s social teaching.
Encyclicals are authoritative. They are not in themselves infallible or absolutely binding, but the teachings they set forth seldom derive their whole weight from the weight of one document alone. For instance, JP2′s encyclical Evangelium Vitae clearly sets forth irreformable truth on abortion in continuity with the whole history of church teaching.
On the question of social teaching, there is a fuzzy boundary between irreformable fundamental principles and reformable practical solutions, between theory and practice. Caritas in Veritate notes that “The Church does not have technical solutions to offer,” but also insists that the Church’s mission of truth is open “to the truth, from whichever branch of knowledge it comes.”
When Benedict XVI says things like “the market is not, and must not become, the place where the strong subdue the weak,” or that food and water are “universal rights of all human beings,” those speak to irreformable fundamental principles that all Catholics must accept. When he speaks of the need for a “world political authority,” that seems to be a matter of application that Catholics must take seriously, but which is necessarily reformable and does not demand assent in the same way.
July 8th, 2009 | 11:42 am
First let me say that Joe Carter, like many other misinformed, seems to jump to erroneous generalizations. Being “pro-choice” does NOT make one “pro -abortion”. I am ideologically opposed to abortion as I am ideologically opposed to smoking and alcoholism, however, like the two latter examples, I am not opposed to “free will” and a persons right to choose. I am always amazed at how passionate people are about abortion yet support state sanctioned murder in the form of war and the death penalty. They generally also oppose any government regulation of their “right” to carry assualt rifles whose only purpose is to kill people, not rabbits.
I find such selective morality and myopic mentality frightening since this is the same type of distorted thinking that breeds terrorists, be they Islamic, Christian or Hindu.
July 8th, 2009 | 11:51 am
If Lucy Tucker believes that the proper way of reading this encyclical is described by her own interpretive approach, according to which “we cannot ignore the pope when he speaks about the inseparable connection between truth and love, but we can roll our eyes at the notion of a supra-national authority,” she is seriously mistaken. While it is true, as others have pointed out, that infallibility extends only to faith and morals, it is also true, as M.J. Andrews convincingly demonstrates, that the Church can only speak on social matters *because* they such matters are never *merely* economic or political but also moral. Consequently the *principles* outlined in the encyclical constitute an extension of the Church’s moral teaching into the social sphere. But to think, as Tucker seems to think, that as soon as the encyclical begins to suggest policies could aid in the achievement of these principles we can “begin to roll our eyes,” is to misrepresent how a faithful Catholic should be disposed toward an encyclical. Usually it is also revelatory of prior political commitments which such a reader is not willing to give up or rethink, no matter what the Church (or, according to Weigel’s self-serving lie, the “Council for Justice and Peace”), says.
July 8th, 2009 | 11:53 am
Tony: First let me say that Joe Carter, like many other misinformed, seems to jump to erroneous generalizations. Being “pro-choice” does NOT make one “pro -abortion”.
The “pro” in pro-choice means “for.” So if you are pro-choice but not pro-abortion, then you must support only those choices that don’t include abortion. Is that what you are claiming to be the position of pro-choice Catholics?
July 8th, 2009 | 12:10 pm
“I’m still unclear, though, on where Catholics draw the line of demarcation between complete freedom of conscience and deference to magisterial authority. After all, if a Catholic can support abortion and still receive communion, what is off-limits?”
This has already been well answered by SDG, but I’ll throw in my two cents. The Catholic Church actually makes fairly precise how much deference is owed to magisterial authority. If you consult the sources I referred to, you will see it laid out with almost Euclidean precision.
It is also laid out clearly in canon law. A Catholic would have no difficulty finding out what precisely the Church teaches on a subject and with what level of authority she teaches it.
What is done with Catholics who are unorthodox is a completely different question. Someone who would say, “I can get away with rejecting these teachings of the Church, in that no one will deprive me of communion, and so I don’t have to listen to the Church,” is already is a very bad place spiritually. There is, as you suggest, Joe, a very weakened sense of the seriousness of sin and of heterodoxy today among many Catholics. But the “lines of demarcation” are there and very clearly drawn for all to see. Unfortunately some people just don’t care about these lines. However, the general decline in belief and practice among Catholics seems to have bottomed out in this
country, and there are many healthy signs of movement in the other direction. The bishops seem much more zealous and vigorous in promoting orthodoxy now than they were in recent decades.
