Abstract
This volume begins by documenting the widespread loss of faith in mainstream views of the economy. Bearing the burden of repeated financial crises and stagnating incomes for the majority, average citizens in Western nations have by and large lost faith in the fairness of our market economy. Not only is this the case sociologically, but these judgments are absolutely warranted given long-term trends regarding income inequality and the accelerated skewing of the rewards system. As Thomas Piketty and others have documented, salaried workers long ago ceased receiving a fair share of productivity gains. What may Catholic social thought contribute amid this crisis of confidence and obvious injustice on a global scale?
Shadle’s answer is a theologically grounded interpretation of recent economic history that is well versed in social theory and the tools of political economy. The author proves himself an excellent guide through the maze of both global economic developments and intramural church debates over the course of the past century. Particularly insightful are the accounts of disputes (across global Catholicism) over the merits of liberation theology and over the proper assessment of capitalism (primarily in US Catholic circles, elaborating the work of Michael Novak on the right and the contribution David Hollenbach to his left).
S. harbors no doubts about the continued relevance of faith-based reflection to the pursuit of social justice. He walks the tightrope of championing committed public engagement in a pluralistic context without ever dismissing the continued relevance of Christian particularity. Even in a bewildering new millennium, the church persists in presenting an attractive social vision and pursuing a distinctive social mission. With S., we may be encouraged that the aforementioned crisis in mainstream economic analysis has sparked a renewed interest in Catholic social teaching, which, S. notes, “for over a century has provided an alternative way of thinking about the economy that challenges mainstream capitalist thought” (2).
The social doctrine of the church, of course, is a component of the broader Catholic response to modernity. In the opening chapters, S. sketches the contours of any authentic Catholic engagement with modernity. Credible responses of a constructive “social Catholicism” will in no way resemble the discredited approach of integalism, which favors a path of withdrawal over full engagement. There is no turning back to strategies of either resigned parochialism or quixotic reconquest that surfaced (under various guises, including the New Orthodoxy that S. critiques) in the course of the twentieth century. In order to navigate in a climate of secularization and modernization, not to mention contribute to the pursuit of social justice in practical ways, a constructive institutional Catholicism will have to engage modern economic challenges fully and eagerly, drawing upon the considerable intellectual resources within its tradition of reflection on matters of justice and related virtues.
At the outset S. introduces three theological categories that guide his evaluation of the potential of Catholic social thought to contribute to a future of promise: “discontinuity,” “continuity” (inspired by the work of Belgian theologian Lieven Boeve), and the ultimately more satisfying option of “interruption” (familiar to readers of Metz and many liberationists). As the volume unfolds, S. provides an insightful and well-documented treatment of the evolution of Catholic social thought through several eras and under the influence of successive papacies and ecclesial developments, the most pivotal being the emergence of the aggiornamento paradigm associated with the Second Vatican Council. Particularly skillful is the way S. weaves together two sets of narratives: (1) the emergence within recent Catholic theology of competing interpretations of economic life (liberationist, progressive, and neoconservative perspectives), and (2) the recounting of key developments in political economy (the emergence of Keynesianism, welfare state expansion, globalized financial institutions, etc.).
The reader is well served by the insightful sketches of relevant global economic developments as well as the consistently commendable theological instincts S. displays. This account never wavers in recognizing the irreducible pluralism of contemporary life, maintaining a commitment to social concerns that are at once universal and thoroughly context-sensitive, prioritizing an embrace of difference and otherness as well as an “open narrative of Christianity” that has the advantage of being biblically grounded and christocentric (although the latter features are underdeveloped in the text). One might hope for somewhat greater attention to environmental sustainability, gender justice, and racial justice, but these imperatives are surely implicit in the triad of values of “mutuality, reciprocity, and self-giving” (21) which S. promotes.
In the end, S. succeeds well in demonstrating how a fully formed theology of interruption (and especially one grounded in a critical realist social theory and employing the powerful tools of institutional economics) can shape a renewal of Catholic social thought, building with good effect upon its organicist, communitarian vision of social solidarity. The broad vision developed here sheds much new light on social values relating to the dynamics of government intervention in market economies, social provision, and balanced economic development. The reader comes away with new resources with which to challenge market fundamentalists and adherents to laissez-faire approaches in our unsustainable consumer-driven society.
It is disappointing that the contribution of Pope Francis is relegated to a six-page conclusion, but informed readers will have no difficulty further connecting the dots S. has sketched before us. Appreciating the renewal project promoted by S. goes hand in hand with what the current pontiff has accomplished in his social teaching.