National Sovereignty and the Universal Good

[Vouthon]

I see a tension between national sovereignty as it is traditionally understood, in the so-called ‘Westphalian’ sense, and the universal common good that is demanded by both the precepts of natural law and the contemporary phenomenon of globalization.

In 2011, a note by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace incurred the ire of quite a few people on this forum as I recall, for uttering statements such as the following:

vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20111024_nota_en.html

Modern States became structured wholes over time and reinforced sovereignty within their own territory. But social, cultural and political conditions have gradually changed. Their interdependence has grown – so it has become natural to think of an international community that is integrated and increasingly ruled by a shared system – but a worse form of nationalism has lingered on, according to which the State feels it can achieve the good of its own citizens in a self-sufficient way.

Today all of this seems anachronistic and surreal, and all nations, great or small, together with their governments, are called to go beyond the “state of nature” which would keep States in a never-ending struggle with one another. Globalization, despite some of its negative aspects, is unifying peoples more and prompting them to move towards a new “rule of law” on the supranational level, supported by more intense and fruitful modes of collaboration. With dynamics similar to those that put an end in the past to the “anarchical” struggle between rival clans and kingdoms with regard to the creation of national states, today humanity needs to be committed to the transition from a situation of archaic struggles between national entities, to a new model of a more cohesive, polyarchic international society that respects every people’s identity within the multifaceted riches of a single humanity. Such a passage, which is already timidly under way, would ensure peace and security, development, and free, stable and transparent markets for the citizens of all countries, regardless of their size or power…

The time has come to conceive of institutions with universal competence, now that vital goods shared by the entire human family are at stake, goods which individual States cannot promote and protect by themselves.

The conditions exist for going definitively beyond a ‘Westphalian’ international order in which States feel the need for cooperation but do not seize the opportunity to integrate their respective sovereignties for the common good of peoples.

It is the task of today’s generation to recognize and consciously to accept these new world dynamics for the achievement of a universal common good. Of course, this transformation will be made at the cost of a gradual, balanced transfer of a part of each nation’s powers to a world Authority and to regional Authorities, but this is necessary at a time when the dynamism of human society and the economy and the progress of technology are transcending borders, which are in fact already very eroded in a globalized world.

The birth of a new society and the building of new institutions with a universal vocation and competence are a prerogative and a duty for everyone, without distinction. What is at stake is the common good of humanity and the future itself.

Do some people honestly think that this is a “modern” idea in the Catholic Church? An infiltration by the “loony left” and utopian fantasies? Some manifestation of the ‘spirit of Vtican II’ that has no basis in the Church’s tradition? This could not be further removed from the truth.

I have here a monumental work of Catholic philosophy from the 19th century, which not only received the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur but was published in 1876 with a brief from Blessed Pope Pius XI.

It called for precisely the same “universal society of nations”. I shall quote it in the next post.

 

[Vouthon]

Christian Philosophy 52

**Elementary Course

of

CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY

Based on the Principles of
the Best Scholastic Authors

Adapted from the French of
Brother Louis of Poissy

by

The Brothers of the Christian Schools

Nihil Obstat.
D. J. McMAHON, D.D.

Imprimatur.

• MICHAEL AUGUSTINE,
  ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK

NEW YORK, Aug. 11, 1898.**

Brief of Our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX

*To our Beloved Son, Brother Louis of Poissy, of the Congregation of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, Beziers.
PIUS IX., POPE.

BELOVED SON, HEALTH AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION…

We are glad that the Elementary Course of Christian Philosophy, which you have published, has received the approbation of a Bishop so distinguished as yours; and with him we earnestly wish that it may prove beneficial to many.

In the meantime, as a presage of the divine favor and a pledge of our paternal love, we very affectionately impart to you, Beloved Son, the Apostolic Benediction.

**Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, March 18, 1876, in the thirtieth year of Our Pontificate.

PIUS IX., POPE***.

…

Part III. The Common Law of Nations.

1. Nations attain the perfection proper to them only when they constitute a universal society. – Man tends naturally at all times to enlarge the circle of his social relations; the ultimate term of this tendency is the universal association of people. The collection of rights and duties resulting from this universal association constitutes the common law of nations, which, like individual and social law, has its foundation in nature itself.

