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tonerWhat we think is the right road

The Church has no right to tell me how to vote, so if I want to be a Catholic socialist, it's up to me to decide. Socialism was also the practice of the early Church, and it was promoted by Vatican II. And, under socialism, we would get a lot of free stuff!

But it's the wrong road

That the Church and the State are separated by an impermeable wall is a grave misunderstanding of both political theory and of Catholic social doctrine. The Vatican II document "Gaudium et Spes" teaches that the Church must have the liberty to "preach the faith, to proclaim its teaching about society ... and to pass moral judgment even in matters relating to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it" (76). Every serious political judgment and every law play out against a moral horizon, and the Church not only can, but must, call us to obey God before men (Acts 5:29).

The Church – and all its homilists and teachers – must teach wise citizenship, meaning that Catholics are called upon to support and obey just laws and to challenge and resist unjust laws (for reference, see Romans 13:1-7, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1903, 2239 and 2242). "Without the light the Gospel sheds on God and man, societies easily become totalitarian" (CCC 2257).

Confusion is rampant in this area. A number of faithful Catholics have been taught – incorrectly – that homilies must not cross the line into "politics." To be sure, the priest should not endorse a particular candidate from the ambo. But we Catholics must hear, and we have the right to hear, about state power and whether the exercise of political authority is being accomplished "within the limits of the moral order" (CCC 1923).

If it were otherwise, the Church would stand mute and impotent before such matters as abortion, the destruction of marriage, and the critical bioethical issues of our day.

Pope Pius XI said in 1931, "Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth ...; it is based, nevertheless, on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism (and) Christian socialism are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist." St. John XXIII similarly pointed out, 30 years later, that "no Catholic could subscribe even to moderate Socialism. The reason is that Socialism is founded on a doctrine of human society which is bounded by time and takes no account of any objective other than that of material well-being. Since, therefore, it proposes a form of social organization which aims solely at production, it places too severe a restraint on human liberty, at the same time flouting the true notion of social authority."

State Socialism is a collective system of economic organization in which the major means of production and distribution are owned, managed and controlled by the government. The government becomes a monster, a leviathan (see Job, Ch. 41). When we think of the fountain of justice and of salvation as a benevolent governmental leviathan, we violate the First Commandment. "Power tends to corrupt," as Catholic writer Lord Acton told us, "and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Beware the leviathan!

In the liturgical year, we have the beautiful Feast of Christ the King to remind us that it is to Our Lord, not any government, that we always owe first and true allegiance. This is the key reason Pope Pius XI taught us that "no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist" ("Quadragesimo Anno," 120).

The leviathan – government – has no money of its own; it must expropriate every dollar it chooses to redistribute, reminding us of St. Augustine's compelling admonition: "Without justice what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers?" According to the enduring Catholic social teaching principle of subsidiarity, the central political organs of a state should not unduly interfere with local and smaller government – even, perhaps especially, in financial matters.

The Apostles did, in fact, collect and distribute goods in a small communities, but that is hardly an endorsement of a socialism which implicitly promises perfect justice once it has consolidated and monopolized power. The former Soviet Union was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, where "socialism" meant an imperfect and transitional phase on the way to perfect and eternal communism. The name of the Nazi party in Germany was the Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party. Both leviathan ideologies sought to replace Christ the King.

Vatican II, of course, did not endorse socialism. Rather, it called us "to cultivate a properly informed conscience and to impress the divine law on affairs of the earthly city" ("Gaudium et Spes," 43). We are wise to heed the ancient counsel that "it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in princes" (Ps 118:9), even if those princes, or candidates, are offering lots of ostensibly "free stuff."

 

Deacon James H. Toner serves at Our Lady of Grace Church in Greensboro.