The publication of the following contribution follows the election of
the American Augustinian Robert Francis Prevost as the 267th pontiff of
the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, taking the name Leo XIV. He
succeeds the recently deceased Argentine Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio,
who, under the name "Pope Francis," authored the 2015 encyclical
"Laudato Si'." Immediately after its publication, the encyclical aroused
great interest for its contents, which were defined with frankly
excessive emphasis as progressive, and it attracted widespread
enthusiastic support, especially from the left in its myriad political
and trade union configurations, from the most moderate to the most
radical. At the time, in reality, there was no in-depth debate on the
Encyclical as a fundamental reference of Pope Francis' pontificate:
instead, it was greeted with that redemptive and propagandistic charge
that current apologists arbitrarily attribute to the actions of the late
pontiff, limiting themselves, yesterday as today, to considering
statements on which they are unable to reflect, precisely because they
are overwhelmed by their own exuberant and decontextualized
self-referentialism.
Thus it was that even on the occasion of the death of the pontiff, all
politicians rushed to celebrate his intentions which, even if they did
not proceed beyond the declarations, albeit significant considering the
source from which they came, ended up being adapted, despite themselves,
also for opposing purposes and strategies pursued by the ruling groups
within the Catholic Church, in reference to the policies of the centers
of power that dominate the world.
In this context of crisis, it should not be surprising that Pope
Francis's apologists have found themselves and continue to find
themselves "on the left", where the widespread superficiality of those
who elevate the late pontiff to the icon of widespread progressivism
emerges with demoralizing clarity that often takes on the tone of
arrogance, ignoring what Gramsci had affirmed in relation to the
internal components of the Catholic Church at the time of Pius XI and
the need to rebalance the fight against modernism, which had unbalanced
Catholicism too far to the right, to center it in the Jesuits "that is,
to give it a flexible political form, without doctrinal rigidities,
great freedom of maneuver..." (Antonio Gramsci ("I Quaderni del
Carcere", Notebook 20 (XXV), 1934-35", 4 "Integral Catholics, Jesuits,
Modernists").
We believe, then, that in such a context, a critical reflection on the
encyclical "Laudato Si'" can contribute to our understanding of both the
legacy left by the previous pontificate and the future strategies of the
pontificate of Leo XIV.
We express ourselves in these terms, aware that the Church is humanity's
oldest "party ." It does its job, and generally succeeds in doing so by
combining its own contradictions, sometimes jarring, into resulting
systems of ideas, choices, and behaviors. These, including through the
control and use of progressivism, have historically allowed Catholic
conservatism to continually reemerge from "behind the throne." These
tendencies in Vatican politics have been embraced and widely applied
within the Christian Democratic sphere, albeit with additional balancing
acts that have sometimes reduced their effectiveness. This occurred
throughout the history of the Italian Socialist Party, perhaps with the
further opportunistic caricature that characterized the Craxi era, to
the point of extending even to the events of Italian national communism,
albeit with innumerable rigidities and intolerances, which however would
not have prevented the liquidation of the PCI in order to undertake the
process that would have led to the birth of the current "Democratic
Party" , a concrete and modest legacy of the "Historic Compromise" of
Berlinguer memory.
We are also aware that the above reflections cannot be exhaustive
regarding the current phase characterizing the Catholic Church, and for
more in-depth considerations we refer to the contribution by comrade
Gianni Cimbalo: "Re Leone XIV," present in this issue no. 36 of "il
CANTIERE," which leads us to a final consideration.
It has been claimed from many quarters that the encyclical "Rerum
Novarum", published in 1891 by Leo XIII, with whom the current pontiff
also formally places himself in continuity, opened the social question
in the Catholic Church: never before has the conditional tense seemed so
necessary, precisely because the encyclical in question appears to be
extremely conservative. In this regard, there were also those, naturally
on the left, who felt it was appropriate to display irony by stating
that the encyclical should not be considered "The Communist Manifesto,"
which, written by Marx and Engels in 1848-a full 43 years
earlier-asserts clear and discriminating concepts, prefiguring a society
that the encyclical fiercely opposes and condemns. Driven as it is by a
vibrant anti-socialist and restorationist urge, this is the true purpose
of Rerum Novarum, which is resolved in the dogma that also characterizes
Catholic progressivism in posing "the world as the problem and
Catholicism as the solution." So, on the one hand, it is permissible to
believe whatever one wants, but on the other, it is not legitimate to
act by mocking others so that they will believe it too.
Reflections on the Encyclical "Laudato si'"
History expresses those who are called to interpret it, and the
phenomenon of Pope Francis was born and developed precisely as a
consequence of the need for urgent renewal on the part of the Catholic
Church.
Contexts: encyclicals and advisors
Of course, encyclicals aren't written by the pope alone, but by various
advisors, and with regard to the encyclical "Laudato si' ," one of these
is Jeffrey Sachs, a longtime Vatican regular. Sachs currently directs
"the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, and in the
1980s and 1990s, he stood out for the 'shock therapy' he applied to
several Latin American and Eastern European countries to facilitate a
rapid transition to a free market economy, regardless of the social
repercussions." (L'Espresso 01/06/2015)
Jeffrey Sachs is an American economist with a neo-Keynesian background
but in strong opposition to the neoliberalism advocated by the "Chicago
school" which, through its founder, the economist Milton Friedman, was
the inspiration for neoliberal policies: starting precisely from the
"experiment" conducted in Chile under General Pinochet, who came to
power with the bloody coup d'état of 1973, ordered by the US to
overthrow the government of the socialist Salvador Allende.
