National Sovereignty and the Universal Good

[Landon_Caeli]

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

Then what is this thread about? The nations of the world are acting in the spirit of subsidiarity, and the nations are in communication, and are largely interdependent.

…Anything more means a single world leader -a ‘king’ of the world. Do we need a king of the world?

 

[Landon_Caeli]

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

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.

I’m not sure what’s being called for in this thread. Democracy is not a Catholic inspired idea, so this all seems sort of like Catholic Fundamentalism.

 

[Landon_Caeli]

What some fail to realize, is that people enjoy embracing their history, and they honor their ancestors, their ‘culture’.

I believe it’s a basic human right to be free to live within the parameters of ones own culture and to be allowed to appreciate it. To suggest that indiginous tribal groups must follow international law is to destroy their cultural heritage.

…but nobody thinks of indigenous tribal groups when discussing this. That’s a problem. Instead, they think about “developed” nations, which is very black and white IMO. IOW, its radical.

 

[Landon_Caeli]

…I know I’m not going to be the one to tell the San (Bushmen) people that they need to institute a minimum wage after they create a monetary system that meets global requirements. I won’t be telling them to become a more pluralistic society, or advising them to adopt a more Western form of education and the standards we think would work better for them… Or does the CC teach us that they must conform…?

 

[Landon_Caeli]

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:

Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio may or may not have “coined” the term, but either way who’s going to be the good Catholic to go explain to the San people that their way of life is not acceptable to the Catholics in the world?

 

[SWolf]

I’m not sure what’s being called for in this thread. Democracy is not a Catholic inspired idea, so this all seems sort of like Catholic Fundamentalism.

It boggles my mind that one of the primary world bodies, the UN, has been so hostile to Catholic values, and yet some think world governance will make a more Catholic world.

They are already a multitude of VOLUNTARY international organizations, and these sorts of texts seem to want to go beyond that.

Sometimes I fear well meaning fools more than evil people.

 

[exnihilo]

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.

If one were to think the norvus ordo saeculorum were a 1960s or later invention they would simply be wrong. In the region of France it began with the Fench Revolution. In the German states it began with Bismark. In the US it began with Lincoln. The new order is necessarily a throwing out of the old. Thus new institutions or customs are needed. Whether the new order is in any way better than the old is a separate question. Whether a wholly different order is better is a separate question.

 

[GEddie]

Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio may or may not have “coined” the term, but either way who’s going to be the good Catholic to go explain to the San people that their way of life is not acceptable to the Catholics in the world?

I don’t know. No-one but yourself is asking about indigenous tribes.

There is no reason why a reservation could not be wrapped around such groups and just left alone. Indigenous tribes are not an argument against globalism.

ICXC NIKA

 

[GEddie]

It boggles my mind that one of the primary world bodies, the UN, has been so hostile to Catholic values, and yet some think world governance will make a more Catholic world.

I never said that. I support globalism, but not because it will make the world Catholic.

As long as religious freedom exists, (which I believe in) the world will not be “Catholic.”

ICXC NIKA

 

[SWolf]

I don’t know. No-one but yourself is asking about indigenous tribes.

There is no reason why a reservation could not be wrapped around such groups and just left alone. Indigenous tribes are not an argument against globalism.

ICXC NIKA

Actually, yes it is.

Why can indigenous tribes be left alone, but not other cultural groups? What makes them have more rights than other groups?

 

[Vouthon]

Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio may or may not have “coined” the term, but either way who’s going to be the good Catholic to go explain to the San people that their way of life is not acceptable to the Catholics in the world?

Dear Landon,

I do not recall saying anything about making the world Catholic

The Vatican explicitly stated in that 2011 document:

vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20111024_nota_en.html#3._An_Authority_over_Globalization

Consent should engage an ever greater number of countries that adhere with conviction, through a sincere dialogue that values the minority opinions rather than marginalizing them. So the world Authority should consistently involve all peoples in a collaboration in which they are called to contribute, bringing to it the heritage of their virtues and their civilizations…

The establishment of a world political Authority should be preceded by a preliminary phase of consultation from which a legitimated institution will emerge that is in a position to be an effective guide and, at the same time, can allow each country to express and pursue its own particular good. The exercise of this Authority at the service of the good of each and every one will necessarily be super partes or impartial: that is, above any partial vision or particular good, with a view to achieving the common good. Its decisions should not be the result of the more developed countries’ superior power over weaker countries. Instead, they should be made in the interest of all, not only to the advantage of some groups, whether they are formed by private lobbies or national governments.

A supranational Institution, the expression of a “community of nations”, will not last long, however, if the countries’ differences from the standpoint of cultures, material and immaterial resources and historic and geographic conditions, are not recognized and fully respected. The lack of a convinced consensus, nourished by an unceasing moral communion on the part of the world community, would also reduce the effectiveness of such an Authority.

