Economics and Christian Social Moralty: the Catholic case for economic nationalism

Last week an important Christian philosopher took the nations of the European Union to task for failing to contribute .7% of their national incomes to the Third World. Scandinavians are holding up their end, but other countries have complained that the burden is too great to bear. This Irish philosopher, described as a "committed Christian," accuses the Europeans of "renegotiating your deal with God downward."

Of course no one listens to real philosophers today, and the complaint was actually made by the over-the-hill rockstar-turned-conscience-of-Europe known as Bono. He could, of course, arrange another Liveaid concert, but celebrity fund-raisers give the appearance of charity balls, and, argues the philosopher "it's not really about charity at this point, it's about justice."

This is a familiar argument. Rich nations, we have been told ever since the Communist Manifesto, have a positive obligation to share their wealth with poor nations. When this question comes up, as it did in my web column where I commented on the Prophet Bono's revelation, the response—from atheists, Protestants, and Catholics breaks down into the familiar categories of so-called conservative and so-called liberal. One side argues supports a global obligation to help the world's poor through an obligatory welfare system and an automatic tax on the world's citizens—these are the so-called liberals who should be called Marxists. The other side denies any and all such obligation and insists that democratic capitalism is the answer. These are the so-called conservatives who are really liberals.

Here in America, Catholics moral "thinkers"—if that is the right word—are divided into the same two camps: The Leftists who control the Bishop's Conference and write for America and the Neoconservatives who write for Commentary, First Things, and the like. Take any political issue—from the justice of preemptive war to the corporate income tax to NAFTA and the IMF, and the two Catholic answers can be described as roughly Liberal-Capitalist and Liberal-Socialist.

Unfortunately, neither ideology—neither democratic capitalism nor non-revolutionary socialism—corresponds in any way to the historic teachings of the Catholic Church, whose social and economic policies are rooted in the Gospels and nourished both on the philosophy of Aristotle and St. Thomas and in the experience of Medieval European life, before either liberal capitalism or Marxist communism were spawned by the Enlightenment. Both were condemned by the Church 150 years ago, both the Selfishness is Virtue/Greed is Good philosophy of capitalism and the collectivist politics of class conflict of the Left. (Let me be clear that the Church did not condemn free enterprise or even big business, only the liberal theories that were used to justify indifference to the poor.)

Now, all this is familiar to all of you, and I refer to the Syllabus of Errors and Rerum Novarum merely to remind you that there was once a distinctively Catholic way of treating these political and economic questions. I should add also that this distinctively Catholic approach was once the universal approach of Christendom and that the early Reformers are far closer to the spirit of Rerum novarum than they are to either Mill's On Liberty or The Communist Manifesto.

In the history of the Church, there has been surprisingly little debate and controversy on the basic questions of political ethics. In the early Church, moral writings are mostly exhortations to practice the virtues of chastity, courage, charity; in the high Middle Ages philosophers like Thomas Aquinas, in his brilliant treatment of the Ten Commandments in the Summa Theologiae, organized what was known into a coherent system. The point was not to offer new moral insights—Aristotle and Thomas are clear on that. Philosophy does no good to a bad person—in fact it teaches such a person only how to justify his vices. The purpose of studying moral philosophy is to make coherent sense of what we learn from virtuous parents and holy priests.

The method of the Church in discussing moral issues has always been casuistry—a tradition going back to Aristotle and Cicero. Although casuistry later developed a bad reputation, the basic principle is simple: There are universal moral rules but in applying them to concrete situations we have to take account of many complex factors that can make judgment very uncertain.

Unlike the moral philosophers of the Liberal Tradition—Locke, Kant, Adam Smith, Karl Marx—who said that there were simple rules that were never in conflict and could be applied simply to all situations, the Church has understood that different human relations have different weight. My relationship to my parents is different from my relationship to my wife and both are different from what I owe to my children, to a neighbor, to a fellow-citizen, or to someone on the other side of the globe. The greatest of the casuists was St. Alfonzo dei Liguori, a writer who needs to be read and studied by modern Catholics.

Today most Catholics hold political and social views that derive from either the Marxist or libertarian wings of the liberal tradition—especially on questions of global philanthropy. But underlying what seem to be these opposing traditions, there is a basic ground of agreement between, say, Adam Smith and Karl Marx. In talking about social questions, both sides assume that every human question must be treated rationally, and that means that every principle must be applied universally to everyone in any possible situation; it also means that in looking at a question, we must adopt a completely objective point-of-view, preferably one that allows us to gain the perspective of distance—like angels or Martians looking down at our world. Finally, all moral and political questions, from the liberal point of view, deal only with individuals, who possess universal human rights and with the governments who enforce those rights.

