Laudato Si’: Now What Does a Catholic Do?

 

shutterstock_195361532For Catholics who advocate for free markets, Pope Francis has just made life extremely complicated. The Holy Father’s encyclical, Laudato Si’ — which I have only begun to read — contains statements that clearly indicate that the Pope has fallen in with the progressives. Although the encyclical still prohibits birth control, abortion, and euthanasia, Francis seems tone deaf to the constant demands of the left, particularly the environmental left, that the Church abandon her teachings and encourage the use of these prohibited techniques. The Pope also seems to have largely adopted the platform of the American Democratic Party. As a Republican, my stomach is queasy.

So what to do? As a Catholic, I must submit my personal convictions to the authority of the Magisterium– which means to the Pope insofar as he speaks within Church tradition on theological matters. That gives me some weasel room on Francis’s economic views. But not much room. A Catholic’s first duty is obedience, or as my daughter wrote in her new article for Catholic Exchange:

…our lives are not our own. They belong to God and that means a total emptying of self. It is within this framework that we will examine our call to love and submit in obedience to the hierarchical Church. In learning this obedience, we will mature and grow in our faith. Since Christ left us the Church, it is He who calls us to loving submission to the Church.

To be sure, I need not fully endorse Francis’s’ economics. But I must still carefully study what the encyclical says, and look deeply at the factual and scientific themes therein. Most crucially, I must prayerfully consider the totality of the encyclical, especially in light of Church teaching on Human Ecology. George Weigel writes at National Review:

It is probably inevitable that Laudato Si’ will get labeled “the global-warming encyclical” and that the label will stick. This will please some and displease others, and they will have at each other — which is no bad thing if it helps clarify that there is no simple path to meeting the twin goals of environmental protection and the empowerment (through economic development) of the poor. But the label will be misleading, I think, not because there isn’t a lot about climate change in the encyclical, but because that’s, to my mind, the least important part of Francis-the-pastor’s call to a more integral, indeed more humanistic, ecology. Reading Laudato Si’ as if it were a climate-change encyclical, period, is somewhat akin to reading Moby Dick as if it were a treatise on the 19th-century New England whaling industry. The ships and the harpoons are an important part of the story, to be sure; but if they become the whole story, you miss what Melville’s sprawling novel is really about. Ditto with Laudato Si’: If you read it as “the global-warming encyclical,” you will miss the heart and soul of what this sprawling encyclical is about — which is us.

Which is to say that the encyclical is a moral teaching, not a work of science. Francis writes:

“…we must safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic human ecology.”

Sadly, Laudato Si’ will surely become captive to political ideology. That will pit economic conservatives against progressives, not just on the question of global warming, but also free markets versus government solutions. We’re going to hear a lot about where Francis stands. We’re going to hear a lot of interpretation too. Few people will actually read the encyclical, opting instead to cherry pick those portions that seem to support their views. Which reminds me of my high school debate days, when debaters would skim articles to find the juiciest bits to quote, only to be hammered by opponents who’d actual read the thing from beginning to end. However, in our charged political arena, many of us will miss the cherry picking because we have never actually checked the full text.

So what should Catholics do? To begin with, they ought to go to the trouble of reading all 192 pages, and then work to understand what Francis is really getting at. They might also consider researching the history of Catholic social teaching. And if that is too time consuming, there will be many theologians writing on the encyclical who should be consulted—theologians on all sides of the debate.

That, too, is a moral obligation.

Image Credit: giulio napolitano / Shutterstock.com

Published in Religion & Philosophy, Science & Technology
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  1. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Franco:I don’t have to read the encyclical any more than I have to read Howard Zinn’s history books.

    You don’t have to, but it helps.

    • #31
  2. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Franco:

    Misthiocracy:

    Franco: That one tweet of Jesus contradicts the Pope’s tweets. The Pope is getting involved with the work of Caesar in trying to ‘help’ the poor.

    Let’s be fair. None of the tweets I’ve read direct Catholics to disobey their governments.

    Why be fair?

    Because if you disagree with what someone says it is far better to argue against what they have actually said rather than embellishing upon their words.

    What is il Papa doing meddling in politics and economics?

    It is the right of every human being to voice their opinion on politics and economics. If small town pastors are free to talk and write about politics then so too should the Pope enjoy that freedom. Freedom of speech does not disappear simply because one is the head of an influential organization.

