For those of us following the crisis in Europe with any degree of intensity, it’s difficult not to sense an absence of hope among even the most sincere continental technocrats. This absence extends beyond the moralizing response to sovereign debt (which faults national “greed,” “recklessness,” or a type of gluttony for and comes paired with a call for penance and purging, and which subconsciously echoes the grammar of a Christian worldview, with its language of sin and atonement), which is far less appealing than it ought to be in Europe. Calls for the imposition of even modest limitations (say, hiking the retirement age from 60 to 62) have resulted in riotous outbursts by ordinary citizens unwilling to concede an inch of entitlement, and led to dramatic depositions in electoral contests. But there’s something else missing in Europe, beyond a willingness to confront overindulgence, beyond proclamations of doom and their accompanying remedies of shame. A positive alternative voice, that of Christian democracy, so vital in the twentieth century, seems also to have faded.
Much of postwar European recovery and development came under the aegis of Christian democratic political parties. While these groups trace their origins to the late-nineteenth century, they really only came into their own as formidable political forces at the end of the Second World War, after other, inverted religious responses to modernity had been exposed as radical and dehumanizing. In Italy, Alcide de Gasperi’s Christian Democrats shepherded the nation through years of slow rebuilding and social tumult. French Gaullists, though of course different in important ways, founded Rally for the Republic, the first serious, widespread attempt by the French right to come to terms with democracy by embracing and redirecting rather than plotting its overthrow. Germany witnessed the rebirth of the Christian Democratic Union, and many of the architects of what would eventually become the European Union were devout Catholics who saw their actions through a rich theological lens.
Over time, though, Europe’s Christian Democratic parties became markedly less Christian and more like generic center-right-liberals. True, they retained traditionalist wings and, for the most part, continued to extol the importance of “Christian [and 'humanistic'] values,” or “our national and continental heritage,” but by and large they secularized as economic comfort set in and the threat of communism diminished. Then, in many cases, the parties went extinct or completely rebranded themselves (Rally for the Republic is now “Union for a Popular Movement,” and their Cross of Lorraine logo has been swapped for an oak tree; the Italian party fared even worse, suffering embarrassing scandals in the early 1990s before being overtaken by Silvio Berlusconi’s newer, more populist and blatantly right-wing “Forza Italia”).
It’s hard not to have a strange sense that history is regurgitating itself in the current meltdown. Analogies to the 1930s abound; some are calling for a new Marshall Plan; others for the revival of a currency last seen in the Holy Roman Empire. But as an idea-starved continent exhausts most of its remaining energy pursuing better managers and unsinkable technical solutions, perhaps a renewed summons to the noble project of Christian democracy, strangely absent of late, would ultimately return many more talents to the treasury.
June 22nd, 2012 | 8:29 am
I’ve heard the term “Christian Democrat” for many decades, as the name of this or that political party in Europe. I thought it was simply a catchy name, but this article seems to say it stands for a particular set of principles.
What are those principles which are being recommended here? Is there a definition of the term “Christian Democrat”?
I confess that if the term means anything concrete, it seems to me that it means the all-too-common Marxist interpretation of Catholic social teaching. Which seems to consist in this: in the name of Jesus Christ, borrow from your children and grandchildren to prop up a Potemkin village of present prosperity and unearned (and unwarranted) entitlements. Vote in the party which promises the most borrowing and the most entitlements.
Even now it’s rearing its ugly head in the US, in the form of the USCCB bishops’ criticism of the Ryan budget proposal. That proposal is the only responsible one which has been put forward by anyone, to redirect our own course away from the fiscal/financial death spiral we are presently in. Yet it is being condemned by the very leaders who should be the first to call their flocks to take responsibility for their lives.
