Pro-Second-Vatican-Council Clergy Distrust Traditionalist Vatican Administrations: Translating Ecclesiastical Partisanship

A survey of Roman Catholic priests in 2013 conducted at Saint John’s University School of Theology Seminary suggests that priests did not like the new English translation of the Missal by a two to one margin (59% to 39%). Eighty percent of the priests who responded thought the language is “awkward and distracting.” Yet still more damning to the Vatican hierarchy are the findings that 55 percent of the priests were not confident that their views on the translation would be taken seriously. Nearly half of the priests indicated disapproval of the Holy See’s role in bringing about the new translation. Put another way, less than two in five priests approved of the Vatican’s leadership on the new Missal under Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI.  As dire as this news of distrust and liturgical disagreement may seem, the survey comes with a significant drawback that exaggerates the opposition. The devil is in the details.

The online survey attracted responses from 1,536 priests. This total represents a response rate of 42.5 percent. Although such a rate is typical of the “empirical research” studies conducted at business schools, the results from such a low rate cannot be generalized to apply to all of the Church’s priests. We cannot say that nearly 60% of Roman Catholic priests opposed the new translation, and that about half of all of the priests did not like the Vatican’s role in the process and did not trust their clerical superiors to take the priests’ concerns seriously. We cannot assume that the 42.5 percent who were motivated to respond online are just like the 56.5 percent who chose not to submit a reply. In other words, their respective reasons may differ.

Generally speaking, people who are unhappy with something may be more motivated to say something about it. Within the Catholic Church, priests critical of the new translation may tend to favor the Second Vatican Council, which allowed for less ecclesiastical distance between the clergy and the laity; traditionalist priests would be less inclined ideologically to voice even anonymous criticism of their superiors. Such priests would tend to favor the new translation’s more “literal” capturing of the original Latin, and the greater clergy-laity distance behind some of the changes in wording. For example, “with your spirit” is from the interpretation that only the priest, rather than the congregation, shares in Christ’s sacrifice in the Mass. The priest says, “Peace be with you.” Instead of the previous “And also with you,” the laity reply, “And with your spirit” because the priest’s spirit participates in Christ’s sacrifice in the liturgy. In short, the priest is no longer a “you” alongside you and you and you, but is qualitatively different—back up there where he was prior to the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s.

What is the highest point in the Catholic Mass? Who is central in it? To what extent does the language support and maintain the pivotal moment and person? (Image Source: AP)

Therefore, we would be on firmer ground interpreting the survey results as pertaining primarily to the loyal opposition to the restorative traditionalist movements of John Paul II and Benedict XVI rather than to the traditionalist priests. I suppose the most notable finding is that the loyal opposition may not be so loyal after all, considering the mistrust underlying the relatively superficial linguistic differences. Put another way, we can conclude that at least some of the more moderate priests do not trust the Holy See to be impartial at least when it comes to taking into account their opinions. If the new translation is really a Trojan Horse carrying traditionalism back into the Mass,  of course distrust would result among the pro-Vatican II contingent of the clergy.

It is in the nature of ideology to willow down to a purity of “true believers.” It is also in the nature of ideology to make use of subterfuges, or lies, in doing so. Hence distrust breeds particularly well in such a climate.

In conclusion, the news for the Vatican is both better and worse than a simple reading of the survey results indicates. The “devil is in the details,” in that the lack of faith in the Vatican by some of its own priests suggests that ideology has been alive and well under the rubric of liturgy. What we cannot say is that an overwhelming of priests did not like the new translation in 2013 or even that over a majority of all priests do not feel respected by those clerics in the Vatican hierarchy. Particularly among kindred souls as religious are wont to be, at least ideally, distrust is a silent killer that can be expected to gradually eat away the foundation to the ecclesiastical edifice that has endured for centuries. 

Pruning and Weeding in the Garden of Eden: Religion and the Big Bang

Peeling layers off an onion is a proverbial metaphor for religious, philosophical, and psychological matters alike. This is not to say that these matters are synonymous or even reduce to the same basis. As concerns the religious or theological domain, the metaphor of levels to be peeled away to get at a distinctive essence may suggest that superficial uses of terms like religion and god may refer to phenomena that are actually within other domains and thus not at all of the dimension claimed. That is to say, people may be inadvertently sloppy as a matter of general habit with regard to what counts as religious or theological in nature. 

In short, too much extraneous content may have inadvertently gotten in (no doubt with the help of plenty over-reaching hands); interlarding flora and fauna from other lands presumed by now to be as native-born have eclipsed the theological dimension to the extent that it is barely recognizable.

If peeling off the outer layers of religion can prompt people to question their basic assumptions regarding the phenomenon of religion, I suspect that many of us may be surprised to discover just how much our ancestors have allowed “the burning bush” to grow over into foreign lands, and thus how much pruning is necessary to distinguish the theological dimension as unique to itself.

