It is a sad reality that many Catholics continue to see the social teaching of Pope Francis as somehow at odds with the history of Catholic social doctrine reaching back to Pope Leo XIII. Yet if we are to say that the temporal power ought to be subordinate to the spiritual power, we cannot with much credibility undermine the legitimacy of the Pope’s intervention into public life. But more to the point, what Pope Francis has put forward in his encyclicals Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti is truly in harmony with the social vision that the popes have been advancing for the past 130 years.
To that end, what I intend to do is to situate the Pope’s most recent apostolic exhortation, Laudate Deum, within the context of the history of the Church’s social teaching. I propose to read the document as, at its heart, a critique of a technocracy which manifests itself in an individualist anthropology and a nationalistic global order.
At the outset, it must be conceded that the specific scientific data to which Pope Francis appeals is not itself part of magisterial teaching. But Laudate Deum is not setting out to make any specific policy proposals. So the concern about whether or not the Holy Father is correct in his assessment of the risks of climate change seems to somewhat miss the point. For although he writes with clear conviction, he tempers his absolute certainty when he says:
Certain apocalyptic diagnoses may well appear scarcely reasonable or insufficiently grounded. This should not lead us to ignore the real possibility that we are approaching a critical point. … We cannot state with certainty that all this is going to happen, based on present conditions. But it is certain that it continues to be a possibility.[1]
The Pope is not an authority in climate science, this much is true. But where the Church does exert her authority is as an “expert in humanity.”[2] Therefore what we ought to focus on is the moral core of the document’s message. Laudate Deum is a compelling assessment of the failures of modern society and as such is in substantial agreement with the whole tradition of Catholic social doctrine.
Technocratic anthropology
There is a deep irony in those who want to criticize Pope Francis for addressing an issue such as climate change because of his lack of expertise or competent authority in the matter, for this is an expression of precisely the kind of technocratic ideology that Laudate Deum rightly condemns. After all, who was Leo XIII to talk about economics? Who was Paul VI to talk about international development? They spoke not as “experts” in economics or politics per se, but with moral and spiritual authority as Vicar of Christ. And so now does Pope Francis.
To contend that on issues such as the environment or international order, we should heed only the voice of specialized experts is to deny the properly human art of politics. Indeed it is a way of excluding ethics altogether and reducing politics entirely to a question of managerial expertise.
This is what Laudate Deum regards as the “technocratic paradigm.”[3] The regime of experts, in its “admiration of progress” has “blinded us to the horror of its consequences.”[4] In other words, the technocrat is one obsessed with the “how,” but ignorant of the “why.” Such is our atheistic culture, devoid as it is of any sense of teleology. Yet it is precisely this ends-oriented worldview that Francis is looking to reassert. The counter to the technocratic paradigm is one in which “the creatures of this world no longer appear to us under merely natural guise, because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end.”[5]
The critique, at its most fundamental level, is that the technocrat has an essentially flawed anthropology. The technocratic view understands man purely as an economic animal, rather than as a properly political animal. That is to say, this flawed anthropology severs the essential link between man’s appetitive dimension and his rational dimension. Our desires are infinite. (And this is why they can only be properly fulfilled in God.) But the technocrat tries to address man’s desire through infinite material advancement, since man is seen as a being “with no limits, whose abilities and possibilities can be infinitely expanded thanks to technology.”[6]
Francis therefore calls for a “situated anthropocentrism,” which is in so many words an appeal to what the Church has taken to calling an “integral humanism,” that is, a “complete humanism,” which considers “the whole of man and all men.”[7] Genuine social progress relies on understanding human nature in all of its dimensions, both material and spiritual. Francis here emphasizes that this requires understanding man as situated within a finite cosmos.
Contrary to this technocratic paradigm, we say that the world that surrounds us is not an object of exploitation, unbridled use and unlimited ambition. Nor can we claim that nature is a mere “setting” in which we develop our lives and our projects. For “we are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it,” and thus “we [do] not look at the world from without but from within.”[8]
It is from this vantage that the Pope addresses the people of the world. Thus he calls upon mankind to “respect the laws of nature.”[9]
International Order
Another common criticism of Pope Francis is that he is too cozy with the United Nations and therefore speaks not on behalf of the faith of the Church but of an insidious globalist agenda. The text of Laudate Deum, however, provides a different picture.
