Catholic Social Teaching Archives - Australian Cardijn Institute

July 17, 2022July 17, 2022

Business schools have a cooperative blindspot

Tranby is an Indigenous adult education school in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Glebe. Founded in 1957, its graduates include Eddie Mabo, who went on to win the most significant land rights legal battle in Australian history – overturning the fiction of terra nullius.

What makes Tranby special is not just being Australia’s oldest not-for-profit independent Indigenous education provider. It is the type of education it provides – teaching the skills needed to manage organisations and communities democratically.

It teaches co-operation, and the skills to run co-operative organisations.

This makes it a rarity in business education.

Though co-operatives exist throughout Australian society, making a hugely valuable economic contribution, their distinctive nature and management requirements are largely ignored by university business schools.

This neglect is costing us all.

Part of the social fabric

Australia has a rich history of communities forming co-operatives to provide services where for-profit businesses or the state have been unwilling or unable.

They run shops and schools, offer banking and mortgage services, and provide housing and health services.

The first co-operative in Australia is thought to be the Brisbane Co-operative Society, which set up a store in 1859.

Over the next century came many agricultural co-ops. In the 1950s and 1960s, co-workers and communities pooled funds to form building societies and credit unions when banks were unwilling to lend money.

More recently regional communities have established co-operatives to replace shuttered businesses, to spearhead renewable energy and manufacturing projects, and to provide better conditions for cleaners and care workers.

Co-ops range in size from small neighbourhood operations, such the Gymea community preschool in Sydney to major enterprises such as Cooperative Bulk Handling in Western Australia, which reported a $133 million surplus in 2021.

All up there are more than 1,700 in Australia. It’s possible you’re a member of one – or a closely aligned “mutual” organisation (such as the NRMA or RACV). About eight in ten Australians are, yet fewer than two in ten realise it.

Improving co-operative education

This general lack of recognition is reflected by the sector’s almost complete invisibility in educational courses.

In 2016 a Senate committee inquiry found neglect of co-operative and mutual businesses in high-school and university courses was a clear impediment for the sector.

It could easily be concluded this neglect has also actively damaged the sector – notably through the 1980s and 1990s with “demutualisation” of big member-owned organisations such as AMP and the St George Bank.

This effectively involved privatising these organisations for the benefit of existing members, who got windfall profits at the expense of future members.

Demutualisation was pushed by managers and consultants educated in business, but not in the distinctive values of co-operative business.

Subsequent developments have proven how flawed these assumptions were. AMP, for example, featured heavily among the wrongdoings exposed by the Hayne royal commission into financial services. No co-operative or mutual business did.

Levelling the playing field

The Senate inquiry report recommended the federal government look to improve understanding of co-operatives and mutual through secondary school curriculum. It also recommended universities include topics on co-operatives in their business and law programs.

In 2017 the University of Newcastle established Australia’s first postgraduate program in co-operative management and organisation.

But it axed the program in 2020 due to pandemic-related cutbacks and insufficient student numbers.

Now, apart from the University of Sydney’s Co-operatives Research Group and the University of Western Australia’s Co-operative Enterprise Research Unit, the landscape is bare.

What’s needed are both specialist courses and recognition within general business or law courses. You’d be hard placed to find a business degree that gives co-operatives more than fleeting attention.

The focus instead is on individual entrepreneurship, investor-owned businesses and vague ideas of social business.

Economic viability with social responsibility

The 2016 Senate inquiry report noted co-operatives have an important economic role to play. They increase competition in highly concentrated markets (such as banking). They provide services in areas where investor-owned or state enterprises do not work.

It singled out Tranby College as an excellent example of what can be achieved – both for members and the broader community:

Evidence suggests the co-operative model is ideal in delivering services in remote areas, such as Indigenous communities, where issues can be complex and service provision through the private sector is often not suitable or available.

As former United Nations secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said, co-operatives show “it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility”.

