Foundation of Catholic Social Doctrines: By Adrian Calderone

Catholic social doctrines are catholic in a double sense. First, they are taught by the Catholic Church. Second, they are catholic, or universal, in scope. They apply to everyone regardless of religion. Catholic social precepts are universal because their foundation is derived from what is common to all human beings. This foundation comprises principles of natural law, human dignity and fellowship.

1. Natural Law

Natural law is the law of nature.¹ We can define natural law as the prescriptions for human conduct derived from reason as applied to the nature of things. By “prescriptions for human conduct” I mean what we ought to do or not to do. Reason, of course, is a fundamental basis for any law. There’s the old saying that where reason ends, so ends the law. And by the nature of things we mean reality, the way things act by their nature, and that includes human nature. This definition also presupposes some purpose. The Ten Commandments are a concise statement of natural law principles.

We can distinguish between normative laws and descriptive laws. Normative laws are laws that are made by some agent. They prescribe what ought to be done, or what is prohibited. The laws can be broken by disobedience, for which a punishment might or might not be administered. Traffic laws are an example of normative laws. Descriptive laws, on the other hand, are not made but discovered. They describe what is the case. There is no punishment for breaking the law because it cannot be broken. If some event is inconsistent with the law as it is currently known, the law has to be reformulated to take into account the discrepancy between what is discovered and the previous statement of the law. What the descriptive laws describe are cause and effect. Scientific laws are an example of descriptive laws.

Natural law has aspects of both normative law and descriptive law. It is, in a sense, normative because people can choose to break the law by acting against their nature. Human beings have intellect and will. These powers enable us to choose our actions. But natural law also is like descriptive law because there are unavoidable consequences from going against human nature. Society cannot function properly if natural law is not acknowledged and respected. Consider, for example, what would happen to society if people lied as a matter of course. No communication would be trustworthy. There could be no social link between individuals. A society is founded upon truth or it is not a viable society.

It is important to come to a correct understanding of human nature. There are those who deny that there is any such thing as human nature in an objective sense. They point to different cultures around the world and say, “You see, in such and such a civilization they adopted practices that we condemn. Who are we to say that our practices are natural but theirs are not? It’s all relative. Whatever a person’s inclinations are, that is what is natural for him.” Indeed, throughout human history we have seen almost anything humans are capable of doing permitted by laws: human sacrifice, cannibalism, homosexuality, infanticide. Why, then, are these not natural?

What people do “naturally” is not necessarily in accord with human nature. There are two elements which should be reiterated: purpose and reason. What one considers as purpose depends upon what one believes about reality. If nature itself is created there must be a creative agency outside of nature that created it. All created things have a purpose that comes from the intent of the one who performed the act of creation. If one recognizes the fact that the divine is real, one also sees that there is a purpose to human life which is transcendent. Atheists believe that the only constituent of reality is this natural world. What follows from this belief is the rejection of an ultimate purpose to human life as well as the notion of truly human nature. More than that, if all that exists is matter, there is no such thing as a soul, which is the agency by which moral choices are made. Human freedom becomes an illusion, and morality itself becomes relativized.

Modern secularism is the political and social expression of atheism. Although secularists insist that they do not seek to ban religion, they wish to make it a purely private matter. They wish to exclude all reference to the supernatural from public discourse. To say that consideration of God is not relevant to society or is too divisive for our recognition is to establish an official policy of practical atheism under the banner of freedom of religion. This, in effect, is a denial of God. Hence, a secularist society loses sight of reality and necessarily drifts in a current of lies.

A common misconception is that what is natural is determined by customary practice or accidents of nature. Thus, if a certain practice is socially acceptable by a large percentage of people over a long period of time, that practice must be natural. Or if a person claims to have been born with a certain condition, such as a homosexual orientation, he asserts that it is his nature and natural for him. Against this misconception we must argue that certain practices are intrinsically unnatural. For example, the fact that the Carthaginians had a long standing practice of throwing their babies into a furnace as a sacrifice to their demon-god Moloch does not justify calling this a natural practice. Simply because a person happens to be born with a particular condition does not mean the condition is natural. Otherwise, there could be no such thing as a “birth defect” that needs remedy. Once again, we must look at purpose and to the whole of reality before we judge what belongs to human nature.

