Bairbre Cahill
Our Catholic Faith can prevent us from slipping back into old habits, writes Bairbre Cahill
There has been much talk about how we will never be the same again after this Covid-19 pandemic. It seems unlikely – and indeed in many ways undesirable – that we would return to what we previously thought of as normal.
Families are discovering what it means to have time together, what it’s like not to be constantly under pressure with after-school activities and that children actually are capable of occupying themselves. So, many of us will be left pondering what sort of life we want to live when restrictions are lifted and ‘normality’ returns.
There are deeper questions to ponder too though. Scientists and commentators seem to agree that loss of biodiversity, humans encroaching on animal habitats and climate change have contributed to the situation we find ourselves in. Moreover they have suggested that unless we address these issues we will inevitably face further pandemics. Initially there were pronouncements about Covid-19 being ‘the great leveller’ impacting with impunity on countries around the world.
We have discovered, however, that Covid-19 does not impact on all equally. How do countries without an adequate health system cope with the inevitable influx of cases? How do people practise social distancing in crowded refugee camps and shanty towns? How useful is the advice to wash hands for 20 seconds in places where there is no running water?
Questions
We are left then with questions not just about what sort of life I or my family want to have post-coronavirus but what sort of world we want to live in. This is what Pope Francis has referred to a number of times in recent weeks including in a recent interview with Austen Ivereigh, “What we are living now is a place of metanoia (conversion) and we have the chance to begin. So let’s not let it slip from us, and let’s move ahead.”
So how do we engage with this opportunity for metanoia? How do we not simply slip gratefully back into old habits? Does our Catholic Faith have any resources to help us?
Individualism has no place in Catholic social thought and yet for how many of us has Faith offered us a cocoon”
A word we have heard many times in recent weeks is solidarity. It has been uplifting and powerful to witness the ways in which communities have worked together. People who may expect to encounter few problems with Covid-19 themselves have taken on the restrictions and self-discipline of social distancing for the good of others.
Indeed, that idea of ‘the common good’ has become very real for us.
Our individualistic culture has been turned upside down and inside out. Public service announcements and television advertisements talk about the importance of connecting even though we are apart. Great creativity and ingenuity is being invested in finding ways to reach out to each other in the virtual world.
What we may not have considered until now is that solidarity and the common good are vital aspects of our Catholic Faith. Here in Ireland it is unfortunately the case that we have not paid adequate attention to Catholic social teaching. We are not alone. In 1998 the American bishops produced Sharing Catholic Social Teaching: Challenges and Directions. In it the Church noted that “far too many Catholics are not familiar with Catholic social teaching…many Catholics do not adequately understand that the social teaching of the Church is an essential part of Catholic Faith”.
They acknowledged that transforming this situation was a serious challenge for themselves and all Catholics. Perhaps we have been too inclined to presume that as long as others were active in promoting social justice we were covered.
Champions
Here in Ireland we certainly have our champions of social justice – people like Fr Peter McVerry SJ, Bro. Kevin Crowley OFM Cap. and Sr Stan Kennedy RSC. If, however, we are to embrace the opportunity for metanoia or conversion of which Pope Francis speaks we need to explore what role Catholic social teaching plays in our own lives.
Moreover we need to use it as a lens through which to reflect upon the experience of these recent months.
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The key themes in Catholic social teaching – or Catholic social doctrine as it is also called – may offer us a way into exploring our current situation.
The first theme is that of human dignity – that it is simply being human that establishes one’s dignity. Individualism has no place in Catholic social thought and yet for how many of us has Faith offered us a cocoon, protecting us from the world, offering us individual salvation, focussing on a 1:1 relationship with God? This first principle encourages – challenges – us to take seriously the value and dignity of every human being. In that context we cannot be at peace with the idea that some people are radically more vulnerable to Covid-19 because of poverty, war, geography or politics.
This connects directly with the second principle – respect for human life. Every life is equally valuable. We have seen the tensions play out on the world stage – which do you protect, life or the economy? Do we consider the lives of those who are old, disabled or otherwise vulnerable to be less valuable? Whatever our words say, what do our actions proclaim? What of the life of a woman in a refugee camp, a man in a prison cell? What is the conversion of mind and heart demanded of us to create a world in which every human life, at every stage of life, is equally valued and not just in theory but in practice?
We are all missing the usual opportunities to meet up with people, whether at work or in the café, at Mass on Sunday or on the side-lines of the GAA pitch. It seems strange not to be able to reach out to others, to give a hug or shake hands. Elbow bumping is a poor substitute.
Isolation has reminded us just how deeply social we are and that is another key theme. We are sacred not only as individuals made in the image and likeness of God but also in our relationships and in the realities we create through them, institutions, economics, politics, law and policy.
As people of Faith, we should be able to look at any of these and ask how the Gospel is reflected in them. One of the challenges for us going forward is to ask how the Gospel is reflected in an economic system which functions on the basis of inequality.