July 8th, 2009 | 12:29 pm
To Tony Santamassino,
The “pro-choice” position, i.e. that the state should not interfere with the choice to have abortions, has been repeatedly — and authoritatively rejected by the Church. That it is the responsibility of the state to protect innocent human life is part of the Church’s social doctrine, and by no means optional. To take the pro-choice position is simply heterodox. (Moreover, I doubt very much that many people who are pro-choice would be pro-choice on infanticide. There, at least, they would see that the state has a positive obligation to protect innocent life, as the Church teaches.)
On the death penalty and war, the Church does not teach that these are intrinsically immoral. In fact, the Church authoritatively teaches that in some cases they are justified. So, in fact, your beliefs contradict authoritative Church teaching on all three issues you mention. The Church rejects the idea that war and the death penalty are “state sanctioned murder”. In an unbroken tradition from the early Church, through the Catechism of the Catholic Church the Church teaches that the state does have the authority in certain situations to wage war and execute criminals. A Catholic may certainly
judge that a particular war is grossly immoral or judge that the death penalty in certain situations should not be used. he could even say that 99.99% of wars are immoral. But to go from there to say that war and the death penalty are always immoral is to stray beyond the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy.
To WJ, I agree that rolling one’s eyes is NOT the appropriate response to a papal statement, but neither is calling a fellow Christian a liar, as you do Weigel, because one disagrees with his views.
July 8th, 2009 | 12:50 pm
Stephen M. Barr,
I am not saying that Weigel lies about the document because I disagree with his interpretation of it; I am saying that he lies about it because he quite clearly misrepresents both the character of the document and Benedict XVI himself with the intention of misleading others.
July 8th, 2009 | 1:51 pm
[...] Are social encyclicals binding? Not everything in an encyclical—social or otherwise—is equally binding. Catholic teaching itself distinguishes different levels of authoritativeness for different kinds of teaching and different kinds of Church pronouncements. Some teaching is de fide (of faith) and must be accepted with “the assent of faith.” Such teaching is binding in an absolute and irrevocable way. Below that is teaching which, while not de fide, is nevertheless authoritative. Such teaching must be accepted with an obsequium religiosum, usually explained to mean “a religious assent of mind and will.” Authoritative teaching is also binding, but not in an absolute and irrevocable way. One can entertain as a real though remote possibility that the teaching is false, but the benefit of the doubt goes to the Church, and there is a strong presumption that the teaching is correct. Such authoritative-but-not-de-fide teaching is like that of good parents: it may not be infallible (as de fide teaching is), but it is highly reliable and one is subject to it. [...]
July 8th, 2009 | 2:29 pm
WJ, it is a terrible thing to accuse someone of intentionally misleading others. that you have been rigorously just and charitable to Weigel in arriving at your conclusion (I don’t say you have intentionally been unjust or uncharitable).
July 8th, 2009 | 3:36 pm
P.S. oops, should have said something like “I doubt that you have been rigorously just and charitable to Weigel” (but you probably figured that out, WJ)
July 8th, 2009 | 3:53 pm
SDG,
The whole tenor of Weigel’s piece is to undermine those aspects of Caritas in Veritate with which he doesn’t agree by claiming that they don’t really reflect the opinion of the Pope, but were thrown in by him as a measure to appease the Council for Justice and Peace. In doing so he (1) knowingly misrepresents the status of a signed encyclical, and (2) insinuates that Benedict XVI is either not willing or not able to free his text from the supposed influence of the Council (and in doing so adopts a ridiculous posture of condescension to an intellect and personality far greater than his own). All this is pursued with the aim of (3) convincing his readership of “conservative” Catholics that they may ignore those parts of the encyclical which Weigel has determined to be inessential–which, of course, are those very parts that would challenge their existent beliefs. Nowhere in his “analysis” does Weigel show the slightest interest in being instructed or challenged by the encyclical; and nowhere does he acknowledge that his own “analysis” of the encyclical is one expressly condemned in the encyclical itself. It seems to me that all this evidence, combined with what we already know about Weigel’s tendency to distort theology to suit his existent policy preferences, suggests that his “analysis” is not one undertaken in good faith, as a son of the Church, but is rather intended to misrepresent the text for the purposes of political ideology. I’ll call that a lie.
July 8th, 2009 | 10:40 pm
Look at it from a different angle… A Catholic could say, “All encyclicals are binding. All Catholics have a duty to carry out their precepts. The question is how much personal discretion an individual has in deciding how – not whether – to carry them out.”
On some issues, there is less wriggle room. “Don’t kill innocent people. Don’t vote to allow the state or others to kill innocent people either.” But even then, there are subsidiary questions on which reasonable people will disagree – even if they are all honestly committed to the goal in question. (Reduce the speed limit to 10 miles per hour? Ban smoking? Outlaw steak knives and baseball bats… or, for that matter, the sale of gin, in case it’s used to procure abortions?).
