During Advent, we prepared our hearts and our homes to celebrate the birth of our Lord. As we face the new year, it is good to remember that preparation is ongoing. Our Lord asks of us more than merely preparing ourselves: we are to prepare our world to receive him, for “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all mankind shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 40:5). The work of announcing the birth of Christ to the world is the work of the whole Church, but it is preeminently the work of the laity. To assist us in this work the popes since Leo XIII have articulated the social doctrine of the Church.
What is the social teaching of the Church? We might answer that the Church, almost alone in society, has determined to protect human life. We are aware of issues like contraception or same-sex marriage. We know that in all social questions the Church insists upon a preferential option for the poor. These are, indeed, moral issues that the Church addresses. But the social teaching of the Church consists in much more than periodic response to contemporary social issues. It is a real doctrine, a whole way of looking at society that proceeds from different principles than we are used to applying.
In August 1879 Pope Leo XIII wrote a letter to the Church on the restoration of Christian philosophy entitled Aeterni Patris. In his letter the Holy Father suggested that contemporary theories concerning the economy and politics had been founded upon certain philosophical mistakes. He writes that “false conclusions concerning divine and human things, which originated in the schools of philosophy, have now crept into all the orders of the State, and have been accepted by the common consent of the masses” (Aeterni Patris, 2).
The “false conclusions” that Pope Leo cites in a further letter might surprise us more than a little:
… Amongst these principles the main one lays down that as all men are alike by race and nature, so in like manner, all are equal in the control of their life; that each one is so far his own master as to be in no sense under the rule of any other individual; that each is free to think on every subject just as he may choose, and to do whatever he may like to do; that no man has any right to rule over other men. In a society grounded upon such maxims all government is nothing more nor less than the will of the people, and the people, being under the power of itself alone, is alone its own ruler (Immortale Dei, 23).
We are used to the idea that “all government is nothing more nor less than the will of the people,” and that “each is free to think on every subject just as he may choose.” Likewise we assume that “all men are alike by race and nature” and that “all are equal in the control of their life.” Can these possibly be “false conclusions” based upon philosophical mistakes?
The mere fact that these ideas are commonly held is, of course, no evidence that they are true. Consider the notion that all people are alike by race and nature. Certainly all are equally persons. But nonetheless, differences of race and culture are quite real. To ignore such differences diminishes us. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that the very multiplicity of races and tongues enables the whole of mankind to better manifest the infinite perfection of God.
Moreover, in the political or economic order, to acknowledge such differences is essential. If we pretend that everyone is equally advantaged, then we will abandon those who are already marginalized. The fact that I grew up in Canada and not in Bangladesh, that my parents were able to afford me a good education, that I had the luxury to know that I would never starve and could choose the life that I would live gave me advantages that set me apart from the majority of mankind.
And so, all people are neither alike in race nor in their natural endowments, nor are all equally privileged. As Pope Leo wrote, therefore, it is indeed an error to hold that all are “equal in the control of their life.” Upon a little reflection, this is obvious. Why then, for most of our contemporaries, does it sound so odd to say so?
Ever since the Enlightenment, Western thinkers have done something that is very peculiar: in our political and social thinking we have tended to presuppose the way we would like things to be, rather than the way things are. For instance, we would like all people to be equally treated, and therefore, in our official statements, we assert that all people are alike. Take another example: it seems apparent to us in the West that democracy is the best of all possible forms of government. We therefore insist that every race and culture should be democratic, overlooking the fact that some cultures have no tradition of democracy and manifest very little inclination toward it.
All contemporary social thinking, and every political party, begins with an assertion of what ought to be. The social doctrine of the Church, on the other hand, begins with an assertion of what is. If we are to think with the Church, we must apply ourselves to reality as we find it; only then can we begin to assess what ought to be done about it. All people are not “equal in the control of their life,” and the fact that we wish they were cannot change the fact that they are not. Moreover, unless we acknowledge that there are vast differences in opportunity between the rich and poor in our society—unless we confront reality as we find it—we will never overcome these very real differences.
Neither will we be able to prepare our society to celebrate the birth of Christ. Because contemporary social theory begins with an assertion of what ought to be, it cannot entertain the possibility of sin and of our need for redemption. We reason that since people should not sin, they therefore do not. Furthermore, we imagine that any conversation about sin is hopelessly medieval: the product of religious fanaticism. People may be troubled, sick, disturbed, misled, or even ill willed—heaven forbid we should ever think them sinful. But if people cannot be sinful, neither can they be redeemed. Contemporary social theory, therefore, cannot make a place for a Redeemer or prepare to welcome him.
Contemporary political thinking is similarly impoverished. It also begins with an assertion of what ought to be, rather than an analysis of what is. We would like to think that the majority of our citizens would not condone bad legislation; therefore the will of the majority legitimizes government. (I am not so naïve as to think that Congress or Parliament always acts according to the will of the people; my point is that Congress or Parliament must appear to do so.)
We know perfectly well that a majority of citizens can condone bad legislation. Adolf Hitler was overwhelmingly welcomed into Austria by a national plebiscite, and his early policies against the Jewish people won easy approval by the majority of Austrians. Closer to home, the segregation of African-Americans was embraced by the vast majority of U.S. citizens well into the 1960s. Certainly, then, the will of the people cannot, of itself, adequately legitimize government; immorality can be, and frequently is, popular. If we are to welcome the King of Kings and Lord of lords, we cannot pretend, as Pope Leo warned, that “all government is nothing more nor less than the will of the people.”
Neither can we pretend that the separation of church and state means that we must relegate the will of God to the realm of mere personal opinion. I do not mean that, in a democracy, we should somehow impose God’s revelation upon others. We do, however, have an obligation to propose the truth about man and woman and the world that Jesus reveals, and we must submit our own political ideas to the scrutiny of faith.
If we believe that God has become man in the mystery of the Incarnation, then we are not free “to think on every subject just as (we) may choose, and to do whatever (we) may like to do.” On the contrary, we well know that such license would lead us—indeed, is leading us—to social and political disaster. Neither the will of the people nor the inclination of individuals can serve as an adequate measure for human government.
To truly undertake the work of announcing the birth of Christ to the world, to fully welcome the Messiah, we must apply ourselves to rethinking many of the social and political assumptions that we have hitherto taken for granted. Above all, we must be alert to the social and political realities of our world as we find it, and avoid every temptation to assert something as true merely because we wish it were so. He was born into the world in order to redeem us, and we should not be surprised that the world needs redeeming.