In his Natural History of Religion, David Hume suggests that the homo sapiens brain has great difficulty holding onto the notion of divine simplicity—such as in the divine as pure, undifferentiated spirit—and thus tends to render the divine more and more in human terms over time. Hence in Hinduism, the various deities have come to be depicted as stone icons bearing the likeness of humans (combined even with body parts of other animals, such as is the case with Ganash, the elephant-headed deity).

I submit that the human brain also has the tendency to take it for granted that the referent of an abstract word (i.e., linguistic symbol) is shared rather than distinctive to a particular mind. In asking other people, “Do you believe in God,” for example, we typically take it for granted that we have the same thing in mind with respect to that which “God” refers. Problematically, this erroneous assumption permits the gradual encroachment of matters extraneous to (i.e., outside of) the religious domain coming even into the default of what we typically assume as counting as religious in nature.

As just one example, people have confused or conflated the theological and metaphysical domains, even reducing the former to the latter. All too easily perhaps, we characterize God in terms of reality, a metaphysical concept. God as the source or condition of all that exists (i.e., Creation) as well as existence itself (i.e., reality) functions here as a metaphysical condition. If that which god refers is metaphysical, then theology is essentially a metaphysical theory; religion reduces to philosophy (metaphysics or at least existentialism).

To be sure, cosmological claims such as that God created the heavens and the Earth or the cosmos, permeate extant religions even functioning as a foundational article of faith. God created quarks and thus atoms, not to mention space and time. Immanuel Kant, a major philosophy of the eighteenth century, suggests in his Critique of Pure Reason that the human mind structures such basic contours of what we perceive of the world—such appearances known to us as space and time being distinct from things in themselves, or reality. Theologians (as well as many philosophers, such as Hegel) claim that their domain includes and in fact is based in the latter—the Real. Especially in a materialistic age, the reality claims in “God as the Creator” include the domain of physics (and chemistry) as virtually synonymous with that of metaphysics (i.e., existence and reality).

This model (from NASA) presumes a beginning, which dovetails with the storyline in the Biblical book of Genesis. Does it make sense to add time and even God into a physical process? 

Hence, God is popularly said to be the “first cause” of the Big Bang, the beginning of the universe. Accordingly, reality or existence prior to the primordial blast would presumably invalidate theism—the belief that God (i.e., not only as the Creator) exists. The conception of God is conditional on what is known in physics. Should the universe as we know it have come through rather than out of the Big Bang when all matter and energy were presumably at one point in space (before time), the physics would by cyclical rather than linear (i.e., a beginning, middle and end). Creation or even Aristotle’s “first cause” cease to make any sense in terms of the universe.

In the early 1970s, Steven Hawkins theorized that quantum gravitational effects produce a repulsive force such that black holes eventually “evaporate” or explode outward rather than reach infinite density in a point. Physicists have concluded that the universe may not have begun with the Big Bang. Rather than starting from a point (i.e., singularity), the explosion could have followed a previous contracting phase going to a maximal compact state, which then triggered the explosion. In line with Nietzsche’s notion of “eternal recurrences,” the universe may “bounce back” following each contracting phase, again and again.[1]

Lest it be concluded that science would once again be pitted against religion should the alternative theory get empirical support, the anticipated tension can be transcended. I submit that the either/or dichotomy is false, as it is premised on the assumption that religion includes physics (and metaphysics).[2] To create energy (and thus mass, as E=mc²) is not the same as to be the source or condition of reality; physics can thus be distinguished from metaphysics. Furthermore, the theological meaning of “God as Creator” can be distinguished theologically from scientific and metaphysical theory and knowledge; otherwise, the theological claim would not have its own distinct basis.

What is that basis? What is the content of religious faith in God as the Creator? How is creating in theological terms distinct from making (i.e, faire, machen)? I contend that the distinctly theological dimension has by now become nearly unrecognizable, or hidden, precisely because we and our forebears have unwittingly painted religion with so many colors borrowed from other paintings. Perhaps even more astoundingly, the human brain seems to “short-circuit” when it comes to presuming that it knows (and in fact cannot be wrong) what it knows concerning what counts as religious truth. This cognitive-neurological defense-mechanism keeps us from discovering how far off the map we have “sailed.” If my theory is accurate, the path back to “good gardening” lies in pruning back the otherwise fecund plant by disentangling it from the branches of others and asking what the plant is as distinctive and whole unto itself.

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[1] Katia Moskvitch, “Black Hole ‘Information’ Paradox May Have Been Resolved,” Huffington Post, March 14, 2014.

[2] Peeling back yet another layer, the assumption itself premised at least in part on the historically-held assumption that religion must include everything or otherwise be invalid. This assumption is similar to the other historical assumption that morality must come out of religion to have any validity and force. These premises invite the theological dimension to “jump fences” as though with impunity. 

