Just war and the military vocation

I went and listened to Charles Lord Guthrie giving the first of the Lent 2011 Faith Matters lectures at Westminster Cathedral Hall yesterday evening. I have missed out on the more recent series of these lectures, but did go to those of March-April 2009 - you can find me among those contributing to the on-line debates on one or two of those lectures.

At the time of posting, the video of Lord Guthrie's lecture can be found here, but the promised on-line debate is not yet up and running. Lord Guthrie presented what was a quite traditional kind of exposition of the criteria for commencing and then engaging in a just war. His criteria for going to war were: just cause, proportionate cause, right intention, right authority, reasonable likelihood of success and the use of war as a resort when all other efforts to resolve the issue have been exhausted. His criteria for justice during the execution of war were discrimination between those who cause harm and those who do not and proportionality in the use of force and destructive power.

Lord Guthrie recognised the difficulty in applying these criteria to the situation of modern warfare where the complexity of practical judgements made using them might not be as easy as in earlier times. A question that was not asked, but would have been interesting to consider, is that about how these criteria can be used in the conduct of an insurgency - and there can be circumstances where the conduct of such a type of warfare might be as just as the conduct of a conventional conflict.

Given that the common theme to this series of lectures is drawn from Pope Benedict's address at Westminster Hall in September 2010:

Westminster Hall was the scene of an historic event on 17 September 2010. On the eve of Pope Benedict’s visit to our Cathedral, centre of Catholic life in our country, the Holy Father addressed various representatives of public life in a place of great historical significance, reminding us of the often hostile relationship between Church and State. It was here that he called us to an authentic dialogue between faith and reason, between religion and society. “I would invite all of you, therefore, within your respective spheres of influence, to seek ways of promoting and encouraging dialogue between faith and reason at every level of national life”.

my own question was about how the principles of a just war might be reflected into an articulation of what it is that constitutes the vocation of a member of the armed forces. The teaching of n.79 of Vatican II's Constitution Gaudium et Spes offers a context for this question:

...it seems right that laws make humane provisions for the case of those who for reasons of conscience refuse to bear arms, provided however, that they agree to serve the human community in some other way....

Those too who devote themselves to the military service of their country should regard themselves as the agents of security and freedom of peoples. As long as they fulfill this role properly, they are making a genuine contribution to the establishment of peace.

Each year since 1958 an International Military Pilgrimage (and here) has taken place in Lourdes, a pilgrimage that expresses the idea that military service is, correctly understood and lived, a service to peace.

It is very easy to see the conscientious objector as being on the side of peace and the soldier as being on the side of war. But is it possible to use the principles of a just war to produce a more specific articulation of the mission of the soldier that would overcome this polarisation? An individual might be called to one or other of these two ways of life - and the judgement of conscience might be seen as one of judgement of a particular vocation in the specific situation.

Going to a lecture like this is not just about the substance of the lecture and discussion itself. It also gives an opportunity for "meeting" the person of the lecturer, for getting a sense of them as a person. In that sense it is interesting to meet someone of Lord Guthrie's standing - he is a former Chief of the Defence Staff. Though he did insist on the relevance of the theory of a just war for today on the grounds that it provides a reminder that moral and ethical questions should be asked by those who make decisions to go to war, I was a little disappointed in the lack of a deeper justification of this insistence. In part, I think this is because the question was not brought down to the level of the individual soldier as would have been needed to answer my question; in part it was also due to what one might consider quite "conservative" answers in favour of Britain's possessing a nuclear weapon and in favour of the justness of the Falklands conflict. I wondered whether, in retirement, Lord Guthrie might have undertaken a moral assessment of greater depth than was apparent.

Thoughts on dialogue

This post is prompted by the invitation to discussion (difficult to use the word "dialogue" twice in the same sentence) about dialogue contained in NewmanCause's comment to my earlier post about Newman and the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. What has prompted me is this paragraph from the post by NewmanCause that I discussed in my post just referred to (my italics added to highlight the aspect which most prompts my thoughts):

It has been axiomatic for Catholic ecumenists that the Church must learn from those with whom she is in ‘dialogue’. What is right in this way of thinking need not be abandoned, once it is recognised, as the Holy Father has recognised, that ‘dialogue’ cannot be an end in itself. Even when ‘dialogue’ is ordered, as it must be, towards conversion to the Catholic Faith, the Church may still stand to learn from those whom she receives into full communion.