This is not a “global uniformity” that is being called for. The resulting global order is expected to be a “synthesis” formed through the interaction and contribution of different cultures and civilizations engaged in a common cause.

The global political authority is envisaged to be impartial with respect to culture and stand above all particular goods, enabling each country to pursue its own “particular goods” at the local or national level, while directing them towards collaboration with each other where the common good is concerned.

So there is absolutely nothing here about imposing our ways on anybody else.

 

[SWolf]

I never said that. I support globalism, but not because it will make the world Catholic.

As long as religious freedom exists, (which I believe in) the world will not be “Catholic.”

ICXC NIKA

Religious freedom will start to wane in favor of secularism, not Catholicism. Assisted suicide, abortion, and contraceptives will be considered “Human Rights”, and religions will be pushed further and further towards the margins. with nowhere left on the globe to go.

 

[Vouthon]

Actually, yes it is.

Why can indigenous tribes be left alone, but not other cultural groups? What makes them have more rights than other groups?

I think you have misunderstood what the Church is calling for when it refers to a “universal society of nations” directed by a “global international authority” to oversee globalization and act as an effective custodian for the common good.

It has nothing to do with destroying native cultures.

It does require sacrifices on the part of nation-states with regards to their sovereignty but that is quite a different matter from the rights of indigenous people, or anyone, to their own particular cultural expressions and customs.

 

[SWolf]

The global political authority is envisaged to be impartial with respect to culture and stand above all particular goods, enabling each country to pursue its own “particular goods” at the local or national level, while directing them towards collaboration with each other where the common good is concerned.

So there is absolutely nothing here about imposing our ways on anybody else.

One has to be young or completely ignorant of how political mechanisms operate to believe this is possible. I find it easier to believe in unicorns.

 

[SWolf]

I think you have misunderstood what the Church is calling for when it refers to a “universal society of nations” directed by a “global international authority” to oversee globalization and act as an effective custodian of the common good.

It has nothing to do with destroying native cultures.

What form does this authority take? Democratic? Monarchy? Authoritarian? Can they impose their will without a nation’s consent?

When said “global international authority” states abortion is a human right, like the U.N. does, what then?

 

[Vouthon]

One has to be young or completely ignorant of how political mechanisms operate to believe this is possible. I find it easier to believe in unicorns.

So the Church is “young” and “completely ignorant”? Every pope of the last two centuries has been young and ignorant? Many of our most prominent theologians and political philosophers were young and ignorant? Dante was young and ignorant?

I am guessing that Venerable Pope Pius XII was also “ignorant”:

papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12XMAS.HTM

**Democracy and a Lasting Peace

1944 Christmas Message of His Holiness Pope Pius XII

NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF AN EFFECTIVE PEACE SETTLEMENT UNITY OF MANKIND AND SOCIETY OF PEOPLES**

1. We were anxious, Beloved Sons and Daughters, to take the occasion of Christmastide to point out along what lines a democracy befitting human dignity can, in harmony with the law of nature and the designs of God as manifested in Revelation, secure happy results. Indeed, We are deeply convinced of the supreme importance of this problem for the peaceful progress of mankind.

1. But We also realize the exalted claims that this form of government makes on the moral maturity of the individual citizen; a moral maturity to which he could never hope to attain fully and securely if the light from the Cave of Bethlehem did not illumine the dark path along which the peoples are going forward through the stormy present towards a future which they hope will be more serene.

1. But how far will the representatives and pioneers of democracy be inspired in their deliberations by the conviction that the absolute order of beings and purposes, of which We have repeatedly spoken, comprises also, as a moral necessity and the crowning of social development, the unity of mankind and of the family of peoples?

1. On the recognition of this principle hangs the future of the peace. No world reform, no peace guarantee can abstract from it without being weakened and without being untrue to itself.

1. If, on the other hand,** this same moral necessity were to find its realization in a society of peoples which succeeded in eliminating the structural defects and shortcomings of former systems, then the majesty of that order would regulate and inspire equally the deliberations of that society and the use of its instruments of sanction.

1. For this reason, too, one understands why the authority of such a society must be real and effective over the member states,** in suchwise, however, that each of them retain an equal right of its own sovereignty.

1. Only thus will the spirit of sane democracy be able to pervade the vast and thorny ground of foreign relations…

FORMATION OF A COMMON MEANS TO MAINTAIN PEACE

…An essential point in any future international arrangement would be the formation of an organ for the maintenance of peace, of an organ invested by common consent with supreme power to whose office it would also pertain to smother in its germinal state any threat of isolated or collective aggression.

1. No one could hail this development with greater joy than he who has long upheld the principle that the idea of war as an apt and proportionate means of solving international conflicts is now out of date.

1. No one could wish success to this common effort, to be undertaken with a seriousness of purpose never before known, with greater enthusiasm, than he who has conscientiously striven to make the Christian and religious mentality reject modern war with its monstrous means of conducting hostilities.

