Transforming Catholic Social Teaching

from Mere Platitudes into

“A Revolution of Tenderness”

by Christopher Hale Education for Justice, a project of Center of ConcernEducation for Justice, a project of Center of Concern

(Photo Credit: Mark Scott Spatny)

2 /7 Copyright © 2016, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern

Christopher Hale is the executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and the co-founder of Millennial. A columnist for TIME on faith and politics, he and his work have appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News, and in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today, among other publica-tions. Mr. Hale helped lead national Catholic outreach for President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. Today, he advises both presidential campaigns on the issues at the heart of the Catholic Church’s social teaching and how each candidate can best address those issues.

Works by Christopher Hale: • “The Democratic Party Is Not One of Inclusiveness,” http://ti.me/2b2pLe5.• “What Tim Kaine, Donald Trump and Pope Francis Have In Common,” http://ti.me/2aPRkLr.• “The Real Trump Scandal Isn’t Plagiarism. It’s Racism,” http://ti.me/2aib2is.• “Trump-Pence is the Most Anti-Catholic Republican Ticket in Modern History,” http://ti.me/2alt4vJ.• “Joe Biden and John Boehner: Our Faith Inspires Political Compromise,” http://ti.me/2b2qV9D.• Pope Francis Reaffirms God’s Love for LGBT Community in New Book,” http://ti.me/2aPSqqq.• “Gun Control Is a Pro-Life Value,” http://ti.me/1PLXnez.• “There’s Nothing Christian About Blocking Non-Christian Refugees to the U.S.,” http://ti.me/1NcK5Kd.• “A Christian Prophet: The religious identity of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” http://bit.ly/2b2sBA5.

“The Gospel tells us constantly to risk a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas,

with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving,

from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness.”

– Pope Francis (Evangelii Gaudium, 72)

3 /7 Copyright © 2016, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern

Politics and religion: these are the two things that we’re told never to discuss over dinner. If that’s the case, Pope Francis might be a bad dinner date, because he’s clearly a man who loves both. “A good Catholic,” Francis says, “meddles in politics.” In fact, Francis argues that politics “is one of the highest forms of love, because it is in the service of the common good.”

As we enter into the climatic homestretch of the 2016 election season, Americans face a myriad of choices between competing visions for our nation’s fu-ture. As Catholics, we are called by our faith to engage in this election. We do so not because we’re partisans, but because we’re Christians.

In Catholic social teaching, our faith offers a specific vision for the common good. The teaching, however, has failed to deeply permeate the life of the Church and the catechesis of its people. Some social justice activists claim that this teaching is the Church’s “best

kept secret” and that if it were better known it would be the “dynamite” that would revolutionize the Church’s interaction with the world.

I strongly disagree.

Catholic Social Teaching Without Jesus is Boring

The problem with Catholic social teaching isn’t that it isn’t widely known. The problem is that the people entrusted with teaching it have reduced it to mere platitudes and principles. In short, it’s boring.

Our most important job as Catholics is to spread the good news of God’s redeeming love in Jesus. Jesus Christ is the pioneer and the protector of the faith. Too often we forget that. Catholic social teaching without Jesus and his radical mission at the center is superficial. Too often, those entrusted with passing down the faith have instead reduced it to what Pope Francis calls “a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.” This version isn’t a meaningful faith that provides life-long meaning for its people and that stands the test of time. It’s a faith without a future.

If the social teaching of the Church is to have a renaissance in the United States and globally, it must get back the source and the summit of the faith: Jesus Christ.

Leading with doctrinal questions instead of the person of Jesus simply will not work among today’s skeptics who are constantly inundated with the false god of consumerism, empty political rhetoric, dictatorships of relativism, a historical fundamentalism, systems of ethics lacking goodness, and intellectual discourse high on privilege and short on wisdom.

We must remember that the social teaching of the Church didn’t begin with Leo XIII and Rerum Novarum in 1891. No! Its historical origins are in the story and person of Jesus Christ. Without remembering that origin and communicating and practicing it from this Christocentric purview, the social teaching of the Church becomes pointless.