I have oversimplified, but these are the basic principles of liberalism that have been used to destroy human society and human civilization: rationalism, universalism, objectivity, individualism, all of which are summed up in the utterly fantastic theory of international human rights. Why do I say fantastic? Because no one has ever been able to prove the existence of such rights or to show that it is logically consistent with what we know of human nature or human history.

In the history of the human race, the theory of rights as we know it today, has either been unknown or ridiculed by the best philosophers. Even in the 19th century, the Utilitarian liberals ridiculed the notion of rights as "nonsense on stilts." Of course the same might be said of the basic principles of utilitarianism or Marxism or any other leftism, because they are all based on the counter-intuitive principles I have listed—principles that cannot be proved and lead to absurd and dangerous conclusions.

Let us take just one instance: the principle of Universalism. Do we have the same responsibility to everyone? In the old pre-liberal days, a moral man generally distinguished between the negative obligations he owed to more or less anyone—not to rob, cheat, steal, kill—and the positive obligations he owed to members of his family, his neighbors, his fellow-citizens. In those same old days, if you were looking for an image of the highest morality it would be a mother's selfless love for her children or the patriot giving up his life for his country. If you go to the library and look up the philosophical classics of the past 200 years or so, you will find very little about mother-love, friendship, or patriotism.

In fact, the most influential philosopher, Immanuel Kant, actually insisted that because a mother's love was instinctive and not rational, it was therefore not even moral.

As for patriotism, the gutsiest critic of liberalism alive today is probably Alisdair MacIntyre, and he once took the enormous risk of writing an essay "Is Patriotism a Virtue?" When I asked him about 10 years ago if he intended to go beyond the criticisms of liberalism he had made in After Virtue, he said that he had gone about as far as he could in "Is Patriotism a virtue?" A question.

This may seem abstract or abstruse to you, but it has made all the difference in the world. In the pre-liberal world, we took parental love for granted and did not assume that children were individualists whose rights needed to be protected by the state which is empowered to look out for "the best interests of the child." In that same world, we knew that if it is our job to take care of our families and to be good citizens, then it is the job of the Chinese, not of Americans, to take care of Chinese families and to be good Chinese citizens.

The principles on which global philanthropy are based are both liberal and Marxist and the ultimate goal is to convert everyone on the planet—French and American, Gentile and Jew—into subjects of a global welfare state. It is right there in the Communist Manifesto.

It is often claimed that the theory of human rights or global philanthropy are only secular versions of Catholic moral theology. I have a simple answer, the polite version of which is baloney. From the times of the Apostles the Church told believers to carry out the duties of ordinary life. Paul said that ministers and deacons had to be men who took care of their families—even gentiles do that much, and Augustine explained the obvious fact that we have finite resources of time and money and thus since we cannot take care of the world, we must first take of those who depend on us.

There is not a word about rights in Christian moral theology. Christians speak of the duties of children and the obligations of parenthood—never of the rights of children. That language was the product of the anti-Christian Enlightenment that reinvented Christianity in the 18th century. When St. Thomas speaks of rights, that is, of iura, he makes it absolutely clear that he is talking only of principles of justice and not rights in the modern sense of "I have a right to do something." If a right entailed a claim, he points out, this would mean that since it is right for a parent to take care of his children, then the child would have a claim on the parent for support—which is absurd, says Thomas—because dependents cannot have claims on their superiors. Don't ever let anyone lie to you about this again.

The Global Village

Let us go back to the basic question: global philanthropy, and let me read a few passages from my new book. Many people, even conservative Catholics, have come to believe that it might be selfish and immoral to mind their own business and practice charity locally. Taking care of our families, doing our jobs well, giving alms to beggars, and being loyal to our friends—the old morality, in other words—is not enough. We are called upon to cultivate global awareness and to accept responsibility for the entire world.

All the institutions of our cultural life—Church, television, schools, magazines, even what we now call "the arts"—tell the same story: However restricted the concerns of our private life, the rest of the world has a claim on us, and not just on our attention. Each one of us now has moral and political obligations that connect us with starving villagers in Peru, rebels in Afghanistan, aborted girl children in China.

