Chaput on Francis: Dignity Requires Solidarity

Archbishop Charles Chaput says it would be a mistake to call Francis a liberal or a marxist, in an address on Francis and Economic Justice:

As I told the Italian newspaper La Stampa in an interview some weeks ago, words like “liberal” and “conservative” don’t describe Catholic belief.  They divide what shouldn’t be divided.  We should love the poor and love the unborn child.  Service to the oppressed and service to the family; defense of the weak and defense of the unborn child; belief in the value of business and belief in restraints on predatory business practices — all these things spring from the same Catholic commitment to human dignity. There’s nothing “progressive” about killing an unborn human child or allowing it to happen.  And there’s nothing “conservative” about ignoring the cries of the poor.

The paper also includes a quick review of Francis’s more concrete suggestions for public policy, which is useful, and a moving reflection on Francis’ understanding of the common good and the Mass. Here, I think, is his main, and very helpful, insight into what the pope is doing when he speaks on economic matters:

In matters of economic justice, Francis’ concerns are the same as Benedict’s and John Paul II’s, and Pius XI’s and Leo XIII’s. He understands economic matters through the lens of Church teaching in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Like his predecessors, he defends human dignity in a world that consistently threatens it. But Francis stresses more directly than they did that human solidarity is a necessary dimension of human dignity. We need both. Human dignity requires not just the protection of individuals, as in our prolife work, but an on-going commitment to the common good.