Jamie at Ad Limina Apostolorum provides some commentary on my recent post about the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

His central thesis–that the Compendium is viewed as an elaboration of a particular subject dealt with in the Catechism of the Catholic Church–is certainly correct. I think, however, that another thesis he advances must be understood with some nuance.

He writes (excerpts; and the "yeah!" is Jamie rather than me):

I share Akin’s concern that the social teaching of the Church not be so readily equated with its moral and dogmatic teaching, which admittedly admit [yeah!] of a greater degree of solemnity. But this concern is balanced with another (which Jimmy certainly shares as well) that the Church’s social teaching not be itself downgraded to the level of ‘optional’ or ‘throw-away,’ a hodgepodge of socioeconomic suggestions paperclipped to the Really Important Stuff ™ like the Pope and the Sacraments and all that.

[T]he fact that the Catechism already contains the Church’s social teaching, at least in summary form, brings up another point. It simply doesn’t make sense to think of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a collection of the Really Important Stuff – like hard, dogmatic teaching – with the Church’s social thought playing the the ugly red-headed stepchild. If the Church’s social teaching is included in the Catechism, then it is the Really Important Stuff as well, or at least integral to it.

I would press the question of whether the Church’s social teachings can be so easily separated from the Church’s dogmatic and moral teachings. Is not the Church’s social teaching not moral in its very essence (even if it rarely advances to the level of solemn, dogmatic statements about morality)? Is it not also a ‘doctrine’ in the fullest sense of the word? In fact, the Holy Father has claimed the Church’s principles of social doctrine, as enunciated especially in Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, "belong to the Church’s doctrinal patrimony" (Centesimus Annus 3), constituting a "genuine doctrine" (5), and "an essential part of the Christian message" (5). John XXIII called it "an integral part of the Christian conception of life" (Statement on New Social Justice Compendium, Cardinal Martino (I know, I know, but at least give him the time of day) said, "When, in any way whatsoever, one loses the keen awareness that this Social Doctrine belongs to the Church’s mission, Social Doctrine itself is manipulated, falling prey to various forms of ambiguity and partisan application."

I’ve quoted Jamie at some length because he makes a number of points that need to be addressed for purposes of pointing out the nuance with which they need to be understood (and one point on which I disagree).

Here goes.

1) I certainly would not characterize the Church’s social teaching in the extreme terms Jamie mentions in his first paragraph. Nevertheless, it must be recognized that there is a very large difference between the social teachings of the Church and its dogmatic and moral teachings. We’ll now look at that difference.

2) The Church recognizes that there is within the deposit of faith a hierarchy of truths, according to which some truths (like the existence of God and the doctrine of the Trinity) are at the very top of the hierarchy and others (such as the moral liceity of gambling) much further down in the hierarchy.

3) There is also a difference in the level of clarity with which the Church proposes these doctrines. In the case of some doctrines, precise doctrinal definitions (which are infallible) have been promulgated to more sharply delimit the shape of the truth in question. But with other doctrines (in fact, most doctrines) this is not the case.

4) When it is not the case, there is a greater degree of ambiguity regarding what constitutes the unchangable doctrinal core of the teaching and what may be conjectural or contingent elements used in a particular age of the Church to propound the doctrine.

5) Thus in the Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith notes: "in order to serve the People of God as well as possible, in particular, by warning them of   dangerous opinions which could lead to error, the Magisterium can intervene in questions under discussion which involve, in addition to solid principles, certain contingent and conjectural elements. It often only becomes possible with the passage of time to distinguish between what is necessary and what is contingent" (EVT 24).

6) For example, in prior ages of the Church it was near-universally (though not universally) assumed that God created the world is six literal days. Recent Magisterial interventions have, however, arrived at a provisional finding that the unchanging and unchangeable core of the Church’s doctrine on this point is that God created the world and all that is in it, but not that he did so in six literal days. The literal understanding of the days of creation is regarded by the present Magisterium as a venerable but non-necessary element in prior Magisterial interventions on this topic.

7) The distinction between the essential and the contingent is central to the question of the Church’s social doctrine in three ways.

8a) First, this distinction that appears to be a (not necessarily the only) defining difference between the Church’s moral doctrine and its social doctrine. It is well recognized, as Jamie points out, that the Church’s social doctrine has a moral dimension to it and that its social doctrine is an outworking of its moral doctrine.

8b) It thus appears that the Church’s moral doctrine contains essential principles (to the extent it contains essential principles, for its articulation also contains conjectural and contingent elements, as does dogmatic theology) which then receive a societally-conditioned and thus contingent application in social doctrine.

8c) Without this societally-conditioned element, the distinction between moral and social teaching would seem to collapse and the teachings ascribed to social doctrine would take on the status of culturally unbound moral teachings obligatory on all individuals in all times and places.

9) Second, the fact that the Church’s social teachings are an outworking of its moral teachings of itself means that these doctrines are lower down in the hierarchy of truths than moral teachings are.

10a) Third, the ambiguity that exists between what is an essential and what is a non-essential element in the articulation of a doctrine has an impact on the firmness with which particular propositions are advanced by the Magisterium. Classically, this impact is expressed by the "doctrinal note" attached to particular propositions (e.g., is it de fide [a matter of the faith], it is otherwise certain, is it the common opinion of learned men, is it something recently proposed by the Magisterium as a suggested solution to a problem).

10b) The social teachings of the Church in particular are characterized by having lower order doctrinal notes. None are de fide, few are certain, and many are recently proposed solutions to current problems. In fact, it would seem that the social doctrine of the Church has the lowest order doctrinal notes of any area of what may properly be called Church teaching.

11a) From the foregoing (7-10), it is clear why it does not follow from the mere fact that social doctrine is included in the Catechism means that social doctrine "is the Really Important Stuff as well, or at least integral to it."