Transforming Catholic Social Teaching into Catholic Social Mission with Jesus Christ

How can we understand and communicate Catholic social teaching from the vista of Jesus Christ? In short, the entire social vision of the Catholic Church is this: in Jesus, God became poor to save humanity from every form of oppression. We must do likewise. The Catholic vision for the com-mon good, then, is a radical invitation to what Pope Francis calls a “revolution of tenderness.” The central claim of Christianity has always been that the rejected, crucified, and then resurrected Jesus is somehow Lord of the entire earth. The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus had political and social consequences for the kingdom he lived in and therefore has political and social consequences for all kingdoms everywhere, including the one we live in.

The resurrection of Jesus marked the end of Caesar’s way of doing things. With God’s love in Jesus, Rome is no more, and a new kingdom with new rules is established. In this kingdom, hierarchies are subverted, concentrated power is decentralized, and prodigal children are welcomed home. In this kingdom, the last are first, the poor are blessed, and enemies are loved. Black lives matter here. LGBT lives matter here; and so, too, do the lives of refugees, the imprisoned, the unborn, and anyone else who suffers dehumanization, exclusion, and injustice.

Of course, no candidate or party completely adheres to this prophetic and challenging vision of the common good. We live in a pluralistic society in which many do not share our faith or its social vision. But, as we saw during his trip last September, the social mission of Pope Francis and the Catholic Church is remarkably compelling. It draws people and politicians out of their ideological biases and allows them to reimagine the world with God’s preference for the poor and bias for the bottom being the cornerstone of society.

“At its very core,

missionary discipleship

is about sharing

the Gospel,

which literally means

‘good news.’

And our world

is in such desperate

need of good news.”

4 /7 Copyright © 2016, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern

Being Missionary Disciples of Jesus Christ

As Catholics, we have a profound obligation to learn our faith’s social teaching and to share it with others. Pope Francis calls this the attitude of a “missionary disciple.” When we practice and pro-claim our faith’s social mission, we are being the Church that Jesus longs for us to be: a Church on the margins, a Church that is poor for the poor, a Church that heals wounds and warms hearts, a Church that is always a place of mercy and hope, where everyone is welcomed, loved and forgiven. Jeromino Nadal, an early Jesuit, said it well: “We are not monks. The world is our cloister! The world is our house!”

So why should we heed Francis’ call and be missionary disciples despite our lack of “professional credentials?” Most poignantly, we must do this because our faith isn’t simply a possession to be held, but a gift to be shared. The words missionary and evangelization may have negative connotations for some today, but we must give it a second look. Evangelization is not about bragging about one’s holiness. It’s not about coercing others to take on our politics. It’s not even about converting anyone. At its very core, missionary discipleship is about sharing the Gospel, which literally means “good news.” And our world is in such desperate need of good news.

We mustn’t be naïve: the pain is everywhere. We are con-stantly bombarded with the sufferings of modern society by a media that seems to present it to us with a perverse enjoyment. The suffering plays out on our television screens, in our communities, in our homes, and most especially in our lives and in our own hearts. Yet, too, often we aren’t moved by it. As Pope Francis lamented a few summers ago, we are society that has forgotten how to weep.

Perhaps we’ve forgotten how to weep because the cross of violence and pain that most afflicts us today is somewhat hidden. It’s the pain caused by the invisible violence of government and institu-tions that again and again fail to serve the people, of an immigration system that denies millions of aspiring Americans their dignity, of schools without books, and homes without heat in the winter. It’s the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relationships between communities and nations, that allows for a slow decay of culture, and makes us indifferent. Though not as noticeable as a bomb or a gunshot, these realities are just as deadly.

“Today God asks

the same of us.

We must seek out and find

our brothers and sisters

who suffer around us

and around the globe.

Though we can never

completely grasp it,

we must encounter

their suffering.

We must listen

to their stories.

And we must try to share in their pain.”

