Why We Should Listen to the Pope on the Economy

Is the pope's new encyclical on economics and social justice the proverbial tree falling in the unpopulated forest?

It would be natural to think so, given that Benedict XVI's document, Caritas in Veritate, or "Charity in Truth," released Tuesday morning, runs to more than 30,000 words, many of them fuzzy-sounding terms such as the "principle of gratuitousness," or off-putting phrases such as the "metaphysical interpretation of the 'humanum' in which relationality is an essential element."

How is that verbiage supposed to compete for space on the front page of the morning papers with images of the Michael Jackson memorial?

One answer is that it can't, and not just because of MJ's death or Jon and Kate's split or the irresistible draw of the latest "Transformers" sequel. Jesus talked about the perils of greed and the sins of economic injustice more than he did about sex or any of the other hot-button topics associated with Christianity, and he was as frank as he could be about one's chance of making it to heaven if you don't give what you have to the less fortunate. That's a harder message to hear than most dogmas, and it is no wonder that the history of modern Christianity could be viewed as a search for loopholes when it comes to faith and money.

On the other hand, there's a good argument that the pontiff has a providential sense of timing. This is the first papal encyclical in 18 years dedicated to the church's social justice teachings, and it comes in the midst of the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression. In fact, the encyclical was supposed to come out a year ago to mark the 40th anniversary of Paul VI's landmark social encyclical, Populorum Progressio ("On the Development of Peoples"). But Benedict held it a year to take account of the financial meltdown, making it likelier that he will have an audience for his prescriptions.

Moreover, the leaders of the top eight industrialized countries -- who could actually turn the papal principles into policies -- are meeting this week for the G8 summit in L'Aquila, a short distance from the Vatican. One of those leaders, Barack Obama, will head to Rome Friday for his first meeting with the pope as president. There are many synchronicities between the economic visions of the two men -- the common good, solidarity as well as subsidiarity, regulation of the marketplace, and so on -- and Obama could be seen as a convincing medium for Benedict's message.

In the U.S. context, one can detect a growing openness to Catholic social teachings, usually regarded as the church's best-kept secret, although not always among Catholics. Along with Obama, the emerging "religious left" consciously adopts core tenets of the Catholic social justice tradition, and evangelicals, especially young adults, are also exploring and embodying those teachings in often radical ways. In addition, there seems to be a growing push in American Christianity to reconnect pro-life and social justice teachings -- a division that Pope Benedict lamented. In fact, his whole encyclical could be read as an argument for integrating the opposing agendas of left and right, economic determinists and moral absolutists, around the unifying principle of human dignity, which is inseparable from human development. In a Twitterized world of atomized messages and fragmented communities, such a holistic vision, confidently expressed, can have mass appeal.

The other thing to reckon with is that for all the prolixity of the papal style, there are some serious zingers that should catch anyone's attention, such as the call for international institutions with "real teeth," the "urgent need of a true world political authority," and a commitment to "distributive justice" so that all share in the goods of the economy. As the Jesuit priest and political scientist, the Rev. Thomas Reese, put it, "amid the dense prose there are indications . . . that [Benedict] is to the left of almost every politician in America."

Indeed, the irony is not that the papal encyclical is so opaque; rather, it is so pointed and challenging that many Catholics would rather move on as quickly as possible to some far more comfortable argument, such as abortion or gay marriage. "Neo-cons will wince that [Benedict] places this encyclical in line not only with Populorum progressio, but also Sollicitudo rei socialis, the most egalitarian encyclical of Pope John Paul II and their least favorite part of the late pope's corpus," wrote the Rev. Drew Christiansen, editor of the Jesuit weekly America and a leading social ethicist.

Actually, they don't wince so much as ignore the parts they don't like. The Republican advisor and conservative Catholic, Deal Hudson, glosses over all the hard sayings and newsworthy bits in his take, while Amy Welborn focuses on Benedict's spirituality and downplays the importance of his specific proposals.

Even before the encyclical came out there was palpable anxiety on the Catholic right and a number of preemptive analyses designed to head off any liberal glee (and there has been much of that) over what the encyclical would say. At First Things, Jody Bottum confidently wrote that the encyclical would be "a mishmash of themes, topics, and prescriptions, some close to contradictory to others."

When the document was published, George Weigel at National Review Online delivered the most brutal dissection. He took a red pencil to the parts he didn't like (the ones about free-market deficiencies and papal remedies) and attributed them to a nefarious plot by Roman curialists. Weigel suggested that Benedict included those parts --alongside his own more spiritual wisdom -- "in order to maintain peace within his curial household."

"The net result is, with respect, an encyclical that resembles a duck-billed platypus," Weigel writes.

In truth, we're unlikely to see Benedict's encyclical as a new bill in the hopper of the next session of Congress. And social justice may remain "the church's best-kept secret," since those teachings are harder than most and go against the American grain of rugged individualism. But since the 1930s, the American economic system has increasingly reflected a kind of "mixed capitalism" that, in turn, implicitly includes many aspects of Catholic social teaching. And if the current meltdown continues for much longer, the pontiff may begin to look like a prophet.