The Chilean " experiment" of 1975 consisted of a process of unbridled
privatization and liberalization of the country's economy, a process
conducted with great energy and simultaneity against a working class
beaten and oppressed by a ferocious dictatorship. The "experiment"
became a model, and Friedman became the inspiration for the neoliberal
policies subsequently implemented, with appropriate adaptations, in
England (Margaret Thatcher's term 1979-1987) and the United States
(Ronald Reagan's term 1980-1989).
Ten years later, in 1985, we see Jeffrey Sachs, in his early thirties,
as a consultant to the Bolivian government (under Pax Estensorro),
attempting to "combine political liberalization and democracy with
economic liberalization... Thanks to Sachs - the evangelist of
democratic capitalism - as the New York Times called him - "shock
therapy" had finally shaken off the stench of dictatorships and death
camps that had lingered since Friedman had made his trip to Santiago
(Chile) ten years earlier... Bolivia had adopted a Pinochetian-style
"shock therapy" without a Pinochet and, no less, under a center-left
government (under Victor Paz Estensorro) ... the things that Pinochet
did with the bayonet, Paz did within a democratic system..." (Naomy
Klein: "Shock economy" - Rizzoli editore Milano 2007 - see in particular
chap. 7 pag. 164)
With Sachs, neoliberalism adapts to a "democratic" framework to be
practiced more widely. Indeed, we will see Sachs dishing out "Bolivian
therapies" in Poland as an advisor to the Solidarity government in 1988,
supported by the Catholic Church, which was already playing a decisive
role in the collapse of the USSR.
But Sachs was also a supporter of Boris Yeltsin, whose mandate
(1991-1999) oversaw the transition from the dissolution of the USSR to
the Russian Federation, a transition also characterized by " Bolivian
therapies" as well as bloody repression, in the exclusive interest of
the oligarchs of the former Soviet regime. It is precisely as a result
of the Russian catastrophe and the role played by the IMF and the US
government, unwilling to provide economic aid, that Sachs appears to
have gradually toned down his essentially neoliberal positions, at least
in their practical implementation.
In this regard, it is interesting to note the conciliatory positions
Sachs has taken on the Greek crisis, seeking a balance between the needs
of the Greek government and the German solution that would allow the
reemergence of neo-Keynesian mediation aimed at not penalizing Greece in
order to protect the role of the IMF (recently favorable to debt
restructuring) and US foreign policy (Greece's continued membership of
the euro to avoid weakening NATO's role). (See: J. Sachs: "My
Solution for Greece," Il Sole 24 Ore, August 11, 2015.)
The Encyclical "Laudato si'" and the Catholic Church
The reason why the Encyclical "Laudato Si'" sought such collaboration
likely lies in the fact that Sachs appears to share the view that
poverty is the consequence of the exclusion of the poor from production,
and not the capitalist exploitation of manual and intellectual labor.
This view already appears in the Encyclical " Centesimus Annus," written
by Pope John Paul II in 1991, and which, again, saw Sachs as one of its
advisors. In any case, this desired " inclusion in production " would be
the direct responsibility of the lower classes and not of the capitalist
economy as a whole, as Keynes advocated, envisioning, at most, aid from
the IMF, which, indeed, Sachs always urged.
Furthermore, at this stage, the Catholic Church is characterized by
profound contradictions that complicate every path, requiring mediation,
often through the use of skilled and accredited advisors capable of
ensuring some continuity with the past. This is done to slow down and
counterbalance certain attempts at innovation, or, more precisely,
outright revisionism, to prevent them from proceeding autonomously and
becoming uncontrollable over time.
Regardless of subjective intentions, the Encyclical therefore
constitutes an attempt from within the Catholic Church to recover and
enhance its credibility and political role of dialogue and mediation
with the great powers, which have been deeply undermined by a certain
complacency over past victories, a series of grave scandals, and the
inadequacy of the previous pontificate. The Roman Catholic Apostolic
Church is, historically, the largest, oldest, and most organized
political party in human history, and if at this stage a Pope like
Francis has emerged, it is because its hierarchy realizes that
innovation is essential, but it also imposes a price that must be
paid-but in moderation, however. It is a question of determining how
much and for how long these prices must continue to be paid. Above all,
it is a question of ensuring that the innovation is moderate in its
practical implementation and that, therefore, it is enunciated above all
as a reason for propaganda, precisely to guarantee the Catholic
hierarchy ample room for maneuver and mediation in the future on the
basis of a renewed credibility, which will enhance its currently
declining political role.
Not all of the Catholic Church sides with the current Pope, and indeed,
part of it calls for some control, if not even a significant downsizing.
If this is the goal, Sachs's presence is a guarantee, because for our
economist, the framework of his programs may be neo-Keynesian, but his
solutions are certainly neoliberal and capable of controlling annoying
revisionist tensions.
Thus, Pope Francis does not represent the entire Catholic Church, but
rather a segment of it, the one most concerned and sensitive to the
dramatic reality of the consequences of capitalism, which are measured
in terms of inequality and underdevelopment, environmental devastation,
war, and the domination of financial capital at the expense of commodity
production itself, which, as Marx had already predicted, is becoming a
cumbersome reality for financial capital. As always, the direction is
not single but contradictory, and serious problems arise regarding the
control and mediation of phenomena and the people who interpret them.
