February 24, 2004 How can Catholics deal with modern politics?

by Msgr. Frank Lane

I'm pretty convinced that with modern American politics it doesn't matter where you are with them now (Republican or Democrats) they have some significant roots. If we can grab a hold of them we'll be able to take apart a lot of the discussion. We'll be able to find out how we as Christians can respond to the issues. How many of you have ever heard of Leonardo Boff, a Franciscan priest in Brazil and the author of liberation theology.

Are you familiar with Liberation Theology? (Few show of hands.) Well that's good, that tells me where I can go.

My thesis is this: the foundation of a great deal of modern political discourse is based on the philosophy of Carl Marx. We have this sense of associating Marx with Communism. We say Communism failed so that's the end of Marx but I don't believe that.

It has a very clear structure and framework and when we come to understand and know that, we can go through and exegete a great deal of modern issues. I'd like to start there and I'd like to encourage you to contribute if you would like. I think the more you process this, the more it should raise questions in your own mind.


Historically speaking Christianity entered into a crisis in the 19th century. And a part of this was Christianity's fault. In an attempt to discourse with alternative movements; the romantic, Germanic movements, rational movements, Catholicism wanted to come up with a rational response to say they can participate in the conversation.

The problem was they came up with a form of neo-scholastic theology that reached beyond it's capacity and they explained things that no human mind could grasp and they made a lot of statements. Thomas Aquinas said that reason can lead us to know there is a God but not who God is. This whole coming to know something, was the basis and the problem with neo-scholasticism because it claimed to have reason to know who God was.

Nietsche used this and struck at the Achilles heal of Christianity. He said, "God is dead and Christianity killed it." If these concepts can be brought through reason then it's no longer God and no longer transcendence. He was onto something. The problem was that he was able to articulate what we were not able to articulate which was our limitations. The result was an enormous crisis of faith.

The 19th century philosophers critiqued us another way, the Church made the God of revelation so abstract that they were in control of that God. Abstraction is the tool of oppression. Have you heard of Albert Camus? That was his thesis. Once you create a over arching abstract absolute the only people who can deal with that are in control and you have oppression. Christianity was identified as oppressive and you note the things gleaned from Marx that Religion is the opiate of the masses.


It's a controlling thing. The thing that the 19th century Germans were fascinated with was ancient Greece, in particular Aristotle. Since they rejected Christianity they rejected his metaphysics but they focused on his politics and ethics. He had a whole new birth in Germany, he was the philosopher of the German idealists.

This is why they were so fascinated with him because it created for them a perfect society. The task of the city-state was to create an environment where every had their own personal needs fulfilled. This environment was created by the activity of the citizens. It became a way to create a human perfect society. Marx wanted to do this so from Aristotle he took the notion of the Greek city-state in which the activity of those in the city-state became the perfect society. So political activity became necessary for people to find happiness. There was no happiness outside of the community because the community created the happiness.

If the purpose of the society is to fulfill everyone's needs according to what their needs are, and if the way you fulfill their needs is through political activity and discourse, then for Marx democratic discourse is what creates happiness. Happiness is a moral good, according to Marx, so morality isn't individual and personal but is political. What we are concerned about is the society which allows each of us to find our fulfillment. Can you see where this is going?

This is incredibly important in the political life of the 20th century. If the goal of the society is to fulfill the needs of the society and if the moral and ethical end of the society is created through the political activity of the citizens which creates the society, the society becomes the self-creating reality and is an isolated entity. It creates itself through democratic discourse.

So there is no room for a transcendent component; a rejection of religion. In 19th century transcendence resided in religion, abstract religion, did it care about the fulfilment of individual needs? No, not according the great minds, it just told you to accept your place in life to walk hand in hand with powers of oppression, thus it became an unethical and immoral component.


As this argument continued to grow, it became a very powerful force in an emerging industrial world. If we take those pieces and analyze what goes on within the American political scene, we begin to understand some of the language and rhetoric of modern American politics.

One of the issues that was raised that if Aristotle was so bright if he was able to articulate the perfect society, how was he able to accept slavery. There was a professor at brown university who raised this question, her conclusion was this: because he didn't know any better. It was so deeply embedded in his society that he didn't know anything else.

