Dialogue Before Doctrine
According to a poll of battleground states conducted by the National Catholic Reporter, 75 percent of Catholics who voted for Trump did so at least in part because of his stance on immigration. The same poll reported that half of the Catholics who voted for Harris did so at least in part because of her stance on abortion. Neither group seemed troubled by the fact that both Pope Francis and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) consistently supported immigrant rights and opposed abortion. Catholic voters seem to be disregarding the most fundamental instruction of the U.S. bishops on this score: while you may vote for a candidate who happens to disagree with Church teaching, you must not vote for them because of that disagreement. To the extent that Catholics of either party are casting votes motivated by policy stances contrary to Church teaching, that teaching has become irrelevant to American politics.
It is tempting to put the blame on the bishops for squandering their authority and their many opportunities to speak up more clearly and forcefully. But even when the bishops do speak up, for example, to call for justice for immigrants, denounce racism as America’s original sin, or reiterate the humanity of the unborn, they are almost entirely ignored. It is no wonder that the U.S. bishops thought it worth the time and expense to go back to doctrinal basics and promote a Eucharistic Congress last summer—an event that the secular press lost all interest in when it became clear that it was not a thinly veiled excuse to start excommunicating politicians. Today, if the bishops are not threatening to excommunicate someone, they get no attention except from those already going out of their way to listen. And even among those Catholics who do pay attention, many only listen to the bishops who validate what they already think. They go to bishops not for education but for ammunition.
That said, many Catholics do sincerely try to understand the Church’s social teachings and can speak passionately about the Catholic intellectual tradition’s beauty, coherence and relevance to contemporary social and political problems. Some are even prepared with citations to specific Church documents that support their arguments. But even these well-educated and well-meaning Catholics have little or no impact on the way contentious political issues are generally discussed or understood. They may wish that more Catholics took the Church’s stances on political issues more seriously or that politicians themselves would make better use of the principles articulated within the tradition, but even they struggle to articulate what unique value Catholicism brings to a discussion. Catholic teaching in the United States now resembles the subjunctive mood in English grammar: those few enlightened souls who know about it may lament its decline, but even they don’t find much practical use for it.
I find some small measure of comfort in the fact that this is not the first time, even in living memory, that a robust and coherent system of Catholic thought has been discarded by most of the laity and seemingly set aside by the bishops, even over the protests of those who have studied it closely. Modern Catholic social teaching is now suffering the same decline as befell the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas in the twentieth century.
This is not a coincidence. After all, both traditions trace their modern incarnations to the encyclical letters of Pope Leo XIII. Leo kicked off the modern Thomistic revival with his 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris, and he set the pattern for modern Catholic social teaching with his 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum. The fact that social teaching has been influenced by Thomism is hardly a secret, but as often as the two schools of thought are discussed together, it is usually assumed that later popes had to distance themselves from Thomism for their social teachings to properly mature. In order to properly learn from Thomism’s example, though, we need to take a broader view. Rerum novarum and the subsequent documents of modern Catholic social teaching are not the children of Thomism that had to be gradually liberated from its smothering influence. A more responsible reading of Pope Leo XIII shows that modern Thomism and Catholic social teaching are siblings, children of the same desire to engage confidently and fruitfully with contemporary society.
Leo ascended to the papacy in 1878, during a period in which the institutional Church had lost all of its direct political authority. Even in majority Catholic regions, Catholicism was seen as a regressive force, contrary to the spirit of the nationalist, democratic, and industrial revolutions that had swept through the Christian world. Or—to put it another, more favorable way— Catholicism was an obstacle to the tyrannical ambitions and delusions of utopians, demagogues, and robber barons.
Aeterni Patris was published in the second year of Leo’s papacy. Although best known today for initiating the Thomistic revival, it is, more broadly, an exhortation to Catholics to engage in intellectual life the way Leo himself had during his time as a bishop. Leo insisted that Catholicism is not an obstacle to scientific or philosophical progress and that Catholics should engage in critical analysis of non-Christian philosophy in search of valuable insights. He cited numerous Catholic intellectuals who had gained a great deal from non-Catholic thought and could serve as models to modern Catholics trying to engage with the emerging secular age. Over the course of the next several decades, Catholic institutions sought to enact this encyclical, especially by instructing students on Aquinas’s philosophy, which itself engaged deeply with the classical tradition. But then, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, they suddenly lost interest in Thomism, seemingly all at once.
I once asked a Dominican priest why Thomism collapsed so suddenly after Vatican II. He was eager to correct me: it was not Thomism that had been rejected, but manualism. Aquinas’s writing is not particularly accessible; his method of organizing his arguments is not immediately obvious, especially to the modern reader; and his writing style is quite deliberately dry, to the point where the beauty and poetry of his worldview can be hard to perceive. In an attempt to lay out Aquinas’s logic in a more accessible way, various writers produced textbooks or manuals for students and teachers—hence the term “manualism.” But by reducing his rich system of thought to a series of definitions and conclusions to be memorized, manualism often failed to communicate what Leo had originally intended. Instead of promoting Aquinas as a model of how to engage fruitfully and charitably with other schools of thought in search of truth, manualism turned him into an authority not to be questioned.
