Breda O'Brien
Jordan Peterson The View
Being Catholic means being neither right-wing nor left-wing. It means embracing the social teaching on the Church on major issues and using prudential judgement in less important areas.
There is a growing phenomenon of young men and some young women who tend to be right-wing economically but also to oppose abortion. Let’s call them the Jordan Peterson generation.
Peterson is a Canadian Professor of Psychology who is not particularly right wing, but came to public attention because he opposed a law concerning the mandatory use of preferred gender pronouns.
He might best be described as a tough-love Dad-figure. His basic message seems to be that life is suffering, but that if you face up to the challenge and become a person of integrity, it is possible to have a good life. To date, he has not self-described as a practising Christian.
Given the Church’s well-known stance against abortion, it is not surprising that a significant minority of the Jordan Peterson generation began to identify as Catholic.
Some religious groups are delighted to welcome any young people who are interested in Christianity and prefer to ignore the lack of formation that many of these young people have. Many of them have no idea what the Church’s teaching on migration is, for example.
Some kind of formation programme is urgently needed for these eager but not particularly well-informed young people. They seem to think that low taxes and small government are Church teachings.
Social justice
On the other hand, there are young people who are attracted to the Church’s teaching on social justice but believe that the Church is entirely wrong on the right to life and gender identity. They, too, have no problem about identifying as Catholic, but it is a Catholicism shaped in the image and likeness of liberal causes.
Again, these young people are welcomed eagerly by a cohort of the Church, and again, their lack of a basic understanding of Church teaching is ignored.
To repeat, the Church is neither left-wing nor right-wing, nor does she support any particular political viewpoint. However, she does offer criticism of political systems that violate the moral law, which in turn is based on the Natural Law.
So the Church has been heavily critical of Communism, because of its attempts to impose an atheistic culture, its lack of respect for human rights and refusal to recognise the right to private property.
Equally, the Church has criticised the excesses of capitalism. It is well–expressed in St John Paul’s document Centesimus Annus. St John Paul says in that document that there is the risk of an “idolatry” of the market, an idolatry which ignores the existence of goods which by their nature are not and cannot be mere commodities.
Take, for example, a company that many of us use regularly – Amazon. In recent times, it has been claimed that their workers operate in very difficult and stressful conditions and that Amazon resists attempts to unionise.
There are many claims that pregnant women are given no quarter, that they have to be on their feet, ‘picking’ for up to 10 hours a day. Picking refers to picking up goods for customers in warehouses, but it has unfortunate resonances. The cotton picking industry was highly lucrative because it relied on slave labour.
No one is suggesting that Amazon is treating people like slaves but the many complaints from workers suggest that Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has not become the wealthiest man in history due to his humane and considerate treatment of his warehouse workers.
It is also alleged that workers doing very physical labour are afraid to take breaks in case of being penalised.
If the conditions really are difficult as alleged, then the Catholic response is to take the side of the workers. This is not necessarily an anti-capitalist stance. But there are 120 years of Catholic social teaching designed to protect workers and to allow them to have decent, humane working conditions.
There is also a Catholic approach to immigration, which goes back to our Jewish ancestors in the faith: welcome the stranger. This is not to advocate for open borders or to suggest that any country should have to be overwhelmed, but it does pre-suppose generosity of spirit.
Catholic morality is all of a piece. It is vital to be pro-life – but also vital to treat those who work for you as well as you can. Catholics new and old, need to realise that the authentic Catholic view does not make an idol out of either profit or the State but wants both to be secondary to human flourishing.
Young converts to Catholicism should be welcome and cherished but they also need to know that being a Catholic is much deeper and more nuanced than simplistic importing of secular economic and political viewpoints into their new faith community.