Catholic social teaching, liberal, conservative?

[linate]

i can say right off the bat that catholic churches blatant socialism is wrong. they also teach things like subsidiarity and solidarity. and the bit more vague distributism. here are some quotes from popes that say progressive sounding things, in a conservative ish way.
this is surely what gives CC social teaching a somewhat progressive name, no?
if you try to reconcile all the teachings, below, socialism, etc, doesn’t it a progressive tint to it?
what are the thoughts of folks around here?
at a lot of other boards, it is considered conservative, and these quotes etc are largely ignored.
i realize there are no explicit citations, but a simple google search will provide the source if you want to look into anything.

QUOTE
Now if the earth truly was created to provide man with the necessities of life and the tools for his own progress, it follows that every man has the right to glean what he needs from the earth. The recent Council reiterated this truth. All other rights, whatever they may be, including the rights of property and free trade, are to be subordinated to this principle. They should in no way hinder it; in fact, they should actively facilitate its implementation. Redirecting these rights back to their original purpose must be regarded as an important and urgent social duty.

QUOTE
Government officials, it is your concern to mobilize your peoples to form a more effective world solidarity, and above all to make them accept the necessary taxes on their luxuries and their wasteful expenditures, in order to bring about development and to save the peace

QUOTE
"Individual initiative alone and the interplay of competition will not ensure satisfactory development. We cannot proceed to increase the wealth and power of the rich while we entrench the needy in their poverty and add to the woes of the oppressed. Organized programs are necessary for “directing, stimulating, coordinating, supplying and integrating” (35) the work of individuals and intermediary organizations. It is for the public authorities to establish and lay down the desired goals, the plans to be followed, and the methods to be used in fulfilling them; and it is also their task to stimulate the efforts of those involved in this common activity. "

QUOTE
�it has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation:the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone.

QUOTE
Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely, that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accept harder conditions because an employer or contractor will afford him no better, he is made the victim of force and injustice.

QUOTE
What was true of the just wage for the individual is also true of international contracts: an economy of exchange can no longer be based solely on the law of free competition, a law which, in its turn, too often creates an economic dictatorship. Freedom of trade is fair only if it is subject to the demands of social justice.

QUOTE
To labor is to exert oneself for the sake of procuring what is necessary for the various purposes of life, and chief of all for self preservation. Hence, a man’s labor necessarily bears two notes or characters. First, it is personal, inasmuch as the force which acts is bound up with the personality and is the exclusive property of him who acts, and, further, was given to him for his advantage. Secondly, man’s labor is necessary; for without the result of labor a man cannot live, and self-preservation is a law of nature, which it is wrong to disobey. Now, were we to consider labor merely in so far as it is personal, doubtless it would be within the workman’s right to accept any rate of wages whatsoever; for in the same way as he is free to work or not, so is he free to accept a small wage or even none at all. But our conclusion must be very different if, together with the personal element in a man’s work, we consider the fact that work is also necessary for him to live: these two aspects of his work are separable in thought, but not in reality.

The preservation of life is the bounden duty of one and all, and to be wanting therein is a crime. It necessarily follows that each one has a natural right to procure what is required in order to live, and the poor can procure that in no other way than by what they can earn through their work.

 

[linate]

QUOTE
property is acquired first of all through work in order that it may serve work. This concerns in a special way ownership of the means of production. Isolating these means as a separate property in order to set it up in the form of "capital"in opposition to “labour”-and even to practise exploitation of labour-is contrary to the very nature of these means and their possession. They cannot be possessed against labour,they cannot even be possessed for possession’s sake, because the only legitimate title to their possession- whether in the form of private ownerhip or in the form of public or collective ownership-is that they should serve labour,and thus, by serving labour,that they should make possible the achievement of the first principle of this order,namely,the universal destination of goods and the right to common use of them.

From this point of view,therefore,in consideration of human labour and of common access to the goods meant for man,one cannot exclude the socialization,in suitable conditions,of certain means of production.

QUOTE
Legislation is necessary, but it is not sufficient for setting up true relationships of justice and equality…If, beyond legal rules, there is really no deeper feeling of respect for and service to others, then even equality before the law can serve as an alibi for flagrant discrimination, continued exploitation and actual contempt. Without a renewed education in solidarity, an over-emphasis on equality can give rise to an individualism in which each one claims his own rights without wishing to be answerable for the common good.