But first, consider the words of Pope Paul VI in his address to the UN: “We are tempted to say that in a way this [international] characteristic of yours reflects in the temporal order what our Catholic Church intends to be in the spiritual order: one and universal.” Cooperation with and an optimistic view towards the United Nations would be nothing new on the part of Pope Francis. And yet, the words of Laudate Deum are hardly so starry-eyed.
The fourth major section of the document is mostly dedicated to recounting the failures of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to accomplish anything of real substance. “Failure,” “ineffective,” “no progress,” “poorly implemented,” are words that resound throughout these paragraphs.
Doubtlessly, there are many who would want to see the Pope condemn altogether the notion of a supranational authority that can provide the kind of accountability that Francis is calling for. But such a nationalist agenda would itself be the real rupture with tradition. (As has previously been argued here at The Josias, the call for global authority is entirely traditional.) Francis thus speaks in full continuity with both the pre- and post-conciliar magisterium in calling for a strengthening of international law and accountability.
Pius XI, for example, was emphatic on the need to subordinate merely national interests to the global common good.
Unsuppressed desires … are precisely the source of all international misunderstandings and rivalries, despite the fact that oftentimes men dare to maintain that acts prompted by such motives are excusable … out of love for country. … [A]ll men are our brothers and members of the same great human family [and] it is never lawful nor even wise, to dissociate morality from the affairs of practical life.[10]
Benedict XVI likewise very famously called for “a true world political authority … universally recognized and vested with the effective power to ensure security for all … to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties.” All this, he writes, is “as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations.”[11]
Francis therefore proposes nothing new in his advocacy of a strong international order. In fact, the language of Laudate Deum appears considerably softer than previous papal statements on the matter.
The emphasis in Laudate Deum regarding international order is on “multilateralism” as opposed to “a world authority concentrated in one person or in an elite with excessive power.”[12] The Holy Father also points out the importance of the principle of subsidiarity as we consider how global and local authorities interact.[13] The proposal here is quite the opposite of technocratic elitism.
Many today insist on treating political authority, whether national or international, as merely a question of “more” or “less,” but the vision of the Church has never been about more government or less government, but simply better government, suited to the necessities of the present. And insofar as the world now faces problems that are truly global in scope, it follows necessarily that a world political authority is needed. As Catholics we ought to be grateful our Holy Father is wading into such discussions and, if anything, should wish to see more and stronger assertions of this moral authority.
Francis’ vision for an ethical international order is a strong refusal of the amoral, nationalistic, political realism that has taken root across the political spectrum. The thrust of Laudate Deum is unmistakably a call to conversion. That is why he concludes with these forceful words: “For when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies.”[14]
Conclusion
The failure of technocracy shows itself both in the atomization of the individual vis-à-vis society, and of the nation vis-à-vis the global community. Laudate Deum is therefore a call to “integration,”[15] or as Pope Francis put it in a 2022 speech: “We cannot live with an economic pattern that comes from the liberals and the Enlightenment. … We need a Christian economy.” The claims regarding rising global temperatures and the proceedings of various climate conferences are simply not the heart of the document. The real thesis of the exhortation, as he states, is the twin claim: “Everything is connected.” and “No one is saved alone.”[16]
In rejecting technocracy, Pope Francis calls us back to “the nobility of politics,” and the reintroduction of both ethical and spiritual concerns in the public square.[17] So despite his failure to align with the political imagination of many conservatives especially in the United States, Pope Francis writes in clear continuity with the tradition of the Church’s social magisterium.
Br. Anthony Maria Akerman, O.P. is a friar of the Western Dominican Province. He earned a Ph.D. in Theology from Claremont Graduate University and is currently studying at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in preparation for ordination to the priesthood.
[1] Laudate Deum, 17.
[2] Compendium, 61; cf. Populorum Progressio, 13.
[3] Laudate Deum, 20.
[4] Ibid., 24.
[5] Ibid., 65; quoting Laudato Si’, 100.
[6] Laudate Deum, 21.
[7] Compendium, 6-7, 82.
[8] Laudate Deum, 25; quoting Laudato Si’, 139, 220.
[9] Laudate Deum, 62.
[10] Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, 25.
[11] Caritas in Veritate, 67.
[12] Laudate Deum, 35.
[13] Ibid., 36.
[14] Ibid., 73.
[15] Ibid., 36.
[16] Ibid., 19.
[17] Ibid., 60.