Prophetic and Public: The Social Witness of U.S. Catholicism

CHAPTER THREE

The conciliar and episcopal statements surveyed demonstrate that the official stance of the Catholic magisterium, as it has developed post–Vatican II, is one of church engaged with state and society. We have also encountered a certain ambivalence in such documents and the broader tradition, exhibiting a tension between the call to such collaboration and a more evangelical ethic. J. Bryan Hehir notes that, overall, the Catholic Church understands itself as a public church, in the sense that its basic understanding of pastoral responsibility includes participation in the wider civil society.1 He locates his own view in this vein, yet, given the tensions entailed in worldly activity, he thinks Catholics must continually reexamine such collaboration lest it turn into co-optation.2 Contemporary Catholic social ethicists and theologians, such as Charles E. Curran; Michael Himes; Kenneth Himes, O.F.M.; and David Hollenbach, S.J., support a similarly collaborative model of a public church, although with differing methodologies, to some degree.3 According to these scholars, this model withstands a degree of internal pluralism, both in specific moral judgments and in the different roles that the church plays.4 As we have begun to see, however, some Catholics question the legitimacy of this public church model, representing a prophetic sect type and a rigorist , evangelical social ethic. For example, Michael J. Baxter, C.S.C., objects that if the church participates in the agenda of the state or attempts to provide an ethic for wider society, it will end up aligning itself with the interests of the nation at the expense of fidelity to the gospel. He believes that in collaborative efforts the church adopts wider secular policy debates’ standards of success, which exclude gospel standards, making it more difficult for the Christ-centered radicalism of prophetic movements within the church to be heard.5 Those who share this perspective assert that the church’s social ethic should consist only of the witness of the church community itself, which should serve as a contrasting model to the state.6 Hehir objects that this posiCHAPTER THREE Divergences within American Catholic Social Ethics J. Bryan Hehir and Michael J. Baxter, C.S.C. tion creates too great a chasm between the call to discipleship and the call to citizenship.7 The present chapter explores the social ethics of Hehir and Baxter to provide an overview of these two major strands in contemporary Catholic social ethics. A critical comparison of their methods, theological foundations, and attitudes toward church and state helps probe the distinct forms of Christian witness that each draws from the Catholic tradition. Due to their differences in theological emphases and the ambivalent nature of different social contexts, proper discernment emerges as a particularly important practice in considering public theological stances. Many argue on theological and sociological grounds that the church should encompass pluralistic methods for vocation and witness.8 Some Catholics have called the presence of those who feel a special call to witness to peace or to voluntary poverty or to life itself as keeping the larger church faithful and honest, but assert that, by definition, such groups will remain minorities.9 Ultimately, the strengths and shortcomings of each methodology suggest promising ways in which the two might inform one another, rather than living with substantive pluralism or relegating one to minority status. It is important to note at the outset that the work of Hehir and Baxter are not coequal in terms of influence in the contemporary Catholic landscape. Nevertheless, Baxter well represents the evangelical critique encountered in American Catholicism, exhibited, for example, by Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, and, as we saw in chapter 2, certain aspects of the work and posture of Pope John Paul II.10 Surveying the stances and foundations of Hehir and Baxter side by side will help illuminate the tensions within the church’s social mission and clarify the possibilities and limits of public theology and political engagement. REV. J. BRYAN HEHIR AND THE PUBLIC CHURCH As a policy advisor to the United States bishops at the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) for many years, dean and professor at Harvard Divinity School, and recent president of Catholic Charities USA, Hehir has exercised one of the most influential public roles in recent American Catholic history.11 Hehir is perhaps best known for his work as policy analyst and advisor at the USCC (1973–92) where his work was extremely influential on the bishops’ policy agenda.12 He...