It is important students at all levels be aware of what makes co-operative businesses different and valuable.

Hopefully the Albanese government will not neglect them. They have a lot to offer communities and reinforce democratic values.

AUTHOR

Gregory Patmore is Emeritus Professor of Business and Labour History, University of Sydney

SOURCE

Gregory Patmore, Our business schools have a blindspot that’s hindering a more co-operative culture (The Conversation)

PHOTO

Tranby Aboriginal Co-Operative is Australia’s oldest Indigenous adult education provider. Tranby, CC BY-NC-ND

April 27, 2022April 27, 2022

Workers need secure jobs, fair pay: Bishop Vincent

In a message for the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, Bishop Vincent Long OFM Conv has highlighted the challenges many people face in working more than one job to make ends meet – and the flow-on effects of that decision.

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference publishes a message each year for the May 1 feast, with this year’s message focusing on low-paid workers who can’t cover the cost of living through a single job.

Bishop Long, chair of the Bishops Commission for Social Justice, Mission and Service, acknowledged in the message that working more than one job is a positive choice for some people.

“But for others it is a matter of economic necessity,” he said.

“They are cobbling together multiple part-time or casual jobs to try to make ends meet.

“This work is usually poorly paid and insecure. There is little career progression. Casual and seasonal workers are not entitled to paid leave even when they are sick or must care for others. It is a stressful and uncertain way to live.

“Much of this work is undertaken by women. This type of work is hard on family life. It makes it difficult for young people to get a start in life.”

Bishop Long noted that the need to work more than one job is common for workers who have played critical roles during the COVID-19 pandemic: cleaners, health and aged care workers, childcare staff and social assistance workers.

“These and other workers in the care economy have been such heroes during this pandemic,” he explained.

“Yet they are often underpaid or placed in intolerable working conditions. It is scandalous that people who do such essential work are left in situations of scarcity and insecurity. Surely the pandemic has taught us to value this work and those who do it more highly?”

With May 1 this year falling in the middle of the federal election campaign, Bishop Long urged whoever forms the next government to have a policy focus on “decent work – work that is safe, secure, and fairly paid”.

“Stable, secure jobs are needed to power a recovery that actually works for working people and their families,” Bishop Long said.

SOURCE

Bishop Vincent: Workers need secure jobs, fair pay (Catholic Outlook)

Feast of St Joseph the Worker 2022 (Justice, Ecology and Peace)

January 19, 2022January 19, 2022

A Catholic alternative to neo-liberalism

Cardijn often spoke strongly against the scourge of “liberalism.”

“Christ was born to make this known the effects of original sin, disorder in the world, the sin of liberalism, materialism, and slavery,” he stated in one of his famous 1948 “Hour of the Working Class speeches. “That is why He was born and lived as a worker.”

More recently, over the past four decades, despite record-setting global prosperity, the common good is threatened by ever more extreme economic and social dysfunctions, writes Tony Annett in Commonweal.

Although we’ve witnessed impressive gains in poverty reduction—driven largely by China—we still have enormous levels of poverty, deprivation, and exclusion in a world of unprecedented wealth. According to the World Bank, about one in ten people alive today lives in extreme poverty, eking out a meager existence on less than $1.90 a day. Around 6 million children die each year before their fifth birthday, and almost all of those lives could be saved by cheap and straightforward medical interventions.
Inequality within countries has also skyrocketed over the past forty years.
According to the World Inequality Report, since 1980 the world’s top 1 percent have profited twice as much from economic growth as the bottom 50 percent have. The big winners of this era were the global super-rich. As a percentage of global GDP, the wealth of the world’s billionaires has doubled over this period. This staggering inequality is the consequence of a toxic combination of trends.
Technological changes have benefited high-skilled workers and the owners of capital; globalization has allowed corporations to set up camp in countries with the lowest taxes and the fewest regulations and social protections; and the increasing plutocratic capture of the political system has led to policies that favor the rich. The result has been the hollowing out of the middle class and the evisceration of the working class in advanced economies. No wonder the global financial crisis, when bankers were bailed out and ordinary people left to sink, left a bitter legacy of resentment in its wake.
Grave social problems have arisen in tandem with this concentration of wealth.