On other issues, there is much more room for legitimate disagreement. Is “living in peace” better ensured by pacifism and disarmament, or by deterrence and just war? Is “look after the poor” better served by higher taxation (to fund welfare services) or lower taxation (to encourage economic growth)? But even so, there are limits: a Catholic (or indeed any Christian) could not endorse either “All property is theft” on the one hand, nor Ayn Randian “this is my property, and I’ll use it how I like, screw the poor” Nozickism on the other.
July 10th, 2009 | 2:28 am
[...] this being the first social encyclical published in two decades. The question is posed by Joe Carter, in response to a post we noted earlier by M.J. Andrew (Evangelical Catholicism). M.J. objects to [...]
August 3rd, 2009 | 2:52 am
The difficulty I have with these social encyclicals is that they are phrased in a way that seems to go beyond what is prudent for the Church. Let me explain: The Church is rendered infallible when defining faith and/or morals, when it specifically sets out to do this and for the whole Church. Now the Church is not and cannot be infallible on matters of economics. Were there any doubt about its fallibility on these matters, one need only consult the Church’s once extreme opposition to the taking of any interest on a loan, a teaching which gradually diminished in force until it simply vanished. The Church may have had “good intentions” when it withheld the sacraments and/or refused to bury “usurers” just as it may have had all the right motivations when it tried Galileo, but it’s judgment on these matters was false, and harmful.
Likewise, when the Church-on the basis of “fairness”, “social justice” or whatever-insists, or seems to insist on minimum wage laws (which praxeologically MUST increase unemployment if the wage set varies from the market wage, which it naturally will be or it would not be set in the first place), wealth redistribution (which undermines and weakens the very mechanism by which the standard of living for the poor is increased…not to mention undermining property rights and robbing the poor of their integrity on the pretext of saving their dignity,) or in any way attempts to prescribe a specific economic action, then the Church goes beyond its mandate.
Not only does it go beyond it’s mandate, but it’s actions are scandalous! Scandalous because anyone who has a sound grasp of the science upon which the bishops or Pope are trampling, is immediately put off by the Church. If he is Catholic like me, his confidence in the individual judgement of bishops and in that of the Pope is undermined, even if his confidence in the Holy Spirit’s protection of the magisterium is unshaken. If he is not Catholic, his skepticism towards religion and the Catholic Church in particular are increased, rather than decreased. That is why it is totally imprudent for the Church to behave this way.
To those who say: “But the Church has to say something!” I say: “Yes, the Church can make morally binding statements about what people must do to be just and merciful, but it can ONLY offer the general principles, it can never prescribe the particulars.” Maybe the Popes actually think they are being cautious when they say things like “States must make economic provision for the poor”. Perhaps they feel that this is the same thing as saying “Moral societies are those that make provision for the poor.” But it is not the same thing, not by a long shot. Moral societies can make provision for the poor in numerous ways that do not involve violent coercion by the State and this was done in the Middle Ages by the monks and in an earlier period in American history by private charities. How did the personal (individual) duty of Christian charity, commanded by our Lord, come to be replaced by this wicked welfare beauracracy? How can a Christian reconcile himself to these things? I do not believe Christian charity is compatible with any of the former. And more importantly, the entire Church, all the bishops and the Pope, every priest and every nun, every “third wayer” and distributist screaming in concert have, with their combined weight of opinion, not even a feathers weight of authority on these issues to change my mind.
If the Holy Father wants to learn economics, let him spend a good 3 or 4 years studying it. Let him study the classicals and the Austrians and the Keynesians and the Chicago school and everyone in between. Let him write books on the subject. But when he speaks on these issues, he speaks as a man and that is that. The Church can no more declare that we ought to have this or that economic reform than it can declare that a certain kind of building ought to be made out of certain kind of material. I mean no disrespect, only to spare the Church the embarrasment and disgrace that have almost always followed when churchmen have attempted to transubstantiate their spiritual authority into technical authority.
The current situation, in which the Church throws itself into the “social question” while failing to teach even the most fundamental doctrines of the faith with clarity and authority, is totally intolerable. Catholics, how many sermons in your life have you heard about heaven or hell (especially hell) or what is neccesary to be saved? Purgatory? The need for individual virtue? The question answers itself! But you’ve heard plenty of sermons on achieving “social justice” through political force and other heresies, once condemened by the Church, now tacitly endorsed by its silence and failure (is it fear?) to speak up in the sole area in which Christ authorized it to speak. The Church has sold its soul to a god named “Relevancy”, and now lost even that.
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