Weigel on Caritas

28 Responses to “Weigel on Caritas”

1. Halden
   July 7th, 2009 @ 10:15 am

   I thought Catholics were supposed to like, defer to the authority of the Pope when he writes these things…hmmm.

2. Davey Henreckson
   July 7th, 2009 @ 10:23 am

   It’s time for good Protestants to defend the pope from schismatics like Weigel, right?

3. John Henry
   July 7th, 2009 @ 10:46 am

   Um, I know it’s easy to snark here because it’s Weigel, but what exactly does “economic activity marked by quotas of gratuitoussness and communion mean?” Without supplying an obvious or even plausible interpretation of that passage, it seems to me you haven’t demonstrated anything other than that you don’t like George Weigel.

4. wj
   July 7th, 2009 @ 10:49 am

   The intellectual pomposity of Weigel reveals itself in his cavalier appropriation of subtle points made by the encyclical in order to support what he already thinks he knows about global politics. And I suppose this is to be expected. But it seems to me that what transforms his reading into a parody of itself is his simultaneous insistence on the importance of the concepts of “charity” and “giftedness” for understanding the encyclical along with claims he makes NOT TO UNDERSTAND how these concepts could apply to economic life. Writing about one of the Peace and Justice-influenced passages (Weigel just gets to decide, apparently, which sections of the encyclical are in keeping with Benedict’s true thought and which are the result of the Peace and Justice bureaucracy), he complains:

   Some of these are simply incomprehensible, as when the encyclical states that defeating Third World poverty and underdevelopment requires a “necessary openness, in a world context, to forms of economic activity marked by quotas of gratuitousness and communion.” This may mean something interesting; it may mean something naïve or dumb. But, on its face, it is virtually impossible to know what it means.

   Weigel’s juvenile dismissal of the passage in question proceeds by abstracting a small part of a larger paragraph, in which the Pope is decrying the bifurcation of all social reality into terms made available by the Market, on the one hand, and the State, on the other. Given this context, I challenge anyone *not* to understand what the Pope is here talking about, which, as he goes on TO EXPLICITLY STATE IN THE NEXT SENTENCE, involves “economic forms based on solidarity, which find their natural home in civil society without being restricted to it, build up society.” So the Pope is articulating how solidarity should become intrinsic to economic practice, and he is developing that point by recourse to his communio theology. One might not AGREE with his claim, but to argue, as Weigel does, that this passage not only is not intelligible but is NOT PART OF THE “REAL” ENCYCLICAL is preposterous at best and sinfully manipulative at worst.

5. Davey Henreckson
   July 7th, 2009 @ 10:56 am

   John,

   Benedict is alluding to an established tradition of solidarity… not to mention his invocation of Third Way economics in the next section. (Cf. John Paul II’s previous encyclical, Sollicitudo rei socialis.)

   Perhaps Weigel was looking for some recapitulation of established Catholic social teaching?

6. John Henry
   July 7th, 2009 @ 12:04 pm

   I don’t think that advances the ball much. You’ve provided only a link to another ambiguity-laden document and a bit of sarcasm in response. If you really think Weigel is creating ambiguities where there are none, perhaps you could summarize it concisely. To me, the phrase “economic activity marked by quotas of gratuitoussness and communion,” is unhelpful; there may be legitimate grounds for criticizing Weigel here (and there certainly are for criticizing Novak), but I don’t think you’ve articulated them.

7. wj
   July 7th, 2009 @ 12:09 pm

   Here is a cross-posted response on the passage in question:

   The pertinent section of paragraph 39 reads:

   When both the logic of the market and the logic of the State come to an agreement that each will continue to exercise a monopoly over its respective area of influence, in the long term much is lost: solidarity in relations between citizens, participation and adherence, actions of gratuitousness, all of which stand in contrast with giving in order to acquire (the logic of exchange) and giving through duty (the logic of public obligation, imposed by State law). In order to defeat underdevelopment, action is required not only on improving exchange-based transactions and implanting public welfare structures, but above all on gradually increasing openness, in a world context, to forms of economic activity marked by quotas of gratuitousness and communion. The exclusively binary model of market-plus-State is corrosive of society, while economic forms based on solidarity, which find their natural home in civil society without being restricted to it, build up society. The market of gratuitousness does not exist, and attitudes of gratuitousness cannot be established by law. Yet both the market and politics need individuals who are open to reciprocal gift.

   What Benedict is criticizing is the dual-hegemony of the Market and State, according to which these entities together purport to exhaust the reasons for acting on offer to a person. The Market proposes that the majority of human action be described according to a logic of exchange, while the State proposes that all action not accounted for by the logic of exchange be reduced to the logic of public obligation, or duty, as it is enforced by law. On the one hand, then, Benedict’s point is simply that a whole array of human social life is distorted and impoverished by this assumption: “solidarity in relations between citizens, participation and adherence, actions of gratuitousness,” all of these stand in opposition to the logic of the Market and the logic of the State. But, more radically, Benedict is proposing that a genuinely free and true development of the Third World cannot be achieved so long as it is left in the hands of either of these logics: what is required is a conception of economic activity that refuses to be constrained by the logic of exchange, one which prioritizes community and self-giving over profit, even while recognizing the necessity of profit for the ongoing success of the business enterprise. All of this is meant to be understood as proceeding from the theological observations which open the encyclical, and is meant primarily as a call to “individuals” to be “open to reciprocal gift.” Concrete examples of this sort of business activity abound: The Focolare Movement is a particularly successful one, but people engaged in micro-finance, the establishment of non-usurious but still successful credit unions in impoverished areas, etc., can all be seen to approach economic development from a vantage point that, in its stress on solidarity and community, escapes the logic of either the Market or State.

   Weigel claims not to find this intelligible. I say bullshit.