Dialogue as encounter with a culture

I would first like to suggest that dialogue has the nature of an encounter with a culture. One might talk of representatives of the Church, or of an individual in the Church, engaging in an encounter with a culture. The culture has its representatives, who might be termed the "partners" with whom dialogue is undertaken.  What I think is a good example of dialogue as encounter with a culture is my post Jessica Hausner's Lourdes. In this I bring to bear my own experience of Lourdes and of Catholic faith to comment on a film which touches on that experience. I also think that Jessica Hausner, without necessarily accepting a supernatural, or even a religious, reality to the phenomenon that is Lourdes, has nevertheless genuinely and honestly engaged with the event that is a pilgrimage to Lourdes. In this sense, she is a genuine partner with whom one can enter into dialogue through commenting on her work.

Inter-religious dialogue, or ecumenical dialogue, can be seen as special cases of this where the partner in the dialogue is a representative of another religion or Christian denomination. To again refer to the sphere of film, the existence of "ecumenical juries" at some film festivals would illustrate this.

In this kind of dialogue, one's own experience gains something from the experience of the dialogue partner. We might see something supportive of our own experience that we had not seen before. In some cases, we might change or adjust our point of view, but not always.

Dialogue as a moment in evangelisation

In its teaching about the nature of evangelisation (Evangelii Nuntiandi, General Directory for Catechesis), the Church speaks about a presence of the Church, or of the individual Christian, in the activity of the world. Sometimes termed "presence in charity", this might not be a presence that is explicitly proclaimed as a Christian presence, but it is a presence prompted and imbued with a Christian spirit. An example of this might be participation in port, hospital or industrial chaplaincy, where many of the encounters one has with seafarers, patients or co-workers might be without explicitly religious content. For most Catholics, it refers to their everyday encounters with neighbours, friends and colleagues.

I think this is also is an aspect of understanding dialogue as encounter with a culture, but brought perhaps to the level of individual human relationships. However - and this is the point at which I would enter into discussion though, I think, not necessarily disagreement with NewmanCause - this will rarely take place with an explicit intention of seeking conversion to the Catholic faith. Indeed, where it to be undertaken with such an explicit intention, there are circumstances in which it would become proselytism of the very worst kind.

What the Catholic Church's teaching allows us to do, though, is to still see this as a moment in the dynamic of evangelisation which imbues the whole of the Church's life. In this sense, it has a reference towards conversion to the Catholic faith, as part of a wider activity of the whole Church. Evangelical Christians have a tendency I think to see evangelism as only occurring when they explicitly proclaim the faith (this is another moment in evangelisation for us Catholics, but not the only one), which does not always lead to positive experiences on the part of their hearers.

Conditions to enable dialogue

"Moving goal posts" are an image that we often use when we are trying to deal with someone, or with an issue, where the ground rules keep changing; it is impossible to know in which direction to kick the ball if the goal posts don't stay still. Dialogue can only occur if the partners to that dialogue have a common concern for the truth of what is known or believed, and a common concern for the moral rightness of what is done. Indifference to truth or indifference to the idea of moral right and wrong make dialogue impossible. Seeing the school or university as a community of learning depends upon this idea of a common searching for what is true and morally good, a searching undertaken together by the faculty and the students. The enterprise of education is, or should be, an enterprise of dialogue.

This consideration prompts me to identify an excruciating irony in our contemporary political situation, and that occurs when the representatives of a political and social culture that is thoroughly secularist (and therefore relativist in both its attitude to the idea of truth and the idea of moral right and wrong) urges on us the need for inter-religious dialogue! It strikes me that what is needed more than anything else is a dialogue between religious belief and non-religious political and social cultures; but the relativism of the latter renders that dialogue all but impossible.

Bridges and Tangents gave an account of exploring fundamentals without being fundamentalist when introducing the current series of Faith Matters lectures. I think he expresses what one might term the basis on which a Catholic is able to enter into dialogue with others:

The title of the series is quite provocative: ‘Fundamentals of Faith’. At first glance, it makes me think of the word ‘fundamentalism’, with all its negative associations – a belief system that is unthinking, unreflective, arrogant, closed to the truths of history and science, of philosophy and psychology. But perhaps that is intentional. The purpose of each lecture is to show that Christians can explore the fundamentals of their faith without being fundamentalist. The root meaning of the word ‘fundamental’, of course, is something that acts as a foundation. Thinking deeply about the fundamentals of faith should actually make you less ‘fundamentalist’ and more reflective, more open, and yes – more faithful.

