Expectations for the New Pope: Updating Social Doctrine

Intervention by Stefano Ceccanti for Pax Romana

I believe that we must start from what remains of the post-conciliar text that has proved to be the most prophetic in the long run, Paul VI’s Octogesima Adveniens, which affirms, first of all, a great truth, valid both, for questions of social doctrine and, I believe, also for resolving some outstanding problems within the Church.
Pope Montini points out that “the situations in which Christians are involved, voluntarily or involuntarily, are very different according to the country, socio-political systems and cultures” (n. 3) and that, therefore, “in the face of such diverse situations, it is difficult for us to pronounce a single word and propose a solution of universal value. After all, this is neither our ambition nor our mission. It is up to Christian communities to analyze objectively the situation of their countries, to clarify it in the light of the immutable words of the Gospel, to draw principles for reflection, criteria for judgment and guidelines for action from the Church’s social doctrine as it has developed throughout history” (n. 4).

There is, therefore, a communitarian responsibility, not based on concrete prescriptions that claim to be universal, but on the search for a convergence in principles of reflection, criteria of judgment and guidelines for action “also with all men of good will”.
If so, the main problem inherited by the new pontiff in matters of social doctrine is the classic double standard, inherited from the pre-conciliar period and which marks a lack of adaptation with respect to the conciliar teaching, and specifically to Gaudium et Spes.
This double standard has been maintained according to the themes dealt with, which no longer find a foundation in the Council and which in recent years have been translated into the formula of non-negotiable principles or values. A formula that Pope Francis deliberately declared he wanted to overcome, which he deliberately did not repeat in any text, but which has not received a clear organic and positive update.

The double standard refers to the more flexible formulas adopted in economic and social matters, where there is no iron chain connecting principles with concrete solutions, and instead the historical contingent character of concrete mediations is emphasized with regard to questions of life and sexuality, questions that in French are defined as societal (in Italian, civil rights), where there seems to be, instead, a rigid mechanism between principles and admitted or excluded solutions.
This does not mean that in the Church and in society we should not also confront ourselves about specific solutions, about their adequacy to principles, criteria and guidelines, but the closer we come to concrete and questionable choices, the more respect we must also have for the inevitably different evaluations and for the sense of Christian realism that excludes, always in reference to the Octogesima Aveniens, “solutions that promise, not without illusion, a definitively better world”.

For this reason, the aspiration for peace cannot be separated from the recognition of the existence of conditions for legitimate defense, even armed, against aggressors. The valorization of the family based on marriage cannot be isolated from the recognition of the positive character of other forms of stable, affective or supportive coexistence; and the rejection of forms of euthanasia to the detriment of the weakest and most defenseless must always be combined with the avoidance of forms of therapeutic obstinacy that the evolution of medicine leads to amplify.
More generally, it is worth recalling, on the basis of the Conciliar Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, that the dignity of the person cannot be harmed by an excessive expansion of criminal law, even in the face of an erroneous conscience, and that the expansion of democracies has been based on this valorization of freedom in Catholic countries since the Second Vatican Council, an expansion that today is being called into question by the so-called illiberal democracies.