Needs for continuity
From this point of view, the encyclical "Laudato si'" replicates and
develops the statements already present in " Centesimus Annus", seeking
to reorganize and update into an organic whole the scattered pieces of
that dispersed coherence, manifested over time by the Catholic
hierarchies: it cites John XXIII (who actively worked to bring about the
collapse of the center-left in the 1960s) and his encyclical "Pacem in
Terris"; it cites Paul VI (who was characterized by his conservatism);
it cites John Paul II (who was one of the main directors of the collapse
of the Soviet Union); it cites Benedict XVI (who led a brief
traditionalist pontificate); it does not cite, however, John Paul I, who
began his very brief pontificate by trying to reduce the power of the
IOR and who did not have time to express much. At the same time,
concessions are made, albeit indirectly, to "Liberation Theology ,"
through extensive references to the Episcopal Assemblies of Latin
America, which over time have watered down its social content,
transforming it into innocuous, yet effective, pronouncements. (Pope
Francis: "Laudato si'" Encyclical on the care of the common good - Ed.
S. Paolo - Libreria Editrice Vaticana - Vatican City 2015 - p. 55, note
no. 24).
Reading the Encyclical, one gets the impression of being faced with a
magnificent, tested, effective, and above all authoritative machine
against injustice, which is precisely what is lacking in the world
today. The Pope's attempt to demonstrate that the Church has always
supported this denunciation, albeit intermittently and, it is said,
sometimes with unjustified weakness, gives the Catholic Church a great
primacy of originality and qualifies it as a fundamental point of
reference for the redemption of the world's least privileged.
The encyclical does not represent a decisive return to the original
message of the Gospel and the origins of Christianity, but rather to the
more evocative and less demanding experience of St. Francis, on the
basis of which it attempts to organically redesign a Church that over
the centuries has, objectively, gone in another direction, albeit with
some significant exceptions.
Moreover, the vibrant denunciations of inequality as a consequence of
the role of multinationals, international finance, the capitalist logic
of profit, and, in general, the capitalist system of production in its
imperialist phase, and thus also of rearmament, war, and its countless
horrors, have always been the heritage of narrow revolutionary groups.
Although they supported these positions with scientific analyses that
the Encyclical carefully avoids, and certainly not due to the
incompetence of its drafters, these groups have never had the capacity
to engage in broad class dialogue and have remained largely confined to
minority views, if not even ridiculed as residual.
From this point of view, the Encyclical stirs the stagnant waters of
the Catholic Church and of a conformist, subservient, complicit, or
impotent left, arousing innumerable enthusiasms and cross-sectional
consensus in every political and social strata.
The Catholic Church and Christianity
The Encyclical addresses "humanity," an attempt to engage all of
Christianity in a vision of unity through renewal. Hence the repeated
openness to Judaism, the Orthodox Church, and Protestantism.
Consequently, neither Islam nor the great Eastern religions are
addressed, as they are objectively competing, since the goal is
precisely to reunite Christianity, aligning it with a progressive
perspective, in order to define a renewed Christian point of reference
on a global scale. The "Islamic question" will come later.
The intent is acute and comes at a time of profound crisis: state and
market are experiencing their inevitable failure without any
internationalist perspective emerging; the major social democracies are
more or less direct and conscious accomplices of imperialism, as was the
case on the eve of World War I; the major trade unions are paralyzed by
their subservience to the imperialist policies of their respective
countries and governments, while the revolutionary elements are
widespread but confused and impotent, as the Greek affair has most
recently eloquently demonstrated.
The Catholic Church is therefore preparing to redefine its guiding role
in the world by re-proposing the ancient and unbreakable dogma valid for
all ages of humanity: reality as the problem, the Catholic Church (in
this case we could also say "Christianity"), as the solution.
The harsh nature of the crisis and the changing external and internal
contexts thus offer the Catholic Church the opportunity to position
itself as the principal spokesperson for the world's poor, thirsting for
redemption. The authoritativeness of this source conceals a certain
superficiality in assigning responsibility for the tragedies that are
overwhelming the less well-off social classes around the world, causing
poverty, war, death, and a loss of hope for a better future.
The wretched of the world
This awareness is clearly evident in the Encyclical and is based
primarily on continental Latin American Catholicism, profoundly
influenced by the social Christianity that culminated in "Liberation
Theology" and in countless deep-rooted grassroots pastoral experiences
that, in recent decades, have profoundly affected the Catholic Church in
numerous countries such as Brazil, Nicaragua, Argentina, and El
Salvador. Today, in fact, the beatification of Father Oscar Romero,
assassinated in El Salvador on March 24, 1980 by the military, appears
as a necessary act, an attempt to remove the stubborn desire to hinder
his entire pastoral experience with the poor, against landowners, and
against the bloody repression by death squads supported by the El
Salvador government and the CIA. This repression was also supported by
entire sectors of the high-ranking continental Catholic hierarchies and
by the substantial indifference to Romero met with from both Paul VI and
John Paul II.
This occurs in a situation in which "liberation theology" seems to have
exhausted its propulsive force among Latin American believers and the
world's poor, and progressive Catholic hierarchies are preparing to
gather and interpret what remains. Certainly, the encyclical's
denunciatory dimension is destined to arouse justified hopes among the
world's poor, along with a widespread desire for redemption, which,
however, is not what the encyclical proposes.