    When the Pope starts jailing people for heresy, we can revisit the question.

    • #32
  3. user_331141 Member
    user_331141
    @JamieLockett

    Can one of the Catholics here explain to a non-believer, why it is incumbent upon them to obey directives outside the scope of knowledge of the Pope?

    I understand (although don’t agree with) obedience on spiritual matters, but what does the Pope know about economics that gives him authority in such areas?

    • #33
  4. BThompson Inactive
    BThompson
    @BThompson

    Aaron Miller:Most of what people are objecting to is what they read between the lines, rather than the text itself.

    No, there is plenty smack in the middle of the lines stuff to be annoyed by. Not to mention that, despite all the characterizations of nuance and reports of important messages about the value of humanity by people trying to soothe concerns, the vatican has been playing up and emphasizing all the lefty solutions and “the world is dying” eco-hysteria on twitter and in the press. Far more people, by many orders of magnitude, are going to consume the press reports and twitter activity out of the vatican than will every read or seriously consider the encyclical. And evidently the vatican thinks that the most important things it needs to highlight from the encyclical are exactly the most disturbing and wrong-headed parts.

    • #34
  5. BThompson Inactive
    BThompson
    @BThompson

    Franco:For an entity that persecuted Galileo and only grudgingly admitted they were wrong centuries later, I find this climate change talk risible.

    You need to go read about what actually happened in that affair. The church has already conditionally allowed Copernicus’s heliocentrist thinking to be published before Galileo ever started his work. The problem with Galileo went way beyond heliocentrism. And Galileo was no paragon of intellectual rigor or righteousness in the way he conducted himself.

    • #35
  6. TG Thatcher
    TG
    @TG

    I liked the National Review editorial on this ( http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420013/laudato-no-praise-not-pope-franciss-crude-economics-editors )

    • #36
  7. user_533354 Member
    user_533354
    @melissaosullivan

    We have a long tradition in the Catholic Church of blowing off what the Pope says.  A prime example of this tendency is the use of birth control by many Catholics.  It does not trouble me one whit to ignore what this Pope says about global warming/climate change/AGW or whatever label is in vogue.  I have my own opinion on the matter, formed after much reading on the subject and beginning in the ’70’s when one of my textbooks at university predicted the great global cooling that would destroy our planet.  I shall pray that somehow Rev. Robert Sirico will be able to influence Pope Francis on Economics.

    • #37
  8. LilyBart Inactive
    LilyBart
    @LilyBart

    I’m protestant, so I can’t completely relate, but I do have compassion for the difficulty of your position.

    As my own good, Christian mother used to advise:  “Put you faith in God.  Man will always let you down.”      Pray for guidance – it really works!

    • #38
  9. user_348375 Member
    user_348375
    @

    Arizona Patriot:I’m no expert, but wasn’t Catholic “Liberation Theology” — which was, in many respects, thinly disguised Marxism — largely a Latin American phenomenon? If I’m correct about this, there should be little surprise that the first Latin American Pope leans more to the Left politically and economically than his predecessors.

    Unfortunately, the Latin American experience has largely been a struggle between authoritarian pseudo-fascists and Left-wing Communists, with little that an American would recognize as free market capitalism with the rule of law. My impression is that Chile has done the best job. The Pope is from Argentina, which has a lamentable history.

    So, the Pope’s position is not surprising, but is troubling. It makes me happy not to be a Catholic.

    One would think that an objective view would give capitalism credit for having lifted billions of people out of poverty, especially since the fall of Communism.

    Great insights, and I think correct.  Another aspect explaing the differences between N and S America is that the former was mainly “settled” while the latter was conquered and pillaged by Europe looking for wealth to enable more successful wars.  (Simplification of course, but my arm is in a sling.)

    • #39
  10. user_348375 Member
    user_348375
    @

    Jamie Lockett:Can one of the Catholics here explain to a non-believer, why it is incumbent upon them to obey directives outside the scope of knowledge of the Pope?

    I understand (although don’t agree with) obedience on spiritual matters, but what does the Pope know about economics that gives him authority in such areas?