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How ought we respond to these sufferings? Faith teaches us to start by simply encountering them. In the Bible, two of the first questions that God addresses to humanity are: “Where are you?” and “Where is your brother?” Today God asks the same of us. We must seek out and find our broth-ers and sisters who suffer around us and around the globe. Though we can never completely grasp it, we must encounter their suffering. We must listen to their stories. And we must try to share in their pain.

Though some will want to move immediately into political, policy, or even moral solutions, this approach is wrongheaded. No law, no government program, and no sermon alone will fix our problems. So we must resist the temptation to thrust ourselves into these situations and declare ourselves the messiahs with the answers. Rather, we must be companions for the long journey towards healing. The era of the “voice for the voiceless” is over. Everyone has a voice, and we must encounter it.

Asking For New Eyes to See

During his ministry, Jesus of Nazareth encountered many people begging for healing. While in Jeri-cho, two blind men called out to him asking for mercy and for the gift of sight. Though the crowd tried to silence them, the men didn’t waver and cried out, “Lord, open our eyes!” Scripture tells us that Jesus was then moved with compassion for them and gave them their sight.

Today, we must be those men of Jericho. We must cry out and ask God to remove the masks that blind us. The road of encountering human suffering and the invisible and institutional violence that precedes it is uncomfortable, but it isn’t sterile. It will allow us to see the grittiness of the truth and to experience the gift of reconciliation and healing that will bind our people together once again.

The Social Mission of the Church Can Transform Society

In the final analysis, the potency of Catholic social teaching and its effect on American politics will only be realized if we remember the source and summit of who we are and who long to be: Jesus Christ. Our faith in God and in Jesus Christ isn’t just for us, but also for the transformation of our families, our communities, our Church, our country, and the entire world. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead gives us a chance to reimagine and reconstruct human life and society once again.

It allows us to become collaborators in God’s great dreams for a world where everyone is welcomed, loved, and forgiven and where every woman, man, and child experiences the salvation that Christ won for us in his death and resurrection. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! This is our faith, and this is the faith of the Church. Two millennia later, it is still good news indeed. And when we lead with Jesus, encounter others in their sufferings, and proclaim the joy of the gospel, we will discover that our faith’s social teaching is real and substantial, and that it will make of the blessed, but broken world something all the more blessed still.

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REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. In the Gospel, Jesus communicates time and again that to serve him, we must serve those who are marginalized and excluded. What are some examples of this that are most poignant to you?

2. No party nor candidate completely upholds the social mission of the Catholic Church. But what are some concrete examples of presidential candidates doing so? What are some examples of them failing to do so?

3. The Church encourages Catholics to form their conscience around the Church’s social teaching when they vote this November. One way of doing this is prayer. What are some specific ways you can incorporate prayer into your routine as we prepare for Election Day?

FAITH IN ACTION

1. Register to vote in your local community well before the deadline. Be aware of polling locations and make plans for how you will get to the voting booth on Election Day. If possible, take advantage of early voting or mail-in voting opportunities.

2. Create a small faith group to discuss the important issues surrounding the campaign. Make the group as diverse as possible. It’s important to hear from people who think differently and act differently from you.

3. Spend some time praying for our elected leaders and those seeking elected office. Also include in your prayers healing and reconciliation for our nation. Elections are tough. They can bring out some of the worst in us. Prayer can help us create unity among our people.

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PRAYER

God in heaven, in the fullness of time, you sent your son, our Lord, Jesus Christ to the world. To the poor, he proclaimed the good news of salvation; to prisoners, freedom; and to those in sorrow, joy. Dying he destroyed our death, rising he restored our life, and that we might live no longer for ourselves but for the one who sent him, he gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit to heal our people and renew the face of the Earth.

Your Spirit changes our hearts: enemies begin to speak to one another, those who were estranged join hands in friendship, and nations seek the way of peace together.

Your Spirit is at work when understanding puts an end to conflict, when hatred is quenched by mercy, and when revenge gives way to forgiveness.

May this Spirit guide our nation in all it does as we seek to be faithful Americans, fellow citizens, neighbors to the oppressed, and friends of the poor. And may our voice in some small way make of this blessed, but broken nation something all the more blessed still. Amen.