Between vagueness, concertation and competition
In the end, in fact, after pages and pages where the injustices of the
world are appropriately listed, the responsibilities for these are
attributed to phenomena and entities that from an initial identifying
clarity become gradually elusive, and the clear starting definitions
(borrowed from "liberation theology ") are sweetened by other extremely
generic ones, which follow one another without an apparent order which
however takes over.
Reference is made to the responsibilities of economic powers linked to
finance, to the principle of profit maximization, to ambiguous local and
national economic interests, to competition, to multinationals, and to
consumerism, as concessions to the undeniable reality of established
facts. But then one moves on to references easily digestible to most,
such as individualism, human power, the unregulated market, and
indefinite progress. References are made to "some" and "particular
interests ," to the point of coining frankly cryptic concepts such as
"modern anthropocentrism" and "the technical-economic paradigm" to avoid
citing the words "capitalism and imperialism" in an objective
reference to their respective historical phenomena. This deliberate
vagueness thus prevails over the more real and concrete starting
concepts, thus making the Encyclical adaptable to the broadest possible
context. As evidence of the extreme heterogeneity and vagueness of
internal references within the Catholic Church (it is frankly difficult
to connect some of the contents of the 2007 General Conference of the
Latin American and Caribbean Episcopate - para. 38, page 55, note no. 26
- with the statements, for example, of John Paul II - para. 5, page 29,
note no. 4 - ), we come to propose a change in lifestyle (para. 206,
page 181), which harks back to the austerity of Berlinguerian memory ("
On the Policy of Austerity and Rigour" - E. Berlinguer: speech at the
Conference of Intellectuals - 1977) in a feeble perspective of
concertation that hopes for a poorly defined "World Authority" in order
to "prevent the most serious problems that end up affecting everyone". (
Par. 175, pp. 158 - 159, note, 129), now completely overcome by the same
capitalist and social dynamics, as they have also been taking shape in
Europe since 1970.
Furthermore, the intensification of imperialist conflict with the
emergence of new powers in the world market, the progressive affirmation
of neoliberalism and the unequal distribution of social wealth, the
spread of wars, hunger, and underdevelopment as a consequence of unequal
development, environmental devastation, the unending wave of
privatizations, the widespread attack on wages, work, and the living
conditions of the lower classes, the destruction of the welfare state
and the increasingly violent attack on the very concept of trade unions,
the elimination of social protections with the progressive paralysis
within the context of an ever-increasing increase in " mass poverty "
even in mature capitalist countries-all this constitutes both practical
and theoretical proof of the rejection of any concerted approach. The
Encyclical concludes with the sixth chapter, which is necessarily
educational in nature, aimed at changing lifestyles through education.
The Church is therefore engaged in an intense campaign to "educate about
the alliance between humanity and the environment" (Chap. II, pp. 183 -
192) which results in a dilution of the initial evaluations.
Leaving aside the traditional and pathetic references to the defense of
life from its conception and the underestimation of the immigration
phenomenon, evidently taken for granted in the colorful parade of
contemporary horrors, what we believe is indicative is the lack of a
detailed identification of the danger of a future direct imperialist
war, not fragmented into regional conflicts which, however, are not
considered in their specific gravity, evidently also included in the
detailed list of the world's horrors.
The Encyclical's ending is vacuous and fragile, and the alternative is
lacking despite the beginning, whose vehemence creates expectations that
are then disappointed in a sort of voluntarism delegated to the
established power of the Church and its ability to engage with the
dominant powers, which it is difficult to understand why they should
pursue interests other than imperialist ones, given that the balance of
power is pulling favorably in that direction.
The Encyclical "Laudato si'" remains, at best, a list of good
intentions, inevitably destined, at most, to requalify in a social sense
the political role of the otherwise declining Roman Catholic Apostolic
Church which, with its renewed prominence, evidently tends to take the
job away from "the left" , in its historical reformist and even radical
configurations, both from social movements and from electoral cartels
with progressive intentions (Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain).
Conclusions
Many comrades, evidently disappointed by a defeated, subservient, and
impotent left, greeted the Encyclical with growing enthusiasm, the fruit
of the understandable frustration of calls for redemption. This
reflected a flawed attitude that had developed within the national
socialist and communist tradition, according to which, for proposals to
be credible, they must be uttered by authoritative sources. Togliatti,
too, spoke of revolution and socialism, but it was not the same
revolution and socialism as many of those who had defined it by
sacrificing their own freedom and, in many cases, with their own blood,
fighting fascism and Stalinism.
Compared to the Encyclical, therefore, we are not faced with a
difference in language but rather a real difference in purpose that we
intend to emphasize, because the abolition of the "exploitation of man
by man" implies the inevitable overcoming of class-divided society and
therefore of the capitalist system of production and the horrors that
derive from it. But this is not the purpose of the Encyclical "Laudato
si'," nor of the Catholic Church, nor of Pope Francis, but rather our
libertarian and internationalist communist perspective.
The Encyclical is a fact that must not be underestimated, or worse
still, "snubbed." Beyond any overestimation, it is destined to stir
things up and establish dialogue with even deep social strata that are
difficult to access, not only by revolutionary minority groups but also
by widespread mass action. If, from this perspective, the active
direction is the Catholic Church, this signals, rather, a crisis in
revolutionary theory and practice. It is this critical consideration
that anarchists must reflect on, to emerge from their narrow and
isolated contexts and finally return to engage with the real movement in
order to abolish "the present state of affairs."