How can you get Aristotle to recognize that this was oppressive? You would have to educate him to recognize slavery as an oppressive presence. So the purpose of education by the new Aristotelians was to educate the oppressed about their oppression so that they could more effectively participate in the democratic discourse of their society and do away with those oppressive things in the society so they can be free. Where they can participate in the creation of the perfect society.

Have you heard that education is the answer? What kind of education? The new Aristotelians in the American political scene says that's the purpose of education; to identify oppression and throw off the chains and become participants in the democratic discourse so to make the perfect society.


It becomes very clear then that those people who are in control of the theory are in control of those who are oppressed. They identify the categories of the oppressed. Who are the people who do this? The academy, the universities, the professors, who are they and how do they identity them? Women, blacks, other minorities, gays, native Americans. They control the categories of oppression. So the purpose of education is the help women, blacks and gays to recognize this oppression and liberate themselves from this and move into the mainstream of American political democratic discourse which creates the new morality and ethics of the perfect society

They are the agents of change because they are the ones educated to be liberated so they have the capacity to liberate others who are oppressed so the society can be free to fulfill the needs of each person. If you are oppressed then your need is not fulfilled so you have to take off the shackles and become a free citizen through democratic political discourse to recreate society which is weighed by oppression and abstractions.

That idea then in this Marxist world is to create universal liberation of the oppressed who are identified by the academy and as they are identified they become the privileged within society. It is their voices which will create freedom. Voices contrary to these oppressed peoples, by definition, are the oppressors. The voices of the oppressors must be silenced so the voice of the oppressed may become free.

If that's the theory then how do we identify this? Do we see this in American politics today? Is this something that we strive for through education, the liberation of the oppressed that they may speak freely and in that freedom they create a society free of oppression where each person's needs are fulfilled so we improve humankind.

To do that you must suppress the oppressors. Who are the oppressors? Who are they who say there are values that transcend human needs? Are there people who say that sacrifice is a noteworthy thing? Yes, are there voices who say that there are people who have served humanity well and they should be honored. The oppressors are illegitimate voices, though, so they are of hatred, of power and dominance and they're loathe some.

I would ask you just in a way, and certainly my political memory is longer than yours, but even in the most recent conflicts, when you hear things like hate speech or illegitimacy of an opinion or when you hear that the traditional values of a society are oppressive or male dominated so they are not valid. When you hear that we have to educate, and I'm not against education, but in a political sense we have to educate people. Why can't we trust people? Why can't we say that a human person created in the image and likeness of the Divine struggles for an awareness of transcendence. Only the society can free you, they say. Human nature is only of the corporation, the group, and the group necessarily liberates you. Unless I tell you that you are oppressed, you have no internal mechanism to understand that yourself.

So you have to be conditioned so you can understand your own condition in the world so you can go through the cycle of serving the society to build society to gain happiness from the society.

I think that if we even listen carefully, this is a very political year. If we listen to the debates, if we listen carefully to the discourse, you can see parts and pieces very clearly in the discussion that is underway. Probably the greatest proponents of the new Aristotelians were the Clintons. They followed along this philosophy. None of these political personalities would identify themselves as Marxist but the power of the thought that penetrated the 19th centuries became the underlying things we see today.


There was a great debate in the 80's between Cardinal Ratzinger and Leonardo Boff. Boff's issue was there was no transcendence, you want to form these base communities that seek justice but it ends there, therefore it was not Christian. Because Christianity reaches beyond the immediate and the ultimate end is transcendence, so Ratzinger called his writings Marxist. People said he was behind the times. He is still worried about Communism like Joseph McCarthy but the modern political liberation theologians has roots in Marxism. That is the whole idea that they strove for justice but only up to transcendence, not including. Ratzinger was berated for it and he would not even speak with them.



Can you bring up modern issues that we are going through right now?

Response: Political correctness.

That is part of it. If you take the abortion question, the child must be a fetus it may not be a child, because if it is a child it's a person and so it should be able to participate in society, but since it's not don't worry about it. They control language..

Response: Gay marriage.

