Notes from the Field: Centesimus annus 25 Years Later

Casino Pio IV, Vatican City- April 15-16, 2016: Organized by The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies, “Centesimus annus 25 Years Later” was not merely a commemoration of Pope John Paul II’s 1991 social encyclical, which itself marked the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum. Rather, “Centesimus annus 25 Years Later” was a serious academic discussion.

The symposium focused on two primary topics: Economic, political and cultural changes in the world since the Centesimus annus; and how Catholic social teaching has engaged the world. It asked what the major changes in economic, political and cultural life have been over the past 25 years, especially in the context of the Church’s response to these changes. Questions asked covered:

• Economic occurrences since the fall of the Soviet Union, which was the major economic backdrop of Centesimus annus.

• Changes in the world political situation since 1991, when the fall of the Soviet Union and the democratization of Eastern Europe formed the major political backdrop of Centesimus annus.

• Cultural changes, inclusive of the impact of the internet, the marketization of life, the importance of Islam, new dynamics of secularization and more.

Jennifer Gross has been working in the field of Sustainable Development with Professor Jeffrey Sachs since traveling to Africa with him in 2012. Sachs was among the outside advisors to Pope John Paul II on the encyclical Centesimus annus, and in recent years has worked closely with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences on the issues of sustainable development. Naturally, a relationship has formed between the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Blue Chip Foundation as a result of Sachs’s special relationship with the Vatican.

A particularly notable speaker at the symposium was Bernie Sanders, who attended despite the White House dissuading the Pope from meeting with him while he was on the campaign trail. Happily, the two men did meet, and Senator Sanders delivered a rousing talk. Here’s a sample of what he said:

With the fall of Communism, Pope John Paul II gave a clarion call for human freedom in its truest sense: freedom that defends the dignity of every person and that is always oriented towards the common good…

The words of Centesimus annus… resonate with us today. One striking example:

Furthermore, society and the State must ensure wage levels adequate for the maintenance of the worker and his family, including a certain amount for savings. This requires a continuous effort to improve workers’ training and capability so that their work will be more skilled and productive, as well as careful controls and adequate legislative measures to block shameful forms of exploitation, especially to the disadvantage of the most vulnerable workers, of immigrants and of those on the margins of society. The role of trade unions in negotiating minimum salaries and working conditions is decisive in this area. (Para15)

The essential wisdom of Centesimus annus is this: A market economy is beneficial for productivity and economic freedom. But if we let the quest for profits dominate society; if workers become disposable cogs of the financial system; if vast inequalities of power and wealth lead to marginalization of the poor and the powerless; then the common good is squandered and the market economy fails us. Pope John Paul II puts it this way: profit that is the result of “illicit exploitation, speculation, or the breaking of solidarity among working people . . . has not justification, and represents an abuse in the sight of God and man.” (Para43).

We are now twenty-five years after the fall of Communist rule in Eastern Europe. Yet we have to acknowledge that Pope John Paul’s warnings about the excesses of untrammeled finance were deeply prescient. Twenty-five years after Centesimus annus, speculation, illicit financial flows, environmental destruction, and the weakening of the rights of workers is far more severe than it was a quarter century ago. Financial excesses, indeed widespread financial criminality on Wall Street, played a direct role in causing the world’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

We need a political analysis as well as a moral and anthropological analysis to understand what has happened since 1991. We can say that with unregulated globalization, a world market economy built on speculative finance burst through the legal, political, and moral constraints that had once served to protect the common good. In my country, home of the world’s largest financial markets, globalization was used as a pretext to deregulate the banks, ending decades of legal protections for working people and small businesses. Politicians joined hands with the leading bankers to allow the banks to become “too big to fail.” The result: eight years ago the American economy and much of the world was plunged into the worst economic decline since the 1930s. Working people lost their jobs, their homes and their savings, while the government bailed out the banks…

Pope Francis has called on the world to say: “No to a financial system that rules rather than serves” in Evangeli Gaudium. And he called upon financial executives and political leaders to pursue financial reform that is informed by ethical considerations. He stated plainly and powerfully that the role of wealth and resources in a moral economy must be that of servant, not master…

Pope Francis has given the most powerful name to the predicament of modern society: the Globalization of Indifference. “Almost without being aware of it,” he noted, “we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own.” We have seen on Wall Street that financial fraud became not only the norm but in many ways the new business model. Top bankers have shown no shame for their bad behavior and have made no apologies to the public. The billions and billions of dollars of fines they have paid for financial fraud are just another cost of doing business, another short cut to unjust profits…

As Pope Francis made powerfully clear last year in Laudato Si’, we have the technology and know-how to solve our problems – from poverty to climate change to health care to protection of biodiversity. We also have the vast wealth to do so, especially if the rich pay their way in fair taxes rather than hiding their funds in the world’s tax and secrecy havens- as the Panama Papers have shown.

The challenges facing our planet are not mainly technological or even financial, because as a world we are rich enough to increase our investments in skills, infrastructure, and technological know-how to meet our needs and to protect the planet. Our challenge is mostly a moral one, to redirect our efforts and vision to the common good. Centesimus annus, which we celebrate and reflect on today, and Laudato Si’, are powerful, eloquent and hopeful messages of this possibility. It is up to us to learn from them, and to move boldly toward the common good in our time.