Big Money in a Big Church: Thieves Hit Osteen’s Megachurch

Joel Osteen’s “megachurch,” also known as Lakewood Church, adheres to the Prosperity Gospel, which maintains that God rewards true believers with material wealth in addition to heavenly salvation. Implications from this theological perspective put the congregation and the leadership in a sticky position following the theft of $600,000 from the church. In the following essay, I intend to apply Christian principles to Christianity. How well Christianity makes out may give us some indication of the religion’s future, for a house divided cannot stand—at least for long after the inertia has run out.

The Prosperity Gospel is grounded in the Jewish Scriptures, wherein God repeatedly promises wealth to those of the chosen people who keep faith rather than lapse in maintaining the covenant. Yahweh being the “Possessor of heaven and earth,” the world is God’s property.[1] Human possessions are therefore gifts from God. Proverb 10 promises, “The blessing of the LORD brings wealth, without painful toil for it.”[2] Rather than becoming the absolute owner of the gifted property, the Hebrew is meant to act as God’s steward.[3] That is, God retains the basic or foundational ownership right in His property. Moreover, the property relations embody a relation between Israel and God in which the Israelites owe obedience and service as stewards in exchange for a right to Jehovah’s blessings, which include riches.[4] 

Although the notion of stewardship took root in historical Christian thought, the Prosperity Gospel sprung up in the late twentieth century in the theological approach that privileges the Biblical criterion of “literal meaning” as first advocated in Moody’s 1904 Fundamentals of the Christian Faith. One of the fundamentals is a belief in Jesus Christ. The Prosperity Gospel makes this belief the basis of God’s material rewards. Because the Christian with true belief is “saved” whereas a Jew (as well as Israel collectively) can break the covenant, the conditionality of the wealth once bestowed to those having true belief is muted if not applicable. If my interpretation is correct, then the conditionality in the Prosperity Gospel applies only until the person is “saved”; thereafter, the promise of wealth is unhinged at least in part from the notion of responsibility applied to use.

Joel Osteen's megachurch during a weekend service. A substantial amount of money is doubtless collected even just from one such service. 

This rationale may explain Osteen’s reaction on March 10, 2014 to the theft of $600,000 on the previous day from that weekend’s collections. According to a statement, church administrators were “heartbroken to learn . . . that funds were stolen” and relieved that the funds had been fully insured and thus would be replaced.[5] Tellingly, the administrators added that they were working nonetheless to get back the stolen funds. This orientation involves more than a quite understandable desire for justice—albeit public legal justice rather than the sort of justice that Augustine “Christianized” from Plato and Leibniz, the co-inventor of calculus, developed: love as universal benevolence. Whereas the dominant justice in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice is in line with Shylock’s banking scales being restored to balance (e.g., an eye for an eye, or a pound of flesh for late repayment of a loan), justice that has love as charity due to everyone (i.e., neighbor-love as justly owed) is in line with Jesus’s new commandment to love one another unconditionally.[vi]

I submit that taking up the Prosperity Gospel points a Christian to the Old Testament notion of justice as well; the promise being extended to earthly wealth implies that those people who are motivated to quality would also be oriented to getting the wealth back rather than losing even more. Such people would tend to concur with the predilection of the administrators at Lakewood Church to get the funds back even though insurance covers the loss.

Every human perspective is limited, given how we are “hard wired.” So a focus on getting stolen money back and seeing that the culprits pay both literally and in suffering the pain of punishment comes not without an opportunity cost (i.e., the benefits of alternative perspectives that are given up for lack of sight in their directions). In the case of the Prosperity Gospel and the related inclination to view justice as its public legal variety, Christians can slight or even violate Jesus’s dicta in Luke 6:28-30 (NIV) without being aware of the hypocrisy.  Let’s unpack the verse as per the Lakewood case.

The preceding verse has Jesus saying, “bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” As a theft mistreats the owner(s) of the stolen goods—at the very least in not respecting the property rights—Jesus can be read here as proclaiming even the thieves of church funds as blessed. From such a basis the justice of loving the culprits (i.e., they being owed love nonetheless) can readily be grasped. Indeed, Jesus sees to it that the love is operational as benevolence even to one’s enemies (including those who steal from one’s property). First, Jesus gives the general principle: “whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also.” Anyone who has had their residence broken into would doubtless agree that discovering the theft can feel like a slap on the face. Once while studying at Yale, I returned from martial-arts (self-defense) training at the gym to find my apartment ransacked. I felt like someone had slapped me on my face. To be sure, the irony of returning from a self-defense class mitigated the sting somewhat.

As though tailor-made for Lakewood’s administrators and ministers, Jesus makes his imperative concrete. Whoever “takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either.” If stealing qualifies as taking away, then the officials at Lakewood Church should have put out a statement offering still more money to the thieves. Lest by some convoluted logic an administrator agree to extend the church’s charity program to the thieves even as he or she tries to get the stolen funds back, Jesus provides no such relieve. “Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back.” While the church officials’ announced intent to get the funds back is strategically in line with keeping insurance premiums down (car owners are doubtless very familiar with this game), it flies in the face of Jesus’s demand not to demand back that which someone has taken away.