Faith Matters 2009

The Agency for Evangelisation of Westminster Diocese and the Mount Street Jesuit Centre have arranged a series of lectures under the title of "Fundamentals of Faith". The homepage for this series of lectures is here.

From this page you can read, and download as a PDF file, the first lecture in the series. This was by Fr Richard Finn OP on the subject "Authority and Conscience in Church and Society". At a quick reading, this appears a very clear and careful account of this subject and worthy of a more thorough reading.

Fr John Edwards SJ gave the second talk - "Catholics and Prayer" - earlier this week. As yet, the transcript has not appeared on the website, though there is some discussion under the "Debate" tab.

Faith Matters Lecture 4: Catholicism and Public Life

The last lecture in the Faith Matters series was given by John Battle MP, who represents Leeds West in the House of Commons. Mr Battle's constituency website can be found here, a more personal website is here, and the text of his lecture is on the Westminster Diocese website. In the event, the lecture gave an account of how Mr Battle has worked as an MP, particularly in relation to his constituency, and offered an understanding of this in terms of a "social spirituality"; the lecture title might have perhaps led attendees to expect a lecture addressing issues such as gay rights, adoption agencies etc where a Catholic point of view faces challenges in public life today.

One aspect of attending a lecture such as this is that, in addition to hearing what one might term the "content" one also gains something of a "feel" for the person who is giving the lecture. Mr Battle communicated a real passion for the people of his constituency, and demonstrated a knowledge of their lives gained over many years representing the constituency. As he pointed out in answering a question at the end of the lecture, constituency surgeries and casework is an aspect of the work of MP's that is not often recognised in the media but nevertheless takes up a lot of their time when they are not at Westminster. The second thing that interested me was to see this being the subject of a reflection that related this aspect of Mr Battle's life as an MP to the content of faith. Whilst one might want to ask some questions about the theological perspective underlying this reflection, and therefore about the effectiveness of the resulting synthesis, it would be wrong to see Mr Battle as doing anything other than trying to genuinely integrate his politcal life with his religious faith.

Mr Battle made a kind of introductory observation about the nature of community. In the age of globalisation, we increasingly talk about the "tennis community" or "the hedge fund" community, to give Mr Battle's examples, and we also talk about "virtual communities" that exist exclusively by means of electronic communication. Mr Battle argues instead for a recovery of the original sense of the word community, as people who live and work in the same, shared physical environment. This might be termed a "neighbourhood community". An interesting thought for bloggers!

In answering a question at the end of the lecture, Mr Battle made explicit something that was implicit in the way he went about addressing the title of his lecture (publicised as "Catholicism and Public Life", but in Mr Battle's transcript given as "Building caring communities. Whose task?"). There are some controversial issues where the Catholic politician will find he or she cannot follow or go along with the direction of public policy. One approach is to enter into combat over these issues. Another approach is to, instead, look for those areas of activity in which the Catholic can still engage and work on behalf of others, and to get stuck into those. This latter is the approach that Mr Battle has, if I understood his lecture and response to questions correctly, adopted in his political career and which he was presenting during his lecture.

From a theological and philosophical point of view, the most interesting part of Mr Battle's lecture is the second half, from about page 6 of the transcript onwards. This presents an account of a "social spirituality" which would underpin a political and communitarian practice.

1. Reading Mr Battle's text, one is presented with a synthetic and cohering vision of a "social spirituality", supported by citation of a range of authorities. However, if you look at the cited authors, I am not sure that they are in fact all arguing for the same thing. Karl Rahner's reference to basic communities, for example, on pp.7-8, refers to a particular socio-political context internal to the life of the Church and, with the benefit of hindsight, would now reflect the situation of the new movements in the life of the Church. Similarly, Cardinal Murphy O-Connor's anxiety about renewing the community life of parishes (p.8) refers to the internal life of the Church. There is a blurring in the use of these citations of the idea of building ecclesial community and the idea building (secular) community.