QUOTE
In other words, the rule of free trade, taken by itself, is no longer able to govern international relations. Its advantages are certainly evident when the parties involved are not affected by any excessive inequalities of economic power: it is an incentive to progress and a reward for effort. That is why industrially developed countries see in it a law of justice. But the situation is no longer the same when economic conditions differ too widely from country to country: prices which are " freely n set in the market can produce unfair results.

QUOTE
Given these conditions, it is obvious that individual countries cannot rightly seek their own interests and develop themselves in isolation from the rest, for the prosperity and development of one country follows partly in the train of the prosperity and progress of all the rest and partly produces that prosperity and progress.

QUOTE
Interdependence must be transformed into solidarity, grounded on the principle that the goods of creation are meant for all. Avoiding every type of imperialism, the stronger nations must feel responsible for the other nations, based on the equality of all peoples and with respect for the differences.

 

[Operalan]

Without citation (and it is the “responsibility” of the he/she who posts to provide the citation), there is no way to determine complete context, emphasis, or what the point is of the statement provided.

Were the words of Christ progressive or conservative? Are the teachings of the Church as laid out in the Catechism progressive or conservative? Are the teachings of Christ and of the Church the same? Too many people try to take statements and then use them to define the Church. The Church, and its teachings, are already defined.

 

[St_Francis]

Both what we in the US call liberalism and conservatism derive from the thought of the so-called Enlightenment. As such, they are the progeny of a philosophy which aspired to rid humanity of the need for God by improving man by various means.

Catholic social teaching is derived from Catholic teaching. As such, it is correct, taking into account both man’s need for God and human nature.

Are some aspects of Catholic social teaching shared by other philosophies? Yes. Have some taken over and abused the Catholic term “social justice”? Yes.

But these facts do not in any way mean that true Catholic social teaching is not related at all to either liberalism or conservatism, or any other other philosphical decendants of the “Enlightenment.”

 

[Kal2012]

Liberal and Conservative are political constructs. Not church constructs.

19th century Liberalism isn’t what people mean by the term “Liberal” today. Today, the term Liberalism is often associated with the modern social welfare state, not individual rights/freedom. Two different eras/two different meanings/same word.

Church teaching isn’t “Liberal” or “Conservative” - it’s church teaching. There are aspects that are considered “liberal” because it matches up to policies supported by modern Leftists. There are aspects considered “conservative” because they are supported by modern conservatives.

However, we need to be careful not to reject certain teachings because they don’t mesh with our personal political views.

 

[fallow_spirit]

Catholic social teaching is Catholic, plain and simple. It has some ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ elements to it. Despite what people might say, no one party is the God’s voice for America, neither Republicans nor Democrats (for the US). So yes, there probably are some things in progressive/liberal thought that are compatible with Catholic social teaching (imo more than people might think), but that doesn’t mean that the Catholic Church embraces all that particular philosophy holds to.

And I agree with others, citation of those quotes would be nice.

 

[Operalan]

I would like to know the teaching of the “neo orthodox protestant-ish” church. Is the teaching of this church “progressive” or “conservative”?

 

[St_Francis]

Linate,
Aside from your actual question, one thing you may not know about Catholic teachings is that it is responsive to what the people need to hear.

It is rather like teaching someone to drive a car. First the teacher says to move away from the center of the road, in a moment the teacher may instruct the student to move away from the edge of the road.

As it happens, we more often need to be warned against greed than against profligacy in aid of the poor, and many of the documents reflect that sad truth. Also, each document is rooted in history, so Rerum Novarum was written when the excesses of the industrial Revolution were taking place, Populorum Progressivo during the Depression, etc .

Check out Centissimis Annum for the Church’s teaching on an overwhelming welfare state:
In recent years the range of such intervention has vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type of State, the so-called “Welfare State”. This has happened in some countries in order to respond better to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the human person. However, excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the “Social Assistance State”. Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.100

By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbours to those in need. It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human need. One thinks of the condition of refugees, immigrants, the elderly, the sick, and all those in circumstances which call for assistance, such as drug abusers: all these people can be helped effectively only by those who offer them genuine fraternal support, in addition to the necessary care.