In addition to human nature there is the other element of reason. We do not always reason correctly. We have surely run across the syllogism: all men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal. This is all well and good. Would that all of the problems we face could be resolved by following the simple logic of the syllogism. But we often have to base decisions on partial information: some men have blue eyes; Socrates is a man. Does Socrates have blue eyes? We don’t know from the limited information we are given. But life doesn’t let us off the hook merely because we don’t know. All too often we are forced to make decisions in serious matters when we just don’t know all the relevant facts and consequences. Then, too, there are questions of valuation. The nation has a limited budget. What percentage of our resources should go to domestic spending? How much to the military?

Under the best of circumstances our practical reasoning has its limitations. But nothing clouds our reasoning more effectively than sin. Our sense of the proper ordering of the value of things is distorted, and we are blinded to the things we ought to consider. We don’t judge the situation or the consequences properly.

For this reason the institution most suited to teaching social principles is the Catholic Church. It is the Catholic Church that has always upheld human freedom, and with it the human capacity for moral actions as well as sin. It is the Catholic Church which is the caretaker of the sacraments, which give spiritual life and sustenance to the human soul. It is the Catholic Church that is commissioned by Jesus Christ to bring the gospel to a wounded humanity. If there is any institution that understands the potential as well as the limits of human nature, it is the Catholic Church.

2. Human Dignity

Human dignity is that dignity belonging exclusively to human beings and lasting throughout their natural life by which they are due respect for the moral integration of their person. Human dignity belongs equally to all human beings. It is based upon the fact of the Redemption: that the Son of God took on human nature, became man in the person of Jesus, and by his life, death and resurrection redeemed man and opened up the possibility for salvation. Although the debt for our salvation is paid, a response is required of us.² We can accept or refuse salvation. This option is open to us for as long as we live. Even if we wallow in sin there is always the opportunity for repentance and conversion, the reclaiming of our moral dignity. Human dignity is the basis for the respect due to ourselves and others by virtue of this opportunity. At death this opportunity terminates and so does human dignity. We are either confirmed among the saved as heirs to the kingdom of heaven, or take our place among the damned.

Human beings are, by nature, not integrated persons. As St. Paul said, “For I do not that good which I will; but the evil which I hate, that I do.”³ Our life on earth entails a process of moral integration under the influence of grace acting through nature. Respect for the integration of the person means fostering and not impairing this process. This respect encompasses all of the dimensions of the human person: physical, intellectual, social, sexual, emotional and spiritual, and it has positive and negative aspects, i.e., what we should do and what we should not do.

I have written on this topic earlier.⁴ Here, I wish to emphasize two points. First, it is not sufficient for human dignity to be respected only on a person-to-person basis. Respect for human dignity is due as a matter of justice. If human dignity is not protected by the social structures under which we live then we have a society at war with the people which constitute it. Or, rather, what we have is not a true society at all, but an organization of people based upon mutual exploitation.

Second, human dignity is irrelevant unless there is a hell and the radical option of our going there. There seems to be a current of thought which plays down the reality of hell so that it becomes meaningless; “If there is a hell it is empty.” This makes a mockery of the sufferings and death of Jesus. If human dignity is based upon respect for our option of choosing salvation, what meaning does it have if we are all going to be saved whether we choose it or not? Why bother to provide a moral social environment if there are no everlasting consequences?

3. Fellowship

A third principle of Catholic social teaching is fellowship. Fellowship and friendship often go together but they are not the same thing. Friendship is oriented towards the personal relationship. In its highest form, friendship is a deep, close relationship between two people who gradually discover the goodness and love in each other. They develop intimacy, trust and fidelity with respect to their friend. It involves knowing one another.