Certainly, that's exactly, they are identified as one of the oppressed, they have to be educated to the fact that they are. It is not just for them to be oppressed so they must recognize that who they are is acceptable and they must be politically active so they can be liberated.

Response: In this country you mention all these different types, one oppressor may be an oppressed in one perspective. In this country I think it's mostly economic oppression. The gays want to be married because they want the benefits.

Do you think that's it or also something philosophical

Response: I think it leads through all these different types of oppression.

It think that's true but there is an ideological dimension too. There is a casting off of the oppression that says they can't do that. My comment was too that the benefits of marriage help them out economically, but at the same time the hill folk of Kentucky are not oppressed, and they're economically deprived beyond belief. Marx would agree that economics make the society function, and that's a tender point to hit on.

I'm not saying all of this is wrong, but if we want to take apart the complexities, for instance, what do you think is part of the anger behind Gibson's movie?

Response: It brings things of God into society We don't want religion in our society

It's not part of our democratic discourse.

Response: It goes into the victim mentality, the Jews have prospered now so with this movie they're oppressed.

Who is Jesus in this movie though, in society?

Response: He is the oppressor

He sacrificed for others, the object of His life was not His own self-interest so He is against the Marxist world. He shatters modern values by His life. He has liberated Himself and others but not to His own well-being. This reintroduces the notion that maybe the whole meaning of life is not for me to be happy. This is the most deadly challenge of all because the whole thing starts to crumble. Jesus as the historical figure is a threat to modern society.

Question: Perhaps it is not to be happy, and this is what our country was founded on, the pursuit of happiness so does that goes away from that?

But that pursuit is through the ownership of property, it's an English philosophy. But yes, there is not a symbiosis between the American dream and Christianity.

Question: Where does Rarum Nevarum, The social justice encyclical fit into all this?

Leo XIII articulated a rule of law from Francisco Suarez that every man is entitled to the means of supporting his family. That is land, but for Marx it was a means of production, for Christianity it's the means to support your family.

A lot of people get sucked into this Marxist philosophy because they're concerned about genuine social justice issues, but how do you do that without becoming Marxist? That's why being a Christian our prayer life is so important. The greatest argument against Mother Teresa was that she didn't attack the systems of oppression that kept the people poor, she only cared for the poor. An English author was very critical of her. There was a stinging criticism of her from a women's conference in the states. There you have a stark reality of the difference, for one the transformation of society is the only meaning there is, the other, love is what is reality.

Question: One thing I noticed is that instead of attacking issues, it comes down to personal attacks

The answer to that is you can't go after the issues, because you can't discuss them. There is an orthodoxy that if you're so stupid you can't see things our way, what can I say to you?

Question: Why?

Because if you want to bring into question the constructed political orthodoxy, then you have to be open to alternatives. The Christian can do that because the Christian loses it's absolutism in transcendence. But when you have been the creator yourself, then to tamper with that creation is like tampering with tinker toys, you pull them out and it doesn't stay together.

Response: The creators of the orthodoxy are not free themselves they have enclosed themselves in this system and they are not free.

That's right, they're not free and not happy most of the time. Much of this is done in so much anger and hatred disguised in language but tells me that they're not terribly angry.

Much more so than if the issues were processed through the transcendent reflection of the vast horizons of the divine.

Question: Wouldn't the system do better if you didn't liberate people but just give the illusion of that?

And isn't that exactly what happens?

Question: First, what do you think informs the academic world who is oppressed, and how would we as a society break out of this cycle.? How do we break out of it but how do we help our churches?

Well a lot of that is cultural because most of the power in the academy is in the hands of those who went through the cultural revolution of the 60's. The civil rights movement was a part of that. So these people landed on people of color and women. It came from that ferocious setting.

Has it affected the church? Yes, it has, in some ways in our music. The one song, "Let Us Build the City of God" what are we doing? We're creating the kingdom of God, the perfect society. We're very much apart of it. Historically, there are two things Catholics have done when the Church has solidified in a worldly institution. Eucharistic adoration and the Passion of Christ. These tend to shatter and challenge the structure.

Reaching to Christ is the road to spiritual liberation for us, and that's why the structural Church has been opposed to the movie because historically it has thrown down the gauntlet.

Thank you very much!