    It’s actually simple.  He did not issue directives, rather opined in an unusual forum his views on secular society’s organizational principles.  From this point of view, I have no conflict with him as our earth-based leader.  If he had threatened excommunication for not tithing to government, then I’d have a problem.  Most Popes are good, and our next one will be an improvement on Francis, I’m sure.

    • #40
  11. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @OldBathos

    I am critical of some of the encyclical but Galileo comparisons are not apt.  (I suspect Galileo’s difficulties had more to do with his cocktail party critiques of some well-connected families and certain cardinals than his science.)  It is hard for us to conceive of the extent of the indifference to scientific inquiry in that era.

    The most sophisticated player in the drama was Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, a Jesuit scholar, saint and extremely bright guy.  Bellarmine said that if Galileo said his work was a matter of hypothesis, a way of organizing observational data for convenience rather than a definitive statement of truth, the Church could not have an objection.

    Galileo refused Bellarmine’s solution and the matter dragged on for years more.  In point of fact, Galileo arbitrarily assumed perfectly circular orbits, made some assumptions about gravity and was not as sophisticated about the nature of scientific inquiry as Bellarmine.

    The current encyclical is not about science.  Rather, it cherry picks political language from current issues in which politics has cherry picked scientific concepts. The goal of the document is remind us of the moral context created by the centrality of the value of human life and the life-giving context of earth.  Too bad this pope does not have a Bellarmine to advise him rather than zeitgeist-parroting cyphers in the Curia.

    • #41
  12. Pseudodionysius Inactive
    Pseudodionysius
    @Pseudodionysius

    Franco:For an entity that persecuted Galileo and only grudgingly admitted they were wrong centuries later, I find this climate change talk risible.

    So is the Pope a heliocentric now? Or is this still geocentrism? Is saying that the sun causes global warming and not CO2, heresy?

    Catholicism is so confusing, I guess we are all just supposed to believe, or read endless apologies with tautological subtleties that confound us yet again. We can argue what the pope meant or not. We can argue the abstractions of communism and wonder that Lenin’s form of communism hasn’t been tried. Eventually we think we understand, but actually we just give up, or else simply believe.

    Wondering, is this that bad pope someone predicted prophesized?

    • #42
  13. user_331141 Member
    user_331141
    @JamieLockett

    Tom Riehl: It’s actually simple.  He did not issue directives, rather opined in an unusual forum his views on secular society’s organizational principles.  From this point of view, I have no conflict with him as our earth-based leader.  If he had threatened excommunication for not tithing to government, then I’d have a problem.  Most Popes are good, and our next one will be an improvement on Francis, I’m sure.

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the purpose of an encyclical to define Catholic doctrine? To that end isn’t the intent here to instruct Catholics on what they should believe about certain things? If Catholics must submit their opinions to the authority of the Magesterium as the OP states and the head of the Church is defining the morality of free market economics, I don’t see how one can be both a Catholic and a Free Marketer under current doctrine.

    • #43
  14. BThompson Inactive
    BThompson
    @BThompson

    Jamie Lockett:Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the purpose of an encyclical to define Catholic doctrine?

    This is actually wrong. Encyclicals don’t define doctrine. They typically are meant to teach the faithful about a specific issue that is prominent in society and give guidance about how the faithful should think about the issue.

    With Laudato most of the problems stem from the assessment of the objective facts about the state of the world. If the environmental and climate situation were truly and inarguably at the point that the vatican seems to believe, there would be more reason to take it’s perspective about what to do seriously. But the vatican’s beliefs about current reality are so misguided and its descriptions so overwrought, the prescriptions it advises can’t help but be riddled with absurdities.

    That’s not to say that even if the current situation were as dire as the vatican claims, that it’s ideas would be good ones. Rachel notes the utopianism, blindness to history and current effective institutions and lack of imagination when it comes to proposing solutions. So it is perfectly acceptable for Catholics to respectfully point this out and dissent.

    What’s more, even if Laudato is as flawed and idiotic as it’s harshest critics claim, it doesn’t actually ever take the final step of giving detailed or truly proscriptive positions about what should be done. Therefore, it in no way can be seen as defining dogma.

    • #44
  15. user_385039 Inactive
    user_385039
    @donaldtodd

    Carey J.:What does a Catholic do? Become Orthodox. The Orthodox Church figured out that Popes were not infallible centuries before Martin Luther was born. Thus we have been spared the cognitive dissonance that comes from hearing an “infallible” authority spout nonsense.