Small-town American libraries are filled with books and pamphlets to explain "what you can do to save the planet," and once every year on Earth Day, hundreds of thousands of people link hands to express their solidarity with all living things. Global awareness intrudes itself even into sports and entertainment. Popular musicians and athletes gather periodically to raise money for AIDS victims, black nationalists in Africa, debt-ridden American farmers, and prisoners of conscience. The solution to all of these problems would appear to be global awareness, the recognition—particularly in the developed world—that each of us owes an obligation to all mankind. As the anthem for the Live-Aid concert put it, "We are the world / we are the children."

For most of us, this obligation can only be discharged by giving support to international charity. Many people (perhaps most) in the United States and Europe acknowledge some responsibility to make charitable contributions out of their surplus and abundance. But how much to give, to whom, and how—those are questions to which there are no easy or obvious answers, although some philosophers and theologians have made it sound as if there were.

All men are brothers, say the theologians, and Christians have an obligation to play good Samaritan everywhere and at all times. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his need, say some philosophers (e.g., Marx), while others (like Rawls) argue that we are positively obligated to do anything we can to alleviate suffering without necessarily having to sacrifice something that is as morally significant to us. Friendship or even proximity might once have counted for something, others (like Peter Singer) say, but the instant communication and swift transportation of the "global village" have transformed our moral universe.

The global village is a powerful image that makes everyone one another’s next-door neighbor. If a neighbor’s house burned down in the middle of winter, it would be worse than uncharitable to refuse to take in the family and provide them with food and warm clothing: It would be unjust. In the world of international philanthropy, the same argument applies to all of the global village. From this perspective, relief of a distant stranger’s poverty is not what philosophers would once have called "supererogatory"—that is, something good to do but not obligatory—actions that "go beyond the call of duty." Our duty to the world’s poor is not, we are told, of this kind, because we are all, individually and collectively, obliged to give and not just of our excess.

Philanthropy by Fiat

Internationalism, as it is currently understood, is the contribution of Marx, both in the general sense of a movement to end or minimize state sovereignty and in the more narrow sense of the obligation of people in wealthy nations to contribute to poor nations. The claims of international philanthropy are, therefore, quite distinct from charity, which presupposes a voluntary contribution and not a politically imposed transfer of wealth.

Catholic moral theology did not recognize national boundaries as limits on charity, but in the classic view, such an obligation was between states and did not impose a burden on the individual of one state to assist those of another. In obliterating the distinctions between mine and thine and in erasing international boundaries, internationalist philanthropists can no longer consider themselves American or French or Croat. They are citizens of the world, and their neighborhoods are linked by computers, fax machines, and mass media into a universal consciousness that feels "a special providence in the fall of a sparrow."

In the secularized vision of the human brotherhood, as it is represented by international agencies for relief and development, all the world’s resources should be shared by all the world’s peoples collaborating for the common good.We are all one big happy family sailing on spaceship earth, sharing our wealth together.

The underlying conception of global philanthropy is that of the national welfare state applied internationally. Because of injustices committed by previous generations of Europeans, the current inhabitants of developed nations are positively obligated, according to dozens of declarations, charters, and manifestoes, to promote "the economic and social progress of all countries, especially developing countries."

Similar language, after all, is used to justify the transfer of wealth and opportunities from rich to poor and between ethnic groups within the United States and other developed nations. It is precisely the argument used to justify programs aimed at achieving equity in school financing. Why, it is asked, should rich school districts be able to provide better education than poor districts? The solution is a statewide (or national) tax that can be used to equalize funding, and, since the 1980's, some form of an international tax has been proposed repeatedly as a remedy for inequities between nations.

International taxation, even if carried to an extreme, would still fall far short of the dramatic measures urged by philosophers and philanthropists. Practically speaking, a system of the most minimal international compassion would have to be a matter of state compulsion; it could not be left up to individuals. For good or ill, few people are willing to sacrifice the second car, much less ride the bus to work, in the interest of either charity or justice. But, if alleviating hunger and poverty is a duty that the individuals of advanced nations must discharge, not in the name of charity or compassion, then simple justice requires an automatic transfer of wealth between nations, and neither individual citizens nor individual nations have sufficient wisdom or impartiality to make the right decisions in the common interest of the world.