2. A thread running through this section of Mr Battle's text is that of the social nature of the human person, his or her being made for life and activity along with other persons rather than in isolation. This is a very useful theme, that could be developed within the two spheres of (secular) community and ecclesial or religious community. The life of the Christian in the world is a life in a (secular) community; and the life of the Christian precisely as Christian is also a life in a community, but now a community that is directly ordered towards the Divine. Distinguishing the two spheres of community allows one to understand properly their relation to each other, and avoids the danger of an all too ready assumption that the one community is co-terminous with the other. One can see this danger, for example, in the picture of Jesus that is expressed in the quotation from Fr Albert Nolan on pp. 12-13 of the text, and in the way in which Karl Rahner is cited.

3. I would contend that, while not a canonical area, a parish community needs to move out from the Sunday Eucharist into the neighbourhood as the community builders.. It is difficult to disagree with this statement. It does, for example, echo one of the themes of the International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec last year, the theme of the relationship between the Eucharist and the mission of the Church in and to the world at large. However, it leaves unasked another question, that is of at least equal importance to a parish community. How can the parish community draw more of its neighbours to itself, and so itself increase (this not just intended in a simply numerical sense)? The two directions of movement are complementary, but if the distinction between neighbourhood community and ecclesial community is blurred, the two-fold nature of this movement is lost in an excessively optimistic turning of the Church towards the world. To mention a topic raised during the questions at the end of the lecture, one can work to support and grow relationships between, for example, unmarried couples - the parish moving out to the neighbourhood - but there is also a point at which you cannot leave marriage out of it - an invitation to the neighbourhood to move towards the parish.

And this last observation really brings us back to the underlying thesis of Mr Battle's lecture, and a key question. If one is to keep an integrity of Catholic faith, how viable is the approach of just concentrating on the areas where positive engagement is possible and leaving to one side the points of potential conflict with public policy? Recognising that any political involvement is "messy" and will demand co-operation with others of differing points of view, nevertheless, does Mr Battle's approach really work in the end?

Faith Matters Lecture 3: Who is Jesus?

Fr Gerald O'Collins SJ gave the third lecture in the "Faith Matters" series at Westminster Cathedral yesterday evening. The transcript of his lecture can be found here, on the website of Wesminster Diocese. This offered an opportunity for nostalgia, as I attended lectures on fundamental theology given by Fr O'Collins when I was a student in Rome (this isn't anything that special since Father taught at the Gregorian University for some 33 years so there are many a few of us who experienced his lectures at one time or another). Dr Anthony Towey, of St Mary's University College Strawberry Hill, who chaired the lecture, is also a contact from my past.

It was one of the questions at the end of the lecture that I think really focussed on what the lecture was about. This asked about how we can actually come to a genuine personal relationship with Jesus Christ today. This question is worthy of reflection in two ways: delineating exactly what the question means, and then providing a fully Catholic answer.

The "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" referred to in the question seems to me to indicate an attachment to Christ that has a spontaneity about it. By this I mean an attachment that seems to arise from within the individual concerned, and so to have a liveliness and energy about it that would not be the case for an attachment that is in some way achieved from outside (by a form of coercion or by an adaptation to surrounding culture or norms). There may be external factors that contribute to the situation of that attachment, but the core of it arises from within. It is spontaneous in perhaps three senses: the initiative is essentially internal to the individual, it is lively and energetic, and in being both of these it is also profoundly an act of freedom. In the Catholic Church, we can look with a certain envy towards Evangelical protestants to see this spontaneity; but it is also to be seen in the Church in the commitment of Catholics who participate in the life and activities of the new movements.

To introduce a Catholic answer to how this "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" can be achieved, let me try to describe a distinction made by Edith Stein in her doctoral thesis On Empathy. She distinguishes between a physical human body that is presented through sense perception (and which could be "my" body or the body of another) and the "living body", which is how my own body is presented to my consciousness, as something that is always "here" whereas other things, including other bodies, are always "there". The "living body" is therefore to be associated with the "I", the personal consciousness. In Edith's own words, the "I" or individual is:

.. a unified object inseparably joining together the conscious unity of an"I" and a physical body in such a way that each of them takes on a new character. The physical body occurs as a living body; consciousness occurs as the soul of the unified individual.