…

Chapter IV. The Society of Nations.

1. The nations are destined by nature to unite under a new and more extended form of society. – The nations, finding themselves in contact with one another, are obliged to aspire to a common good, which consists in order; it is, therefore, the design of nature that they form a universal society. The same conclusion is drawn from the need which nations experience of associating for their material, intellectual, and moral development.

119.** The universal society of nations, far from injuring their independence, is its surest guarantee**. – As civil society is the most powerful protection of the domestic order, so the universal society of nations is destined to assure the national independence and upright government of each of the associated peoples.

1. The authority destined to rule this universal society is naturally polyarchical, but it may also be monarchical. – Nations are in themselves equal, therefore they all naturally share the authority in the person of their representatives who are united in a general assembly. Yet it depends on their will to delegate the whole power to one, as happened in the empire of the middle ages.

1. The associated nations should apply themselves to the gradual formation of a government endowed in the highest degree with unity and efficacy; and this government should have threefold power, legislative, executive, and judiciary. – The government of this universal society should possess the conditions of all government. The more it is one and efficacious, the more will harmony reign among the nations. If all international controversies and all the abuses of power by those who govern could legitimately be summoned to its tribunal, there would soon be an end of all international or civil war.

I would seek thoughts on this from other posters, since it is an element of Catholic Social Teaching that seems to cause consternation with certain quarters of American Catholicism in particular and I wish to under ‘why’? Should the Church not be heeded in this area? Why should nationalism be prioritized above Church teaching?

 

[GEddie]

National sovereignty is a virus that causes the earth to break out in bomb scars and young dead bodies at least once a generation. One day, as with the tribe and the city-state, the world will evolve past it.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Exiled_Child]

I’m reminded of Joan of Arc and the whole “God save France” idea. Frankly, I’ve never been able to understand the thinking behind that.

 

[GEddie]

I’m reminded of Joan of Arc and the whole “God save France” idea. Frankly, I’ve never been able to understand the thinking behind that.

I’m confused as to what she did to earn canonization. Without questioning the Church’s wisdom, certainly there was more there than patriotism and physical courage?

 

[BackHand]

National sovereignty is a virus that causes the earth to break out in bomb scars and young dead bodies at least once a generation. One day, as with the tribe and the city-state, the world will evolve past it.

ICXC NIKA

And evolve past religion too? Lets disband the Vatican. No need for a sate right? No need to enforce rule of law because people are intrinsically good. Abortion is fine, open borders, drugs. No regulations. Nothing to protect a culture and people.

Oh yeah lets not forget all the horrible things religion has done. 9/11, The Inquisition, witch trials, crusades, I mean the Catholic Church did support Fascists so that’s a plus, why can’t we go back to the good old days of Francisco Franco and Mussolini?

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
Like this?

 

[GEddie]

And evolve past religion too? Lets disband the Vatican. No need for a sate right? No need to enforce rule of law because people are intrinsically good. Abortion is fine, open borders, drugs. No regulations. Nothing to protect a culture and people.

Religion and governance are, or should be, separate spheres.

 

[BackHand]

Religion and governance are, or should be, separate spheres.

I agree but we are talking about the justification for the sate, do you agree that abortion should be legal? You wouldn’t be tempted to restrict it using the sate?

Because in a stateless society it would be legal, government like it or not enforces morality.

 

[Vouthon]

I’m reminded of Joan of Arc and the whole “God save France” idea. Frankly, I’ve never been able to understand the thinking behind that.

France was not a nation in the 15th century. The French Revolution of 1789 turned the pluralistic Kingdom of France, with its regional dialects and provincial diversity controlled by royal appointees, into a single nation with one homogenous identity, language and citizenship.

Nor was it a ‘sovereign’ entity in the Westphalian sense. The King of France was entitled to act like an emperor in his own domain but he was subject to both the Pope and at least in theory the Holy Roman Empire. The medieval world was a multi-layered, supra-national order in which different spheres of authority existed on the local, regional and international levels, with the Pope and Emperor at the top. Some French kings, such as Philip the Fair, did try to go further with their sovereign claims but France remained part of the wider ‘Christendom’ until the Protestant Reformation broke it up.

