The Pope, the state, and freedom: Part 1

The recent visit of Pope Benedict XVI was a state visit to the United Kingdom, and so it is not surprising that the Pope did not merely address the faithful, but also spoke to political leaders at Westminster Hall. And, it seems to me, if we are interested in the Pope’s views on matters of state, it is to his address at this meeting that we need to look. Here are some of my thoughts.

The third paragraph set the tone:

This country’s Parliamentary tradition owes much to the national instinct for moderation, to the desire to achieve a genuine balance between the legitimate claims of government and the rights of those subject to it. While decisive steps have been taken at several points in your history to place limits on the exercise of power, the nation’s political institutions have been able to evolve with a remarkable degree of stability. In the process, Britain has emerged as a pluralist democracy which places great value on freedom of speech, freedom of political affiliation and respect for the rule of law, with a strong sense of the individual’s rights and duties, and of the equality of all citizens before the law. While couched in different language, Catholic social teaching has much in common with this approach, in its overriding concern to safeguard the unique dignity of every human person, created in the image and likeness of God, and in its emphasis on the duty of civil authority to foster the common good.

In his third paragraph, the Pope considers the limits of state power, and says that “decisive steps have been taken at several points in [Britain’s] history to place limits on the exercise of power,” and this is something that he seems to approve of - as do libertarians, of course. There is more common ground with libertarians here: the Pope used the word “freedom” twice in this paragraph - and freedom was to be a major theme in the address, as he was to use the word a further five times. He spoke of Britain as “as a pluralist democracy which places great value on freedom of speech, freedom of political affiliation and respect for the rule of law, with a strong sense of the individual’s rights and duties, and of the equality of all citizens before the law.” That sums up our political tradition well, and this is something that libertarians are happy with.

The Pope also said “While couched in different language, Catholic social teaching has much in common with this approach, in its overriding concern to safeguard the unique dignity of every human person, created in the image and likeness of God, and in its emphasis on the duty of civil authority to foster the common good.” The interesting word here is ‘much.’ Catholic social teaching has ‘much’ in common with the British tradition - but how much? He didn’t say - but his comment about using different language is interesting. The most important features of Catholic social teaching would appear, from the Pope’s words, to be ‘safeguarding the unique dignity of every human person’ and ‘fostering the common good’ - rather than safeguarding freedom and the rule of law. So how do we safeguard the unique dignity of every human person? How do we foster the common good? One suspects that the Pope would agree that the rule of law, the equality of everyone before the law, and freedom of speech are important - but how important?

In paragraphs 5 and 6, the Pope spoke of the importance of ethics in public life.

“There is widespread agreement that the lack of a solid ethical foundation for economic activity has contributed to the grave difficulties now being experienced by millions of people throughout the world. Just as “every economic decision has a moral consequence” (Caritas in Veritate, 37), so too in the political field, the ethical dimension of policy has far-reaching consequences that no government can afford to ignore. A positive illustration of this is found in one of the British Parliament’s particularly notable achievements – the abolition of the slave trade. The campaign that led to this landmark legislation was built upon firm ethical principles, rooted in the natural law, and it has made a contribution to civilization of which this nation may be justly proud.”

It is about what we believe is right and wrong. And I suppose nobody is going to disagree. All political philosophy follows from beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. Libertarians, or example, believe that it is wrong for the state to deny people certain basic freedoms. Slavery, which the Pope mentioned, is an example of something that libertarians believe is wrong.

What about economics? The Pope said “There is widespread agreement that the lack of a solid ethical foundation for economic activity has contributed to the grave difficulties now being experienced by millions of people throughout the world.” So - to what extent was the credit crunch caused by dishonesty? No doubt some Rothbardian will rush in and say that the Pope is quite right - that fractional reserve banking is fraud - but I don’t pretend to know about these things! Some people will say that it was caused to a large extent by greed, but greed is somewhat difficult to define. And to what extent was it caused by selfishness - i.e. a lack of care and concern for other people? If any economists are reading this, feel free to share your thoughts.

And so the Pope asked “Where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found?”, and replied that the answer is ‘reason’: “The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles.” And the Pope went on to say that where we had religion without the corrective of reason or reason without the corrective of religion, things tended to go wrong - in both the political and religious sphere. “Religion, in other words, is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation.”

This begs the question “Which religion?” Because they don’t all say the same things. Christianity, Islam, and Aztec religion all have rather different things to say. But it also raises further questions in my mind. Is the Pope basically suggesting that legislators, even though they may be basically secular people, need to listen more to the pronouncements of the Catholic Bishops, and the General Synod, and the Chief Rabbi, and other religious groups?

Because if that is what he is saying, it sounds very different to what I find in the Bible. The Bible tells of Old Testament prophets speaking to kings, and (perhaps more relevantly for our day) it tells us of the apostle Paul speaking to individuals in the political realm - such as Sergius Paulus, Festus and Felix (all of whom were Roman governors) and King Agrippa. I simply cannot imagine that the apostle Paul would have said to Sergius Paulus “You need to listen to what the priests at the temple of Aphrodite, and the rabbis of the synagogues, and the presbyters of the churches, and hear what they are saying.” Paul did not encourage rulers who were secularly minded people to listen to faith communities - he encouraged them to become Christians - presumably with the expectation that they would try to govern in accordance with the teaching of Jesus. It seems to me that the Pope’s approach is quite different.

And at this point, the Pope comes to one of his main points - the marginalization of religion:

“In this light, I cannot but voice my concern at the increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters, even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance. There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere. There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none.”

By the way, living, as I do, in a country where Christmas was not a public holiday until 1958, I can’t see why any Christian would be worried about whether or not we publicly celebrate Christmas. Scotland was at least as Christian in the first half of the 20th century as it is today.

And this brings us to two more of the Pope’s seven references to freedom.

“And there are those who argue – paradoxically with the intention of eliminating discrimination – that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience. These are worrying signs of a failure to appreciate not only the rights of believers to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, but also the legitimate role of religion in the public square.”

I’m not quite sure what the Pope meant when he spoke of Christians in public roles being required at times to act against their conscience. What does he mean by “acting against their conscience?” I suspect that he doesn’t mean doing something illegal or dishonest - but rather something that a Christian might believe is wrong, but that would be regarded by most people in Britain as quite acceptable. Employers have rights, too - and that should include the right to dismiss people who are not doing their job properly. A Christian who doesn’t like it should find alternative work. The problem arises when it is difficult to find alternative work - because one employer has a virtual monopoly in certain fields. And that situation most often arises when the employer is the state. If the roll of the state in modern Britain was rolled back, discrimination against Christians would cease to be a problem - and freedom would be extended.

(To be continued)