Moreover, while the intent is in line with public legal justice, Jesus’s notion of justice as “Give to everyone who asks of you,” or universal benevolence, is quite other. In the seventeenth century, Leibniz labeled the latter theory of justice as caritas naturalis seu benevolentia universalis. Natural love is sublimated from garden-variety lust (eros) to Plato’s love of the eternal moral verities “Christianized” by Augustine as God as the Highest Good, and yet unlike Plato’s intellectual love the human love directed heavenly is expressed as love of one’s neighbor (anyone). Achieving this sort of justice is one of the primary costs of adopting the Prosperity Gospel and (relatedly) Shylock’s notion of public legal justice as akin to demanding a pound of flesh.

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1. Charles R. Smith, The Bible Doctrine of Wealth and Work. London (1924): Epworth Press, p. 23; Genesis 14:19,22.

2. Prov. 10:22.

3. Smith, The Bible Doctrine, p. 25.

4. Ibid., pp. 26, 55.

5. KHOU.com, “Osteen’s Lakewood Church Suffers Theft of Over $600,000 Shocking Texas Megachurch,” The Huffington Post, March 11, 2014.

6. John 13:34.

Christian Leadership

In this essay, I attempt to characterize leadership that is informed by Christian theological and ethical principles. This is not to say that such leadership is applicable only in religious institutions. Nor is it the case that such leadership is merely a particular flavor of ethical leadership. As the Bible’s Book of Job attests, theology does not reduce to ethics, for such a reduction would make God subject to ethical principles, and therefore not omnipotent (i.e., all-powerful). To unpack the sort of leadership that can be said to be distinctly Christian, I analyze the investiture of Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church in 2013.

Generally speaking, Christian leadership is informed by the teachings as well as the example of Jesus of Nazareth. Whether he is “fully human, fully divine” as a god-man need not be answered in order to appropriate the teaching and lived example (i.e., on Earth). This does not mean that we are reduced to ethical principles. For example, the theological concept of agape, or self-emptying love, informs the teaching to love one’s neighbor, even one’s enemy. Such love does not reduce to ethical conduct, but is theological in nature.

Hence, in his investiture homily, Pope Francis told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square,  "I want to ask a favor. . . . I want to ask you to walk together, and take care of one another. . . .  And don't forget that this bishop who is far away loves you very much. Pray for me." To care for one another stresses the universal applicability of neighbor love. Unlike Cicero’s notion of love as friendship, neighbor love is not extended primarily to one’s friends and family. If a stranger is in need of care, agape means self-emptying one’s own preferences for the sort of person deserving of help. As a child of God, any given person deserves care when needed and by whomever is in a position (e.g., proximity) to help.

Lest it be concluded that Christian leadership reduces to servant leadership wherein a leader serves anyone and serving can become an end in itself, Pope Francis provides a more distinctly Christian sort of leadership.

For one thing, the leader is to love humanity, rather than merely serve others. Loving humanity may imply viewing humans as creatures, and thus fundamentally vulnerable (rather than “bad” or “sin”). To see the creatureliness of man is to see the creature as limited, rather than as fulfilled.

Secondly, leadership informed by Christ’s teachings prioritizes certain conditions pertaining to some but not all of us—namely, that of weakness in terms of earthly condition. In his homily, “Francis said the role of the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics is to open his arms and protect all of humanity, but ‘especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important, those whom Matthew lists in the final judgment on love: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison’.” Christian leadership is thus not sectarian or limited even to Christians; there is no creedal condition one must meet in order to receive care from a leader following Christian principles. In the Gospel of Mark, it is the stranger rather than the disciples that “get it” as far as Jesus’s message is concerned. The good Sumerian cares for the injured stranger on the side of the road while the priest walks merrily by.

By implication, Christian leadership embraces humanity rather than merely protecting the faith. Such leadership thus has credibility beyond the faithful. The weak, poor, sick, and marginalized to be cared for could be Hindu, Jewish or Shinto, for example. In fact, to the extent that Christians tend to marginalize people of other religions as “not saved,” a leader informed by Jesus’s teachings and example can be expected to make a particular effort to care for non-Christians. The first are last, and the last are first. Such is the paradox that comes out of the notion of agape, or self-emptying love.

It is important to note that the caring must go beyond symbolic actions. The miracle of the loaves and fishes feeds the hungry and is therefore not a mere rhetorical symbol of caring. This is not say that symbolic acts have no value in Christian leadership. In St. Peter’s Square before the Investiture Mass, Pope Francis hopped off his jeep to bless a disabled man and kiss him on the forehead.