Anthony Annett, The Fallen Idol, A Catholic alternative to neo-liberalism (Commonweal)

Joseph Cardijn, The hour of the working class – Lecture 2 – The Church and the workers (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

PHOTO

Loz Pycock / Flickr / CC 2.0

July 23, 2021July 23, 2021

ACI’s 3rd anniversary: Planning our future

Next month, ACI will mark the third anniversary of our foundation meeting in Melbourne on 19 August 2018. In preparation for our forthcoming Annual General Meeting, ACI President, Brian Lawrence, shares his reflections on our progress and offers some thoughts for future development.

The following appears on the ACI website:

“The Australian Cardijn Institute Cooperative Ltd was founded in Melbourne in 2018.
Drawing on the vision and methods pioneered by YCW founder, Joseph Cardijn, ACI aims to promote research and offer training programs for community and church leaders.

Currently, ACI has members in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales.

Our Aims

To promote research and studies based on the vision and methods pioneered by YCW founder, Cardinal Joseph Cardijn.
To organise education and training programs for community leaders, church workers and others interested in the Cardijn approach.
To organise activities and develop resources in line with the above.
To cooperate with other groups and movements committed to the Cardijn vision and methods.”

In August 2021 ACI will reach its third anniversary and a review of our achievements and shortcomings, based on these aims, is timely. Furthermore, it is an opportunity to consider whether we should expand the aims.

Cardijn’s legacy

The first of the aims set in 2018 must be the focus of ACI’s work. To be true to Cardijn’s legacy we must record and promote his vision, both in its original form and appropriately adapted for contemporary society.

At its core, Cardijn’s legacy concerns a theology about our relationship with God, the dimensions of Christian service to others and the role of the Church in the world. In this he is comparable to, for example, Frederic Ozanam and Mary MacKillop. All three became famous because of their responses to the social problems of their times. For Cardijn, the social problem was the brutalisation of young workers by the factory system and their alienation from a faith that is based on the God-given dignity of all. In some recent writings about Mary MacKillop and Frederic Ozanam you will find them largely described as social workers, ahead of their times. This might be a good selling point in some circumstances, but it sells them short. Similarly, we find that some recitations of Cardijn’s work are limited to his commitment to the working class, to young workers and to the “see, judge, act” methodology. This narrowing of Cardijn’s life and legacy sells him short. As an organisation that bears his name, ACI must faithfully reflect and promote Cardijn’s beliefs and values.

Because of Stefan Gigacz’s work, ACI now has and supports the best collection in the English-speaking world (at least) of the theology, life, and works of Joseph Cardijn. This has underpinned an informative monthly newsletter which Stefan produces. Since 2020, online events have enabled wider participation in ACI’s interests. This voluntary work has been done on a shoestring budget, reflecting a static membership list, with a very modest annual subscription of $12.00. While the research, newsletters and online events are of interest to a number of people within the Church, especially those with a YCW, YCS or similar background, they provide limited scope for active participation by potential members.

This work has also promoted a better understanding of Cardijn’s theology and of the teaching in Vatican II on the apostolate of the laity that can be traced to Cardijn and other Jocists. Sadly, support within the Church for the promotion of the apostolate of the laity has waned since Vatican II. An important part of ACI’s work in promoting Cardijn’s legacy is the advocacy of programmes to promote the apostolate of the laity, consistent with Vatican II. This includes the explanation of the theological basis of the Review of Life in Cardijn-inspired movements. The theology of the Review of Life is fundamental to the Vatican II teaching on the lay apostolate. It is more than a methodology of seeing, judging and acting undertaken in group meetings. One of our problems is that, in some places, the Review of Life has been stripped of its theological basis and has been secularised, thereby compounding the difficulties that we have in promoting the lay apostolate.

