Jesus Christ and Catholic Social Thought
Catholic Social Thought (CST) has long and popularly been considered a ‘hidden gem’ of Roman Catholicism. Given its rich and public history, it would be good to explore why this is the case.
The social impetus of Christianity is clear from the Trinitarian God’s relationship with the people of Israel in the Old Testament. The numerous exhortations of the divinely inspired prophets to take care of the poor and widows is amplified in Christ’s ministry as reflected in the New Testament, and, I believe, summed up perfectly in Matthew 11:4-5 and Luke 7:22. To quote the former:
And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.
In Christ’s ministry, to the practical social dimension to take care of our neighbour is added a supernatural dimension anchored in Christ’s life-restoring agency, exemplified by his self-sacrificial death, resurrection from the dead, and his granting us eternal life. As such, it is the Eucharistic community that participates in Christ’s resurrection which must go out, aided by his grace, to help the poor and vulnerable.
Reading the great CST encyclicals by modern Popes, beginning with Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum published in 1893 and culminating in Pope Francis’ Fratelli Tutti (2020), one cannot but appreciate that behind every CST principle—the dignity of the human person, the rights of workers, the common good, solidarity and subsidiarity, economic justice, care for God’s creation, and the preferential option for the poor—is present the inescapability of Christ’s self-sacrificial love. CST must therefore not degenerate into ostensibly philanthropic activism that appeases selfish moralism but must be anchored in the experience of Christ’s love in the liturgical setting, and thereafter pour forth into the piazza to reclaim it for him as the only Son of God the Father.
It is only by acknowledging our weaknesses and the need to be conformed to Christ’s likeness by his grace—i.e. the indwelling of the Spirit—that the real transformation of the public square can take place, along the lines of the Church’s ‘hidden gem,’ Catholic Social Thought.