 Before his Investiture Mass, Pope Francis blesses a disabled man.  NBC

Although such an act sets the tone of Christian leadership, caring is not merely attention and a kiss. Had the pope had an aide get a walker or a nice wheelchair to be delivered to the man from the pope himself after the Mass, the leadership of caring would have been actualized rather than merely symbolized. Such actualized leadership could include the formulation and execution of a new or invigorated program geared to feeding the poor, for instance. In this sense, organizational leadership informed by Christian principles has a dimension beyond caring on the individual level.

In short, Christian leadership does not simply mean “ethical leadership” or even “servant leadership.” The foundation of distinctly Christian leadership is love as agape, actualized as universal benevolence manifesting as care for one another, especially the weak and vulnerable. Such love sees humanity itself as vulnerable in the sense of being created (i.e., creatures), and particular persons as more vulnerable than others. Even in an organizational setting, the “lower level” employees can be cared for first rather than being marginalized as last. This prioritizing directs but does not trump the universality of neighbor-love, for even the rich executive is a creature and thus fundamentally vulnerable.  To love and care for vulnerability, rather than to ignore, harm or destroy the vulnerable is the calling of Christian leadership, for vulnerability is an intrinsic aspect of self-giving love, or agape.

Source:

Nicole Winfield, “Pope Francis Inauguration 2013: Catholic Leader Begins Ministry in St. Peter’s Square,” The Huffington Post, March 19, 2013.

Pope Francis on Factory Wages in Bangladesh: A Theological Basis of Corporate Social Responsibility

If what Pope Francis said during a private Mass in April 2013 takes hold as a theme in his papacy, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement will have gained a new public advocate on the world stage. Besides the fact that the pope is the spiritual leader to well over a billion Roman Catholics around the world, his remarks are significant in the that they proffer theology as an alternative foundation for CSR. As with the more established bases, theology applied to CSR has its advantages and shortcomings.

Scholars of CSR have long debated the salience of ethical principles as the basis of the movement/theory, as against the alternative basis in cultural norms. On the ethics side, the word responsibility is said to connote ought (i.e., prescriptive duty) rationally applied to conduct. To whit, businesses ought to be more responsible.

However, basis of CSR could also be a desired shift in corporate values and norms toward  a greater degree of fit with extant social norms held societally. In other words, the CSR agenda can be characterized as moving one set of values/norms closer to a more widely-held set. While prescriptive in nature--wayward corporate norms should be changed--the emphasis here is on norms and values that already exist rather than ought to exist. The goal is to get corporate norms to reflect, or at least not be in conflict with societal norms so the corporation will not suffer a loss in reputational capital and long-term profit from being out of sync with society.

Put even more academically, the question is whether CSR is founded in philosophy (ethics being a sub-discipline) or sociology/anthropology. If Pope Francis’s theological rationale can be reckoned as an alternative, theology or religious studies (i.e., widening out to other religions)  could be reconized as CSR's basic academic displine. That is to say, CSR could be studied by adding study of theology (or religious studies) to management. The opportunity cost would be the foregone study in ethics and sociology. As there is a cost, it is worthwhile to investigate the pope's rationale, including its context.

The pope’s homiletical comments came in the wake of a major industrial accident in India. On April 24, 2013 in Bangladesh, India, an eight-story building containing (among other things) five garment factories collapsed. As of this writing, more than 1100 people had already been found dead in the rubble. This made the accident the worst of its kind in history.

It is as if the sheer magnitude of the disaster shook people's confidence in the power of the ethical principle of duty and relevant societal norms to resist or even push back the countervailing force of greed fueled by the ubiquitous profit-motive. In other words, the standing of human nature itself took a hit. It makes sense then that a religious leader would preach an alternative basis that obviates the new-found lack of balance in human nature by transcending it and even our very realm of existence.

I now turn to the pope’s rationale to consider how his theological approach might apply to the five manufacturers in the disaster and the clothing retailers that buy the output. Furthermore, a bit can be said about relevant public policy. In short, how far does the sinning against God extend?

In his homily, Pope Francis said he was shocked to learn that the workers who died had been earning a paltry 38 euros (about $50) a month. Granted the standard of living is relatively low in Bangladesh as compared to North America and Western Europe, but that a day's pay is just enough to buy a dozen eggs gives some indication of the ongoing hardship being endured by the typical factory laborer in Bangladesh. Rather than focus only on the immediate tragedy, the pope used it to focus attention on the ongoing suffering endured by the working poor, some of whom even in Bangladesh are Christian and thus of particular concern to the pope.

The Pope excoriated the garment companies’ wage policies as being equivalent to slave labor. Speaking in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the pope said, “Today in the world this slavery is being committed against something beautiful that God has given us.” That something is “the capacity to create, to work, to have dignity.” God created human beings as being able to survive without having to compromise or sacrifice human dignity.