As a result, the idea that Joan was fighting for the French ‘nation’ is nonsense and an exercise in historical revisionism. France at this time had two competing kings, one based in England and one in the territory proper. It was a legal and moral dispute that had led to a vicious civil war, one which Joan brought to a decisive end through her bravery.

She fought out of loyalty to her rightful king not for national sovereignty. France was not a nation at this time, although it was in the process of developing statehood (which it had been undertaking for at least two centuries). She was not fighting for a sovereign French nation that would be independent of Christendom. Indeed she actually argued that instead of English fighting French, they should both be united in a common crusade under the Pope against the Saracens. There is a letter of hers to that effect, which clearly demonstrates that she was no proto-nationalist and had a sense of wider Christendom.

Sovereignty in the sense we understand it now developed with the Treaty of Westphala in 1648 and reached its pinnacle in the French Revolution.

The last thing I would note is that while nationalism may be an artificial construct, ‘state-building’ and the quest to unite towns and communes into countries was a necessary stage on the road towards more perfect order in human relations. States united broad numbers of people under a single king or dynasty who before had been entirely separate. The important thing to note is that states existed before nations were constructed and were not at first understood to be homogenous entities. All that they required of their subjects was a sense of loyalty to the king or polity, the subjects generally being culturally and ethnically diverse, as in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and the United Kingdom (made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland originally).

The problem today is that they are no longer fit for purpose in a globalised world, unless they share their sovereignty with other nations for the sake of the common good of humanity as a whole.

It’s an evolutionary process and historical state-building was simply a stage in humanity’s broadening of its social relations and interconnections to include an ever greater number of people. The issue facing people today is that thanks to the disease of nationalism, states (which had existed prior to the 18th century without nationalism) command an obsessive loyalty from many of their subjects which becomes exclusive of those outside the territory and particularistic, at a time when globalization is making people more and more interdependent on a transnational level.

 

[Vouthon]

One day, as with the tribe and the city-state, the world will evolve past it.

The father of modern Catholic social thought, Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio (1793–1862), a Jesuit who coined the term ‘Social Justice’, argued the same point:

*The Catholic Tradition of the Law of Nations

By John Eppstein*

***Taparelli D’Azeglio. ‘Essai Théorique de Droit Naturel,’ Book VI, Chap. V. Article 11. Form of International Societies ***

1. After having established the origin of international societies we must now study their forms and their laws. First we see a grouping of intelligent beings who work together in pursuit of their common good…

The international ethnarchic society must therefore posses an authority. It must be governed and guided in all that is necessary to its existence, its perfection and the attainment of its end. How could there exist a Law of Nations, that is to say a body of laws binding upon all nations, if there were not a real authority capable of laying down those laws?..

Nature of International Authority:

1. Assuming the free consent of the nations, the international society naturally takes the form of a polyarchy…The international authority will ordinarily and naturally be polyarchic; even when it appears to be administered by one man, it belongs in reality to all the associated peoples.

1. But in whom then is this international authority to reside? To answer that question let us restate the foundation upon which all International Law is based. The nations are independent societies, their association is in itself a perfectly voluntary association. Thus authority resides, as of right, in the common accord of the associated nations and it is for the members of the association to determine under what form this authority is to be exercised.

Since the decline of the German Empire and of the quasi-theocratic power of the Popes, the international authority has, among European peoples, revealed itself in the agreements between the different sovereigns, expressed in treaties, alliances, congresses, confederations, etc. But as we have observed (in the origin of human society) the polyarchy of brothers, equal in rights, emancipated from the father’s control, giving to their common authority certain forms, in order that it may be more effective and more lasting, so we see modern nations, now that they are freed from the guardianship of the Holy Roman Empire and the protection of the Popes, feeling more and more in need of an international authority which is regular, perfectly determined in all its aspects, an authority which is strong, which is respected by all, and which can ensure the rights of the weak shall no longer be at the mercy of the strong.