Fellowship, as I see it, is more oriented towards a common goal or journey;⁵ there is the sense of movement in a particular direction. We are on a mission together. One can be in fellowship with others who are scarcely known personally but who work toward a common goal. The gospel calls us to fellowship with God and neighbor.⁶ John exhorts us to walk in the light of Christ:

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you may also have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you. God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness we lie and do not live in truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.⁷

In his letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul reminds us that God has called us into fellowship with his Son, Jesus. Fellowship cannot abide with divisions and conflicts.⁸

It is clear that fellowship requires commonality of purpose. We are traveling along a common path of light and truth in communion with God and neighbor. Indeed, so close is this fellowship that we cannot separate fellowship with neighbor from fellowship with God. We must have both or we have neither. In the Old Testament we learned of God’s love. In the New Testament we learned not only of his love, but also of his fellowship. For the Word of God became man and dwelt amongst us. Jesus is not only God, but also man, and he abides with us on our journey.

4. Purpose

To what end? What is our ultimate destination? What is our purpose in life? The Catechism’s answer is this: to know, love and serve God in this world, and to be happy with him in the world to come. This simple but profound formula contains the sum and substance of the Christian life. However, it applies not only to Christians but to all people. As human beings, we are all made for God. As St. Augustine wrote, our souls are restless until they rest in God. And our souls continue to exist after our physical death. There is an everlasting world to come. How tragic if the immortal soul does not rest in God. It spends a miserable unending existence in frustration, resentment and suffering. If we are in fellowship with our neighbor we should help him to avoid such a fate. This is the essence of respecting human dignity.

5. Environment

The Chinese have a saying that society is like a big dyeing vat. If you put a white cloth into a vat of blue dye, it comes out blue; if it is red dye, the cloth comes out red. The meaning is that we are influenced by our environment. If you associate with good people you pick up their good qualities. If you associate with bad people you pick up their bad qualities.

It is important to have good social structures. We cannot achieve our salvation in isolation as if we were autonomous beings. We can’t run away from a bad society. Becoming desert hermits is not a practical solution for us. Our task is not to escape society but to transform it. And to do that we must live in it. And not only live in it but also live out the gospel in it. Were it not for the Church, the sacraments and the fellowship of Christ, such a mission would be impossible. The world hates the gospel. It hates Jesus. It will hate us as well. But good social structures will permit us to live the Christian life, even if the tares grow amidst the wheat. If the social structures decay under the influence of paganism or atheism our option will not be to live as Christians but to die as Christians.⁹ This is not a pleasant thought to consider. But it should motivate us to transform society according to Catholic social principles, which, founded upon the universal principles discussed above, are really for the benefit of all people.

Catholic social teachings apply to all areas of social life in which morality plays a part: marriage and family, wealth, war, money, education, labor, justice, and government, for example. While social doctrines were at least implicitly taught by the Church throughout its history, the Enlightenment and the accompanying rejection of Christendom forced the Church to become more explicit and more emphatic about social doctrines. Hence, during the last two centuries we have seen the great social encyclicals addressing the problems of the day. Now, more than ever, we see society in a very precarious state. Traditional notions of marriage, family, sexuality and freedom have been eroded. Our technology makes it possible to alter the genetic structure of life. Even the definition of what it means to be a human being is not secure. It is as if society is rushing headlong, without thought or foresight, into a moral abyss from which nothing short of a miracle will save it. We can at least do our part by using the means available to us to promote one of the “best kept secrets of the Catholic Church,” i.e., the treasury of its social teachings.¹⁰

6. Application

Let us now apply the principles expressed above to a concrete situation in modern secularist society. In particular, let us look at the family, which is of utmost importance as it is the fundamental social unit. What is a family? According to Catholic teaching it is an assemblage of persons residing in the same household under a common superior or head and united by ties founded on the natural law.¹¹ By “residing in the same household” we do not exclude family members temporarily living elsewhere, such as those boarding at a distant school or away on military service. The family is founded upon marriage. The typical family unit includes a husband, wife, and children. In sociological terms the family unit can be a “small family” (also called a “nuclear family”) or a “large family.”¹² An “extended family” includes persons outside of the family unit who are nevertheless morally united to members of the family unit by ties of blood or marriage. The family is where children are nurtured, taught and protected. Here, above all, we see the principles of natural law, human dignity and fellowship put into effect. The family is founded upon natural law, as a fellowship of persons, for the recognition and protection of the human dignity of its members.

In the present secularist society the fact that a family is a moral union of persons under the natural law is utterly disregarded. As mentioned above, the secularist society repudiates natural law, which is the basis for any society. Hence the morally bankrupt and breathtakingly witless decisions by the courts in the United States dealing with issues which relate to family life, such as abortion, contraception, sexual relations, homosexual unions and the like.

