The Audacity of the Pope

Papal encyclicals are supposed to be written with one eye on two millenniums of Catholic teaching, and the other on eternity. But Americans, as a rule, have rather narrower horizons. As soon as the media have finished scanning a Vatican document for references to sex, the debate begins in earnest: Is it good for the left, or for the right? For Democrats, or for Republicans?
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Susan Etheridge for The New York Times

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This was true in the 1950s, when the young William F. Buckley Jr. famously feuded with liberals over how much respect he owed to papal pronouncements on economic matters.

It was true in the 1990s, when conservatives eagerly cited John Paul II's condemnations of abortion and euthanasia, while liberals countered by noting his criticisms of the death penalty.

And it's especially true today, when a document like "Caritas in Veritate" ("Charity in Truth"), the third encyclical of Benedict XVI's papacy -- whose release, last Tuesday, was slightly overshadowed by a celebrity funeral of some sort -- can be wrangled over endlessly within hours of showing up online.

These arguments never seem to go anywhere. When a pope criticizes legalized abortion, liberal Catholics nod and say that yes, they agree, it's a terrible tragedy ... but of course they can't impose their religious values on a secular society. When a pope endorses the redistribution of wealth, conservative Catholics stroke their chins and say that yes, they agree, society needs a safety net ... but of course they're duty-bound to oppose the tyranny of big government. And when the debate isn't going their way, left and right both fall back on flaccid rhetoric about how the papal message "transcends politics," and shouldn't be turned to any partisan purpose.

"Caritas in Veritate" has been no exception. It's a "social" encyclical, in the church's parlance, covering issues ranging from globalization and the environment to unions and the welfare state. Inevitably, liberal Catholics spent the past week touting its relevance to the Democratic Party's policy positions. (A representative blast e-mail: "Pope's Encyclical on Global Economy Supports the Principles of the Employee Free Choice Act.") Just as inevitably, conservative Catholics hastened to explain that the encyclical "is not a political document" -- to quote a statement co-authored by the House minority leader, John Boehner -- and shouldn't be read as "an endorsement of any political or economic agenda."

Boehner is half right. The pope is not a Democrat or a Republican, and his vision doesn't fit the normal categories of American politics.

But Benedict's encyclical is nothing if not political. "Caritas in Veritate" promotes a vision of economic solidarity rooted in moral conservatism. It links the dignity of labor to the sanctity of marriage. It praises the redistribution of wealth while emphasizing the importance of decentralized governance. It connects the despoiling of the environment to the mass destruction of human embryos.

This is not a message you're likely to hear in Barack Obama's next State of the Union, or in the Republican Party's response. It represents a kind of left-right fusionism with little traction in American politics.

But that's precisely what makes it so relevant and challenging -- for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

We're passing through the worst economic dislocation of the past 80 years. Our politics are polarized; our institutions gridlocked. The governing party is mistrusted, the minority party despised.

Yet there's remarkably little radical thinking taking place. The Republican Party is retrenching, falling back on Reagan-era verities. His promises of post-partisan change notwithstanding, Barack Obama's agenda looks like the same old Democratic laundry list, rewritten in a sleeker, Internet-era font.

This doesn't mean that America needs a third party with "Caritas in Veritate" as its platform. The church is not a think tank, and there's room for wide disagreement about how to put its social teaching into practice.

But Catholics are obliged to take seriously the underlying provocation of the papal message -- namely, that our present political alignments are not the only ones imaginable, and that truth may not be served by perfect ideological conformity.

So should all people of good will. For liberals and conservatives alike, "Caritas in Veritate" is an invitation to think anew about their alliances and litmus tests.

Why should being pro-environment preclude being pro-life? Why can't Republicans worry about economic inequality, and Democrats consider devolving more power to localities and states? Does opposing the Iraq war mean that you have to endorse an anything-goes approach to bioethics? Does supporting free trade require supporting the death penalty?

These questions, and many others like them, are the kind that a healthy political system would allow voters and politicians to explore.

But for now, at least, you're more likely to find them being raised in Benedict XVI's Vatican than in Barack Obama's Washington. source>>>

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