Do you honestly believe this to be so?

 

[dmar198]

As long as religious freedom exists, (which I believe in) the world will not be “Catholic.”

Perhaps that depends on what one means by “Catholic world.” We can have Catholic states without everyone being Catholic, and I think the reason involves most people being Catholic and/or most people in power being Catholic and/or the State supporting the Catholic Church in an “established” way.

In fact I think that if a world government did Not allow religious liberty, they would Not be Catholic, because that’s an important part of Catholic social teaching. If a government supported the Catholic Church’s teachings as being the only true Church, they would seemingly have to support our teaching on religious liberty too, and therefore tolerate non-Catholic religious beliefs.

 

[Vouthon]

Perhaps that depends on what one means by “Catholic world.” We can have Catholic states without everyone being Catholic, and I think the reason involves most people being Catholic and/or most people in power being Catholic and/or the State supporting the Catholic Church in an “established” way.

In fact I think that if a world government did Not allow religious liberty, they would Not be Catholic, because that’s an important part of Catholic social teaching. If a government supported the Catholic Church’s teachings as being the only true Church, they would seemingly have to support our teaching on religious liberty too, and therefore tolerate non-Catholic religious beliefs.

Good point

 

[SWolf]

I am guessing that Venerable Pope Pius XII was also “ignorant”:

papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12XMAS.HTM

Do you honestly believe this to be so?

Has the U.N. coming to being, even to the extent of having it’s own troops, helped eliminate strife and war?

If not, why?

Has the aid the U.N. gave to foreign countries helping them? The facts say no.

nytimes.com/2013/10/13/business/a-surprising-case-against-foreign-aid.html

I have much respect for Pius XII, and given WWII was still going on when he made this speech, I can understand his thought process. However, the U.N. has failed to achieve peace and has become an anti-Catholic force in the world. Giving them, or any international authority, power to usurp sovereign nations will make them even more inept, and more despotic.

They are voluntary international organizations that are not there to institute “the common good” or “world peace”, but to simply facilitate trade between countries, and they are doing more for international good will than the U.N. Why is that? Perhaps subsidiarity would be a better path here than grandiose schemes that give warm fuzzies but nothing else.

 

[Vouthon]

Has the U.N. coming to being, even to the extent of having it’s own troops, helped eliminate strife and war?

If not, why?

Has the aid the U.N. gave to foreign countries helping them? The facts say no.

nytimes.com/2013/10/13/business/a-surprising-case-against-foreign-aid.html

I agree, the UN is woefully ineffective but do you know why? Contrary to what you state the UN does not have its own troops or its own anything. It is entirely dependant on the Security Council comprised of the five powers that won the war and their interests: the U.S., Russia (successor state to the Soviet Union), Great Britain, France and China.

There is no UN “authority” or “government” above the level of the major powers themselves. The UN is completely subservient to the world powers and can do nothing if one of them exercises their veto.

Why is this the case?

Because in 1945 the Allies didn’t listen to Pope Pius XII and invest a “society of peoples” with "supreme power" and “real and effective authority over the member states” (while still respecting their sovereign right to make laws for their own particular goods at the national level).

Instead they created a purely delegated international organisation in which power resides in the nation states without a “higher authority” super partes above their own particular goods to direct them towards the universal good.

The UN is, and has always been, ineffective for this reason. No one listened to the Church’s proposal and they still do not.

Read:

On the way to creating a world political Authority, questions of governance (that is, a system of merely horizontal coordination without a higher authority super partes) cannot be separated from those of a shared government (that is, a system which in addition to horizontal coordination establishes a higher authority super partes) which is functional and proportionate to the gradual development of a global political society. The establishment of a global political Authority cannot be achieved without an already functioning multilateralism, not only on a diplomatic level, but also and above all in relation to programs for sustainable development and peace. It is not possible to arrive at global Government without giving political expression to pre-existing forms of interdependence and cooperation.

The UN is not what Pope Pius XII called for in his 1944 Christmas message. It represents global governance “a system of merely horizontal coordination without a higher authority super partes” not the global government “a system which in addition to horizontal coordination establishes a higher authority super partes” that Pius wanted to see formed when he stated:

1. If, on the other hand, this same moral necessity were to find its realization in a society of peoples which succeeded in eliminating the structural defects and shortcomings of former systems, then the majesty of that order would regulate and inspire equally the deliberations of that society and the use of its instruments of sanction.

1. **For this reason, too, one understands why the authority of such a society must be *real ***and effective over the member states…

1. Only thus will the spirit of sane democracy be able to pervade the vast and thorny ground of foreign relations…

…An essential point in any future international arrangement would be the formation of an organ for the maintenance of peace, of an organ invested by common consent with supreme power to whose office it would also pertain to smother in its germinal state any threat of isolated or collective aggression.