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By, For, and About Anarchists
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the American Augustinian Robert Francis Prevost as the 267th pontiff of
the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, taking the name Leo XIV. He
succeeds the recently deceased Argentine Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio,
who, under the name "Pope Francis," authored the 2015 encyclical
"Laudato Si'." Immediately after its publication, the encyclical aroused
great interest for its contents, which were defined with frankly
excessive emphasis as progressive, and it attracted widespread
enthusiastic support, especially from the left in its myriad political
and trade union configurations, from the most moderate to the most
radical. At the time, in reality, there was no in-depth debate on the
Encyclical as a fundamental reference of Pope Francis' pontificate:
instead, it was greeted with that redemptive and propagandistic charge
that current apologists arbitrarily attribute to the actions of the late
pontiff, limiting themselves, yesterday as today, to considering
statements on which they are unable to reflect, precisely because they
are overwhelmed by their own exuberant and decontextualized
self-referentialism.
Thus it was that even on the occasion of the death of the pontiff, all
politicians rushed to celebrate his intentions which, even if they did
not proceed beyond the declarations, albeit significant considering the
source from which they came, ended up being adapted, despite themselves,
also for opposing purposes and strategies pursued by the ruling groups
within the Catholic Church, in reference to the policies of the centers
of power that dominate the world.
In this context of crisis, it should not be surprising that Pope
Francis's apologists have found themselves and continue to find
themselves "on the left", where the widespread superficiality of those
who elevate the late pontiff to the icon of widespread progressivism
emerges with demoralizing clarity that often takes on the tone of
arrogance, ignoring what Gramsci had affirmed in relation to the
internal components of the Catholic Church at the time of Pius XI and
the need to rebalance the fight against modernism, which had unbalanced
Catholicism too far to the right, to center it in the Jesuits "that is,
to give it a flexible political form, without doctrinal rigidities,
great freedom of maneuver..." (Antonio Gramsci ("I Quaderni del
Carcere", Notebook 20 (XXV), 1934-35", 4 "Integral Catholics, Jesuits,
Modernists").
We believe, then, that in such a context, a critical reflection on the
encyclical "Laudato Si'" can contribute to our understanding of both the
legacy left by the previous pontificate and the future strategies of the
pontificate of Leo XIV.
We express ourselves in these terms, aware that the Church is humanity's
oldest "party ." It does its job, and generally succeeds in doing so by
combining its own contradictions, sometimes jarring, into resulting
systems of ideas, choices, and behaviors. These, including through the
control and use of progressivism, have historically allowed Catholic
conservatism to continually reemerge from "behind the throne." These
tendencies in Vatican politics have been embraced and widely applied
within the Christian Democratic sphere, albeit with additional balancing
acts that have sometimes reduced their effectiveness. This occurred
throughout the history of the Italian Socialist Party, perhaps with the
further opportunistic caricature that characterized the Craxi era, to
the point of extending even to the events of Italian national communism,
albeit with innumerable rigidities and intolerances, which however would
not have prevented the liquidation of the PCI in order to undertake the
process that would have led to the birth of the current "Democratic
Party" , a concrete and modest legacy of the "Historic Compromise" of
Berlinguer memory.
We are also aware that the above reflections cannot be exhaustive
regarding the current phase characterizing the Catholic Church, and for
more in-depth considerations we refer to the contribution by comrade
Gianni Cimbalo: "Re Leone XIV," present in this issue no. 36 of "il
CANTIERE," which leads us to a final consideration.
It has been claimed from many quarters that the encyclical "Rerum
Novarum", published in 1891 by Leo XIII, with whom the current pontiff
also formally places himself in continuity, opened the social question
in the Catholic Church: never before has the conditional tense seemed so
necessary, precisely because the encyclical in question appears to be
extremely conservative. In this regard, there were also those, naturally
on the left, who felt it was appropriate to display irony by stating
that the encyclical should not be considered "The Communist Manifesto,"
which, written by Marx and Engels in 1848-a full 43 years
earlier-asserts clear and discriminating concepts, prefiguring a society
that the encyclical fiercely opposes and condemns. Driven as it is by a
vibrant anti-socialist and restorationist urge, this is the true purpose
of Rerum Novarum, which is resolved in the dogma that also characterizes
Catholic progressivism in posing "the world as the problem and
Catholicism as the solution." So, on the one hand, it is permissible to
believe whatever one wants, but on the other, it is not legitimate to
act by mocking others so that they will believe it too.
Reflections on the Encyclical "Laudato si'"
History expresses those who are called to interpret it, and the
phenomenon of Pope Francis was born and developed precisely as a
consequence of the need for urgent renewal on the part of the Catholic
Church.
Contexts: encyclicals and advisors
Of course, encyclicals aren't written by the pope alone, but by various
advisors, and with regard to the encyclical "Laudato si' ," one of these
is Jeffrey Sachs, a longtime Vatican regular. Sachs currently directs
"the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, and in the
1980s and 1990s, he stood out for the 'shock therapy' he applied to
several Latin American and Eastern European countries to facilitate a
rapid transition to a free market economy, regardless of the social
repercussions." (L'Espresso 01/06/2015)
Jeffrey Sachs is an American economist with a neo-Keynesian background
but in strong opposition to the neoliberalism advocated by the "Chicago
school" which, through its founder, the economist Milton Friedman, was
the inspiration for neoliberal policies: starting precisely from the
"experiment" conducted in Chile under General Pinochet, who came to
power with the bloody coup d'état of 1973, ordered by the US to
overthrow the government of the socialist Salvador Allende.