On the face of it, the argument seems paradoxical: How can a person be just, if he is acting out of compulsion? If I rescue a drowning man only because his friend has a gun aimed at my head, no one will laud my heroism. But what if I am a member of a large group whose representatives, elected by a small minority of the membership, votes to hire a lifeguard who saves the drowning man? My group (or nation) might be praised for its public spirit or the good sense it showed in picking its representatives, but if, while the lifeguard was off duty, the members stood by and watched a child drown, their public spirit or good sense would not excuse their indifference.

Most people believe that moral actions, to be really moral, must be freely undertaken, and we deserve only limited credit for good works done generally in the name of governments or international agencies. It is the soldier risking his life on the battlefield who wins medals, not the voters and taxpayers who support the government that sent him to fight and die.

We run serious risks in speaking the language of justice and not charity. It is not for nothing that the ancient pagans put the ultimate courts of justice in the land of the dead. "Use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?" Christians have always believed that human nature, at its best, is too frail and corrupt to deserve, under the law of justice, anything but condemnation and death. Man’s salvation did not come as an act of justice but as a supreme gesture of divine charity.

Charity, caritas, agape, love—the various words have different emphases, but a central point connects them all. Under the Law, all are condemned, but the spirit of love gives salvation. Therefore, for any kind of Christian, the requirements of justice—however exacting and grave—must take second place to the obligation to perform works of charity. The responsibility for love cannot be delegated or reassigned; it must be discharged by individuals who, in doing good, are becoming, while not good in themselves, more nearly good. In this sense, the charitable man receives more benefits than he confers.

The Jewish and Christian scriptures command us to look after ourselves and our dependents and to practice charity. As Augustine put it, charity is the "virtue that joins us to God in love," and it is, as St. Paul tells us, a greater gift of the spirit even than faith. But charity under the duress of taxation is not charity at all, even if the taxes are voted by a majority.

One of the worst effects of national welfare systems is that they diminish our capacity and our desire to do voluntary works of charity. What we might now call welfare—food, clothing, shelter, medicine—used to be distributed by the Church to members of the local parish. The monasteries, on the other hand, gave emergency relief to strangers and beggars. The Church in medieval England can be seen as a vast network of non-political associations providing relief and welfare to those in need.

On the eve of the Reformation, at least three percent of monastic income was devoted to relief of the poor, and the wills of well-to-do Christians specified what moneys should be spent on food and clothing for the poor.

If we decide not to take part in global philanthropy, does that mean we have to be libertarian Scrooges? No. The humane person does have other options. One might, for example, practice charity closer to home, where it is possible to become personally involved and where it is much easier to monitor the honesty and effectiveness of relief programs. Mother Teresa, when a Milwaukee woman volunteered to come and assist her in India, told the woman to do good in her own hometown, to find Calcutta in Milwaukee.

Charity Begins at Home

The mark of genuine charity is (in Greek) storge, or loving-kindness, and while such love may be bestowed upon objects that seem utterly alien to the giver, it is not the strangeness that attracts but the recognition of some common bond, if it is only common humanity or, in the case of lower animals, of some resemblance to human qualities.

Charity does begin at home, and the burden of charity is most easily discharged towards those with whom we are already connected by bonds of blood and experience. Charity toward strangers requires effort, and the more foreign the stranger, the greater the effort required. I am speaking, now, of that natural charity, which grows and expands with maturing conscience of the individual, in distinction from what is generally meant in politics by "compassion," which is the artificial sense of benevolence we are taught to feel in doing good deeds by long distance. In this case, the reverse is true. People who will not take a bowl of soup to a sick neighbor will weep over the fate of starving Albanians whose pictures they have seen on television, and even in their own country their concern with poverty or family dissolution is inevitably limited to the black family or to the poor of the Appalachians; their desire to propagate the Gospel confined to Asians and Hispanics; their zeal to improve public education directed primarily at minority advancement.

All these goals are laudable in themselves, and worthy men and women may well choose to devote themselves to pursuing the welfare of foreigners as a sort of special vocation, but what seems to be far more common is the telescopic philanthropy of Dickens' Mrs. Jellaby (in Bleak House), whose eyes—so far-sighted that "they could see nothing nearer than Africa" overlooked the needs of children, friends and neighbors.

Telescopic philanthropy is not charity. Call it social justice or anything else you like, but not charity, a virtue that springs from the loving character of the giver. Where the cause is guilt or national self-hatred or only a formal duty learned by rote in catechism, the impulse springs from sources quite distinct from charitable love, and while we may admire the cold sense of duty that calls people to send checks into telethons, we cannot, in most cases, attribute their zeal to charity.

