On June 18 the encyclical Laudato Si was officially published. This encyclical, subtitled “On care for our common home”, is Pope Francis’ second after Lumen Fidei. The style of Laudato Si is cautious and undogmatic, and the Pope is, in his own words “concerned to encourage an honest and open debate so that particular interests or ideologies will not prejudice the common good (Laudato Si, 188). Nevertheless some Catholics have greeted the document with a degree of reserve or even hostility.
Firstly, I would like to echo a point made by the American blogger Scott Eric Alt who challenges those Catholics who, as he says, poo poo this encyclical on the grounds that it is not infallible teaching. He observes that they sound very like those Catholics who base their rejection of Humanae Vitae on the same premiss:
…the suggestion that one can ignore this encyclical, but not Humanae Vitae, is specious. On what grounds? Progressive Catholics are wrong to reject Humanae Vitae, but you’re right to reject Laudato Si? Without a very solid rationale for that kind of thing, all you’re saying is that you accept the one because you like it and reject the other because you don’t. That makes each of us his or her own Magisterium (See scottericalt.org/laudato-si-is-a-hard-teaching-and-we-must-accept-it).
So just how infallible is an encyclical? While it is true to say that it is not necessarily infallible, Catholics give “religious assent” to many areas of Church teaching which have not been infallibly defined. In the words of one theologian:
Despite the comparative inadequacy of the treatment they give to the papal encyclical, however, all the theological works dealing with this subject make it perfectly clear that all Catholics are bound seriously in conscience to accept the teaching contained in these documents with a true internal religious assent (Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton, ‘The Doctrinal Authority of Papal Encyclicals’ from the American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. CXXI, August, 1949, pp. 136-150).
The way language is used in an encyclical, or any other papal pronouncement, points to the degree of assent required by a faithful Catholic. And so when the Pope teaches something as infallible teaching, in an encyclical or elsewhere, this will – and must be – clear to the faithful. This is laid down in Canon Law: “No doctrine is understood to be infallibly defined unless this is manifestly demonstrated” (Code of Canon Law, 749 #3).
So, for instance, the manner in which Pope Francis speaks of global warming in Laudato Si, clearly shows that he is not wishing to enshrine it as Church teaching, but simply that the acceptance of global warming has solid scientific backing: “A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system” (Laudato Si, 23).
Scott Eric Alt suggests that the reason why some Catholics are uneasy with Laudato Si is simply that it is very challenging:
The real problem people are having with the Pope’s teaching is because to follow it would mean to change a style of modern living that we have become so accustomed to that we are addicted to it. To follow it would mean changing our habits of consumption and excess. That is why some people hate Laudato Si so much.
What people hate so much about Laudato Si is that it is telling us that we are not God and we are not the lords of the creation; we are not the lords of material things; we are not the lords of our own money; and we are not the lords of other human beings. And we are not the lords of ourselves. That is what people – both on the right and the left – so despise about what the Pope has said here.
This certainly rings true; what Pope Francis teaches here is very challenging to those of us who live within the relative opulence of the Western world. We are liable to consider as normal the rampant consumerism that surrounds us … and we’re not happy to be shaken out of our consumerist slumbers.
Now, in Europe at least, we’re seeing headlines which speak of “economic recovery” and of “accelerated business growth in the Euro zone”, but I find myself beginning to wonder if we who live in countries which experienced such hardship and anguish in the wake of the 2007-08 financial crash are a bit like those goldfish who have forgotten their first lap of the goldfish bowl by the time they begin the second. In the encyclical Pope Francis warns us, in words very applicable to the Irish experience, not to be so superficial:
Politics must not be subject to the economy, nor should the economy be subject to the dictates of an efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy. Today, in view of the common good, there is urgent need for politics and economics to enter into a frank dialogue in the service of life, especially human life. Saving banks at any cost, making the public pay the price, foregoing a firm commitment to reviewing and reforming the entire system, only reaffirms the absolute power of a financial system, a power which has no future and will only give rise to new crises after a slow, costly and only apparent recovery. The financial crisis of 2007-08 provided an opportunity to develop a new economy, more attentive to ethical principles, and new ways of regulating speculative financial practices and virtual wealth. But the response to the crisis did not include rethinking the outdated criteria which continue to rule the world (Laudato Si, 189) (italics mine).
Certainly there appears to have been precious little post-crash analysis aimed at getting to the fundamental causes of the 2007-08 financial crisis, and there has been no noticeable critique of the rampant consumerism which preceded the crash, nor any significant rethinking of the kind of economic models which lead to such dysfunction. There has been a certain tweaking of laws related to bank lending etc but nothing touching on the “efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy” which lay at the heart of the crisis. All of us, Catholics and non-Catholics, should heed the warnings of Pope Francis (fallible or infallible!); otherwise we are doomed as he says, to experience, as he writes, “new crises after a slow, costly and only apparent recovery”.