The Return of the Social Question?

The return of the “social question” was how one Catholic commentator in France described the protest movement in his country of the gilets jaunes or “yellow vests”. The rise of the gilets jaunes in France since 2018 has received superficial coverage in Ireland, with commentary focusing either on the original petrol price rise that prompted the movement or on the quite unacceptable violence used by groups attaching themselves to the protests or on the problems the movement caused for the Presidency of Emmanuel Macron.

These aspects are all important but deeper questions about this movement and its causes have received less attention. A recent summer school* in France provided a stimulating analysis of the gilets jaunes conflict.

The Catholic bishop of Montauban spoke of his efforts to encounter and engage in dialogue with the protesters. A Christian trade union leader linked the conflict to the question of a “just wage”, highlighted by St Thomas Aquinas and later by Pope Leo XIII and successive Popes. A just wage, he noted, implied the right for the worker and his or her family to live in a decent way.

Drawing on research evidence, another speaker characterized the gilets jaunes as people who were working rather than unemployed. However, they were usually not in well-rewarded jobs and often lacked university qualifications. They generally lived more than forty kilometres from large cities so did not benefit from the public transport facilities of such cities. Their work required them to make daily or at least very regular work trips by car so they needed a car in the same way as the city dweller needs public transport.

They were people who were struggling financially and felt themselves to be “off the radar” of public life in key areas of life such as welfare policy and cultural life, including television coverage, while overall Government priorities highlighted EU and environmental concerns but not so much the needs of those living in the “peripheral” areas of France.

The plight of the gilets jaunes can be linked to general trends such as the concentration of jobs and services and opportunities in big centres – a well-known intellectual from Paris has stated that he felt closer to an inhabitant of Berlin than to someone from Picardy! Other factors of importance include the small pensions of certain categories of worker or farmer, and the relative lack of influence of “intermediate groups” – for example, voluntary associations or trade unions – between the Government and the individual.

Many parallels could be drawn with Ireland, including the concentration of resources and activity in the greater Dublin area, even if the capital city also faces huge housing, healthcare and other challenges. A national newspaper columnist recently acknowledged that many rural communities both felt “left behind” and had actually been left behind. This reality has arguably impacted on issues such as the beef protests, the controversies about the placing of “direct provision” centres, without adequate consultation, in small towns, and concerns about the loss of local facilities such as schools, post offices and Garda stations.

In his encyclical, Centesimus Annus, in 1991, Pope St John Paul II underlined the need for the Church to engage with the social challenges of its time. He noted that two perspectives on faith and society prevailed in the late nineteenth century, neither of which was receptive to an active Church voice on social questions. One perspective, he contended, “was directed to this world and this life, to which faith ought to remain extraneous; the other directed towards a purely other-worldly salvation, which neither enlightens nor directs existence on earth” (CA, 5).

In other words , a form of compartmentalisation operated – on the one hand, it was felt, there was this world and this life, with which faith should not get involved or interfere; and on the other, there was a belief in a purely other-worldly salvation, which has nothing to do with life on earth.

Leo XIII’s great 1891 encyclical on the situation of the industrial working class – Rerum Novarum – made clear, John Paul stressed, that the Church could not turn aside from the challenges of the world but had to engage fully with those challenges.

In Ireland, the term “social issues” has often been used in the media in recent decades to mean the lengthy debates about questions such as abortion, divorce, and same-sex marriage. These issues are of fundamental importance and Christians will need to continue to make their voices heard on the right to life, the dignity of marriage and related issues.

However, the “social question” for the Church originally meant the plight of the working class in nineteenth century Europe, to which Leo XIII responded powerfully in Rerum Novarum. That document highlighted the importance of a “just wage”, defended the worker’s right of association and underlined the State’s particular responsibility to protect the poor.

One way of linking “the social question” and “social issues”, as described above, might be to say that a radical individualism often characterises the approach of the State and the media to both and that they are often inter-twined, for example, in relation to the possible impact of divorce on poverty or mental health.

As well as marriage and life issues, the social and economic problems of today are thus of critical importance for the Church, for example, issues relating to the provision of healthcare, housing and education, to migration policy and the rights of all concerned, to a family “living wage”, and to urban-rural divides. Whether or not it ever went away and thus needs to “return”, the “social question” is clearly of fundamental importance for Christians in Ireland and elsewhere, particularly in these times of great uncertainty.

*That French-speaking summer school, the l’Université d’Été de la Sainte-Baume, (https://uesb.fr) is an excellent annual event, which is held each August near an ancient shrine associated with St Mary Magdalen.