The Semantics of Bishop-Elect Robert Barron

On Tuesday, July 14, 2015, Father Robert Barron, a popular Catholic media figure, published an article in the National Catholic Register, “A Prophetic Pope and the Tradition of Catholic Social Teaching.” Commenting on Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’s encyclical on care for humanity’s common home, Father Barron said,

Robert Sirico, Michael Novak, Arthur Brooks, and many others are therefore right in suggesting that Catholic Social Teaching does not represent a tertium quid beyond capitalism and socialism; rather, it clearly aligns itself against socialistic arrangements and clearly for the market economy. John Paul II appreciated the free market as the economic concomitant of a democratic polity, since both rest upon the dignity of the individual and his right to self-determination.

On Friday, July 17, 2015, Catholic speaker and activist Keith Michael Estrada published an article in the online Christian Democracy Magazine, “Capitalism and the Catholic Social Tradition: Conversing With Father Robert Barron.” The article took Father Barron to task for his condemnation of socialism and support for capitalism (a term invented by the socialists as a pejorative), and implied that Father Barron is not completely in agreement with Pope Francis and Catholic social teaching. As Estrada commented,

It is unfortunate that Father Barron accepts, without providing any analysis or critique, the idea that the Catholic social tradition rejects socialism absolutely while maintaining that what is needed is merely a refining of the capitalist system. In agreement with Robert Sirico and Michael Novak, Barron writes that Catholic Social Teaching, “clearly aligns itself against socialistic arrangements and clearly for the market economy.”

On Tuesday, July 21, 2015 the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had appointed Father Barron one of three new auxiliary bishops of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. This suggests that Pope Francis might not agree with Estrada’s assessment of Father Barron, or at least has no material problems with Father Barron’s position.

I disagree with Estrada’s assessment of Pope Francis, Father Barron, and Catholic social teaching. This should not surprise Estrada, who commented somewhat negatively on a recent article of mine that appeared in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, “Pope Francis and the Just Third Way.”

What may surprise Estrada, however, is the fact that I, too, have some difficulties with Father Barron’s position as stated, although nowhere near the problems I have with Estrada’s open advocacy of socialism. This is because my difficulties with what Father Barron says appear to be purely semantic, while my problems with Estrada are substantive.

That being the case, my two principal difficulties with Father Barron are easily resolved. One, he equates the free market with capitalism. Two, Father Barron dismisses the possibility of a tertium via, that is, a third way.

I think Father Barron is misleading when he uses the term “capitalism” — and I believe Pope St. John Paul II would concur. Asking whether “capitalism” is the best model for development, in § 42 of Centesimus Annus His Holiness opined,

Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress?

The answer is obviously complex. If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”. But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.

Given, then, that the word itself is of ambiguous import, I prefer not to use “capitalism” at all, if only in the interests of clarity, something in very short supply today. Instead, I use “Just Third Way” as defined by the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ), for which I serve as Director of Research.

The Just Third Way is based on the three principles of economic justice first articulated by Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler in their mistitled but profound 1958 collaboration, The Capitalist Manifesto and refined by CESJ:

1. Participative Justice: equal opportunity and access to the means to participate in — contribute to — production with both labor and capital,
2. Distributive Justice: equal opportunity and access to the means to receive the results of production in strict proportion to the relative value of one’s contribution to production as determined in a free, non-monopoly, and just market, and
3. Social Justice: the “balancing” or feedback principle directed to the reform of institutions by removing barriers to ensure that participative and distributive justice function within acceptable parameters so that people can meet their economic wants and needs through their own efforts.

The three principles of economic justice are applied in the four pillars of a just market economy:

1. A limited economic role for the State. As Pope Leo XIII declared in § 7 of Rerum Novarum, “Man precedes the State, and possesses, prior to the formation of any State, the right of providing for the substance of his body.”
2. Free, open, and non-monopolistic markets within an understandable and fair system of laws as the most objective and democratic means for determining just prices, just wages and just profits (the residual after all goods or services are sold).
3. Restoration of private property, especially in corporate equity and other forms of business organization. “Property” is not the thing owned, but the natural, inalienable right to be an owner (i.e., “access” — the generic right of dominion), and the socially determined and limited rights of ownership (i.e., “use” — the universal destination of all goods, the proviso that what is owned must be used in a socially responsible manner). The rights of property include the enjoyment of the fruits or profits of what is owned. As Kelso put it, “Property in everyday life, is the right of control” as well as enjoyment of the income. As all the popes from Leo XIII through Francis have asserted, people should control what is owned and enjoy the income it generates. We must own, not be owned.
4. Widespread capital ownership, individually or in free association with others.

I therefore believe that “Robert Sirico, Michael Novak, Arthur Brooks, and many others” are not dissenting from Catholic social teaching as Estrada suggests, but are merely being ambiguous. This is a matter for concern, certainly, but merits discussion, not condemnation.

My other disagreement with Father Barron relates to his assertion that Father Sirico and others “are therefore right in suggesting that Catholic Social Teaching does not represent a tertium quid beyond capitalism and socialism.” If you believe that capitalism and socialism are the only possible arrangements of the economic order, Father Barron is correct. If, however, you believe that something other than capitalism and socialism is possible, such as CESJ’s Just Third Way, he is incorrect.

I understand capitalism as a system in which a relatively few members of a private sector élite own or control the means of production. They control capital through direct ownership, management, and access to money and credit. They control labor through a system that maintains significant barriers against widespread capital ownership, and thereby restricts the great mass of propertyless workers to income from wages and welfare. This imposes and maintains “a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.” (Rerum Novarum, § 3.)

I understand socialism as a system in which a relatively few members of a government bureaucratic élite control the means of production. They control capital through State ownership, management, support for collective ownership, and access to money and credit. They control labor through a system that restricts the great mass of propertyless workers to income from wages and welfare, abolishing private property altogether. This “rob[s] the lawful possessor, distort[s] the functions of the State, and create[s] utter confusion in the community.” (Rerum Novarum, § 4.)

As far as the ordinary person is concerned, then, for all intents and purposes there is no difference between capitalism and socialism. Pope St. John Paul II seemed to be of the same opinion. In § 35 of Centesimus Annus he referred to “the socialist system, which in fact turns out to be State capitalism.”

That is why I believe that CESJ’s Just Third Way, embodying the three principles of economic justice and the four pillars of a just market economy, to be a genuinely new tertium via that transcends the flaws of both capitalism and socialism. Frankly, I believe that Father — now Bishop-elect — Barron would be as open as Pope St. John Paul II to a discussion of CESJ’s work, to which the Supreme Pontiff gave his personal encouragement during a private audience with members of CESJ and representatives of Polish Solidarity in 1987.

In closing, I must address Estrada’s somewhat equivocal claim that, “Father Barron accepts, without providing any analysis or critique, the idea that the Catholic social tradition rejects socialism absolutely.” Estrada’s statement would appear to be somewhat disingenuous. The Catholic Church has, in fact, clearly and unambiguously condemned socialism many times in no uncertain terms.

Pope Pius XI went so far as to deny that anyone could be both Catholic and socialist. As he stated in § 120 of Quadragesimo Anno,

If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which, moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.

Given such a strong statement from the highest possible authority in the Catholic Church, it should be unnecessary for Bishop-elect Barron to justify his absolute rejection of socialism to anyone.