Herein lies the interests of the majority. But when interest itself is at one one with the requirements of justice, it becomes all powerful and infallibly determines the forms which accord most harmoniously with the needs of human societies. And so, I believe, we shall gradually see arising in the world a kind of universal federal tribunal which will replace alliances, congresses and treaties, just as these have temporarily replaced today the supreme authority of the Emperor and the patriarchical government of the Popes. I do not see how this stage can fail to come, though it be reached but slowly, for the life of nations can be reckoned in centuries as the life of men is counted in years. Special confederations between small States seem to be a prelude to the organization of the international authority, just as, in the Middle Ages, the evolution of the Commune led, little by little, to a complete state of civil equality and the unity of the political authority…

We can now conclude from all that has been said, that the peoples form among themselves a society of equals; that in consequence of the authority necessary to direct them resides in common accord, or at least in the majority of the nations associated; that in their common interest they cannot refuse to acknowledge that authority without, at the same time, snapping the social relations which unite them together; and that this authority must have the power and the strength to maintain order within the international association

However we also should bear this in mind:

books.google.co.uk/books?id=TfAF9bAXN2IC&pg=PA463&dq=true+world+political+authority+catholic&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBDgKahUKEwiC5_uAq7rIAhWIzRQKHQkmArs#v=onepage&q=true%20world%20political%20authority%20catholic&f=false

Pope Benedict XVI argues for the legal establishment of a world political authority focused on the common good, whose form would reflect guidance from the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity. Clearly, Pope Benedict wants the kind of stratified authority that would take (name removed by moderator)ut from the nations of the world and not be a threat to act in a despotic manner. He thinks that this radical step is urgently needed…At the present time conditions don’t exist that would allow for the establishment of a world political authority on the basis of subsidiarity, solidarity and the common good, The Catholic Church and other organizations would first have to make these principles better known and widely accepted before any kind of suitable world political authority could be reasonably established

We have our work cut out for us!

 

[Vouthon]

If anyone is interested, I would like to point you in the way of a very intriguing old book which you can view for free as a PDF:

lxoa.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/internationalethics.pdf

It was published in 1937 by the Catholic Social Guild. It lays out a Catholic vision of the ideal society a coherent code of international ethics compiled by a group of Catholic sociologists under the sanction of the Belgian hierarchy.

If time allows, please read Chapter 1 and Chapter IV in particular.

Here is a relevant excerpt:

Collaboration between States

In spite of this legitimate sovereignty, the State finds itself more and more bound up with similar groups into which the human race is divided, in strict relations of interdependence, without which it would be unable to accomplish its task. The “full good of human life” which the State must give to its members cannot even be thought of apart from a wide sharing in the material and spiritual life of the whole world, as well as in the varied resources which the Creator has scattered all over the globe. But this sharing is only possible if all States mutually assist one another in establishing an international regime which will enable all to fulfil adequately their functions. States are therefore bound, by the very nature of their mission, without losing their own individuality and legitimate authority, to belong to a higher group - International Society, or the Society of States - which finally establishes the human family as a well-ordered organism, capable of lasting and full of wonderful possibilities…

International society has been a much longer time in taking shape. The peoples of the earth, having fallen from the state of original justice into barbarity, separated also from each other by more or less insuperable natural barriers, by differences of climate, language and customs, had forgotten their common origin. For long centuries men considered the stranger merely as a harmful being - homo homini lupus- and fought him without mercy. But at last the imprescriptible law of nature triumphed over the worst barbaric instincts. It began by submitting war itself to its dictates. Later the need of securing even elementary security made relations between nations more peaceful. The spread of the Gospel message of brotherhood and love, the progress of civilization, the economic development of all the con*tinents, the improvement in means of communication, all these things have powerfully contributed to remind nations of their close solidarity. To-day no State could adequately fulfil its mission without the individual or collective assistance of the other members of international society…

As a collective entity international society can only live and act through the work of Its members. The latter have a right to its help and services, and in return they are obliged to co-operate efficaciously, according to their means in the work from which they derive so many benefits. International life will be active and fruitful precisely inasmuch as the various States appreciate the natural solidarity which unites them and agree to comply with all its conditions.There can be no social life without self-abnegation and sacrifice. The States, as members of international society, will have to subordinate their special interests to those of the collectivity and submit their independence, as far as is necessary, to the law of the international community.This necessary subordination of national interests to the higher interests of the universal family is only possible if each State manages to cast off its selfish appetites and that insatiable cupidity which St. James the Apostle denounces as the primary cause of all quarrels. “From whence are wars and contentions among you? Are they not hence, from your concupis*cences?” (iv, r)…