Of course, it could be argued that creating, working, and having dignity can be of value without any mention of a divine being. The three values could simply be social norms that are highly valued, as in Europe and North America. Even so, the tragedy sent a message around the world that organizational and societal values may not be sufficient to counter the force of greed in human nature, particularly when that nature finds itself in positions of power.

Therefore, I want to flesh out a  distinctly theological rationale that could have been behind the pope’s remarks. I turn next to what it might be.

 "God giving life to Adam" by Michelangelo.     source: fotopedia.com      

In all three Abrahamic faiths, work is punishment for Adam's original sin. In their respective poems on cycles, both Hesiod and Ovid place laboring with buried treasures in the Iron Age, which is the furtherest (and lowest) from the prestine Golden Age. At least with respect to antiquity, toil did not have much of a positive connotation.

Yet in the Renaissance and later in Calvinism, industriousness made its way as a Christian virtue. Working hard to fashion God's gold as good stewards and dispensing some of the output as charity (neighbor-love being caritas in Latin) could give work a positive theological significance.

Furthermore, creating things and having dignity could be based on mankind being made in the image of God. Creativity can be associated with God being the Creator. Human dignity can be thought of from the standpoint of Leibniz’s point that human beings have a share of the perfection that is sourced in God as the perfect being. God's being perfect is inclusive of other divine attributes, such as omnipotence (all-powerful), benevolentia (having a good will), omnipresence (being everywhere), and omniscience (knowing all). Being made in the image of God, we have a certain dignity in that we exist. Our being, or existance, has a share of ultimate being, which is perfection in God. In short, we have dignity because we exist as created by God in His image.

Trampling on the divine image in other people by paying them a humiliating wage to do mundane, repetitive work is like putting a light under a bushel even though one knows that the radiance from the light belongs out in the open rather than weighed down and hidden. “Not paying fairly, not giving a job because you are only looking at balance sheets, only looking at how to make a profit. That goes against God!” Francis said. He could easily have pointed to Jesus’s saying, “What you do to the least of mine, you do to me.” This is fundamental to Jesus’s message that God is to be loved by loving one’s neighbor—even one’s enemies. Leibniz puts this as caritas seu benevolentia universalis, or love, that is, universal benevolence, in the Codex.

In summary, sinning clothing manufacturers, including their owners and managers, deny God’s divine attributes by weighing down those created in God's image by paying them hardship wages. There is no neighbor-love in that, and thus no God. To get a fuller sense of how theology can serve as a basis for CSR, this theological rationale can be extended beyond the garment manufacturers themselves to those stakeholders who can be said to have played an indirect role in the tragedy.

The pope could have pointed to the fact that the building’s owner, Mohammed Rana, had ignored huge cracks and the consequent police evacuation order in assuring tenants that the building was safe. After the collapse, he was arrested for negligence, illegal construction (he had permission to build five stories), and forcing workers to join work.

Similarly, the pontiff could have pointed to the managers of the five factories, who, after having been informed of the evacuation order, ordered their workers to report to work. That a bank and some shops in the building did not open after the evacuation order suggests that the building’s owner and the factory managers must have known they were subjecting their employees to considerable risk of being killed.

In answer to Rana and the five factory managers who knew of the unsafe condition of the building, the pope could have given a homily on how the squalid cocktail of selfish greed, obstinate presumptuousness (i.e., “I can’t be wrong) and abuse of power can smother other people to death--pushing their lights under a bushel to be hidden forever. To knowingly put others at risk is to deny the inherent value in  not only the share of perfection that they have merely in existing, but also the font of perfection itself, which is God as perfect being.

The theological denunciations against paying the factory workers paltry wages and  forcing them to work in unsafe conditions can be extended to include the indirect culprits, such as the apparel retailers that had contracted with the five manufacturers and even any retailer that contracts with a sweatshop. The question relevant to corporate theological responsibility is whether indirectly enabling low wages and unsafe working conditions rather than acting to curtail them is included in the sin against God mentioned by the pope.

Specifically, by paying such low prices for the factory output, do the retailers keep the factory workers hungry? Were there not the contracts, would the workers be doing creative work elsewhere? Finally, do the retailers enable the factory managers to keep treating the workers in ways that violate any sort of dignity in the worker? If so, then Jesus's command to love one's neighbor as oneself is being violated not only by the manufacturers, but also by the more distant, yet contributory retailers.

The executives of retail clothing companies like JC Penney and the Gap surely know that contracting with a sweatshop allows them the advantage of paying less for the factory output because of the below-poverty wages and lack of safety upkeep. Rather than worrying about possible unsafe factory conditions or whether the factory workers can support a family, those executives are calculating that the low price they get to pay more than makes up for the additional shipping costs. 

Approaching CSR alternatively by looking at social norms, the disjuncture between the executives' values and societal values concerning sustenance would be the focal point. CSR would be oriented to change the executives' values so they are in line with the societal values, perhaps by showing the executives that their respective companies can make more money that way, or at least have a better reputation.  