Although Thomism was of tremendous value to many, including the multiple generations of scholars and theologians who would go on to shape the Second Vatican Council, many others became convinced that Aquinas was stale, boring, and of no practical use. I once heard Fr. John Jenkins, a philosophy professor and at the time the president of the University of Notre Dame, recall that his seminary classmates didn’t believe him when he said that Aquinas was his favorite philosopher because their own experience of his work had been so boring and dry. The Angelic Doctor’s reputation has never fully recovered from the period in which he was treated as the ultimate authority on Catholic Truth.
For Leo, the years spent studying Aquinas and implementing Aeterni Patris as pope gave him the wisdom to address significant global issues at the close of the nineteenth century. In Rerum novarum, he decried the exploitation of workers and criticized the greed and abuse of industrialists even while he warned against dangers he saw in socialism. This response was, of course, shaped by Thomism in important ways, but it was shaped even more by genuine engagement with the “new things” from which his encyclical took its name. It is only because Pope Leo sincerely and directly engaged with the problems people were facing that he inspired a full century of papal encyclicals.
By the 2010s, however, the tradition of modern Catholic social teaching had been so weighed down with anniversaries, compendiums, commentaries, and summaries that this intention was obscured. The goal of Catholic social teaching should never have been to ensure every Catholic could define terms like solidarity, human dignity, subsidiarity, care for creation, or the preferential option for the poor. Catholic social teaching should not simply involve rehearsing definitions or voting according to certain principles on election day. It should be about understanding the Gospel that inspired each of these articulations of moral truth and living it out in everyday life.
In the pre-Conclave speech that many think secured his election as Pope Francis, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio warned against a Church that “does not come out of herself to evangelize, [and so] she becomes self-referential and then gets sick.” This is precisely what I mean when I say that the modern Church’s social teaching has failed because it devolved into a new form of manualism. A full century of attempts to understand and address the world’s problems are reduced to a series of conclusions and definitions to be memorized, repeated, and referenced. Instead of a resource for more fruitful engagement with the world, the Church’s authoritative statements are reduced to rhetorical cudgels, often used against other Catholics.
An answer to the problem of manualism can be found in reflecting on both Aquinas’s and Leo’s intellectual formations. Among Thomas’s most notable philosophical contributions was the integration of elements of Aristotle’s writings into Catholic theology and philosophy—that is, in trying to understand someone who had lived 1500 years prior. Similarly, Leo XIII was able to contribute so much to the modern Church because he had immersed himself in the study of Aquinas, who had lived six hundred years prior, and modern Catholic social teaching accomplished as much as it did by relating to the popes of the past hundred years. A pattern begins to emerge. Understanding how Aquinas grappled with Aristotle’s writings in light of faith prepared Leo to lead a Church grappling with the legacies of Karl Marx and Adam Smith. Put more glibly, if Pope Leo could understand Aquinas, he could eventually understand anything.
When we relate, through the Gospel, to someone else whose social circumstances and philosophical views are radically different from our own, we become prepared to bring the message of the Gospel into our current age. The purpose of Thomism and the social encyclicals was not to produce new authorities, but to give us examples for how to bring both the Gospel and the Catholic intellectual tradition into conversation with our own world.
This is why the Synod on Synodality has been a source of hope for me. To the extent Catholics are even aware of the most recent synod, their impression seems either that its mission is vaguely defined or that it is effectively a second coming of Vatican II. Events in Rome—often poorly understood—are turned into reflections of people’s existing prejudices or hopes for the future of the Church. Of course, there is something to the Vatican II comparison. Pope Paul VI instituted the synod meetings after the council as a way of continuing the conversations the council had started. But John Paul II and Benedict XVI, both influential participants in the council who continued to work in Rome for decades after, likely did not fully anticipate what the synod conversations could mean for those—like Francis—who could not be part of the council but craved open discussion and encounter.
Critics of the Synod on Synodality expected more than dialogue. In a tribute to Pope Francis published in First Things, Bishop Robert Barron voiced his frustration at the Synodal proceedings:
Though every dialogue was lively and informative, very few of them moved toward decision, judgment, or resolution. Most were stuck at what Bernard Lonergan would call the second stage of the epistemic process, namely, being intelligent or having bright ideas. They didn’t move to Lonergan’s third level, which is the act of making a judgment, much less to his fourth stage, which is that of responsible action. So respectful were we of the “process” of conversation that we had almost a phobia of coming to decision.
But the synod’s purpose was not to achieve consensus. The goal was to become better acquainted with the diversity and sincerity of perspectives on questions around ordination, divorce, remarriage, and access to the Eucharist and to learn how to discuss these issues openly, especially back in participants’ home countries. Reaching and enforcing premature doctrinal conclusions would have upstaged the process. It would have turned participants into something like the academics who have tried to impose use of the term “Latinx,” only showing how ill-prepared their arguments were for contact with the general public.