Edith Stein then continues her analysis to interpret the physical body of others (that we can percieve through the senses) as being also, for the other, a living body united with an "I" and capable of consciousness. Acts of empathy involve our ability to place ourselves, in a kind of secondary way, into the place of the physical body of the other so that we experience it as a living body, a centre of the others "I". Such acts represent inter-personal relationship. In her habilitation thesis, Edith Stein develops this idea of one-to-one personal relationship further in a study of relationships between individuals and communities. She suggests that communities have a kind of personal character, a kind of "I" of their own; they have a "spiritual sphere" with which the members of the community form a relationship. One might think of it as empathy between an individual and a community. What is interesting, though, is that the community has a "physical body" - it has physical members who can be seen, touched, heard - but it also has a kind of "living body" that cannot just be identified with the sum total of its individual physical members but in some way exists "in them" when the community undertakes activities of its life. And this "living body" has a kind of "soul" analagous to that which Edith Stein proposes for the "living body" of the individual person.

Now, where is this going in trying to answer our question about achieving a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ"? What I want to suggest is that our personal relationship with Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with his Church, the Catholic Church. Just as our empathic relations to other persons are mediated through a physical perceivable body, so with our relationship with Jesus Christ. It was first of all the physical body of Jesus, made flesh in Palestine; but it is for us now the physical body of his Church, under its aspect as a visible, tangible institution, and most fundamentally expressed in the hierarchical nature of the Church. It is the Church as institution, represented in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar by the figure of St Peter and his successors. But the physical body reveals to us a "living body", and the term "Mystical Body of Christ" applied to the Church is profoundly significant in this regard. Our empathetic relation to the Church leads us to enter into the space of this "living body", this "mystical body", which is the love of God. For von Balthasar, this aspect of the Church is represented by the figure of St John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.

The achieving of a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is about moving from an experience of the institutional body (which is good and utterly indispensable - and what is missing for the Evangelical protestant) to an experience of the "mystical body" (which cannot be separated from the institutional body, though the Evangelical protestant undoubtedly has some experience of this through an ever abundant grace from God and through a faithfulness to Scripture).

For most Catholics, this rather lofty reflection boils down to a very practical matter. It is about coming to see Sunday Mass as the awe inspiring presence and action of the love of God (St John) through the visible and audible forms of the liturgical texts and actions (St Peter). In this context, one can talk about meeting Jesus in the Scriptures, in the witness of the community of the faithful, in the priest who is most especially "in persona Christi" at the celebration of Mass, and in reception of Holy Communion. These meetings are all expressed in the liturgical form.

All these forms of meeting with Jesus Christ need to be lived out "again", outside of the liturgy itself, so that they become part of our lives and in turn bring us back to the liturgy with the threefold spontaneity to which I referred above. We should not be surprised if a parish that has no devotional life outside of the liturgy - Scripture study or prayer groups, Eucharistic Adoration, etc - has an experience of the liturgy that is little more than formalistic.

For Hans Urs von Balthasar, the figure in the Church who joins hierarchical structure (St Peter) to charismatic love (St John) is the Mother of the Lord, the Virgin Mary. Mary is a figure who represents the whole of the Church, in both its "physical" and its "mystical" aspects. A simply pietistic Marian devotion is, I think, of limited value. I prefer the notion of a "Marian character", which should spread through every aspect of Christian life, and not be an "add-on devotion". The ecclesial nature of our relationship with Jesus Christ is in this way at once also a Marian nature.

It is very interesting to recognise features that are almost universal among the new movements in the Church, the locus in which many people are able to achieve the "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" to which the question referred: a Marian charism, Eucharistic Adoration, reflection on the Scriptures and on their application to daily living, and faithfulness to the hierarchy of the Church.

Catholicism and Capitalism: Questions and Answers

Following my earlier post on the second Faith Matters lecture at Westminster Cathedral, Professor Philip Booth offered to respond to a "questions and answers" for this blog. The questions from the audience at the end of Professor Booth's lecture expressed concern about the inequality that many saw as being an implication of a "free economy". I hope that these three "questions and answers", though not directly asking about that concern, do nevertheless shed some light on it. I am grateful to Professor Booth for his willingness to do this, and hope that this post will promote discussion about his lecture. A video of Professor Booth's lecture can be found here on the Diocese of Westminster website.

Q1. You prefer the term “free economy” to other terms such as “market economy” or, perhaps, “capitalism”. You also refer to the “market sector of a free economy”.

What features distinguish a “free economy” in the sense in which you intend the term from, say, “capitalism” as it might be intended in general use by others?