1. On the other hand, States must cease to claim that absolute independence which nature has not given them and which in fact they have never possessed. Their rights are exactly proportioned to the mission of protec*tion and assistance which they exercise in regard to their own subjects. They cannot efficaciously fulfil their mission alone, without the help of international society and outside its framework. They can command with sovereignty within their own frontiers, but must submit their authority to the higher and necessary law which ordains all national activities to the common good of humanity.

These sacrifices will naturally hurt the self-esteem of nations and rulers. But they are necessary, and will eventually turn to the advantage of those who accept them. For as the individual “only fully becomes what he has the right to be when he ceases to think of himself alone” (A. Valensin, Social Week of Le Havre, 1926, p. 259) the State can only effectively fulfil its mission when, looking beyond the narrow circle of its national interests, it agrees to collaborate wholeheartedly in the common tasks of international society. In helping to maintain international order it provides as much as and even more than by armaments for its own security, and in promoting the cultural and economic development of other nations it labours for the prosperity of its own subjects.

See next part in next post.

 

[Vouthon]

Next part from same section quoted above:

International society fulfils the innermost tendencies of human nature. These tendencies do not become evident or compelling until the progress of civilization has created between nations a bond so strong that to return to original isolation would cause grave damage to themselves and to the rest of the human community…It now becomes a positive duty, and compels nations actively to cooperate in the common task of order and civilization under an international authority.

1. For every society presupposes an authority entrusted with the task of coordinating the activities of is members with a view to accomplishing its purpose, the common good of all the associates. The community of nations is not exempted from this fundamental law of social life; it needs an authority. “It must be governed and directed in all that is necessary to its existence, its improvement, and the end which it proposes to attain.” (Taparelli d’Azeglio, Saggio teoretico z dzntto naturale, No. 1364).

1. “There. is no power but from God; and those that are, are ordained of God,” (St. Paul, Rom., xiii, r.). The constituted authority of international society proceeds from the same source, and has therefore a right o command the respect of all the associated States. The Creator, however, has left to man the task of elaborating he structure of this authority and the forms of its exercise.

1. In principle there is nothing to prevent men from conferring this authority on one person or a small group. In the Middle Ages the great family of Christian nations and tended to this when it placed itself under the double jurisdiction, spiritual and temporal, of the Pope and Emperor. In point of fact, however, this semi-monarchical solution did not prevail Schism and heresy soon detached great and powerful nations from their allegiance to the Holy See, and kings and prince , anxious to secure their independence, disputed the primacy of the imperial crown, and for a long time even the idea of an international society was forgotten.

1. All the same that society continued to exist in law and in fact, and this existence postulated an authority or group of States must be carefully avoided.

1. This international society, of which we have laid down the principles, and which is demanded by the very nature of man, has to be actualized and brought into being in an effective manner.This task is an extremely difficult one, and requires the collaboration of all men of good will, of rulers as well as of ruled. Catholics must not remain indifferent to it, and the purpose of condensing into this Code of International Ethics the conclusions of Catholic Sociology has been to help them to study fruitfully these important problems. Nevertheless, in laying down the principles which must govern collective life and the mutual relations of nations, one must take into account the actual form which this collective life has taken in the past, is taking in the present, and may take in the future. In this connection we can distinguish three stages of organization which imply their own particular forms of government.

(a) In the first, or unorganized stage, there is no positive social bond between independent and sovereign States, and their relations are merely governed by the rules of commutative justice and charity, and by certain customary rules which they feel bound to observe.

