The Pope In America: My Thoughts on Pope Benedict's Visit

This is a first in a series of blog posts on the upcoming papal visit.

My thoughts on the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States have to do with the common good -- a central concept in Catholic social thought that is nearly incomprehensible to most people in the United States. Americans surely know what liberty and equality mean, but they are largely in the dark concerning the fraternity and solidarity required for building a common good culture. Pope Benedict can help inspire a revitalized commitment to the common good that is urgently needed if we are going to move closer to economic justice in American society.

For Christians, the pursuit of the common good follows from the Bible’s double commandment to love God with all one’s heart and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. This ancient theme in the Western and Christian traditions is in serious trouble. The pluralism of the contemporary scene, by definition, means we disagree about what makes a good life for individuals. Thus, many philosophers argue that agreement on a shared or common good is simply not possible. In fact, when groups of people diverge in their cultures, traditions, and ways of life, they can appear as threats to each other. Defense of one’s turf becomes the first requirement of the good life. Or less ominously, the research of my colleague Alan Wolfe suggests that the experience of pluralism is leading most Americans to place a high value on a form of live-and-let-live tolerance.

The tradition of Catholic social thought can make a significant contribution to changing this perspective. Pope John Paul II, for example, often pointed out that democracy depends on participation by all citizens in the communal relationships that give people a measure of real power to shape their environment. It requires mutual cooperation and mutual responsibility. In more contemporary terms, it requires solidarity with others. Pope John Paul II defined this solidarity as a moral virtue expressed in "a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good" (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, no. 38). Such commitment to the common good is directly opposed to the deep divisions between our core cities and suburbs. These divisions exclude the poor in ways that are the very opposite of solidarity, for they "marginalize" persons and whole groups from participation in the common life of the larger community. It is my hope that Pope Benedict will stress the need for this solidarity in the U.S. today. By doing so, he can help the U.S. church contribute to healing American public life of some of its deepest wounds.

The challenge of solidarity and the common good also arises on the international level. The much discussed phenomenon of globalization points to new links among nations and peoples that are developing today on multiple levels—the political, the economic, the social-cultural (through mass media and the internet), and the environmental. Despite the overall growth of the global economy, the negative face of globalization is evident in the continuing reality of massive poverty in some developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In the face of African poverty, the key question is how to move from patterns of global interaction that leave out whole peoples and large parts of a whole continent to patterns based on inclusion and reciprocity. Pope John Paul II called this "globalization in solidarity, globalization without marginalization." (World Day of Peace Message, January 1, 1998, no. 3). This is a form of interdependence shaped by what the United States Catholic Bishops called “basic justice.” In the bishops’ words in their 1983 Pastoral Letter Economic Justice for All, basic justice “demands the establishment of minimum levels of participation in the life of the human community for all persons." My hope is that during his visit Pope Benedict XVI will strongly call the United States and its people to a new and deeper commitment to living out this global solidarity.

At the same time, I believe Pope Benedict can also deliver some important messages to a U.S. Catholic Church that in recent years has lost a good bit of its institutional credibility in the domains of social justice and peace. This is due, in large part, to the scandal of clerical sexual abuse and the way a number of bishops responded to it. In addition, some church leaders have recently stressed a narrow set of moral issues related to sexuality in their engagement with political life. This has threatened to overshadow other church initiatives focused on social justice and peace. Both the sexual abuse crisis and the issue of single-issue intervention in the political sphere raise very important challenges for Pope Benedict during his visit.

In my judgment, Pope Benedict would be well advised to stress the deep and broad Catholic vision of what a good society could look like and avoid narrow, moralistic judgments of all the sins people should avoid, especially the sexual sins. The biblical vision of a society formed by covenant with God and by Jesus’ proclamation of the coming reign of God can inspire and energize people to work for the common good. This biblical vision can be correlated with an understanding of justice and the common good that sees all persons as active participants in the life of national and global communities. Lists of intrinsic evils and strong condemnations of them, on the other hand, are not likely to inspire people to the action that is needed today. It is my hope that Pope Benedict will draw on the vision of the good society that is so close to the heart of the gospel and avoid negative and condemnatory moralism. I think this emphasis on the positive Christian vision of the common good is essential if the pope’s voice is to be heard and received by the church and broader society.

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