The Chilean " experiment" of 1975 consisted of a process of unbridled
privatization and liberalization of the country's economy, a process
conducted with great energy and simultaneity against a working class
beaten and oppressed by a ferocious dictatorship. The "experiment"
became a model, and Friedman became the inspiration for the neoliberal
policies subsequently implemented, with appropriate adaptations, in
England (Margaret Thatcher's term 1979-1987) and the United States
(Ronald Reagan's term 1980-1989).
Ten years later, in 1985, we see Jeffrey Sachs, in his early thirties,
as a consultant to the Bolivian government (under Pax Estensorro),
attempting to "combine political liberalization and democracy with
economic liberalization... Thanks to Sachs - the evangelist of
democratic capitalism - as the New York Times called him - "shock
therapy" had finally shaken off the stench of dictatorships and death
camps that had lingered since Friedman had made his trip to Santiago
(Chile) ten years earlier... Bolivia had adopted a Pinochetian-style
"shock therapy" without a Pinochet and, no less, under a center-left
government (under Victor Paz Estensorro) ... the things that Pinochet
did with the bayonet, Paz did within a democratic system..." (Naomy
Klein: "Shock economy" - Rizzoli editore Milano 2007 - see in particular
chap. 7 pag. 164)
With Sachs, neoliberalism adapts to a "democratic" framework to be
practiced more widely. Indeed, we will see Sachs dishing out "Bolivian
therapies" in Poland as an advisor to the Solidarity government in 1988,
supported by the Catholic Church, which was already playing a decisive
role in the collapse of the USSR.
But Sachs was also a supporter of Boris Yeltsin, whose mandate
(1991-1999) oversaw the transition from the dissolution of the USSR to
the Russian Federation, a transition also characterized by " Bolivian
therapies" as well as bloody repression, in the exclusive interest of
the oligarchs of the former Soviet regime. It is precisely as a result
of the Russian catastrophe and the role played by the IMF and the US
government, unwilling to provide economic aid, that Sachs appears to
have gradually toned down his essentially neoliberal positions, at least
in their practical implementation.
In this regard, it is interesting to note the conciliatory positions
Sachs has taken on the Greek crisis, seeking a balance between the needs
of the Greek government and the German solution that would allow the
reemergence of neo-Keynesian mediation aimed at not penalizing Greece in
order to protect the role of the IMF (recently favorable to debt
restructuring) and US foreign policy (Greece's continued membership of
the euro to avoid weakening NATO's role). (See: J. Sachs: "My
Solution for Greece," Il Sole 24 Ore, August 11, 2015.)
The Encyclical "Laudato si'" and the Catholic Church
The reason why the Encyclical "Laudato Si'" sought such collaboration
likely lies in the fact that Sachs appears to share the view that
poverty is the consequence of the exclusion of the poor from production,
and not the capitalist exploitation of manual and intellectual labor.
This view already appears in the Encyclical " Centesimus Annus," written
by Pope John Paul II in 1991, and which, again, saw Sachs as one of its
advisors. In any case, this desired " inclusion in production " would be
the direct responsibility of the lower classes and not of the capitalist
economy as a whole, as Keynes advocated, envisioning, at most, aid from
the IMF, which, indeed, Sachs always urged.
Furthermore, at this stage, the Catholic Church is characterized by
profound contradictions that complicate every path, requiring mediation,
often through the use of skilled and accredited advisors capable of
ensuring some continuity with the past. This is done to slow down and
counterbalance certain attempts at innovation, or, more precisely,
outright revisionism, to prevent them from proceeding autonomously and
becoming uncontrollable over time.
Regardless of subjective intentions, the Encyclical therefore
constitutes an attempt from within the Catholic Church to recover and
enhance its credibility and political role of dialogue and mediation
with the great powers, which have been deeply undermined by a certain
complacency over past victories, a series of grave scandals, and the
inadequacy of the previous pontificate. The Roman Catholic Apostolic
Church is, historically, the largest, oldest, and most organized
political party in human history, and if at this stage a Pope like
Francis has emerged, it is because its hierarchy realizes that
innovation is essential, but it also imposes a price that must be
paid-but in moderation, however. It is a question of determining how
much and for how long these prices must continue to be paid. Above all,
it is a question of ensuring that the innovation is moderate in its
practical implementation and that, therefore, it is enunciated above all
as a reason for propaganda, precisely to guarantee the Catholic
hierarchy ample room for maneuver and mediation in the future on the
basis of a renewed credibility, which will enhance its currently
declining political role.
Not all of the Catholic Church sides with the current Pope, and indeed,
part of it calls for some control, if not even a significant downsizing.
If this is the goal, Sachs's presence is a guarantee, because for our
economist, the framework of his programs may be neo-Keynesian, but his
solutions are certainly neoliberal and capable of controlling annoying
revisionist tensions.
Thus, Pope Francis does not represent the entire Catholic Church, but
rather a segment of it, the one most concerned and sensitive to the
dramatic reality of the consequences of capitalism, which are measured
in terms of inequality and underdevelopment, environmental devastation,
war, and the domination of financial capital at the expense of commodity
production itself, which, as Marx had already predicted, is becoming a
cumbersome reality for financial capital. As always, the direction is
not single but contradictory, and serious problems arise regarding the
control and mediation of phenomena and the people who interpret them.