(b) In the second stage a purely contractual organization exists, in which the States freely and spontaneously agree to submit to the authority of an international body created by themselves, and whose sphere of activity they have carefully limited. This is but a mere outline of the organization needed in a well-ordered international life, and is a society which is still very imperfect, as it does not include all the nations of the world and its governing body does not possess full power.
’
(c) A third stage can be conceived, in which the juridical organization of the community of peoples would correspond more fully to the demands of natural law; a supreme authority, superior to all States, would govern the collective action of the associated nations and direct it to the common good of the human race, in virtue of its own powers and not merely by delegation. To each of these stages corresponds a special juridical order which will be explained in the following chapters.

The rules of law applicable to the unorganized state of international society are of two kinds. Some, which are derived immediately from the general principles of Right, have a transcendent value and apply to all the stages of the gradual organization of the community of nations. Others are concerned with practices allowed or tolerated in view of the early precarious stages of international relations; as the organic structure becomes more perfect and complete, they will disappear to make way for the higher rules of a more searching and human morality.

 

[shockerfan]

National sovereignty is a virus that causes the earth to break out in bomb scars and young dead bodies at least once a generation. One day, as with the tribe and the city-state, the world will evolve past it.

ICXC NIKA

What is your vision here? One world government? Which style of government do you want? Will it include the rights we enjoy here?

 

[dmar198]

I have here a monumental work of Catholic philosophy from the 19th century, which not only received the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur but was published in 1876 with a brief from Blessed Pope Pius XI. … It called for precisely the same “universal society of nations”.

Great find, Vouthon! I also like the statements you included from Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio and the Catholic Social Guild. To me, that is very helpful in showing that the promotion of a world political authority is not a new idea in the Catholic Church but an important part of our tradition. I have never researched this issue, but I suppose support for it could also be found in far earlier writings. The Scholastic period comes to mind. I wonder if the emperor was a precursor to some kind of international political authority and if the scholastic thinkers spoke of him in that role. The Church Fathers lived under an emperor as well, perhaps they have some insights on his God-given role that reveal the same attitude the Church has today.

I’m confused as to what [Joan of Arc] did to earn canonization. Without questioning the Church’s wisdom, certainly there was more there than patriotism and physical courage?

I don’t think Joan of Arc was canonized for patriotism and physical courage. I think it is likely that she was canonized for showing heroic virtue. When she followed her intensely personal call through immense struggles, that took heroic virtue, and so did her actions during her arrest, imprisonment, and trial. Those are the things I would guess she was canonized for. The Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on her is here: oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Joan_of_Arc%2C_Blessed

 

[Vouthon]

Great find, Vouthon! I also like the statements you included from Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio and the Catholic Social Guild. To me, that is very helpful in showing that the promotion of a world political authority is not a new idea in the Catholic Church but an important part of our tradition. I have never researched this issue, but I suppose support for it could also be found in far earlier writings. The Scholastic period comes to mind. I wonder if the emperor was a precursor to some kind of international political authority and if the scholastic thinkers spoke of him in that role. The Church Fathers lived under an emperor as well, perhaps they have some insights on his God-given role that reveal the same attitude the Church has today

Excellent points dmar, thanks for the reply!

Support can certainly be found in earlier writings. Catholics have been proposing ideas for a better international order for centuries, pre-dating the so-called ‘enlightenment’ philosophers like Kant.

I am sure you will have heard of Dante, the great medieval Catholic poet who penned The Divine Comedy? Pope Benedict XV devoted an entire encyclical to him in 1921:

w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xv/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xv_enc_30041921_in-praeclara-summorum.html

IN PRAECLARA SUMMORUM
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE BENEDICT XV
ON DANTE
TO PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS OF LITERATURE
AND LEARNING IN THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

Beloved Children,
Health and the Apostolic Benediction.

Among the many celebrated geniuses of whom the Catholic faith can boast who have left undying fruits in literature and art especially, besides other fields of learning, and to whom civilization and religion are ever in debt, highest stands the name of Dante Alighieri, the sixth centenary of whose death will soon be recorded. Never perhaps has his supreme position been recognized as it is today. Not only Italy, justly proud of having given him birth, but all the civil nations are preparing with special committees of learned men to celebrate his memory that the whole world may pay honour to that noble figure, pride and glory of humanity.

1. And surely we cannot be absent from this universal consensus of good men; rather should We take the lead in it as the Church has special right to call Alighieri hers.