June 22nd, 2012 | 11:23 am
…suffering embarrassing scandals in the early 1990s before being overtaken by Silvio Berlusconi’s newer, more populist and blatantly right-wing “Forza Italia”
Also “blatantly un-Christian”, as Berlusconi’s many failures of character (and policy) attest. Berlusconi’s most recent term was arguably squandered on a law designed primarily to keep him out of court (“il lodo Alfani”). Once he finally got around to economic reforms, he had wasted so much political capital that Lega Nord, a minor party whose support he needed, refused to budge one inch on things like the party leader’s wife’s pension — and other parties were so inflamed that they were having no part of it, either.
Joe DeVet What are those principles which are being recommended here? Is there a definition of the term “Christian Democrat”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_democracy#Political_viewpoints
Which seems to consist in this: in the name of Jesus Christ, borrow from your children and grandchildren to prop up a Potemkin village of present prosperity and unearned (and unwarranted) entitlements. Vote in the party which promises the most borrowing and the most entitlements.
Principles of “Christian Democracy” did not include explicit Ponzi schemes. Many hallmarks of what people call “European social democracy” are due not to Christian Democracy, but to other parties. To be fair, many of these even looked relatively sustainable before population growth fell to unsustainable levels, and certain overzealous governments and/or judges enacted regulations that hobbled economic enterprise. Much of postwar Western Europe was a dynamic economic engine for several decades, with places like Franco’s Spain, southern Italy, and Greece being more the exception than the rule.
June 22nd, 2012 | 2:23 pm
Overall a great post, but a correction on France. De Gaulle’s Rally for the Republic was not the vehicle for Christian Democracy in France. This was the Mouvement Republicain Populaire (MPR). The MPR was part of the Tripartite Alliance (with the Communists and Socialists) that governed France immediately after World War II, and then as part of the centrist Third Force coalition (with the Socialists) in the late 1940s, between the extremes of Communism and Gaullism. During this time the MPR played a major role in the establishment of France’s post-war institutions, including the welfare state. The MPR was part of the coalitions that governed France throughout the 1950s, until the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958. During the 50s the MPR lost some of its support to new parties on the right, De Gaulle’s RPF and the National Center of Independents and Peasants, and by the Fifth Republic it was a much smaller party that disbanded in 1967.
June 22nd, 2012 | 11:52 pm
“French Gaullists, though of course different in important ways, founded Rally for the Republic, the first serious, widespread attempt by the French right to come to terms with democracy by embracing and redirecting rather than plotting its overthrow.”
It’s fascinating to me that so many liberals distrust the right and the Church when, as early as 1976, French Gaullists decided not to plot the overthrow of democracy.
June 23rd, 2012 | 7:43 am
Jack Perry: Actually I was thinking as much about how the USCCB lobbies for what might be called Christian Democracy here in our own country, as I was about what has happened in Europe.
The key question re what did happen in Europe is, once begun on that trajectory, is it inevitable that the trend continues till bankruptcy–even regardless of a demographic crisis, which I grant you.
June 23rd, 2012 | 5:37 pm
Just a minor quibble: most European countries already have a retirement age of 62 or higher, at least for men (EU average is 63.9 for men and 62.2 for women) ; and since the adjustment of women’s retirement age usually happens under the equality banner rather than an austerity banner, it doesn’t cause too much protest. Exceptions just prove the rule.
June 24th, 2012 | 10:50 pm
Why O why is it always the ‘noble project’ of democracy and nothing else? Is there no other form of government worth having? This age is so wrapped up in democracy worship it can see nothing else.
@Michael
Har har. Something tells me that is not the reason why the left ‘distrusts’ the right and the Church. More like hates them. And it is leftist ideology that causes that.
June 26th, 2012 | 12:12 am
Gabriel,
It certainly sounds like you hate leftists.
Anti-clericalism on the left comes from good sources and bad. Opposition to many of the good things we have was supported and championed by clerics, who too often sided with the powerful. It was and is wrong that many leftists blamed the Church rather than the usual forms of institutional corruption, but it is understandable.
And yes, I think democracy is better than Franco. He was a good Catholic.
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