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3. Seeking the Common Good through Virtue and Grace
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113 chapter 3 Seeking the Common Good through Virtue and Grace Virtue in Augustine and Aquinas While many things contribute to the attainment of the common good, virtue (including wisdom) and grace deserve special mention. The Catechism sets the proper tone in the section on the human community with the following statement: “It is necessary, then, to appeal to the spiritual and moral capacities of the human person and to the permanent need for his inner conversion, so as to obtain social changes that will really serve him.”1 Otherwise stated, conversion leading to love of God and neighbor and the practice of all the virtues is the necessary condition for obtaining social reform. So that there is no misunderstanding in the meaning of the text, the Catechism adds, The acknowledged priority of the conversion of heart in no way eliminates but on the contrary imposes the obligation of bringing the appropriate remedies to institutions and living conditions when they are an inducement to sin, so that they conform to the norms of justice and advance the good rather than hinder it.2 In other words, it is not really possible to bring about the reform of institutions and living conditions unless people really know and want to do the right thing, and the desire to do the right thing must include efforts to reform institutions and establish societal conditions favorable to virtue . Recall the discussion of this matter at the end of the previous chapter. Finally, the Catechism links conversion, love (namely, the theological virtue of charity), and social reform to grace. The text reads, 1. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994), no. 1888. 2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1888. 114 The Common Good Without the help of grace, men would not know how “to discern the often narrow path between the cowardice which gives in to evil, and the violence which under the illusion of fighting evil only makes it worse.” This is the path of charity, that is of the love of God and neighbor. Charity is the greatest social commandment. It respects others and their rights. It requires the practice of justice, and it alone makes us capable of it. Charity inspires a life of selfgiving .3 To put this in Augustinian terms, grace is the true bond of society because it makes possible genuine love of God and neighbor, not to mention respect for human rights. The Catechism clearly implies that rights are not the primary moral counter. Having rights doesn’t transform the soul and, therefore, doesn’t necessarily incline a person to love God and neighbor. Charity, on the other hand, transforms people and causes them to respect the genuine rights of fellow human beings. This catechetical teaching, with roots in the grand Catholic tradition, has enormous implications for the way rights are conceived and approached, and for the place of virtue and grace in Catholic social doctrine (CSD). The proclamation of rights cannot deliver all that seekers of social justice expect unless individuals have order in their soul produced by charity and the other virtues. The virtues and grace, therefore, deserve a place in the line-up of major themes of CSD, whether in scholarly studies or episcopal statements. Pope Benedict XVI’s Salt of the Earth has a nice statement on the theme of social problems caused by disorder in the soul or lack of virtue. He says, [T]he pollution of the outward environment that we are witnessing is only the mirror and consequence of the pollution of the inward environment, to which we pay too little heed. I think this is also the defect of the ecological movements. They crusade with an understandable and also a legitimate passion against the pollution of the environment, whereas man’s self-pollution of his soul continues to be treated as one of the rights of his freedom. There is a discrepancy here. We want to eliminate the measurable pollution, but we don’t consider the pollution of man’s soul....As long as we retain this caricature of freedom, namely, of the freedom of inner self-destruction, its outward effects will continue unchanged.4 3. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1889, quoting Pope John Paul II’s Centesimus annus , no. 25. 4. Joseph Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth: The Catholic Church at the End of the Millenium—An Interview with Peter Seewald (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 230–31. [3.235.251.99] Project...