Lay apostolate advocacy

More attention needs to be given to advocacy in support of this understanding of the lay apostolate and to the development of publications and other resources in support of formation and social action programmes based on the Review of Life. Particular attention must be given to the youth apostolate. There are various strategies and programmes on offer for youth engagement within the Church, some of which are well-resourced and professionally presented. It is a competitive market in which the three interconnected Jocist goals of faith formation, social engagement and leadership development are undersold. We need to do more to promote this distinctive contribution of Jocist groups to the youth apostolate.

The second of our stated aims has not been met. The organisations that you would expect to be the main recipients of these education and training programs are the YCW, the YCS and the CCA, yet nothing of significance has developed, despite good relations between all four organisations. This requires further discussion. We need to find out whether these organisations want or need the kind of assistance that ACI would like to provide. The third and fourth aims are ancillary to the first two and have been met to some extent.

It is evident that the basic objective of ACI is to work with others who have a Cardijn-inspired orientation: to cooperate with them and not to duplicate them. It does not cover what may be described as work at the “coal face”. The aims do not encompass social action programmes concerning, for example, the Living Wage, the rights of workers, and the future of work. Nor do they cover the wider range of social issues in contemporary Australia. These are topics and initiatives that may be undertaken by other organisations. Furthermore, the aims do not encompass the establishment within ACI of small groups, based on the Review of Life, which are the basic units of Jocist organisations.

Membership

ACI’s current aims may be too limited to actively engage a large membership, but its activities are directed at a wider audience of individuals who are supportive of those aims. We need to promote membership to individuals within the wider group who might see “book” membership or a donation as a means of supporting ACI’s important work. We have not taken advantage of the opportunities to raise funds in these ways. Growing membership and possibly increasing its low annual membership fee can help ACI do more within the scope of its current aims.

It should be stressed that most, by far, of the activities undertaken by ACI have been the work of its Honorary Secretary, Stefan Gigacz PhD. Stefan’s e-book, The Leaven In The Council: Joseph Cardijn and the Jocist Network at Vatican II, is based on his doctoral thesis. The successes that ACI have had over its first three years are mostly attributable to Stefan. We need to keep in mind that organisations are at risk when they are too dependent on one person and plan accordingly.

There is a case for sticking to the current aims and doing them better, but there are opportunities for greater involvement and impact. If growing ACI so that it can have some wider impact on the Church and society is the objective, we need to review the aims.

Broadening our aims

If we are to grow ACI membership well beyond our current numbers, we need to first broaden its aims. I suggest we consider two additional aims.

First, a programme for the study and promotion of Catholic Social Teaching. This is an area that falls within the Cardijn legacy. It is an essential reference point for social engagement. ACI could set itself as one of the leading bodies in Australia for the study and application of CST.

Second, and connected to the first, a public policy programme for research and advocacy on social issues. This would enable the undertaking of targeted campaigns on, for example, an aspect of the Future of Work or public advocacy for the Living Wage. Given Cardijn’s work and passion, aspects of the world of work are the obvious priorities.

Just broadening the aims of ACI will not mean that the anticipated actions will follow, and that membership and engagement will increase. We would need a strategy in respect of each aspect. Being able to undertake these tasks and increasing membership are connected: we need one to achieve the other.

Restructuring

If these kinds of initiatives were to be accepted, substantial re-structuring of ACI’s internal operations would be needed. There could be units within ACI covering:
• The life and vision of Joseph Cardijn.
• The theology and promotion of the lay apostolate.
• The study and promotion of Catholic Social Teaching.
• Public policy initiatives.
• Communications: newsletters, online communications, website maintenance, etc.
• Finance, including fundraising.