Needs for continuity
From this point of view, the encyclical "Laudato si'" replicates and
develops the statements already present in " Centesimus Annus", seeking
to reorganize and update into an organic whole the scattered pieces of
that dispersed coherence, manifested over time by the Catholic
hierarchies: it cites John XXIII (who actively worked to bring about the
collapse of the center-left in the 1960s) and his encyclical "Pacem in
Terris"; it cites Paul VI (who was characterized by his conservatism);
it cites John Paul II (who was one of the main directors of the collapse
of the Soviet Union); it cites Benedict XVI (who led a brief
traditionalist pontificate); it does not cite, however, John Paul I, who
began his very brief pontificate by trying to reduce the power of the
IOR and who did not have time to express much. At the same time,
concessions are made, albeit indirectly, to "Liberation Theology ,"
through extensive references to the Episcopal Assemblies of Latin
America, which over time have watered down its social content,
transforming it into innocuous, yet effective, pronouncements. (Pope
Francis: "Laudato si'" Encyclical on the care of the common good - Ed.
S. Paolo - Libreria Editrice Vaticana - Vatican City 2015 - p. 55, note
no. 24).
Reading the Encyclical, one gets the impression of being faced with a
magnificent, tested, effective, and above all authoritative machine
against injustice, which is precisely what is lacking in the world
today. The Pope's attempt to demonstrate that the Church has always
supported this denunciation, albeit intermittently and, it is said,
sometimes with unjustified weakness, gives the Catholic Church a great
primacy of originality and qualifies it as a fundamental point of
reference for the redemption of the world's least privileged.
The encyclical does not represent a decisive return to the original
message of the Gospel and the origins of Christianity, but rather to the
more evocative and less demanding experience of St. Francis, on the
basis of which it attempts to organically redesign a Church that over
the centuries has, objectively, gone in another direction, albeit with
some significant exceptions.
Moreover, the vibrant denunciations of inequality as a consequence of
the role of multinationals, international finance, the capitalist logic
of profit, and, in general, the capitalist system of production in its
imperialist phase, and thus also of rearmament, war, and its countless
horrors, have always been the heritage of narrow revolutionary groups.
Although they supported these positions with scientific analyses that
the Encyclical carefully avoids, and certainly not due to the
incompetence of its drafters, these groups have never had the capacity
to engage in broad class dialogue and have remained largely confined to
minority views, if not even ridiculed as residual.
From this point of view, the Encyclical stirs the stagnant waters of
the Catholic Church and of a conformist, subservient, complicit, or
impotent left, arousing innumerable enthusiasms and cross-sectional
consensus in every political and social strata.
The Catholic Church and Christianity
The Encyclical addresses "humanity," an attempt to engage all of
Christianity in a vision of unity through renewal. Hence the repeated
openness to Judaism, the Orthodox Church, and Protestantism.
Consequently, neither Islam nor the great Eastern religions are
addressed, as they are objectively competing, since the goal is
precisely to reunite Christianity, aligning it with a progressive
perspective, in order to define a renewed Christian point of reference
on a global scale. The "Islamic question" will come later.
The intent is acute and comes at a time of profound crisis: state and
market are experiencing their inevitable failure without any
internationalist perspective emerging; the major social democracies are
more or less direct and conscious accomplices of imperialism, as was the
case on the eve of World War I; the major trade unions are paralyzed by
their subservience to the imperialist policies of their respective
countries and governments, while the revolutionary elements are
widespread but confused and impotent, as the Greek affair has most
recently eloquently demonstrated.
The Catholic Church is therefore preparing to redefine its guiding role
in the world by re-proposing the ancient and unbreakable dogma valid for
all ages of humanity: reality as the problem, the Catholic Church (in
this case we could also say "Christianity"), as the solution.
The harsh nature of the crisis and the changing external and internal
contexts thus offer the Catholic Church the opportunity to position
itself as the principal spokesperson for the world's poor, thirsting for
redemption. The authoritativeness of this source conceals a certain
superficiality in assigning responsibility for the tragedies that are
overwhelming the less well-off social classes around the world, causing
poverty, war, death, and a loss of hope for a better future.
The wretched of the world
This awareness is clearly evident in the Encyclical and is based
primarily on continental Latin American Catholicism, profoundly
influenced by the social Christianity that culminated in "Liberation
Theology" and in countless deep-rooted grassroots pastoral experiences
that, in recent decades, have profoundly affected the Catholic Church in
numerous countries such as Brazil, Nicaragua, Argentina, and El
Salvador. Today, in fact, the beatification of Father Oscar Romero,
assassinated in El Salvador on March 24, 1980 by the military, appears
as a necessary act, an attempt to remove the stubborn desire to hinder
his entire pastoral experience with the poor, against landowners, and
against the bloody repression by death squads supported by the El
Salvador government and the CIA. This repression was also supported by
entire sectors of the high-ranking continental Catholic hierarchies and
by the substantial indifference to Romero met with from both Paul VI and
John Paul II.
This occurs in a situation in which "liberation theology" seems to have
exhausted its propulsive force among Latin American believers and the
world's poor, and progressive Catholic hierarchies are preparing to
gather and interpret what remains. Certainly, the encyclical's
denunciatory dimension is destined to arouse justified hopes among the
world's poor, along with a widespread desire for redemption, which,
however, is not what the encyclical proposes.
