From Leo XIII to John Paul II
Hehir, J. Bryan
ality. The practical conclusion drawn from these social-psychological premises was that government has the right and duty to intervene in the life of society, especially its economic and educational...
...but that's another story...
...The response to the papal and episcopal invitations has been extraordinary: Across the country Catholic institutions and orga- nizations have planned a diverse menu of activities extending all through 1991 to observe the centenary...
...b) that everyone therefore ought to have as much freedom as possible to pursue his or her notion of the good...
...It remains to be seen how Catholicism will respond to contemporary liberalism...
...In the 1832 encyclical Mirari vos, Pope Gregory XVI crushed the hopes of Lamennais and others who dreamed of a reconciliation between lib- eralism and Catholicism...
...3. Contemporary liberalism, which came into its own in the late 1960s, splits the difference between the two earlier forms...
...The observance in Rome will be marked by a new encyclical and a symposium of authors, teachers, and advocates from around the world...
...On a worldwide scale we are still in the era that opened with Rerum novarum, the era of progressive liberalism...
...The papacy's response to classical liberalism was almost totally negative...
...Nonetheless, contem- porary liberalism has a profound, though WORLD perhaps one-sided, appreciation of the importance to morality of the subjective component--including individual free choice...
...At the very moment Herbert Spencer was denouncing the new doctrine with all the intransigence Pio Nono had used in denouncing the old, Leo XIII was embracing generous portions of progressive liberalism...
...But in the United States we have moved into a new age of liberalism...
...Morever, the encyclical tradition needs to be related to the wider social tradition if its full potential is to be realized...
...The short answer is the encyclical tradition, the stream of papal and conciliar texts rooted in the spirit of Rerum novarum even as they develop far beyond its categories...
...But Rome missed the point...
...Rome was much better at accommodat- ing progressive liberalism...
...Maritain and John Courtney Murray provided materials that might be used in constructing a contemporary Catholic-liberal reconciliation...
...While this first stage of liberalism certainly offered much to be negative about, in par- ticular its unbridled laissez-faire eco-nomics, it also had enormous merit, espe- cially its recognition of the intimate link between liberty and human creativ-ity-moral and intellectual creativity as well as industrial creativity...
...The question is: Will Catholicism, which made a relatively good adjustment to the progressive stage, be able to make a successful adjustment to the latest stage...
...The key issue, of course, is: What is being commemorated...
...The practical conclusion drawn from these social-psychological premises was that government has the right and duty to intervene in the life of society, especially its economic and educational life, to a degree that would have outraged the clas- sical liberals...
...In 1864 the "Syllabus" confirmed this in spades...
...Just as Catholicism cannot endorse abor- tion, which follows in a logical way from the premises provided by moral subjec- tivism and relativism, so it cannot endorse the premises themselves...
...The encyclical tradition is part of a wider social tradition dating not to 1891 but to the very origins of Christian Catholic faith...
...In agreement with progressive liberalism, it allows extensive state intervention in the economic sphere...
...The short answer is correct, but incomplete...
...neither was able to address fully the central issues raised by Rawls or by the person-in-the-street who has elevated the right of privacy to a semidivine status...
...But both writers antedate contemporary liberalism...
...Of course, great numbers of individual Catholics accept both the premises and the conclusions...
...In the United States the National Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted a statement urg- ing "parishes, dioceses, national organi- zations, educational and other institutions to use the opportunity to share our social teaching," and they designated the period from Ascension Thursday to Pentecost Sunday as a time for parishes to focus on the social dimensions of Catholic faith...
...and (c) that equality ought to be maximized so that everyone, not just the more privileged fac- tion of society, will have a fair chance of pursuing his or her private vision of the good...
...WATCH J. Bryan Hehir FROM LEO Xlll TO JOHN PAUL I1 THE EVOLUTION OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING n May 15, 1991, the uni- versal church will cele- brate the centenary of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum novarum, the first of the "social encyclicals...
...A broader response would distinguish three dimensions of the social 3 May 1991:281...
...but it is more than a match for classical liberalism in telling the state to keep its nose out of a sphere of privacy in which are carried on a person's religious (or irreligious) and moral (or immoral) conduct...
...The definitive philosophical reconciliation between Catholicism and the second-stage liberal- ism was worked out by Jacques Maritain, especially in his books Integral Humanism (1936) and Man and the State (1951...
...It cannot simply endorse it, since the ethical agnosticism and subjectivism of present- day liberalism are radically incompatible with the Catholic notion that goodness and badness have a kind of objective reality...
...The central idea, best expressed in philosopher John Rawls's book, A Theory of Justice (1971), is: (a) that there is no moral good we can all agree upon...
...For an expression of this outrage, see the 1892 book, The Man ver- sus the State, by Herbert Spencer, the last of the old-line liberals, who was convinced that the latter-day liberals were betraying the essence of liberalism...
Vol. 118 • May 1991 • No. 9