As bad as the situation is in the United States, it is not the worst. In Germany, for example, home-schooling has been criminalized. Home-schooling parents have been arrested and threatened with the confiscation of their property, while their children have been forcibly removed from home and taken to state-approved schools.¹³

What is happening throughout the world in conjunction with globalism is a growing totalitarianism, a grab at power. The state seeks to nullify any independent institution that supports the people and that can make demands upon the allegiance of the people, especially the family and the Church. To this end we will witness the perversion of marriage and sexual relationships, the confiscation of wealth, the forced indoctrination of children with state-approved ideology, and the imprisonment of those who refuse to comply. All fellowship between people, a danger to the totalitarian state, is destroyed because none of the three principles of natural law, human dignity and fellowship can long survive without support from the other two.

Is the situation the result of false ideologies that have taken root in society, or is it engineered by a wicked elite? The question presents a false dichotomy. It is like asking whether the anti-Christ is a philosophy or an actual human being. It can be both. The world of ideas includes both heresies and truth, the world of the spirits includes demons and angels, and the world of men includes the wicked and the just.

While there is yet time and opportunity it is incumbent upon the faithful to form and support organizations devoted to education and to the promotion of Catholic social principles. We should demonstrate our displeasure with certain government policies loudly and persistently. If natural means were the only mechanisms we could use to effect social change we would not fare so well as we should. The wicked are very clever. They are specialists at worldly designs, and Catholics tend to be otherworldly. But here, then, is a strength that is beyond their comprehension — the power of prayer. In the words of St. Ignatius, we should work as if everything depended upon us and pray as if everything depended upon God. The enemy turns to Christ and says now, as it once did two thousand years ago, “Die.” We turn to society and say to all of our fellow human beings, “Live!”

End Notes

1. There is a natural physical law, or scientific law, and a natural moral law. Here, we are dealing only with the natural moral law.
2. See, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, USCCB Publishing, §39: “The salvation offered by God to his children requires their free response and acceptance.”
3. Romans 7:15.
4. See, Calderone, A., “Human Dignity,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review, February 2005.
5. The Compendium makes reference to “solidarity.” Fellowship and solidarity are very similar concepts. However, solidarity seems to be more oriented toward being with others with respect to some issue, whereas fellowship conveys the notion of traveling with others as if on some journey or mission. Both are principles underlying Catholic social teachings. My use of the term “fellowship” is not intended to exclude solidarity, but to embrace it with the added nuance of cooperative activity and journeying in fulfillment of a mission as on a pilgrimage.
6. Matthew 22:37-40.
7. 1 John 1:3-7.
8. 1 Corinthians 1:9-11.
9. I am not trying to be melodramatic. Those who think that such things cannot happen in modern democratic states should consider the lesson of the Vendee in France. Between the years 1793 and 1796, by some estimates almost a quarter of a million Catholics were slaughtered by the secularist advocates of Enlightenment humanism. The murder of Christians by the Communists is well known.
10. A useful summary of Catholic social teachings can be found in the recently published Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, USCCB Publishing, 3211 Fourth Street, NE, Washington D.C., 20017.
11. See, Cahill, E., S.J., The Framework of a Christian State, Roman Catholic Books, p. 320. The definition set forth above is adapted from that given by Fr. Cahill.
12. The terms “small” and “large” do not refer to the number of individuals in the family, but rather to the number of generations living in the same household. Thus, for sociological purposes, a family unit with three individuals, but each of a different generation (i.e., grandparent, parent and child), is a “large family,” while a family unit consisting of two parents and ten children is a “small family.”
13. See, “Catholic News Watch: Germany Returns to Its Nazi Ways,” The Remnant, January 15, 2007, page 1.

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Mr Adrian Calderone graduated from Manhattan College with B.Ch.E and M.E. degrees in Chemical Engineering. He spent more than three years living and traveling in Asia. Having earned his Juris Doctorate from New York Law School, he now practices intellectual property law. He and his wife Jo live in Brooklyn, N.Y. and have three daughters. His last article in HPR appeared in February 2005. © Ignatius Press