12.11.04 - Catholic teaching: The new zeitgeist for Britain’s Left
Summary:
A new zeitgeist is capturing business people, academics and political players from both the Left and Right, looking for an ethical alternative for our time. Their inspiration? Catholic teaching.
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Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) is considered by the Catholic Church to be its greatest theologian. He taught that property is for common good. Whatever you have that is more than you need will be taken away and given to others. His dangerous ideals are again in vogue, as we see from the article below:
A depiction of Thomas Aquinas in a Belgian cathedral.
Source: Wikimedia Commons....
Source: Wikimedia Commons....
In many ways these are difficult times for the Catholic Church. Congregations in England are still in decline, child abuse scandals around the world have cast a long shadow and in many areas of policy - from euthanasia to gay marriage - the church's fixed positions make it sound outdated and out of touch.
Yet in the last couple of months I have received some intriguing invitations from Catholic friends: one to an event on business ethics organised by Catholic bishops and featuring some of our most high-profile corporate leaders.
Another to a discussion of the progressive values after the credit crunch with prominent Labour advisors and Catholic theologians.
The common thread running through these events is a set of ideas going under the name "Catholic Social Teaching"...
Although its roots can be traced back not just to the Bible, but to the ideas of Aristotle, rediscovered in the 13th Century by St. Thomas Aquinas, the modern expression of Catholic Social Teaching came in an encyclical - the highest form of papal teaching - titled Rerum Novarum and issued in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII.
The Pope offered the "gift" of Catholic social thought to a troubled world.
He called on the one hand for compassion for the poor and respect for the dignity of labour and, on the other hand, for respect for property and the family - all held together by the core idea of the common good.
The encyclical can be seen as the Church both realigning itself towards the concerns of the urban working-class, but also seeking to find a path of reform as an alternative to the growing threat of revolutionary unrest.
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