In approaching CSR by means of ethics, the question would be whether the executives' motives, actions, or consequences thereof violates an ethical principle. Are those executives violating the social contract wherein the rights a company enjoys come with certain obligations? Are those executives enabling people to be treated only as other peoples' means, or also as ends in themselves? Do the low wages and unsafe conditions go along with the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people? Especially if the answers to these three questions all point to unethical conduct, the retailers' policies ought to be changed.

Adding insult to injury, the apparel retailers extend very little flexibility to the sweatshops. American Apparel CEO Dov Charney explains that in the apparel industry, “it’s all about deadline. You’ve got to get these sweatshirts or this swimwear by a certain day, or you’re nailed, and you’re out of business.” Strict cutoff dates and the lack of cooperation from retailers pushed factories in developing countries to their limits, forcing them to do whatever it takes to get the job done on time. This may explain why the managers of the five factories chose to ignore the evacuation order. If so, the relevant retailers bear some of the blame for pressuring the managers to do whatever it takes to finish an order on time, even if doing so involves risking the lives of the workers.

Beyond the managers and companies involved, the Indian society itself, particularly as it is reflected in public policy on the state and federal levels in India, may also be culpable theologically for having been negligent toward worker safety. The societal norm allowing for corruption in India allows building owners, construction companies, and manufacturers to get away with a lot. In the U.S., the Occupational Health and Safety Administration and a watchful media provide sufficient scrutiny that manufacturers cannot easily get away with whatever they want. Accordingly, Charney, whose factory is located in the U.S., declares, “If there’s something unsafe at my factory I’m shutting that thing down. If not, one wrong move and it’s all exposed. That’s a good thing. That’s not a bad thing.” He may be drawing too stark a contrast so the Indian government will be forced to increase the minimum wage in the low-cost factories. For our purposes here, the relevant point is that the failure of the Indian government to enact and enforce more rigorous regulations oriented to worker safety and wages may also be within the sin against God.

More generally, legislators and government officials who do not do enough in enacting public policy oriented to achieving full employment may be sinning against God. “There are many people who want to work but cannot,” the Pope said. “When a society is organised in a way that not everyone is given the chance to work, that society is not just.” The justice to which the Pope undoubtedly was referring is divine justice, which also stems from God’s attributes—in particular, omnipotence (all-powerful) and omniscience (all-knowing). According to Leibniz, that justice is essentially love manifesting as universal benevolence. Simply put, having a share of God’s perfection, each person is due benevolence from others.  To violate that justice, such as by selfishly paying another person only enough to keep him as a means rather than as having value in being made in the image of God, is to sin against God.

In summary, managers (and their companies) who are not theologically responsible to the workers are not merely unethical and acting contrary to societal norms. From the theological perspective, the fundamental flaw in running a company centers on sinning against God. Prideful selfishness and sordid greed slight God by replacing neighbor-love with exploitation. This is not to say that God, being omnipotent, is confined to our social norms or even our ethical systems. A theological perspective can mandate conduct that is unethical or against a society’s norms. So the theological perspective does not reduce to either that of ethics or sociology. There are, however, at least two problems in going with the theological grounding.

First, it is debatable whether a theological rationale for CSR can or should be recognized as valid beyond the safe confines of the believers who subscribe to the theological doctrines. For example, it might not be fair to apply criteria from Christianity to the people of India, whose people are predominantly Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs. In his homily during Midnight Mass in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI cited Origen, a theologian in Early Christianity, who saw paganism such as Hinduism as "a lack of feeling." Paganism, the pope said quoting from Origen, "means a heart of stone that is incapable of loving and perceiving God's love." In other words, a Hindu married couple is incapable of loving each other. "Lacking feeling and reason, [pagans] are transformed into stones and wood." A Hindu manager would likely ask why he should apply a pope's theological criteria to anything. If the Hindu manager is "lacking feeling and reason," how could he apply any criterion?

It could be argued that the extent of corruption allowed and the consequent laxity in regulation and wage-support in India should be critiqued by Hindu rather than Christian principles, though non-Hindus in India would doubtlessly object to even that solution. It is not clear, therefore, whether religious claims from any religion, including Christianity, are universal enough to be applicable beyond the members of the particular religion. If so, it might be difficult to treat religious belief as an alternative to ethical principles and social norms on which to base CSR.

Second, the Pope’s theological rationale can be put in secular terms without much if any change in the resulting prescription. For example, trampling on creatures made in the image of God bears a resemblance to Kant’s ethical categorical imperative that rational beings should be treated not only as a means to one’s own interests, but also as an end in themselves. Exploiting workers, whether by paying them an insufficient wage or mandating that they work in an unsafe building, involves treating them as a means only. How much more of a rationale need be added in terms of theology? In other words, is the Pope’s rationale redundant, practically speaking? If not, perhaps theological (or religious) corporate responsibility should be developed. 