Dante also wrote a political treatise named De Monarchia which called for global governance:

plato.stanford.edu/entries/world-government/

While Stoic ideas about the oneness of the universe were politically inchoate, they inspired medieval Christian proposals for a global political authority; at the same time, the historical model of imperial Rome (or its myths) inspired medieval quests for world empire.

The Italian poet, philosopher, and statesperson, Dante (1265–1321), perhaps best articulated the Christian ideal of human unity and its expression through a world governed by a universal monarch. In The Banquet [Convivio], Dante argued that wars and all their causes would be eliminated if “the whole earth and all that humans can possess be a monarchy, that is, one government under one ruler. Because he possesses everything, the ruler would not desire to possess anything further, and thus, he would hold kings contentedly within the borders of their kingdoms, and keep peace among them” (Convivio, 169). **In Monarchia [1309–13] (1995, 13), a full political treatise affirming universal monarchy, Dante draws on Aristotle to argue that human unity stems from a shared end, purpose or function, to develop and realize fully and constantly humanity’s distinct intellectual potential.**In Book I, Dante argues that peace is a vital condition for realizing this end, and peace cannot be maintained if humanity is divided. Just as “[e]very kingdom divided against itself shall be laid waste” (15), since humankind shares one goal, “there must therefore be one person who directs and rules mankind, and he is properly called ‘Monarch’ or ‘Emperor’. And thus it is apparent that the well-being of the world requires that there be a monarchy or empire” (15).**Most importantly, when conflicts inevitably arise between two rulers who are equals, “there must be a third party of wider jurisdiction who rules over both of them by right”; a universal monarch is necessary as “a first and supreme judge, whose judgment resolves all disputes either directly or indirectly” (21–2). In the absence of a universal monarch, humanity is “transformed into a many-headed beast,” striving after “conflicting things” (43–4); **humankind ordered under a universal monarch, however, “will most closely resemble God, by mirroring the principle of oneness or unity of which he is the supreme example” (xvii and 19). Dante completes his treatise by extolling the Roman Empire as “a part of God’s providential plan for humanity” (xxxiii). And while Dante argued for a universal emperor whose temporal power was distinct from the pope’s religious power, and not derivative from the latter, he envisioned that God’s will must require pope and emperor to forge a cooperative and conciliatory, rather than competitive and antagonistic, relationship.

The idea of uniting humanity under one empire or monarch, however, became an ambivalent appeal by the seventeenth century with the entrenchment of the system of sovereign states after the Peace of Westphalia (1648).

It is the ‘Westphalian’ definition of national sovereignty which the church has never endorsed and is calling for the international system to now transcend so as to make it more ‘fit’ for purpose.

 

[SWolf]

National sovereignty is a virus that causes the earth to break out in bomb scars and young dead bodies at least once a generation. One day, as with the tribe and the city-state, the world will evolve past it.

ICXC NIKA

National sovereinty is what kepps the boots from perpetually smashing our face.

Subsidiarity is what keeps freedom alive.

 

[Vouthon]

Some extra sources as per my last post on Dante’s ideas:

Such concepts begin as early as the 14th century with Pierre Dubois (c. 1255 – after. 1321) in Catholic thought, then later with Emeric Crucé in 1623 and Abbe de Saint-Pierre in 1713.

See:

books.google.co.uk/books?id=DHa7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA7&dq=emeric+cruce&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBWoVChMI7efv_b35xwIVCiHbCh2WxA96#v=onepage&q=emeric%20cruce&f=false

An excerpt:

Pierre Dubois

To France is due the credit for the origin and development of pacifist ideas as well as for the first project for a world organization and the first plan for an international court of justice. The medieval herald of peace projects for world organization was Pierre Dubois, lawyer and advisor to Philip le Bel, King of France in the early fourteenth century. In his chief work, De recuperatione Terre Sancte, written between 1305 and 1307…

Dubois was thus a pioneer - the first to propose an international court of arbitration. He urged that a state waging war be boycotted and a concerted military action be taken against it - a recommendation that received notice only six centuries later, in the Covenant of the League of Nations. He advocated that the money that would be saved through the abolition of wars should be used for the establishment of international schools, and was thus one of the earliest proponents of international education…