Our Annual General Meeting on 28 August 2021 will be an opportunity for a discussion among members about these kinds of options. However, it is important that ACI’s wider group of supporters, those who read the newsletters or access our social media, to express their views about the way forward. Please send any comments to sgigacz.aci@gmail.com

Brian Lawrence
President
Australian Cardijn Institute

April 23, 2021April 26, 2021

Celebrating the birth of Catholic Social Teaching

On Saturday 15 May, the Australian Cardijn Institute, Social Policy Connections and Yarra Theological Union will host a webinar marking the 130th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s landmark encyclical “On the Condition of the Working Classes.” Keynote speaker will be Bruce Duncan CSsR, who will address the theme ‘Why Pope Leo’s social manifesto remains critical today’, noting also the influence of England’s Cardinal Manning on the document and is impact in Australia.

“Faced with our gig economy, low or stagnant wages, housing stress, astonishing wealth in the hands of a few and neoliberal economics driving growing inequality, Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, known in Latin at Rerum Novarum, is acutely relevant today,” Fr Bruce explains. “It has guided Catholic social teaching ever since.”

“Pope Leo began robustly:

“That the spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been disturbing the nations of the world, should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the sphere of practical economics is not surprising. The elements of the conflict now raging are unmistakable, in the vast expansion of industrial pursuits and the marvellous discoveries of science; in the changed relations between masters and workmen; in the enormous fortunes of some few individuals, and the utter poverty of the masses; in the increased self-reliance and closer mutual combination of the working class… The momentous gravity of the state of things now obtaining fills every mind with painful apprehension’. (par. 1).

Key teachings of the encyclical include:

• the dignity of every person and of work in God’s eyes,
• defending the right to private property when serving the common good.
• opposed the concentration of great wealth in the hands of a few
• maintaining just wages for working people,
• spreading ownership more equitably and as much as possible,
• the duty of the State to regulate living and working conditions fairly,
• the need for systems of arbitration and conciliation to mediate disputes,
• the right of working people to form unions to bargain equitably with employers,
• the duties of the rich to deal justly and redistribute surplus wealth.”

Webinar Details: Saturday 15 May 2021, 2.30pm – 4.00pm AEST

Click on the Zoom link to register:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEqcu-vpjssEt3mziJ28VQ4aIvQIGDZSTXd

Or email us at aci@australiancardijninstitute.org for more information.

June 13, 2020September 1, 2020

A chance to shape society

When you’ve been around for a couple of millennia, you learn a bit about adjusting to changing times, writes Archbishop Mark Coleridge at Brisbane Catholic.

That’s the Catholic Church: our two thousand years as a global religion have brought memories and insights from the most dramatic changes the world has known. It was said of the Bourbons who followed Napoleon that “they forgot nothing and learnt nothing”. Well, over a long period of time the Catholic Church has forgotten little and learnt plenty.

That’s one of the strengths we have to offer as we look to the challenges and opportunities that COVID-19 presents to this nation and the world.

Our Australian response can take many different forms, but our priorities need to be clear. And there is one priority above all others – the human being must be the focus of any response. Of course the economy matters, but only if it puts the human being at its heart. The economy was made to serve us; we weren’t made to serve the economy

The Church doesn’t have to go too far back into our history to find guidance for these times. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII published his now famous open letter Rerum Novarum on the Rights and Duties of Capital and Labour.

Leo was the founding father of what is called Catholic social teaching. And in this open letter he spelled out the relationships between the government and its people, focusing on the relationships between labour and capital which was a red-hot topic at the time with the rise of Marxism.

Rerum Novarum rejected socialism, supported the right of workers to form unions and also supported the right to private property. It was ground-breaking in many ways, not just for the Church but far beyond.

Leo’s letter was the first time the Catholic Church had really engaged with the modern world. Until then the modern world was seen as a threat more to be condemned than engaged.

Leo XIII had followed Pope Pius IX who had served for more than thirty years during a time of convulsive change in the world because of the industrial revolution, the bloody political revolutions that plagued the nineteenth century and much more. Increasingly through his long pontificate Pius turned his back on the modern world and so too did the Church.

