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Spring
Books Troubling tension brings drama to history of social
ethics
CATHOLIC SOCIAL
TEACHING, 1891-PRESENT: A HISTORICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL
ANALYSIS By Charles E. Curran Georgetown University Press, 256
pages, $49.95 |
REVIEWED By ANDREW
SKOTNICKI
One hears it stated that Catholic
ethics is more perplexing and the disputes more intractable in the area of
personal morality than in the area of social ethics. Many commentators, Charles
Curran among them, have noted that Catholicisms natural law heritage
yields troubling conclusions when its teleological and biological aspects are
directed, for example, to sexual morality.
While all would certainly not agree that the natural law has
ambiguous value as a moral guide, no one would doubt that Catholic ethics in
personal matters has been the locus of contentious differences among varying
foundational principles and, to say the least, varying ethicists.
On the other hand, it has been just as noteworthy that Catholic
social teaching, to use an ironic metaphor, has not proven to be a field of
battle, by and large, for rival ethical warriors. In fact, it has been lauded
by virtually all commentators, despite methodological differences, as a
singular achievement, both in crafting a unique and, to many, inspiring
economic and political vision as well as an impressive and consistent set of
moral principles.
Currans latest volume disturbs the tranquility of those who
think the only disputes in social teaching are polite disagreements over the
interpretation of principles held in mutual regard. His volume, though in many
ways complementary and written in the style of one who knows and loves the
church, uncovers a fundamental discord in the development of the social
doctrine since the first papal encyclical directed at specifically social
matters was drafted by Leo XIII in 1891.
Once again, as with personal moral issues, the roots of the
disharmony lie within the natural law, specifically the neo-scholastic
interpretation of it made normative for the church in Leos pontificate.
Curran demonstrates that the hierarchical schema of scholastic thought, in
which the church as a supernatural entity stands morally above the natural
human sphere, dominated official Catholic pronouncements until the Vatican
Council of the mid 1960s.
It was there that a more democratic, dialogical model focused on
the subject and a more collegial appreciation of the churchs role within
national and world affairs was unveiled.
The appearance of the new theological, ethical, and ecclesial
understanding did not replace the old model, however. The two now exist, as the
text painstakingly reveals, in a troubling tension, one taking precedence over
the other in various key documents. One of the results is that Catholic
teaching, while continually employing age-old, and still timely, concepts such
as living wage, common good and the sacredness of the person, is left without
consistent methodological direction.
The other result, equally troubling, Curran contends, is that
documents since Vatican II often reveal a papal sleight of hand, or an
unwritten subtext in which fundamental disagreements are hidden between the
lines, or craftily reconfigured in the effort to present a consistent teaching.
Thus the pontiff or synod can claim that their predecessors, no matter how
wrong they may have been, are always held in happy memory.
One of the satisfying aspects of the book is the insight into some
of the conflicts and compromises that accompanied the creation of several of
the traditions most memorable and important documents. Curran reveals,
for example, how the differences between Marie-Dominique Chenu, the French
Dominican theologian, and Pope John Paul II were played out in the pages of
Solicitudo Rei Socialis. Chenu had claimed that the social
doctrine of the church, viewed by him as a deductive and rigid
misappropriation of Aquinas, had come to an end with the liberal reforms of the
Vatican Council. John Paul then, in silent chastisement, made it a point to
mention that very term in the encyclical and underscore its continuing
relevance.
Similar insights bring energy and a sense of drama to the
construction of key texts. They also accentuate the importance of what Curran
is attempting to do in focusing not so much on what the church teaches as on
the competing methodological frameworks that shape the style, interpretation
and direction of the teaching.
Despite the overall value of this volume, it is not without
noticeable flaws. For one who takes such pains to magnify the historical and
contingent dimension of ethics and ethicists, Curran apparently assumes
everyone knows his take on things as he formally reveals nothing of
his own methodological prejudice until the very end of the book.
The reader is advised, particularly if not familiar with the
authors previous publications, to begin with the afterword. There the
logic that guides the manuscript is presented. It is an unfortunate
placement.
Much of the first half of the work is punctuated with a running
and highly critical commentary on neo-scholasticism generally (authoritarian,
paternalistic and so on), and Leo XIII particularly. The sniping is continuous
and distracting to the overall project of systematic analysis.
Had Curran made his point in the beginning concerning the split
between natural law and the post-conciliar relation-responsibility model, the
reader could have been spared the repetitive needling of neo-scholasticism that
mars the flow and readability of what is an important volume, but could
otherwise have been a far better one.
Andrew Skotnicki is a Carmelite priest and professor of
Catholic social ethics at St. Patricks Seminary, Menlo Park,
Calif.
National Catholic Reporter, February 1,
2002
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