The US Regional Meeting of Popular Movements recently concluded. Many members of the Church hierarchy lent their support. Ironically, the conference returned the favor by throwing hierarchy under the bus. The conference’s “Modesto Statement” attacked hierarchy in all its forms as “intrinsically immoral.”
This position is philosophically incoherent, theologically heterodox, politically untenable, and deeply immoral. Hierarchy is intrinsic to the nature of God, the family and the church, to the human intellect, moral action, and scientific inquiry, to the development of theology, and in fact to any social, intellectual, or natural order. We can no more eliminate hierarchy from the structure of reality than we can square the circle.
Most Catholics will never read, let alone care about, the Modesto statement. I mention it because it is emblematic of a deep, philosophical incoherence that lies below the surface in much popular discourse and even in some Catholic catechesis and theological reflection. That incoherence is the fruit of modern liberalism. I do not mean “liberalism” as defined by radio talk show hosts or as identifiable with the Democratic Party. I mean the tradition of liberalism that extends from John Locke to Adam Smith, which characterizes both major American political parties, and which provides nearly all the unexamined axioms for modern civic life.
Early modern liberalism was an attempt to oppose the absolutist state and to ground human dignity and freedom in rational, “self-evident” moral principles. The progenitors of the tradition were not Catholics and were, in fact, deeply opposed to Catholic theology and to Catholic influence in society. John Locke famously denied toleration to Catholics in his Essay Concerning Toleration. As Philip Jenkins has demonstrated (The New Anti-Catholicism, 2003), modern liberalism has not moved substantially from this early intolerance towards Catholics.
Alasdair MacIntyre has shown (After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 1981) that early modern liberals inherited their moral commitments from Christian culture. The dignity of man, the freedom of the will, the separation of temporal and spiritual power, and the notion of subjective rights are Catholic contributions to intellectual history. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas combined the philosophical contributions of the ancient world with biblical religion in a new synthesis focused on the moral development of every human being towards rational beatitude. That tradition lies at the heart of Western political thought and the development of science, jurisprudence, healthcare and education. (See Rodney Stark’s, How the West Won, 2014.)
Liberals like Locke, Hume, Reid, and Smith inherited those moral commitments, but sought to restate them in an Enlightenment idiom. They rejected both Catholic tradition and the Aristotelian framework in which it was cast. Their ideas of what seemed “reasonable” were not actually self-evident principles or indubitable premises, but cultural artifacts removed from their natural home. Thus, liberalism passed through stages, continually seeking new arguments to defend an incoherent position. Rationalism and empiricism gave way to utilitarianism, pragmatism, nihilism, and ultimately to post-modern silliness.
The Catholic Church does not reject all liberal doctrines. It could never do so since many liberal doctrines derive ultimately from Catholic moral theology. The ideals of human freedom, dignity, rationality, solidarity, and authentic moral development are Catholic contributions to world culture. Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain essentially authored the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights. The Second Vatican council was largely a reflection on the extent of overlap between Catholic theology and the tradition of modern liberalism. What Catholic philosophy rejects is the idea that these values can exist coherently outside the hierarchic order intrinsic to Catholic theology and to sound philosophy and science.
The Second Vatican Council (Unitatis Redintegratio) acknowledged that there is a “hierarchy of truths” intrinsic to the Catholic faith. God is the first principle not only of reality, but of the structure of human knowledge. Wisdom consists in learning first principles and in applying them to concrete decision making. We do not learn those principles from purely abstract reason, but come to realize them in subjection to teachers and in conversation with a tradition. Likewise, moral development consists not in radical free choice, but in learning to yield to those transcendent values that make a claim on our obedience.
Children do not automatically realize moral or philosophical truth any more than students independently discover calculus or relativity theory. Parents and teachers are needed to guide the young towards the development of moral and intellectual virtue. The wisdom and hierarchic authority of parents and of tradition is a necessary condition for learning and justifying exactly those commitments at the heart of the liberal project.
The authors of the Modesto statement have none of this conversation in mind, of course. Their only concern is the standard litany of perceived exclusions based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and whatever shibboleth may be added tomorrow to the list of intersectional identities. They thoughtlessly assimilated that hollow ideology to the rich tradition of Catholic social doctrine, which is hierarchical through and through. Reasonable reflection on social status, economic opportunity, and human development cannot be based on the platitudes of liberalism but must be grounded in the hierarchic wisdom of the Church.