Emeric Crucé

The peace project of Emeric Crucé appeared during the period of the Thirty Years War. In the records of history it was the first proposal for an international organization that was also a proposal for maintaining peace…He embraced the whole human race in his concept and showed foresight in not confining the family of nations to Christian states alone. To have thought of an international body comprising members of different races and creeds on equal footings, testifies to the unusual breadth of his mind, at that period. Crucé condemned war and could see no excuse for bloodshed among men…Long before Cobden, Crucé advocated free trade and commercial co-operation between nations…

And on Abbe de Saint-Pierre:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles-Ir%C3%A9n%C3%A9e_Castel_de_Saint-Pierre

Charles-Irénée Castel, abbé de Saint-Pierre (18 February 1658 – 29 April 1743) was a French author whose ideas were novel for his times. His proposal of an international organisation to maintain peace was perhaps the first in history, with the possible exception of George of Poděbrady’s Tractatus (1462–1464). He influenced Rousseau and Kant.

Saint-Pierre’s works are centered on an acute and visionary criticism of politics, law and social institutions. He had a great influence on Rousseau, who left elaborate examinations of some of them, and was a forerunner of Kant’s 1795 essay on perpetual peace.[2] He can be seen as an early proponent of the ideas of the Enlightenment.

Saint-Pierre was one of the first to mention the possibility of a European Union made by independent and autonomous states.[3] His work on a European community directly inspired the idea of an international order based on the principle of collective self-defense, and was important to the creation of the Concert of Europe, and later the League of Nations,[4] whose successor is the United Nations Organisation.

Ideas contributed by Saint-Pierre include:

• an equitable tax system, including a graduated income tax,
• free public education, for women as well as men,
• state improvement of transportation to further commerce,
• an international court and league of states (Projet de paix perpétuelle 1713),
• a constitutional monarchy, aided by a system of councils and an academy of experts (Discours sur la polysynodie 1718).

plato.stanford.edu/entries/world-government/

In the eighteenth century, Charles Castel, Abbé de Saint-Pierre (1658–1743), in his Project for Making Peace Perpetual in Europe [1713], extended Hobbes’s argument that a rational interest in self-preservation necessitated the creation a domestic leviathan to the international realm, asserting that reason should lead the princes of Europe to form a federation of states by social contract. The contracting sovereigns would form a perpetual and irrevocable alliance, establishing a permanent Diet or Congress that would adjudicate all conflicts between the contracting parties. The federation would also proscribe as “a public enemy” (Rousseau 1756/1917, 63) any member who breaks the Treaty or disregards the decisions of the congress; in such a situation, all members would “arm and take the offensive, conjointly and at the common expense, against any State put to the ban of Europe” in order to enforce the decisions of the federation (61–4). In other words, perpetual peace can be achieved if the princes of Europe would agree to relinquish their sovereign rights to make war or peace to a superior, federal body that guaranteed protection of their basic interests.

As you can see, Catholic thinkers have been thinking about the most ideal structure of the international system for close to a thousand years and numerous concepts theorized within the Church: international arbitration, global or continental federalism, free trade, free movement, solidarity and subsidiarity…they have all become enshrined in the UN, the EU and other international organisations.

These theories reached their peak in Taparelli at the start of the 19th century before making their way into papal encyclicals. And as I noted earlier Taparelli coined the term “social justice”.

 

[GEddie]

National sovereinty is what kepps the boots from perpetually smashing our face.

Subsidiarity is what keeps freedom alive.

You have to be alive to make use of freedom.

“A dead body doesn’t care how much chain is wrapped around its limbs.”

The number one product of national sovereignty is death.

ICXC NIKA

 

[SWolf]

You have to be alive to make use of freedom.

“A dead body doesn’t care how much chain is wrapped around its limbs.”

The number one product of national sovereignty is death.

ICXC NIKA

Let all us us live in chains, lest some of us die free.

 

[GEddie]

Let all us us live in chains, lest some of us die free.

If your aspiration is to die over a license-plate motto, go ahead, but do not urge or try to require that I join you.

ICXC NIKA