In gathering together serious but otherwise ordinary Catholics to discuss their experiences and needs freely and openly, the synod has facilitated encounters similar to the one between Leo and Aquinas, if not quite as intellectually robust. The synod is far closer in spirit to Pope Leo’s intentions than any perfunctory lecture in commemoration of Rerum novarum’s umpteenth anniversary. The synod’s conversations are genuinely more important than the documents or proclamations produced. Encounter was a touchstone of Francis’s papacy and a central feature of the synod—a point that remains underappreciated, even by synod attendees.
Can synodality help counter the growing irrelevance of Catholic teaching to Catholics’ political self-understanding today? Part of me wants to say that pro-choice Catholic Democrats and anti-immigrant Catholic Republicans alike are clinging to rights of self-determination and neglecting their obligations to those in need. They insist that a nation’s right to control its borders or a woman’s right to control her body mean they can dispose of unwanted visitors as callously as they wish. In doing so, they are each committing what modern biblical scholars regard as the sin of Sodom—a total lack of hospitality.
Every word of that condemnation may have truth to it, but I can’t say it with a clear conscience. I don’t feel God at work in these blanket condemnations. Leo and Francis’s ethics of encounter have convinced me to be open to the possibility that, although I can’t see my way to agreeing with the reasons for their votes, they may nonetheless be reaching for something good and true that discourse within Catholicism hasn’t properly made room for.
On immigration, I would say that a nation does have an obligation to defend its borders and to defend its citizens from violent and highly organized drug cartels that profit from desperation and misery. But a government’s obligations do not end there. It must also protect immigrants and refugees from the cruel and grasping hands of the drug lords or other oppressors they are fleeing. Moreover, Catholics need to understand that our otherwise nonfunctional immigration system provides certain industries with sources of cheap and disposable labor, and that the political instability that leads refugees to come to the United States is often the direct or indirect result of American intervention.
As for abortion, there is horrific injustice in social and economic circumstances that make raising children all but impossible. That injustice is exacerbated when a woman correctly understands that those circumstances have already chosen abortion for her, only to be met with either an indifferent shrug or an accusatory finger accompanying the phrase “it’s her choice.” Also, the enforcement of even the best-written pro-life law could be colored by legalism rather than compassion and do more to demean women already in difficult circumstances than to uphold the inherent and infinite dignity of the unborn.
These attempts to engage, of course, don’t resolve either issue definitively. I present them, rather, as examples of the kind of listening and looking for the good the Church must do if it is to even start persuading the consciences of these voters. The Church’s current understanding of these issues may be rooted in the truth, but it insufficiently addresses them as they are understood and experienced by the rest of our society.
Now we have a new Pope Leo, whose choice of name alone promises a renewal in the Church’s social teaching. Though he has not yet written his first encyclical, he has given us indications of his likely approach. First, in a speech to a conference of the Centesimus Annus foundation, he said:
[T]he Church’s social doctrine, with its specific anthropological approach, seeks to encourage genuine engagement with social issues. It does not claim to possess a monopoly on truth, either in its analysis of problems or its proposal of concrete solutions. Where social questions are concerned, knowing how best to approach them is more important than providing immediate responses to why things happen or how to deal with them. The aim is to learn how to confront problems, for these are always different, since every generation is new, and faces new challenges, dreams and questions.
Then, in his first Apostolic Exhortation, Leo XIV introduced the chapter on the past 150 years of social doctrine with this observation:
The epochal change we are now undergoing makes even more necessary a constant interaction between the faithful and the Church’s Magisterium, between ordinary citizens and experts, between individuals and institutions…. [T]he poor are possessed of unique insights indispensable to the Church and to humanity as a whole.
For Pope Leo, the purpose of modern social doctrine is to come to a better understanding of how social and economic changes affect us all, particularly the poor and powerless. This necessitates listening to them in a way that is empowering rather than paternalistic.
In other words, social engagement doesn’t call for predetermined answers with authoritative citations to Church history. It calls for us to ask better questions of our own historical context. This requires the interpersonal encounter that Pope Francis spent so much of his papacy promoting. It also requires the kind of encounter with Christ, which the U.S. bishops tried to promote with the Eucharistic Congress.
It would be a step too far to say that synodality is the new scholasticism, that it will be for Leo XIV what Thomism was for Leo XIII (it is far more likely that Augustine will play the Aquinas role). Even so, we should understand our new pope’s insights and recommendations in light of synodality as the fruit of the universal Church’s experience, collected from across the world and throughout history. Whether we engage the world around us by connecting to saints who lived hundreds of years ago or those who live thousands of miles away, these encounters challenge us to hear God’s call more clearly and live it out more fully; they do not simply occasion congratulation for what we already believe. Both kinds of encounters are ultimately meant to help connect us to those who live down the street or sit in the next pew over—even if they voted differently than we did, and even if their votes ultimately can’t be reconciled with the Church’s teachings.
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