§2. They are also obliged to promote social justice and, mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor from their own resources.
From the Catholic Code of Canon Law https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__PU.HTM
Also this is dope from Matthew:
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Basically when everyone gets to heaven and they sit down for a meal with jesus at the head of the table, the people on the left(wink wink) that actually did things for the poor did them for Jesus and get eternal life, the people on the right who didn't all go to eternal punishment.
It can be fun and personally satisfying to find religious texts that contradict right-wing ideology, but as a tactic in conversation...it needs a lot of prep work and (most importantly) authenticity to succeed. It's hard to make a specifically Marxist argument to a committed Catholic, because the Church has always resisted communism because of the materialism issue.
But it's very, very, very easy to make a socdem argument, because the popes and bishops have been loudly in favour of it in the recent past. We know exactly why that is, but turning a chud into a socdem is still a net gain.
Some fun sources:
"The economy must serve people, not the other way around. Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected--the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions, to private property, and to economic initiative." (USCCB 2005)
Rerum Novarum is explicitly anti-socialist but it does insist on socdem policies and unions, so it can work as a nudge. The followup feels a little further left:
"To each, therefore, must be given his own share of goods, and the distribution of created goods, which, as every discerning person knows, is laboring today under the gravest evils due to the huge disparity between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered propertyless, must be effectively called back to and brought into conformity with the norms of the common good, that is, social justice." (Quadragesimo Anno)
Laborem Exercens supports a socdem argument from beginning to end and was written in 1981, so your opponent can't use the "it was olden times" argument.
Looks like good Catholics ought to support a strong labour movement and welfare state, case closed.
I think Liberation Theology and the effective tools that worked in Latam are potentially viable in NA. In particular the rhetoric of preferential option for the poor has strength behind it and isn't going to trigger the reactionary red under the bed nonsense. It can be kept a purely theological discussion while actually pressing views that are deeply in the interests of the poor which is wholly aligned with the interests of socialists. There's a reason all the latam theological leaders that were pressing the preferential option for the poor rhetoric were murdered.
Yeah, absolutely, the preferential option for the poor language is good to push centrists over. It will eat at their conscience. Hardcore right-wing Catholics will immediately go on the attack against liberation theology and say it goes too far toward socialism, and they can point to various Church authorities that said that at the time. It can still be a good discussion to have if they'll admit that the Church had worldly reasons for that, and some of them will. For someone who's a little softer, if you describe the life and achievements of people like Dorothy Day or Oscar Romero they'll be hard-pressed to explain why they aren't saints.
Yeah I agree. The key here is ultimately to avoid socialism talk and to focus in on the theological aspect though. They will come to their own conclusions about what the preferential option for the poor is after they agree that it's canon and the theologically correct position to take. They might resist when they realise what it means politically... But it will eat at them if they accept it's theologically correct. This is especially strong because of the canon law CLEARLY stating such.
Plant the seeds and with weeks/months of that seed in mind their position will soften or come round.
Definitely. People like this are winnable.
Also, never let them turn it into an abortion debate.
Yep, this is definitely one of the largest things that Catholics are manipulated by. So many people I've met talk about how much Trump sucks, but they still end up right wing AF because of abortion, even when the Republican Party has basically only paid lip service to that cause for so long (even though they have majority in SCOTUS).
A solid third of right-voting Catholics are downright Communists who hate abortion.
If you accept that they're never going to be cool with it because they have a different conception on what being human is, you can sit down and have a discussion about it, talk about how in a Socialist society the need for such things are greatly reduced. How republican elites will still get abortions under their governments while poor people will suffer and die.
Let's not pretend that their take is a good one, but we need to work around everyone's individual hang ups. We all have irrational hills we're going to die on and we have to figure out how to build a society that won't attack any of these.
I wouldn't really agree that any significant amount of Catholics are truly communists, though maybe I'm setting a different bar.
I'm a Catholic myself, and honestly that's one of the reasons I'm a Socialist. There is no actual pro-life cause, just right wing grifters and fash who only care about controlling women. So I figure that if we can resolve the economic factors that cause women to desire to procure an abortion, we can actually curb the abortion rate, not just shift it from happening in a clinic to happening in alleyways. I don't see why anyone would have an issue with that, at that point, it's not like anyone thinks we need to increase the number of abortions taking place.
I agree that if we want to go anywhere, we definitely need to think about how to accommodate for proletarians with different worldviews. Thankfully the contradictions of Capitalism hold true for any philosophy.
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Hey, if I may add to this, when you're talking with a Catholic who says that the Church prohibits Socialism, you can inform them that what the Church defines as Socialism isn't really the full scope of Socialism. In many of the statements different councils and Popes have made, they assume Socialism to mean state-owned means of production. So a Catholic could totally be a Syndicalist or a DemSoc, you don't even need to stop at SocDem. I'm personally a practicing Catholic and I'd describe myself as a lot farther to the left than just SocDem.
Oh for sure, I didn't mean to suggest that I agreed that socialism and Catholicism are mutually exclusive. All my earliest socialism seeds were planted by my relatives in the clergy.
I'm in Puerto Rico and some people I've met in youth groups here think that Social Democracy is as far as you can go, sadly. I have only really started to read up on theory and actual concrete arguments to radicalize people since quarantine started, so I haven't been in the ideological battleground of a youth group in a while, but there are definitely a lot of people who think they are mutually exclusive.
I've seen that attitude too, which sucks. But Catholic comrades are based, they're ready to kiss lepers for the revolution.
Unless they're expressly into liberation theology, it's next to impossible to make a devout christian into a marxist. However, it's very possible to make church every Sunday christians into allies on most social justice issues.
I know it sounds crazy, but the first domino leading to me becoming a marxist was reading the new testament and becoming christian.