8. Halden
   July 7th, 2009 @ 12:12 pm

   Wow. Novak is completely crazy. A little less love and justice, please!

9. Davey Henreckson
   July 7th, 2009 @ 12:26 pm

   John,

   Fair enough — and I hope you saw that any lapse into sarcasm wasn’t directed at you. My apologies for catching you in the cross-fire.

   While my language may not be quite as… direct as WJ, I think he makes a good point. Benedict is proposing a system of economics which recognizes the need for common and shared goods, and in which self-interest does not play the self-correcting role that it does within laissez-faire economics. Benedict provides several practical suggestions about how this “new way” might work, including: limiting the scale of business, restoring proprietary influence to employees rather than investors (some form of ESOPs, perhaps?), regulating foreign investments to prevent exploitation, and restricting short-term financial speculation. These are all taken from just the paragraph subsequent to Weigel’s quotation.

   Like WJ said, you may or may not agree with Benedict’s suggestions, but I don’t know how Weigel can argue that Benedict was not lucid enough.

10. John Henry
    July 7th, 2009 @ 12:27 pm

    wj,

    I understand the market/state dichotomy BXVI is discussing, and I think it’s an important point; many libertarians argue that the encroachments of the welfare state should be resisted precisely for this reason – state activity has a crowding out effect that weakens mediating institutions. I’m not sure I buy that critique or not; it probably depends on the program. Conversely the single-minded focus on profit results in an instrumentalization and degradation of the human person. All that said, I still think “quotas of grautuitousness and communion” is infelicitous phrasing, and could cover a wide variety of activities – some of which could be could be good ideas, some of which could be bad ideas.

    I think Weigel’s highlight argument and hermeneutical approach to the document is a rather suspect form of argument from authority, but this post seems like the type of knee-jerk bash-Weigel post that takes the Iraq war as an opportunity to dismiss anything Weigel ever says again.

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12. John Henry
    July 7th, 2009 @ 12:36 pm

    Davey – I think we are in basic agreement about the meaning of the document. I think Weigel’s suggestion that the reader should cut and paste out the Peace and Justice sections, and focus on the real Benedict passages is unserious; he needs to make a better case than “Benedict didn’t really mean this – it was Justice and Peace bureaucrats” to support his interpretation. My complaint was much narrower, and it’s a difficulty I have with many of these documents: the language used sometimes strikes me as careless and imprecise. The ‘quotas of gratuitousness’ phrasing is an example of that imo.

13. John Henry
    July 7th, 2009 @ 12:38 pm

    Ironically, perhaps, you seized on one of the only points of agreement I have with Weigel in this post.

14. Davey Henreckson
    July 7th, 2009 @ 12:45 pm

    Blasted irony.

    I hope you plan to make your own comments on Weigel, Novak, et al, over at the AC blog.

15. JoeyG
    July 7th, 2009 @ 12:57 pm

    Crossreferencing the other language translations is illuminating, before we start going round in circles about whether Benedict’s “quotas” are some sort of Socialistic management of virtues. It’s a relatively simple point. The verb is “marked by” or “characterized by” and then he defines the “parts each” (French) or “margins” which ought to be the distinguishing features: gratuitousness and communion. In simpler terms, all he is saying is that socio-political structures, especially for the economy, can benefit by bringing in (at least by analogy) terms or rationalization from ethics and philosophy, rather than the simple amoral rationalizations commonly used.

16. John Henry
    July 7th, 2009 @ 12:59 pm

    I hope to write a post on it tonight. Cheers.

17. Michael
    July 7th, 2009 @ 3:08 pm

    George,

    You have finally been challenged by a Pope on your beliefs. Instead of acceding to the Pope, as you have told countless others to do in other circumstances, you whine. This is not the approach of a true Catholic or true Intellectual. Instead, we see your true color come out. The color looks a little like a Protest (tant). Is money really all that overwhelmingly important to you?

18. Davey Henreckson
    July 7th, 2009 @ 3:46 pm

    Looking forward to it, John.

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20. Nathan P. Origer
    July 8th, 2009 @ 10:18 pm

    I spent so much time reading comments about the encyclical that I’m only, now, slowly working through it. Slowly enough that I’m only to paragraph fifteen.

    And it’s here that something struck me. (And I preface this by noting that, not having made it any further, I can’t comment on how this all fits in with the tone and the substance of the bulk of C.i.V.) For all of the Weigelian hysteria about so-called leftist economic hullabaloo, paired with his championing of the “social conservatism” in the document, at this early point in the encyclical, the references to Humanae Vitae and Evangelii Nuntiandi seem to be far more out of place than the nefariously slipped in sections discussing and rooted in Populorum. If anything, those damn liberals should be upset that Benedict dared to speak of openness to life in an encyclical about the evils of capitalism.

    Just a muddled-headed late-night rumination.

21. Davey Henreckson
    July 9th, 2009 @ 5:22 am

    I know what you mean, Nathan. As a one of those schismatic Protestants, my scant knowledge of papal encyclicals was limited to John Paul II’s culture of life writings. And while I don’t want to draw a hard line, I did notice a distinctly different tenor in Benedict’s CV. The “Justice and Peace” passages, as Weigel termed them, seemed to be the very heart of the encyclical. I know that some disagree with that assessment. However, Benedict’s policy recommendations (which no one seems to mention!) are nothing short of systemic.

22. Nathan P. Origer
    July 9th, 2009 @ 11:44 am

    Ugh, Davey, your Protestantism strikes me, at least presently, as being a lot more orthodox than the Catholicism parading by so many of the Intelligentsia.

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25. Sam Rocha
    July 13th, 2009 @ 11:47 am

    http://vox-nova.com/2009/07/13/weigel-is-right/

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