But then along came Leo XIII to offer a genuinely Gospel response to a dramatically changed world, a voice that wasn’t ideological or political but evangelical in the best sense. This was new, and it began the tradition of Catholic social teaching which has found voice in every Pope from Leo to Francis.

We’re in a situation now where the world has changed, perhaps forever, and the principle duties and responsibilities of employers, employees and governments are as much in focus today as they were when Rerum Novarum was issued.

The governments of Australia have done well in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially since they, like the rest of us, had entered new territory and have had to make big decisions in a strange, fast-moving environment.

The Prime Minister’s recent National Press Club address laid out some fundamentals for the nation’s next steps, emphasising “access to essential services, incentive for effort, respect for the principles of mutual obligation … all translated into policies that seek not to punish those who have success, but devise ways for others to achieve it”.

We now have a chance to shape society in ways that weren’t possible before this crisis. But that can’t be left just to our political leaders. The whole community has to be creative in new ways, building on the kind of creativity we’ve shown through the crisis. The Church wants to be part of this process, and it has a unique contribution to make – not as politicians or economists but as people of faith who have forgotten little and learnt plenty, especially about the human being and what makes for a flourishing human society.

We have our own distinctive voice and we have our own communities on the ground across the nation. If you put all of the Churches together, we have an extraordinary reach into the community. We’re in the small rural towns. We’re in the regions. We’re in the cities. We have tens of thousands of workers in schools, hospitals and at the frontline of social services. We’re everywhere.

The path ahead will require some tax reform, but not necessarily tax cuts.

It will require industrial relations reform, but not reduced working conditions and job security under the guise of increased flexibility.

It will certainly require leadership that can imagine an Australia where we have full employment and a standard of living that matches the dignity of the human being.

The strange thing is that COVID-19 which has been such a curse is also opening new doors which may lead to unexpected blessings. There are new opportunities. But the catch-cry of the crisis will still apply: We’re all in this together. The same sense of solidarity that is carrying us through the pandemic will carry us into the future. We are in this together – all Australians; and the Church wants to be a good companion on the road ahead, helping to identify new opportunities and what is needed to respond to them.

Mark Coleridge is the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane

SOURCE

A chance to shape society in ways that weren’t possible before the crisis; but as a community, not just the political leaders (Brisbane Catholic)

PHOTO

Archbishop Mark Coleridge / www.bosnasrebrena.ba (Stipo Karajica) / Wikipedia / CC BY SA 3.0

May 18, 2018July 31, 2022

Vatican slams ‘profoundly amoral’ economic culture

In a new document, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development have hit out at the global financial system slamming markets for serving the wealthiest and prioritising resulting in “a profoundly amoral culture,” NCR Online reports.

Entitled Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones and subtitled “Considerations for an Ethical Discernment Regarding Some Aspects of the Present Economic-Financial System,” the document warns that global markets are returning to past heights of “myopic egoism” 10 years after the financial crisis of 2008.

“Markets, the powerful propeller of the economy, are not capable of governing themselves,” the document says.

“It is time to initiate the recovery of what is authentically human, to expand the horizons of minds and hearts,” it continues. “It is … the duty of the competent agents and of those responsible to develop new forms of the economy and of finance, with rules and regulations that are directed towards the progress of the common good.”

The document argues that the economic system should “aim above all to promote the global quality of life that, before the indiscriminate expansion of profits, leads the way toward the integral well-being of the entire person and of every person.”

“No profit is in fact legitimate when it falls short of the objective of the integral promotion of the human person, the universal destination of goods, and the preferential option for the poor,” it states.

While it acknowledges that many financiers and stock traders are “animated by good and right intentions,” it says global markets have become “a place where selfishness and the abuse of power have the potential to harm the community beyond match.”

It says that although some modern wealth creation techniques are not “directly unacceptable from an ethical point of view,” they can be “instances of proximate immorality, that is, occasions that readily generate the kind of abuse and deception that can damage less advantaged counterparts.”

