Christian Democracy

Christian Democracy July 7, 2017

Maurice Glasman (Unnecessary Suffering, 35–36) observe that the phrase “Christian Democracy” first appeared during the 1848 Paris uprising. From Lamennais, the Christian Democrats argued for democracy as a product of Christian teaching. Democracy provided a framework for negotiating competing interests in society and for the protection of civil rights. The outlook was a reconciliation of Republicanism with Catholic social teaching. Catholics argued that “the Revolution of 1789 . . . had a moral quality as an institutional fulfillment of freedom and equality, both of which were based on Gospel teaching.” 

Fraternity “provided the link between liberty and equality in the form of vocational, professional and welfare associations.” In this framework, the Church was seen as “an extended form of plural voluntary association based upon the concept of fraternity” and seized the opportunity to “renew is pastoral mission to the poor in defending the association of family and trade unions.”

Glasman enumerates five principles: “the primacy of society to the state”; “the complementarity of human rights and civil duties”; “a rejection of Republican Virtue and the affirmation of the limits of state sovereignty by upholding rights of association, worship and expression”; “decentralized associations that mediated between the individual and the state”; “conflict between capital and labour could be mediated through democratic organization of work and the preservation of the status of the worker in defiance of proletarianization.”

It’s a compelling vision, clearly indebted to Catholic social teaching. But, if Glasman’s formulation is accurate, it’s hard to see how it’s compatible with Catholic ecclesiology, which surely cannot be satisfied with considering the church one fraternal association among others.


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