Sources:

Agence France Presse, “Pope Francis Condemns ‘Slave Labor’ in Bangladesh: ‘Goes Against God’,” The Huffington Post, May 1, 2013.  

Farid Hossain, “Bangladesh Building Collaspe Death Toll Rises To 430, Many Still Missing,” the Huffington Post, May 2, 2013.   

Syed Zain AL-Mahmoud, “Bangladesh Factory Toll Surpasses 800,” The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2013.

Kim Bhasin, “American Apparel CEO Dov Charney On Bangladesh: Start Making Clothing in a Human Way,” The Huffington Post, May 11, 2013.

Pope Benedict XVI, "Midnight Mass Homily," The Vatican, December 24, 2009.

Pope Francis Goes After the Idolatry of Money: A Theological Critique of Wall Street

How far must religion extend to retain its potency? Is religion like the law, having its fingers into everything? In Evangem Gaddium, Pope Francis formally puts his imprint on economic policy from a theological standpoint. The question is whether the connection is a bridge too far.

The Pope presents his intended nexus explicitly in the term, "idolatry of money.”[1]  With Wall Street and London undoubtedly in his sights, the Pope draws on the historical theological stance that the sin of greed is in turn based on idolatry. Lest it be presumed that treating money as an idol in the created realm is the bedrock, the decision to idolize money honors the idolizer. Therefore, greed is ultimately founded on self-idolatry: a creature vaunting itself above even its Creator. The question is whether the theological fix can be as specific as the Pope specifies in his first apostolic exhortation. Moreover, is even an ethically salubrious economic policy the answer to a sin or a category mistake?

In terms of policy, the Pope extolls politicians to guarantee all citizens "dignified work, education and healthcare."[2] In effect, he would have human rights applied on an economic basis. Additionally, he calls for an overhaul of the financial system and warns that unequal distribution of wealth inevitably leads to violence. "Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills."[3]  Before issuing his 84-page paper, the Pope had spoken out against the clergy and laity who obsess on abortion by pushing a particular partisan position. Severe economic inequality kills too. This is not to say that the Pope advocates “a simple welfare mentality.”[4] Even if the Pope obviates charges of partisanship along familiar ideological divisions, the question remains: Is the Pope implying in his writing that significantly reducing such inequality also restores the inequality between the self-idolater and God?

The Pope may indeed inadvertently reduce a fundamental (and enduring) theological problem to a policy solution in claiming, "As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems."[5] Presumably the cleric would not have excluded the theological variety. Hence, given all that rides on the economic prescription being advocated by the Pope, he asks for divine intervention capable of reaching down into the bowels of legislative business. "I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor."[6] Is this not akin to begging the Lord to take sides in a bloody war, and, moreover, is it not at least slightly presumptuous  to take it as a given that God is the sort of ultimacy wherein particular policies or positions matter? 

---

1. Naomi O’Leary, “Pope Francis ‘Evangelii Gaudium’ Calls For Renewal Of Roman Catholic Church, Attacks ‘Idolatry Of Money,” Reuters, November 26, 2013.

2.Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

Pope Francis Urges an Ethical Basis for Markets: Taking on the Prosperity Gospel?

Going after the “profit-at-all-cost mentality . . . behind Europe’s economic crisis,” Pope Francis told reporters travelling with him to the Church's Youth Day 2011that morals and ethics must play a greater role in future regulatory policies. “The economy doesn’t function with market self-regulation," the Pope claimed. Like Adam Smith who had situated his own theory of perfect competitive on a foundation of moral sentiments to keep markets from going to excess and thus self-destructing, Pope Francis asserted that a market needs "an ethical reason to work for mankind.” He added that the moral dimension is “interior and fundamental” to economic problems.

The Pope's appeal to the ethical dimension as the foundation of a market begs the question: What would a theological, or distinctly Christian, basis look like? The prosperity gospel would not stand a very good chance of being chosen, for it holds that God rewards true believers with earthly wealth rather than only with salvation. The basis for this interpretation is well represented in the Old Testament. During the years leading up to the financial crisis of 2008, a significant number of subprime mortgage borrowers were convinced that their Christological belief qualifies as true belief and, furthermore, that God would provide, even miraculously if necessary, so said borrowers would be able to make even the higher (ARM) mortgage payments on houses beyond the borrowers' own financial means. Viewing God as the font of earthly treasure is to leave Christianity impotent in acting as a constraint against greed and wealth.

Facing the headwinds of deregulation and a Wall Street government, religious Americans weary of the excesses of uninhibited greed in the financial sector may want to press the Roman Catholic Pope to provide a constraining theologically-based ethic capable of counterpoising the hegemony of the prosperity gospel. Historically, the first three or four centuries of Christianity sported many anti-wealth theologians whose arguments could be appropriated to fill the gap left open by insufficient regulation.

Source:

David Roman, “Pope Visits Spain, Says Ethics Should Guide Economics,” The Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2011.