“Money in itself is a good instrument … and is a means to order one’s freedom and to expand one’s possibilities,” it continues. “Nevertheless, the means can easily turn against the person.”

“Likewise, the financial dimension of the business world, focusing business on the access of money through the gateway of the world of stock exchange, is as such something positive,” it states. “Such a phenomenon, however, today risks accentuating bad financial practices concentrated primarily on speculative transactions of virtual wealth.”

The document strongly criticise financial leaders, saying “the objective of mere profit easily creates a perverse and selective logic that often favors the advancement of business leaders who are capable, but greedy and unscrupulous.”

Such training, it says, helps “create and diffuse a profoundly amoral culture — in which one often does not hesitate to commit a crime when the foreseen benefits exceed the expected penalty.”

“Such behavior gravely pollutes the health of every economic-social system,” it continues. “It endangers the functionality and seriously harms the effective realization of that common good, upon which is necessarily founded every form of social institution.”

The document concludes with a call for all people, even modest consumers, to work towards making the financial system fairer.

FULL STORY

Vatican offices decry ‘profoundly amoral culture’ of global financial system (NCR Online)

Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones; Considerations for an ethical discernment regarding some aspects of the present economic-financial system” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Dicastery For Promoting Integral Human Development)

May 16, 2018July 31, 2022

Catholic Social Doctrine always needs updating

On the occasion of the celebration of the 127th anniversary of the publication of Rerum Novarum, on May 15, 1891, by Pope Leo XIII, Dom Reginaldo Andrietta of Jales (SP) , who is responsible for the Brazilian bishops (CNBB) National Worker Pastoral, discusses the encyclical that began to the systematization of the social thought of the Church.

In Dom Reginaldo’s view, the social doctrine of the Church is intimately integrated with its evangelizing mission, which determines important developments in his practices, especially in the poorest countries.

In this interview, in addition to talking about the modern social thought of the Church, Dom Reginaldo states that it is today’s challenge for the institution to show more clearly that the human being is essentially relational and therefore social. “In each of his essential relationships (with God, with the other, with the world, with creation and with himself), Jesus Christ reveals to man the path of love, as a way of salvation,” he said.

Read the full interview below.

On May 15, it will be the 127th anniversary of the publication of Rerum Novarum, an Encyclical which many regard as beginning the systematization of Catholic social thought, later known as the Social Doctrine of the Church. What is there in this Encyclical, that we can say remains valid for the present day?

The Church, in the context that Pope Leo XIII wrote the Encyclical Rerum Novarum, had timidly begun a dialogue with modernity, recognising the importance of analysing economic, political, social and cultural issues, and to stand before them in a more lucid and efficient.

Thanks to this openness, it began to analyze societal issues in an ever more systematic way, positioning itself officially in the face of diverse questions that emerged according to the different historical contexts. It nevertheless retained its focus on two main issues, as pointed out by Rerum Novarum: the relation between capital and labor and the relationship between private good and the common good.

These two intertwined issues became benchmarks in the development of the Church’s Social Doctrine, explicitly present or underlying in the many papal documents that continued to address social issues, several of them commemorating Rerum Novarum anniversaries .

What other documents that are part of the modern Social Doctrine of the Church do you regard as important?

The Social Doctrine of the Church, understood as a set of writings, messages, letters, encyclicals, exhortations, pronouncements and declarations that compose the Catholic magisterial’s thought about the so-called “social question”, is very important as a whole.

The Church, from its origins, has always been confronted with this question. Although its doctrine was socially agreed only from the Encyclical Rerum Novarum, it can not be said that social problems were absent from their previous positions, much less from their practice. In fact, the Social Doctrine of the Church has its source in the Holy Scriptures.