This is clearly a question of semantics. I am not sure that the word “capitalism” communicates the essence of a free economy very effectively. Communities may choose to live freely whilst having little or no capital and whilst holding their goods in common (monks for example). A free economy, subject to the rule of law clearly allows this. The word “capitalist” I think promotes an emphasis on “accumulation”, “investment” and, of course, “capital”. I have nothing against these things but they do not communicate the essence of what a free economy is all about.

Q2. In your lecture, you refer to “self interest” and to “selfishness”, and say that these two should not be conflated.

Is there a real difference between “self interest” and “selfishness”, or is this just a play on words with the former term implying a positive valuing of the same thing that receives a negative valuing from the latter term?

I am not a philosopher so I would not want to say where one concept begins and the other ends. Let me answer as an economist (and as a Christian) who sees both concepts in practical operation. It is a bit like the difference between breathing and panting for breath. Somebody panting for breath is clearly still breathing just as somebody who is acting selfishly clearly believes they are acting in their own self interest. But, also like breathing, merely going about one’s daily economic business acting in one’s own self interest is not selfish. I was not selfish by cycling to the station today, or eating toast for breakfast, or buying the bread to make the toast, but I was acting in my own self interest. More generally living a clean life (which we may do even if we have no Christian beliefs) is in our self interest, even if Christians do it for different reasons. So, what I am saying is that we need an economy that works in harmony with self interest for two reasons. Firstly, because self interest is a generally benign force by which we make many economic judgements and, secondly, because a free economy (unlike one where power is centralised in government) at least brings some good from the fallen human nature that manifests itself in selfishness. A free economy requires agreement from another person to enter into a contract so self interest generally promotes the general economic interest. [The repeated use of the word “general” is important – economists often try to be too precise and try to perfect things that cannot be perfected].

Now lots of qualifications are needed here: Christians can read this far and then try to make my logic go further than is intended. Firstly, there are many areas of life where self interest is not the main criteria for judging whether to undertake an action: any mother or father will be aware of that. Secondly, selfishness can, especially where there are concentrations of economic power (whether local or national), create significant damage (though, in general, I fear that such damage is worsened by concentrating power in the government so how we deal with the problem is a moot point). Thirdly, we should never neglect the importance of “ethics” in business – as consumers and producers, as managers and owners. This is not the often meaningless doctrines of “corporate social responsibility”, nor is it the well-meaning but possibly not helpful process of “socially responsible consuming”. I mean straightforward, good, old fashioned ethics (not cheating, not exploiting ignorance, not hiding things from the board of directors, not riding roughshod over property rights when the state does not protect them properly and so on).

Q3. “The state has … taken upon itself …. the provision of income to families in times of need …” “The state may intervene, as a last resort, to try to assist the poor”.

Why should the provision of benefits through the welfare state not be understood as appropriate last resort intervention by the state? What is the boundary that distinguishes between the state “taking upon itself” and appropriate “last resort” intervention?

Thankfully the answer to this one is shorter. There is no absolute boundary here. I also made the criticism that the state was increasingly taking over child care so I was trying to indicate a gradual encroachment by the state. I think the state has two main roles. One is providing income to those who are simply poor (despite working). How this should be done and to what extent is a matter of debate. I do feel, however, that, with regard to the contingencies of life (health, life, pensions, unemployment etc), voluntary initiative (insurance companies, mutual associations, unions and charity) will do better than the state. The principle of subsidiarity demands that the private sector be given its opportunity. The state may fill in the gaps; it may provide the legal framework; it may help finance the contributions that are necessary for the
poor. I think that if you were able to take the 19th century social reformers around an area of serious UK poverty (and poverty is not just a lack of money, remember; in many senses people seem to have less hope, drive, initiative and desire for self improvement than, say, 80 years ago) and tell them that the British government will spend over 50% of national income, the biggest chunk of which is on the welfare state, in 2010-2011, they would be horrified. Indeed, many of them would have predicted it!

Faith Matters Lecture 2: Catholicism and Capitalism

The second lecture in this series was given by Professor Philip Booth, and economist, of the Institute of Economic Affairs. If we are to place Professor Booth within the political spectrum, it is probably fair to say that he is on "the right" rather than on "the left". The text of Professor Booth's slides, and a video of the lecture, can be found on the Diocese of Westminster website.

The lecture was chaired by Daniel Johnson, editor of a political magazine Standpoint that will, in its next issue, publish the text of the lecture. Whilst it is certainly fair that the chair of a lecture should be someone who has an empathy with the lecturer - that is only to be fair to the lecturer - on the other hand, the connections here seemed a little too cosy.