Between vagueness, concertation and competition
In the end, in fact, after pages and pages where the injustices of the
world are appropriately listed, the responsibilities for these are
attributed to phenomena and entities that from an initial identifying
clarity become gradually elusive, and the clear starting definitions
(borrowed from "liberation theology ") are sweetened by other extremely
generic ones, which follow one another without an apparent order which
however takes over.
Reference is made to the responsibilities of economic powers linked to
finance, to the principle of profit maximization, to ambiguous local and
national economic interests, to competition, to multinationals, and to
consumerism, as concessions to the undeniable reality of established
facts. But then one moves on to references easily digestible to most,
such as individualism, human power, the unregulated market, and
indefinite progress. References are made to "some" and "particular
interests ," to the point of coining frankly cryptic concepts such as
"modern anthropocentrism" and "the technical-economic paradigm" to avoid
citing the words "capitalism and imperialism" in an objective
reference to their respective historical phenomena. This deliberate
vagueness thus prevails over the more real and concrete starting
concepts, thus making the Encyclical adaptable to the broadest possible
context. As evidence of the extreme heterogeneity and vagueness of
internal references within the Catholic Church (it is frankly difficult
to connect some of the contents of the 2007 General Conference of the
Latin American and Caribbean Episcopate - para. 38, page 55, note no. 26
- with the statements, for example, of John Paul II - para. 5, page 29,
note no. 4 - ), we come to propose a change in lifestyle (para. 206,
page 181), which harks back to the austerity of Berlinguerian memory ("
On the Policy of Austerity and Rigour" - E. Berlinguer: speech at the
Conference of Intellectuals - 1977) in a feeble perspective of
concertation that hopes for a poorly defined "World Authority" in order
to "prevent the most serious problems that end up affecting everyone". (
Par. 175, pp. 158 - 159, note, 129), now completely overcome by the same
capitalist and social dynamics, as they have also been taking shape in
Europe since 1970.
Furthermore, the intensification of imperialist conflict with the
emergence of new powers in the world market, the progressive affirmation
of neoliberalism and the unequal distribution of social wealth, the
spread of wars, hunger, and underdevelopment as a consequence of unequal
development, environmental devastation, the unending wave of
privatizations, the widespread attack on wages, work, and the living
conditions of the lower classes, the destruction of the welfare state
and the increasingly violent attack on the very concept of trade unions,
the elimination of social protections with the progressive paralysis
within the context of an ever-increasing increase in " mass poverty "
even in mature capitalist countries-all this constitutes both practical
and theoretical proof of the rejection of any concerted approach. The
Encyclical concludes with the sixth chapter, which is necessarily
educational in nature, aimed at changing lifestyles through education.
The Church is therefore engaged in an intense campaign to "educate about
the alliance between humanity and the environment" (Chap. II, pp. 183 -
192) which results in a dilution of the initial evaluations.
Leaving aside the traditional and pathetic references to the defense of
life from its conception and the underestimation of the immigration
phenomenon, evidently taken for granted in the colorful parade of
contemporary horrors, what we believe is indicative is the lack of a
detailed identification of the danger of a future direct imperialist
war, not fragmented into regional conflicts which, however, are not
considered in their specific gravity, evidently also included in the
detailed list of the world's horrors.
The Encyclical's ending is vacuous and fragile, and the alternative is
lacking despite the beginning, whose vehemence creates expectations that
are then disappointed in a sort of voluntarism delegated to the
established power of the Church and its ability to engage with the
dominant powers, which it is difficult to understand why they should
pursue interests other than imperialist ones, given that the balance of
power is pulling favorably in that direction.
The Encyclical "Laudato si'" remains, at best, a list of good
intentions, inevitably destined, at most, to requalify in a social sense
the political role of the otherwise declining Roman Catholic Apostolic
Church which, with its renewed prominence, evidently tends to take the
job away from "the left" , in its historical reformist and even radical
configurations, both from social movements and from electoral cartels
with progressive intentions (Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain).
Conclusions
Many comrades, evidently disappointed by a defeated, subservient, and
impotent left, greeted the Encyclical with growing enthusiasm, the fruit
of the understandable frustration of calls for redemption. This
reflected a flawed attitude that had developed within the national
socialist and communist tradition, according to which, for proposals to
be credible, they must be uttered by authoritative sources. Togliatti,
too, spoke of revolution and socialism, but it was not the same
revolution and socialism as many of those who had defined it by
sacrificing their own freedom and, in many cases, with their own blood,
fighting fascism and Stalinism.
Compared to the Encyclical, therefore, we are not faced with a
difference in language but rather a real difference in purpose that we
intend to emphasize, because the abolition of the "exploitation of man
by man" implies the inevitable overcoming of class-divided society and
therefore of the capitalist system of production and the horrors that
derive from it. But this is not the purpose of the Encyclical "Laudato
si'," nor of the Catholic Church, nor of Pope Francis, but rather our
libertarian and internationalist communist perspective.
The Encyclical is a fact that must not be underestimated, or worse
still, "snubbed." Beyond any overestimation, it is destined to stir
things up and establish dialogue with even deep social strata that are
difficult to access, not only by revolutionary minority groups but also
by widespread mass action. If, from this perspective, the active
direction is the Catholic Church, this signals, rather, a crisis in
revolutionary theory and practice. It is this critical consideration
that anarchists must reflect on, to emerge from their narrow and
isolated contexts and finally return to engage with the real movement in
order to abolish "the present state of affairs."
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