References to the situation of the poor from the standpoint of liberation and social justice in the Old and New Testaments, as well as in the early centuries of Christianity and throughout the Catholic tradition, are plentiful. The confrontation between human justice and divine justice is one of the fundamental axes of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The inspirational source is the very identity of God, as Trinity, or perfect community. The human being is, by nature, relational, destined to be his image and likeness.

Hence the questioning done in the Holy Scriptures, in particular in the book of Genesis, to human self-sufficiency. Human existence is in reality coexistence. The quality of relationships between human beings and of these with creation and with God is central to the Judeo-Christian tradition. The contemplation of the Trinity itself, says St Augustine, is obtained by charity, that is, by the dimension of communion and solidarity among human beings.

The Social Doctrine of the Church, as such from the Rerum Novarum, is the fruit of this historical-theological construction that is always updated. Many papal documents followed the treatment of social questions, such as: Pius XI’s Encyclical Quadragésimo Anno (1931); Radio Messages by Pius XII (1941 and 1951); Encyclical Mater et Magistra (1961) and Pacem in Terris (1963) by John XXIII; Encyclical Populorum Progressio (1967) and the Apostolic Letter Octogesima Adveniens (1971), by Paul VI; Encyclicals Laborem Exercens (1981), Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987) and Centesimus Annus (1991), by John Paul II; Benedict XVI’s Encyclical Caritas in Veritate (2009); Apostolic Exhortation Evangelli Gaudium (2014) and Encyclical Laudato Si (2015), by Pope Francis.

The 1971 Synod of Bishops on Justice in the world and the numerous pronouncements of national and continental Episcopal Conferences, addressing specific social problems in each country and continent, have also become important references in Catholic social thought.

In summary, the Catholic Church considers that its Social Doctrine is closely integrated with its evangelizing mission, which determines important developments in its practices, especially in the poorest countries. It was from the social concerns of the Church that, for example, the various contexts of Liberation Theology developed, as well as the Ecclesial Base Communities and many social movements, pastoral and Church entities.

The translation of Rerum Novarum, from Latin to Portuguese, means “of New Things”. What needs to be renewed today when we speak of the social thought of the Church?

The preponderant model of society and development promoted in modern times is economistic. The Church needs to address this question with a more scientific approach, ensuring an up-to-date theological outlook. Paul VI already warned in his Encyclical Populorum Progressio: “Development is not reduced to mere economic growth. To be authentic, it must be integral, that is, promote all human beings and the human being as a whole. ”

This view is based on Christian anthropology founded on the premise that the human being is only fully realized as relational, opening up to all the dimensions that constitute him as a person and his transcendence. Called to be realized, the person only achieves this goal, transcending himself in the relationship with God, with the other and with the world. When a human person closes him or herself to any of his or her relations, he or she moves in the opposite direction of his or her becoming, thus becoming self-sufficient, therefore, paradoxically, less human.

Individualism, in its postmodern form, denies relationality. In the present times, individualism is lived to the extreme under the “rules” of the neoliberal market and under the ever greater influence of techno-scientific reason. In this context of narcissistic hyperindividualism, the human being is disoriented, seeking a paradoxical happiness, resulting in disappointment more often than not.

Consistent with Populorum Progressio, it is only in the integrated perspective of his or her personality, that is, integrating all its constitutive dimensions, that the human being can achieve full realisation. Despite this clarity, the search for the full realisation of the human being will remain a mystery. In this respect, the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes says that the mystery of the human being is only truly clarified in Jesus Christ, because Christ reveals the human person to him or herself and reveals his or her sublime vocation to live worthily in divine love.

In short, the social thought of the Church today faces the challenge of showing more clearly that the human being is essentially relational, and therefore social. In each of his or her essential relationships with God, with the other, with the world, with creation and with him or herself, Jesus Christ reveals the way of love, as a way of salvation.

ORIGINAL TEXT

A Doutrina Social da Igreja é uma construção histórico-teológica que se atualiza sempre (CNBB)

Translation: Google Translate and Stefan Gigacz