The rich can only be rich because they possess more than the poor, more money, more resources, more means to protect themselves from danger.
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If we take Catholic social teaching seriously – from Pope Leo XII’s Rerum Novarum in 1891 on the rights of labour, through St John Paul II’s Solicitudo Rei Socialis to Laudato Si’ of Pope Francis on integral human development – then it is going to challenge us deeply. Pope Francis articulates the challenge clearly when he says: “We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it” (LS 229).
That shared responsibility challenges us to acknowledge that every person has a right and a duty to participate in society, seeking together the common good and well-being of all, especially the poor and vulnerable. Why the emphasis on the poor and vulnerable? Because as long as they are excluded from participation in the things we take for granted – productive work, fair wages, education, health care – society will be flawed and the Gospel vision fractured.
This is why Pope Francis constantly reminds us of the need to care in a particular way for the poor and vulnerable and that in them we encounter Christ. He tells us in Evangelii Gaudium 178 “God’s word teaches that our brothers and sisters are the prolongation of the incarnation for each of us: ‘As you did it to one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it to me’ (Matthew 25:40)”.
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We are being invited then to live in solidarity with all of humanity. As the US bishops stated in their reflections (p.5): “Catholic social teaching proclaims that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they live. We are one human family…learning to practice the virtue of solidarity means learning that ‘loving our neighbour’ has global dimensions in an interdependent world.”
How true those words ring today and how deeply we need to take them on board.
As people of Faith we should be both challenged and inspired by the example of medics”
Moreover, it is not enough to leave the social solidarity up to others on our behalf, seeing our own occasional charitable contributions as sufficient. As Archbishop Diarmuid Martin commented in his reflections on Laudato Si’ at Villa Nova University in November 2014: “Solidarity is not about a few sporadic acts of generosity. It involves constant conversion; it presumes creation of a mindset which thinks in terms of community and the priority of the life of all over the appropriation of goods and wealth by the few.”
Constant conversion – again that idea of metanoia which Pope Francis mentions and the implication that only if we are open to such transformation can we build a better future. So how can we engage with that process?
The principle of stewardship reminds us that we can and must take responsibility for protection of the environment. In Laudato Si’ Pope Francis reminds us that what we need is integral human development, where our progress is not at the expense of the earth or the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable. He speaks of integral ecology as a new paradigm of justice, “which respects our unique place as human beings in this world and our relationship to our surroundings” (LS 15) adding that “nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live.” (LS 139) A very practical exercise offered by Pope Francis is that our examination of conscience should include not only how we have lived in communion with God, with others and oneself but also with all creatures and with nature. Really, what we are being called to is radically joined-up thinking, profoundly aware of our connectedness to God, to each other and to this fragile earth upon which we live.
So where does that leave us now? In his ‘thought for the day’ on April 6, 2020, Pope Francis said, “The tragedy we are experiencing summons us to take seriously the things that are serious and not to be caught up in those that matter less; to rediscover that life is of no use if not used to serve others. For life is measured by love.” We have witnessed that loving service in those who are on the frontline in this pandemic. As people of Faith we should be both challenged and inspired by the example of doctors, nurses and care staff caring for those who are ill. We hear daily about those who have lost their lives, here and around the world because they continued to do their job. We have come to recognise the supermarket workers, cleaners, postal workers and others as key frontline staff. We applaud them and realise how much we need them. Those ideas of solidarity, community, the common good – they all make sense now, but will we remember?
Amnesia
Will we develop a collective and convenient amnesia when all this is over? We currently have people working in care homes, looking after our elderly citizens, many of them are on the minimum wage and with little protection for their jobs. If our politicians were to propose an increase in taxation to provide better social services and to create a more equitable society would we balk at the prospect?
At this point, an estimated 178,000 have died due to Covid-19. The figures are appalling and have motivated a seismic shift in how research is carried out. We have witnessed an upsurge in international cooperation with an unprecedented sharing of expertise and knowledge in the pursuit of vaccines and treatment options. This is what solidarity looks like.
But we cannot sit on our laurels. The reality is that more people will die this year because of malnutrition than because of Covid-19.
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In 2018, malaria caused over 400,000 deaths. Again over 400,000 have died in the Syrian conflict. These deaths may not be happening here but they are as relevant, as important and as demanding of our concern. To be a Catholic means to take Catholic social doctrine seriously and that means valuing every human life, wanting every person to participate in the goodness which society offers, making a particular effort to care for and protect the poor and the vulnerable. This is solidarity.
We cannot tackle these challenges on our own. We need to engage in conversation, reflection and action at the level of our own families and communities, in our parishes and dioceses, at national and global levels.
Equality
The question of how we can live differently, more gently upon the earth, how we can create a more equitable world cannot be left to politicians.
The Covid19 pandemic has challenged many of our illusions as to what we need and must have. How we go forward, the future we build, the values which shape society, the extent of our solidarity – that is our next challenge.