In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

201 11 THE UNITED STATES– VATICAN RELATIONSHIP “Parallel Endeavors for Peace,” CompetingVisions of Justice Paul Christopher Manuel During his may 2007 visit to Brazil, Pope Benedict XVI denounced the opposing economic systems of Marxism and capitalism. Benedict bemoaned “the painful destruction of the human spirit”done in the former communist countries, and he was equally harsh regarding contemporary capitalism and globalization, warning people against its “deceptive illusions of happiness.”1 North American observers were clearly pleased with his remarks on Marxism and its implied criticisms of the economic policies of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, but they were considerably less sanguine concerning his views on capitalism. To be sure, Benedict’s warning statements on capitalism confront several key assumptions of American economic liberalism and are at the center of a deep philosophical cleavage between the Vatican and the United States in the contemporary world. Strongly influenced by John Locke, mainstream American economic thinkers have long maintained that social justice is primarily a question of individual rights and freedom—the idea that a just society is one in which there are free and unfettered markets and a limited government. Locke tends to minimize the concept of community obligations and, in its stead, to elevate individual rights and freedom as the barometer of social justice. In this view, according to the classic formulation, the only legitimate function of government is the protection of each citizen’s life, liberty, and property.2 The views expressed by Pope Benedict, and which originate in the one-hundred -year tradition of Catholic social teaching, run squarely against traditional American notions of capitalism, property rights, individualism, and personal choice. In the Catholic view, social justice is best defined as a relational concept—the ability of each person to fully participate as a member of a larger community. The key concept of poverty as “structural sin,” for example, in which all members of a community have a duty to help the poor, is a central tenet of Catholic social teaching and may be understood to be a Catholic corrective to the American emphasis on individual freedoms and rights.3 Expanding on this notion, Lisa Ferrari points out that “John Paul II writes of authentic human development rather than simply economic development and offers a‘theological reading of modern problems,’”in which he asks the faithful to reframe political and economic questions in terms of sin and “structures of sin.”4 This chapter will examine the relationship between the Vatican and the United States in light of these divergent views. It will look at how they have cooperated and conflicted over the years by analyzing how the two sides have engaged in, following President Franklin Roosevelt’s formulation, “parallel endeavors for peace,” and then contrast that aspect of the relationship involving their competing visions of justice. Throughout, this chapter is interested in discovering a nuanced understanding of the nature of the relationship between these two global powers. TWO DIFFERENT KINDS OF GLOBAL POWERS The diverging worldviews of the Vatican and the United States have become significantly more important since the fall of Soviet communism. In the post–cold war world, the United States has focused much of its energies on exporting a liberal economic version of globalization, while the Vatican has fought for a preferential option for the poor, the needy, and the vulnerable in the global economy. As the United States proclaims to the underdeveloped world that free market capitalism is the means of escaping poverty, the Vatican seeks to temper American capitalistic enthusiasm with dire warnings against inordinate attachments to material things. Just as the United States is a political, social, and economic reality in the world, the Vatican is a leading moral voice in the contemporary global scene. Although both the Vatican and the United States are currently powers with a global reach, James Kurth has insightfully argued that the Vatican and the United States are polar opposites in at least three fundamental ways. First, the Vatican is the smallest state in the world, whereas the United States occupies a vast landmass.5 Next, the Holy See represents one Catholic faith in many nations across the globe, while the United States is one nation composed of many faiths. Third, the pope is the mediator for Catholics between the secular and spiritual worlds, while the United States is a society predicated in many ways on a strict separation between state and church.6 They are not enemies, but they do offer the world very...

Share