Professor Booth presented an account of Papal teaching against socialism, noting, if I recall correctly, that this opposition was not just to what one might term "extreme" or explicitly totalitarian socialism, but to socialism in principle. The quotations can be seen in the slides at the Westminster Diocese website. His core thesis was then based around the twin concepts of solidarity and subsidiarity in Catholic social teaching, and argued that a "free economy" (essentially what would be understood by the term a "market economy") delivered these concepts.

1. I think Professor Booth's analysis is worthy of considerable attention, and should not be ignored by Catholic thought, be that from those on the political left or on the political right.

2. Professor Booth's analysis needs to be carefully examined. I do not think it advocates a totally anarchic free market economy. The adoption of the term "free economy" does indicate, in the detail of its presentation, something distinct from the idea of a complete "free for all".

3. Professor Booth takes a very interesting approach to the relationship between self interest and the promotion of the common good. In essence, I think this asserts the possibility of pursuing at once an activity that is both in a person's self interest and in the interest of society as a whole. It depends, so far as I can tell, on seeing the interest of the common good as being actually my own interest too. This asks for a kind of conversion towards the interests of the other in economic (and indeed political) activity. I think this is something that could be developed much more in the context of how a Christian individual can play a morally just part in economic and political activity.

4. In discussing the balance between the role of individual responsibility (or spontaneous exercise of responsibility by citizens coming together to pursue a common purpose) and the role of the state (whose role is to facilitate the exercise of responsibilities only when lower levels in society are not able to do that themselves - subsidiarity), I think Professor Booth failed to develop a more exact understanding of when state intervention becomes appropriate. This left a kind of "unanswered question" in the mind of the listener. The notion of subsidiarity does recognise a part to be played by the state; one wondered in this lecture whether a silence remained on this aspect of subsidiarity which left open the possibility that Professor Booth was really advocating a completely non-interventionist position.

5. An interesting part of the discussion of the lecture was around the relationship between the morality of the "free economy" and that of society as a whole. To the argument that a "market economy" encourages greed and selfishness, Professor Booth responded that the ordering was the reverse. The existence of greed and selfishness in society as whole would drive a moral disordering of the "free economy" so the answer is to restore a moral stance in society as whole rather than to attack the idea of a "free economy" as being the cause of the evils. One can admit that the behaviour of people in society as a whole will drive their behaviour when they take part in economic activity. However, there is mutuality in this relationship. If the economic system encourages a particular type of behaviour, then that will also spill over into wider society too. And where the economic in human activity is seen as the essence of politics (this can be recognised in both capitalist and socialist thinking), then the influence of economic activity on the moral activity of society as a whole will be even greater. I think Professor Booth needs to be more strongly challenged on the mutuality of this relation.

6. Connected to this, I suspect there was a selectivity in Professor Booth's presentation of Papal teaching. I recall that, when Pope John Paul II wrote his encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, this was seen in some media treatments as standing between the two positions of liberal market economy and Marxist socialism, with a critique of them both. As I post this, I have not been able to read this up fully, but I certainly think it is worthy of further study in the light of Professor Booth's lecture.

7. Professor Booth referred to the idea that the state cannot replace the spontaneous action of charity to care for others in society, be that the spontaneous action of an individual or of a group of persons coming together. This is the principle of solidarity. This point does, I think, have a double import. One is that, as Cardinal Cordes noted when he spoke in England last year, and commented on Pope Benedict's Deus Caritas Est, the charitable activity of the Church cannot be separated from its roots in Catholic faith and so always needs to be undertaken in faithfulness to one's love of God (and so in accordance with the teaching of the Church). This gives an "added value" to care provided by the Church, when compared to that provided by the (impersonal) state, an "added value" that is there for any act of charity truly so called. Government should therefore not remove the freedom needed for this action of charity to be effective in society. This is a valid idea; but, as I have already noted, there is a point where, exercising its role in the framework of subsidiarity, government might contribute to this activity. This is the second import of Professor Booth's reference. In questions at the end of the lecture it was expressed in the concerns about inequality that many Catholics would have with a free market system. It is essentially about determining the point at which an intervention of the state becomes appropriate, something that I have already noted as being a kind of "silent point" in the lecture.

