The second panel of the conference discussed the relationship of Catholic Social Thought to Political Philosophy and State Theory. Dr. Cornelis J. Schilt (Lux Mundi) assessed the importance of the practical implementation of the social message of the Gospel as a basis and motivation for action, as mentioned in the encyclical Centesimus Annus, issued by Pope John Paul II in 1991. Dr. Schilt criticized later developments in Catholic Social Doctrine under Pope Francis for losing sight of the unchangeable truth of the Gospel. According to him, suffering is not at odds with human dignity as it is an integral part of Christian life. He finished his talk with the example of the English martyr Henry Morse SJ, who sacrificed his life for the truth of Catholic faith.
Olga Kovács-Latyseva (Axioma Center; Pázmány Péter Catholic University) discussed the indirect influence of the political theology of 19th-century Spanish counterrevolutionary political actor and thinker Juan Donoso Cortés on the development of Catholic Social Teaching, by showing how his critique of liberalism and socialism and his state theory shaped the teachings of Pope Pius IX and Pope Leo XIII.
András Jancsó (Ludovika UPS; Pázmány Péter Catholic University), one of the organizers of the conference, presented an overview of the ideas of Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) on the pre-political foundations of the liberal state, relating these to the well-known dictum of Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde. Ratzinger developed this paradox further, arguing that the pre-political foundations of Europe’s cultural and political order are deeply anchored in Christianity. While rejecting theocracy, Ratzinger stressed the mutual dependence between society and religion, making the statement that a pluralistic states cannot be entirely value-neutral, as it is grounded in Christian tradition.
Dr. Ádám Darabos (Ludovika UPS; Axioma Center) compared Catholic Social Thought with the insights of 20th-century American Protestant Christian Realism. According to Dr. Darabos Catholic Social Thought did not deal with the issues of sin and power profoundly enough, not focusing enough on the pragmatic descriptive assessment of existing human and social reality. Christian Realism, as articulated by Reinhold Niebuhr put exactly these issues at the forefront of the assessment of political realities. The Augustinian background of Pope Leo XIV could help integrating these pragmatic aspects into contemporary Catholic Social Thought as well.
The third panel of the conference under the title “Contemporary Political Debates and Catholic Social Thought” started with a short lecture by Bishop János Székely, head of the Hungarian Bishops’ Conference, according to whom the fundamental concept of the Church’s social teaching is the common good, and in order to achieve that, the human person is needed to be assessed free from ideological constraints. Human freedom cannot be separated from following God’s will, as only the Truth can set us free.
Dr. Michal Gierycz (Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University) elaborated his views on the “new paradigm of Catholicism” and its possible impact on Catholic Social Thought. According to Dr. Gierycz there is a coexistence of two distinct paradigms in today’s Catholic Social Thought, the classical paradigm follows the path initiated by Rerum Novarum by attempting to engage into dialogue with post-enlightenment realities, and proposing moral principles in an understandable language as social ethics. The new paradigm has given up the claim of articulating absolute moral truth and obscures the difference between good and evil in the name of unconditional Christian brotherly love. By following the stance of mainstream liberal ethics, Catholic Social Doctrine would cease to exist as an independent category. According to Dr. Gierycz, the Church should resist this temptation, and should not give up on the authority of divine revelation and natural law.
Dr. Nicholas McAfee (Christendom College) discussed the confusion of political form in contemporary Catholic Political Thought from an American perspective, that arose around the concepts of nationalism and the state, empire, civitas and res publica. After assessing various views on these concepts developed by Catholic thinkers, Dr. McAfee made a case for a return to the subsidiary authority of sub-state level communities that can best care for the good of the human person.
Alberto Garzoni’s (University of Oxford) lecture dealt with the problem of conflicting loyalties of Catholics in light of the upcoming Hungarian elections. Competing religious and national identities raise the question, whether Catholicism and nationhood can coexist. Garzoni argued that Catholics can only be loyal to their nation if it does not become a pseudo-religious idolatry. He finds it problematic if religious institutions serve the ultimately secular aims of preserving national and cultural identity like in case of Hungarian minorities in Transylvania. For him, the universal nature of the common good should be a priority, which is best served through subsidiarity, and the ideology of Christian nationalism is contrary to that. Too much proximity of the Church to the nation-state poses a threat to the ultimate loyalty to the universal good.
The joint-lecture of Dr. Javier Crevillén (Villanueva University) and Dr. Juan Pablo Serra (CUNEF University) assessed the issue of how Catholic Social Teaching should respond to the challenge of mass-migration under the title “Can Christian Charity Have Borders? A Tradition-Informed Perspective on Migration”. The two Spanish scholars argued in favour of a prudent political solution, that would take into account both the legitimate moral claims of migrants and the equally legitimate claims of historical communities wanting to preserve their cultural and civic cohesion. The social teaching of Pope Francis somehow one-sidedly emphasized welcome, protection, promotion, and integration, but according to the lecturers, this primarily humanitarian perspective needs to be complemented from a broader and deeper tradition of the Church articulating the natural conditions under which charity must operate. Building on the insights of theological and philosophical sources describing the social and political nature of the human being, they urged that contemporary Catholic Social Thought must become sensitive to these nuances.
The opening day of the conference concluded with the keynote lecture of Prof. Dr. Ryszard Legutko (Jagellonian University), one of the leading Catholic intellectuals of our times, a professor of philosophy who actively participated in both Polish and European politics as well. Prof. Legutko traced back the sources of the current decline of the Western world to the idolatric nature of liberalism and socialism, which also impacted the Catholic Church as well. He considered the aggiornamento of the Second Vatican Council detrimental to the Church, referring to the assessment of Pope Paul VI himself, one of the initiators of this process, who in the aftermath spoke about a crack through which the smoke of Satan had entered the temple of God. In fact, the Second Vatican Council resulted in a loss of trust in the Church as it started to change the teaching of the Church itself. According to Prof. Legutko the process of adjusting the teaching of the Church to secular ideologies like Marxism through the adaptation of its conceptual apparatus lead to open acceptance of class struggle and social revolution within the Church in the form of Liberation Theology. This clearly goes against the aim of Catholic Social Teaching to restore social peace. Prof. Legutko also criticized the liberal concept of human rights, which has also been adapted by the Church along with the ideas that social and cultural progress is inevitable, and the concept of synodality according to which the teachings of the Church should be adjusted to the demands of the age, e.g., identity politics. In Prof. Legutko’s view, the demand for excessive freedom resulted in exactly the opposite, as Western liberal democracies have become increasingly restrictive of the freedom of speech, showing worrying totalitarian inclinations. This is also reflected by the growing hostility towards traditional groups within the Church under Pope Francis, who restricted the use of the Tridentine Mass. As the leaders of the Church have adopted secular ideology into the Social Teaching of the Church, necessary change can only come from below from ordinary believers of traditional devotion with the help of the Virgin Mary.
After Prof. Legutko’s lecture, an inaugural association meeting was held with the participation of many speakers of the conference, where the new scholarly institution Association for the Renewal of Catholic Political and Social Thought was officially established.
Thank you very much for this summary of the presentations. I am neither a theologian nor an academic, and, without claiming to fully grasp the depth of the reflections presented, these two reports allow me to better understand concrete applications of the Church’s Social Doctrine in the world.
For my part, I am following the opposite path, having discovered the Social Doctrine while searching for answers to how to respond in a Christian way to the problematic aspects of my work situation.
I am also very glad to see that nuanced and well-argued perspectives, inspired by the Gospel rather than by prevailing cultural trends of any kind, are being explored.