St. Thomas puts the question of charity in the context of both grace and natural obligation. As a gift of the Holy Spirit, charity connects us to God. Rather than lavish our wealth on the evil (e.g., thieves, confidence men, politicians, and child molesters), Thomas tells us that we should will the greatest good to those who are closest to God. But from the natural perspective—and much charity concerns the satisfaction of natural necessities—closeness to ourselves must also affect the degree of our charity: "In what concerns nature we should love our kinsmen most, . . . and we are more closely bound to provide them with necessities of life."

If there is a natural priority of obligation toward our kinsmen and neighbors, then charitable assistance to foreign countries would be at the bottom of the scale. Until modern times, this was certainly the common perception.

To conclude very briefly. We Catholics have our own tradition. It is ancient and was developed under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It speaks the language of charity, not justice, of love and care and not of international human rights. The Catholic vision has been brilliantly articulated by philosophers and casuists and in papal encyclicals, but it also corresponds to what we know in our hearts to be true—whatever stupid liberal books we might have read in school.

I have called my book the Morality of Everyday Life, because I have tried to show the convergence of the best pagan and Jewish thought with that of revelation and the Catholic tradition. Liberation theologians call for us to live up to a more demanding code of social justice and base their theories on the apostolic poverty of the early church. What I find bizarre is that the same people who want to impoverish the American middle class reject the apostolic chastity of the early church. This little bit of hypocrisy exposes them for what they are: Marxists, not Christians.

The church was not perfect in the days of the apostles. The Church became wiser in time and realized that poverty and celibacy are part of a special vocation, a higher vocation than our own, but we ordinary Christians who marry and beget children—preferably lots of children—we also have to have a moral and social code. Let us once and for all renounce the language and arguments of the left—whether libertarian or Marxist—and return to the language of the church.

Given at a presentation of The Morality of Everyday Life at the meeting of Catholic Citizens of Illinois at the Chicago Athletic Association, June 2004.

The principles on which global philanthropy are based are both liberal and Marxist and the ultimate goal is to convert everyone on the planet -- French and American, Gentile and Jew -- into subjects of a global welfare state. It is right there in the Communist Manifesto. . .

The claims of international philanthropy are, therefore, quite distinct from charity, which presupposes a voluntary contribution and not a politically imposed transfer of wealth.

(There's a Third Way. At this point I'm thinking he's about to get into "free" trade -- favored by both leftist progressives (Marxists) and conservatives. The attraction of getting unlimited "cheap" labor for technology and wealth transfers is definitely voluntary. The Marxists don't have to force the transfers, just make it possible. The New Democrat, Clinton, Third Way. Kinda neat, huh?)

The underlying conception of global philanthropy is that of the national welfare state applied internationally. Because of injustices committed by previous generations of Europeans, the current inhabitants of developed nations are positively obligated, according to dozens of declarations, charters, and manifestoes, to promote "the economic and social progress of all countries, especially developing countries."

(Yep. I can see "free trade" from here. And who runs the "dozens of declarations, charters, and manifestoes, to promote 'the economic and social progress of all countries, especially developing countries'?" Leftists! Hee. Hee.)

simple justice requires an automatic transfer of wealth between nations

(Almost there, unlimited "cheap" labor for technology and wealth transfers is definitely something "free traders" do automatically.)

Dickens' Mrs. Jellaby (in Bleak House), whose eyes -- so far-sighted that "they could see nothing nearer than Africa" overlooked the needs of children, friends and neighbors.

(So that's why "free traders" are far sighted. They can see nothing but profits in developing countries' "cheap" labor and can no longer see America. IMO)

Telescopic philanthropy. . .Call it social justice

There it is! Socialism. Worldwide. The greed-related cognitive impaired "free traders" don't know that they are being had. A Marxist revolution from the top down with a built in NEP.

Third Way progressives unlike Catholics speak the language of justice (as in social, economic, environmental, and racial) not charity and they eschew Godly love and caring for international human rights (as in things governments must provide such as housing, health care, etc.)

What I find bizarre is that the same people who want to impoverish the American middle class reject the apostolic chastity of the early church. This little bit of hypocrisy exposes them for what they are: Marxists, not Christians.

Damn! It really was about our "free traders." I was just kinda kidding. To be fair though (not so harsh), they are just useful idiots.