    Or you have separated yourselves from Peter.

    • #45
  16. user_331141 Member
    user_331141
    @JamieLockett

    BThompson: This is actually wrong. Encyclicals don’t define doctrine. They typically are meant to teach the faithful about a specific issue that is prominent in society and give guidance about how the faithful should think about the issue.

    Hmmm, when I first read reports about this particular document a few days ago I looked it up on wikipedia (I know, I know).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical

    This seems to indicate that an encyclical is far more authoritative than you are suggesting.

    • #46
  17. user_385039 Inactive
    user_385039
    @donaldtodd

    Misthiocracy:Pray that the cardinals don’t elect a communist next time around?

    It may be a sin for a Catholic to disobey their Pope, but I do not believe it is a sin to pray for a better Pope.

    After all, even if a bad Pope ruins your life on Earth, one must remember that eternity is still longer. Obeying a bad Pope is a small price for a Catholic to pay.

    On the other hand, I’m not Catholic.

    You aren’t Catholic?  Who would have guessed that.

    • #47
  18. BThompson Inactive
    BThompson
    @BThompson

    Jamie Lockett:Hmmm, when I first read reports about this particular document a few days ago I looked it up on wikipedia (I know, I know).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical

    This seems to indicate that an encyclical is far more authoritative than you are suggesting.

    Now look up “defining dogma.” Dogma typically comes from Church Councils and involve Decrees. It also usually confines itself to a very narrow question of revelation, like the virginity of Mary.

    • #48
  19. user_385039 Inactive
    user_385039
    @donaldtodd

    Franco: #24 “That one tweet of Jesus contradicts the Pope’s tweets. The Pope is getting involved with the work of Caesar in trying to ‘help’ the poor.

    Really, this ‘concern’ for the oppressed masses makes me quite suspicious. I really don’t think these liberals who profess to want to help are doing it out of pure motives. They get pride and satisfaction. I’ll fight for you! They get to feel good about themselves while they divide people. They get political power, which is a commodity that has an increasing worth now that everything is political. Political power is protection now. The system is breaking down.”

    1. Jesus did say to feed the hungry; and

    2. Whatever Francis is, he is not up for re-election.  I don’t think that he is looking out for his legacy, rather he is trying to serve those who are desperately hungry.

    • #49
  20. user_331141 Member
    user_331141
    @JamieLockett

    The president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops called the encyclical “…our marching orders for advocacy.”

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/live/2015/jun/18/pope-encyclical-climate-change-live-reaction-analysis#block-5582c997e4b073d6e6cb9cce

    It seems like this document calls all Catholics to advocate for these positions.

    • #50
  21. user_331141 Member
    user_331141
    @JamieLockett

    BThompson: Now look up “defining dogma.” Dogma typically comes from Church Councils and involve Decrees. It also usually confines itself to a very narrow question of revelation, like the virginity of Mary.

    I didn’t say dogma. I said doctrine.

    http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/what-is-the-difference-between-doctrine-and-dogma

    This is clearly a teaching on matters of morality and thus a document helping to define catholic doctrine.

    • #51
  22. BThompson Inactive
    BThompson
    @BThompson

    Jamie Lockett:I didn’t say dogma. I said doctrine.

    http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/what-is-the-difference-between-doctrine-and-dogma

    This is clearly a teaching on matters of morality and thus a document helping to define catholic doctrine.

    Okay, but the moral claims are a response to facts which are far from settled and which lie outside of the realm of morals. So, any doctrinal directives are conditional at best. What’s more, the advocacy being championed is so vague and incoherent, it would be hard for anyone to be considered afoul of the vatican’s guidance, unless it was done in the most strident and dismissive way.

    • #52
  23. user_331141 Member
    user_331141
    @JamieLockett

    BThompson: Okay, but the moral claims are a response to facts which are far from settled and which lie outside of the realm of morals. So, any doctrinal directives are conditional at best. What’s more, the advocacy being championed is so vague and incoherent, it would be hard for anyone to be considered afoul of the vatican’s guidance, unless it was done in the most strident and dismissive way.

    Clearly the leaders of The Church don’t think this. They say it is a “call to advocacy”. They will be advocating something.