8. During questions, Professor Booth was asked, through the mediation of the chair of the lecture, about how his idea of a "free economy" responded to the inequality that can exist in such a system, and that was the difficulty that many Catholics would feel with his position. I felt his response was inadequate, perhaps primarily because of the failure to elaborate fully the point at which state intervention became appropriate. A less cosy relationship between the chair and the lecturer might have brought this out more clearly and presented Professor Booth with more of a challenge to answer (though, to be fair, the chair did present the question in very much the terms I have just used).

In the contemporary situation of our society, Professor Booth's lecture prompted some questions for me. These questions do touch very much on the relationship of the employees of what are often termed public services and their employers.

Are those who work in state funded schools, hospitals, social services etc agents of the state? Or are they agents of civil society, with the state funding being a mechanism by which the state fufils its role, in accordance with subsidiarity, of empowering those at "lower" levels in society to properly and in freedom play their part?

Is it really the role of central government to set performance targets and develop strategies at a national level for public services? Or should this be left much more to the levels of local government (remembering, of course, that it was Conservative government that introduced the pattern of local responsibility for implementation and highly centralised control of what it was that was to be implemented, a pattern that new Labour have followed through with a vengeance)?

What is the proper role of the state towards those in civil society who fail to fulfil the responsibilities that are properly theirs according to the principle of subsidiarity?

Faith Matters Lecture 1: the existence of God

I went yesterday evening to Wesminster Cathedral (the Cathedral hall, to be exact) for the first in the series of lectures entitled Faith Matters. This was quite interesting in a number of ways.

Without any deliberate foresight, I ended up sat next to a Christian Brother, from their community in Twickenham. It turned out he had attended, as a pupil, a school called St Joseph's College, Blackpool. The school does not exist any more, having been incorporated into what was known as St Mary's RC High School, but now appears to be St Mary's Catholic College. The school website shows almost no indication of the Christian Brothers at all, so I am not linking to it. I attended the school some twenty years later than him. Small world.

The lecture was by Dr Peter Vardy, of Heythrop College. Dr Vardy's slides can be found from the home page of the lecture series. Points of interest:

1. It was interesting to see modern science at the centre of the discussion of the existence of God. A problem with discussing science in this sort of context is that you can end up using a kind of watered down or "populist" science. I would have liked, for example, to have seen some advertance to the work of Stanley Jaki, who is particularly acute when it comes to looking at the significance of science for philosophy and religious belief. A thoroughly post-modern outlook would lack the faith in science that is necessary if science is to be discussed as a key component in answering the question about God, so it is quite significant that it did not seem out of place to be holding such a discussion.

2. It would be wrong to say that a reference to metaphysics (ie the philosophical study of what is means for things to be) was absent from the lecture. On the other hand, a more explicit advertance to metaphysics would have cast Dr Vardy's references to St Thomas "five ways" in a rather different light. It would also have allowed a notion of analogy some play, too.

3. Slide 51 contains the apparently contradictory statements that God's existence cannot be proven, but that God's existence provides a very persuasive ultimate explanation of the world that we know. "Not proofs, but very good pointers" is Dr Vardy's phrase with regard to proofs of the existence of God. What might have been looked for here, instead of the generalised reference to religious experience (in an individualised way) as a pointer toward's God's existence, is a reference to a rather more rigorous phenomenology of religion. It is quite right to say that a "proof" of the existence of God may not convince someone; but if a "proof" is correct, it still remains, in the order of truth or of being, a "proof". The idea of analogy has something to contribute at this point, as has a phenomenology of religious faith, in enabling us to understand how the person comes or does not come to believe in the existence of God when faced with the arguments for his existence.

4. I must admit to having been left with a latent sense of unease at the willingness of Dr Vardy to so "no" in answer to the question as to whether the existence of God can be proven. But this willingness on his part has a double aspect. One aspect refers to the substantiveness of the argument itself, while the other refers to the receptiveness of the person to the force of the argument (the proof that may be correct, but does not convince the individual), and you are never quite sure which aspect a statement like Dr Vardy's refers to most. The philosophical method of realist phenomenology, with its openness to "the things in themselves", appears to me to provide a way of understanding "proofs" in their genuine rigour as "proofs" whilst at the same time recognising in its understanding of the nature of faith itself that not all will be "convinced" by the proofs. I feel that there was a potential here that was only hinted at in the lecture (see slide 53) and which could have been developed much further.