"the Selfishness is Virtue/Greed is Good philosophy of capitalism"

Mischaracterisation. But then he tries to climb out of the hole he dug for himself with this:

"(Let me be clear that the Church did not condemn free enterprise or even big business, only the liberal theories that were used to justify indifference to the poor.)"

Oh? And what theories would those be? Phlegming doesn't elaborate.

"Unlike the moral philosophers of the Liberal Tradition;Locke, Kant, Adam Smith, Karl Marx;who said that there were simple rules that were never in conflict and could be applied simply to all situations"

Also a vicious mischaracterisation.

"there is a basic ground of agreement between, say, Adam Smith and Karl Marx. In talking about social questions, both sides assume that every human question must be treated rationally, and that means that every principle must be applied universally to everyone in any possible situation;"

No, Adam Smith doesn't do this at all.

"Finally, all moral and political questions, from the liberal point of view, deal only with individuals, who possess universal human rights and with the governments who enforce those rights."

Marx said this? No, I'm sorry, Phlegming is just pulling stuff out of his butt here. Marx's theories were based on _class analysis_ and not individuals at all.

"Because no one has ever been able to prove the existence of such rights or to show that it is logically consistent with what we know of human nature or human history."

Patently false.

"In the history of the human race, the theory of rights as we know it today, has either been unknown or ridiculed by the best philosophers. Even in the 19th century, the Utilitarian liberals ridiculed the notion of rights as "nonsense on stilts.""

Of course, Phlegming won't bother to repeat those "theories" anytime soon.

"In fact, the most influential philosopher, Immanuel Kant, actually insisted that because a mother's love was instinctive and not rational, it was therefore not even moral."

Of course, Phlegming wont bother to point out that I. Kant's main work was a botched attempt to dismiss reason itself, and his justification for doing so, because it would directly contradict what he babbled on earlier about how "reason" and "objectivity" have "destroyed" modern society.

"This may seem abstract or abstruse to you, but it has made all the difference in the world. In the pre-liberal world, we took parental love for granted and did not assume that children were individualists whose rights needed to be protected by the state which is empowered to look out for "the best interests of the child.""

And here, Phlegming, after previously stating that context is critical to evaluating ethics, just casually drops it here. This paragraph above, taken to its logical conclusion along with everything else Phlegming has written in this article, justifies child abuse. (His mention of children being "individualists" is just a red-herring)

to be continued....

"There is not a word about rights in Christian moral theology. Christians speak of the duties of children and the obligations of parenthood—never of the rights of children. That language was the product of the anti-Christian Enlightenment that reinvented Christianity in the 18th century. When St. Thomas speaks of rights, that is, of iura, he makes it absolutely clear that he is talking only of principles of justice and not rights in the modern sense of "I have a right to do something.""

Sure there is. Rights are what the commandments protect. The seventh, thou shalt not steal, protects bith an individual's soveignty of will and his property. Both that sov. of will and property are rights. Thou shalt not covet protects them also.

Duties are impositions, which amount rights violations when they fundamentally do not protect rights.

The method of the Church in discussing moral issues has always been casuistry—a tradition going back to Aristotle and Cicero. Although casuistry later developed a bad reputation, the basic principle is simple: There are universal moral rules but in applying them to concrete situations we have to take account of many complex factors that can make judgment very uncertain.

I'm not so sure about this. Aquinas talks much more about the habits of the virtues than about any specific application of moral rules.

In the history of the human race, the theory of rights as we know it today, has either been unknown or ridiculed by the best philosophers. Even in the 19th century, the Utilitarian liberals ridiculed the notion of rights as "nonsense on stilts."

1) I doubt these liberals were ridiculing "rights as we know them today."

2) "As we know it today" is a hedge phrase; I'm not yet willing to ditch all theories of rights just because they are ruthlessly abused today. "Abuse does not abolish use."

There is not a word about rights in Christian moral theology. Christians speak of the duties of children and the obligations of parenthood—never of the rights of children. That language was the product of the anti-Christian Enlightenment that reinvented Christianity in the 18th century. When St. Thomas speaks of rights, that is, of iura, he makes it absolutely clear that he is talking only of principles of justice and not rights in the modern sense of "I have a right to do something."

Modern "rights talk" in fact has a medieval origin, in the work of the papal decretists. Aquinas did not use the language of subjective right, but later Christian thinkers of the Renaissance certainly used such language. Fleming damages his case, which raises a few good points, by making unqualified generalizations like these.

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