    • #53
  24. user_331141 Member
    user_331141
    @JamieLockett

    BThompson: Okay, but the moral claims are a response to facts which are far from settled and which lie outside of the realm of morals. So, any doctrinal directives are conditional at best. What’s more, the advocacy being championed is so vague and incoherent, it would be hard for anyone to be considered afoul of the vatican’s guidance, unless it was done in the most strident and dismissive way.

    Isn’t the Pope infallible?

    http://www.catholic.com/tracts/papal-infallibility

    • #54
  25. BThompson Inactive
    BThompson
    @BThompson

    Jamie Lockett:

    Clearly the leaders of The Church don’t think this. They say it is a “call to advocacy”. They will be advocating something.

    But Catholics can still faithfully dispute the “science” the advocacy is applied to. What’s more, advocacy can take many different forms. A catholic can still advocate responsible stewardship of the environment and not letting technology dehumanize our fellow man, but oppose all manner of specific policies and calls for governmental action that can also be called “advocacy”.

    • #55
  26. BThompson Inactive
    BThompson
    @BThompson

    Jamie Lockett:Isn’t the Pope infallible?

    http://www.catholic.com/tracts/papal-infallibility

    The pope is infallible in questions of dogma pertaining to matters of revelation and morals when and only when he officially declares a particular question to be infallibly settled. That does not pertain here.

    In fact, popes have only ever declared something infallible twice. The first was when the doctrine of infallibility was officially described after Vatican I by Pius IX in the nineteenth century and he declared Mary to be immaculately conceived (conceived without original sin). Then again when Pius XII declared Mary bodily assumed into heaven.

    • #56
  27. user_1030767 Inactive
    user_1030767
    @TheQuestion

    I think that John O’Sullivan coined the rule that any organization that is not explicitly conservative will eventually become progressive/left-wing.  That rule applies in a limited way to the Church.  On any political issue where a conservative position is not absolutely required by Church doctrine (e.g. abortion or gay marriage), most Catholic bishops, priests, nuns, religion teachers, etc. take a left-wing position.  So, I don’t see anything particularly new here.

    Quite frankly, if I wasn’t Catholic, I would have become conservative much sooner.  Being an academic didn’t help either.

    • #57
  28. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    BThompson:

    Franco:For an entity that persecuted Galileo and only grudgingly admitted they were wrong centuries later, I find this climate change talk risible.

    You need to go read about what actually happened in that affair. The church has already conditionally allowed Copernicus’s heliocentrist thinking to be published before Galileo ever started his work. The problem with Galileo went way beyond heliocentrism. And Galileo was no paragon of intellectual rigor or righteousness in the way he conducted himself.

    The text of the Inquisition’s 1616 injunction against Galileo states that he was, “to abandon completely … the opinion that the sun stands still at the center of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing.”

    a) There ain’t a whole lot of wiggle room there.

    b) To defend this injunction is to defend the idea that any church could have the right to impose criminal penalties against an individual. I understand that 1616 was a different era, but still…

    • #58
  29. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Melissa O’Sullivan

    We have a long tradition in the Catholic Church of blowing off what the Pope says.  A prime example of this tendency is the use of birth control by many Catholics.

    Well, heck, all Christians have a long tradition of sin. Not many celebrate it though.

    ;-)

    • #59
  30. user_1030767 Inactive
    user_1030767
    @TheQuestion

    BThompson:

    Jamie Lockett

    Clearly the leaders of The Church don’t think this. They say it is a “call to advocacy”. They will be advocating something.

    But Catholics can still faithfully dispute the “science” the advocacy is applied to. What’s more, advocacy can take many different forms. A catholic can still advocate responsible stewardship of the environment and not letting technology dehumanize our fellow man, but oppose all manner of specific policies and calls for governmental action that can also be called “advocacy”.

    The Left has made this issue a binary choice: Choice A) humans have no serious impact on climate at all, or Choice B) global warming is happening and its catastrophic and we must do exactly what progressives tell us to do to avoid it.  In reality, there is a series of questions to be resolved.  I think it’s pretty certain that some anthropogenic global warming has happened and will happen, and certainly carbon dioxide affects climate.  That it is not in any way the same thing as saying that ecological apocalypse is upon us, or even if it is, it doesn’t mean that the Democrats are the ones who know how to solve it.

    • #60
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