11b) The Catechism involves a survey of the hierarchy of truths and covers many highly important and many much less important truths within the hierarchy. Points 8-10 illustrate why the social doctrines the Catechism contains tend to belong to the lower range of that hierarchy.

11c) Per those points, the social doctrine sections of the Catechism contain many elements that are conjectural and contingent and may be shown to be so with time, just as some elements of the Catechism of Trent (which didn’t even have to do with social doctrine) were shown to be non-essential; e.g., its statement regarding tonsure that "The Church teaches that this usage [tonsure] is derived from Apostolic origin" (SOURCE). That’s certainly not something that the Church teaches today. It was a non-essential element of Church teaching whose non-essential status was clarified with time. Similarly, the CCC contains such elements. Indeed, one revision to clarify and correct elements in it was done within the first few years of its release.

11d) Further, there are things in the Catechism that do not count as Church doctrine per se. Some, such as the Catechism’s statement that the Church knows that men today desire freedom, are not teachings at all but are expressions of pastoral solicitude. Other passages in it provide statements of doctrines that are not irreformable. Indeed, Cardinal Ratzinger has indicated in print that the Catechism does not change the doctrinal status of anything it contains (see my forthcoming post on this). Those teachings with lesser doctrinal notes retain the same status they had before the Catechism was released.

11e) Some of the elements in the Catechism appear not to be teachings per se but prudential estimations and applications of a prudential nature about how best to address certain social situations. The revised edition of the Catechism’s treatment of the frequency with which the death penalty should be employed appears to fall into this category. Thus Cardinal Ratzinger noted that there can be a "legitimate diversity of opinion" regarding this point. This would not be the case if the point in question were an authentic (i.e., authoritative) teaching of the Church.

11f) In view of these points, one must proceed with caution regarding the level of authority one attributes to the social doctrine elements in the Catechism relative to its dogmatic and moral theology contents. This is not at all to say that its social teaching passages are "downgraded to the level of ‘optional’ or ‘throw-away’" status, but neither is it to say that this material "is the Really Important Stuff as well, or at least integral to it."

12) In view of this, with regard to such teachings, one may say with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that, while "The willingness to submit loyally to the teaching of the   Magisterium on matters per se not irreformable must be the rule. It can happen, however, that a theologian may, according to the case, raise questions regarding the timeliness, the form, or even the contents of magisterial interventions" (EVT 24, emphasis added). (N.B. One should read the rest of the EVT to see the conditions under which this can be done.)

13) As the social teachings have an inescapably prudential element, this being a key difference from the Church’s moral doctrine, they are judgments of a prudential nature. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith singles out such judgments for special mention in the EVT, noting that:

When it comes to the question of interventions in the prudential order, it could happen that some Magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies. Bishops and their advisors   have not always taken into immediate consideration every aspect or the entire complexity of a question. But it would be contrary to the truth, if, proceeding from some particular cases, one were to conclude that the Church’s Magisterium can be habitually mistaken in its prudential judgments, or that it does not enjoy divine assistance in the integral exercise of its mission [EVT 24, emphasis added].

14) Indeed, it is not difficult to point to Magisterial interventions of the past that not only are regarded as "right to recommend then but wrong to recommend now" but which also are, in the judgment of the present pontiff, "wrong to recommend even then." Hence his apologies for various historical interventions of the Magisterium on different matters.

15) More recent examples are not lacking. As this article points out, Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio contains a number of social doctrine interventions that were tried–and failed–and that were pointed out at the time to be contrary to sound economics. Although I haven’t done a detailed side-by-side comparison of the two documents (not yet, at any rate), it seems to me that in Centissimus Annus John Paul II takes a significantly different and more cautious tack than Paul VI did, in view of the ensuing years of economic experience.

16) The point also should be made that that the Church must be very careful in its social teachings in that it is approaching the limits of its sphere of competence. Dogmatic and moral theology represent the core of what it was sent by Christ to proclaim, social considerations being of a secondary and contingent nature. As churchmen seek to prudentially apply the moral principles (that are part of the unchanging deposit of faith) to the changing conditions of society in order to fashion social doctrine, they are in danger of exceeding their mandate and infringing on what is properly the sphere of the laity.

17) In the problematic cases referred to in points 13-15, it would seem that they exceeded their mandate. While God’s assistance is certainly provided to the Church whenever it operates within its mandate, when it exceeds this then the presumption of assistance in any particular case is very much less. This would seem to be particularly the case if ecclesiastics are exceeding their mandate in a way that interferes with the proper operation of another sphere (the laity’s), in violation of the principle of subsidiarity.

18) It thus seems that in considering the Church’s social doctrine, we have arrived at the limits of the doctrines of the Church, or ad limina doctrinarum ecclesiae.

19) This means that things in this area must be weighed with caution because the danger of the Church exceeding its mandate is the greatest in this area. In view of the considerations cited above, it would seem that ecclesiastics have a duty incumbent upon them to make it absolutely clear to the laity the nature and level of authority that social doctrine interventions have, both in general and in particular. Failure to do so will result in the laity perceiving social doctrine in the same light as much more central and much more certain moral and dogmatic interventions. This will unduly constrain the liberty of the laity in finding appropriate social applications of moral principles and thus violate the principle of subsidiarity.

20) In view of recent ecclesiastical history, one also might argue that the distinctions above have not been brought home to the laity with nearly the force necessary, as illustrated by the easy justifications offered (on the pretext of perceived social doctrine, which often are not Church teaching at all) by many laity for voting for pro-abort candidates on grounds that they support social policies of dubious efficacy that are much less certain and much less weighty in comparison to the ongoing abortion holocaust.