GOVERNMENT FOR THE COMMON GOOD
Part six in a series on Catholic Social Teaching
Here I continue my series on the nine encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII, known as the Catholic Social Teachings.
Today’s post is on the sixth encyclical, which explains how the State can serve the Common Good in aligning itself with the Divine order and the true nature of reality.
The first encyclical (linked below) showed how the restoration of our world must be founded on the truth, and demonstrated that the correct theory of knowledge is that which corresponds to the natural order created by God.
The second examined the nature and limits of human liberty - raising the question as to whether Man is good enough to be absolutely free. It asks as well - what liberty is it to be liberated into evil? We can see the evidence around us today.
The third shows the sacramental and foundational institution of Christian marriage, and explains why its defence is vital to our civilisation.
The fourth encyclical has one subject - Naturalism and Freemasonry - but as with all the others, its explanatory power illuminations the raising and the ruin of the foundations of our civilisation.
The fifth encyclical -titled Diuturnum - is called “On Civil Government”. It explains that we are at war, and this war is between mankind and The Enemy, which is Satan. This war, we are told, is raging in the institutions of the state.
Every one of the nine encyclicals show how reality itself is to be understood in accordance with the Divine order, and that the defection from this order is chaos.
These Catholic Social Teachings condense some of the most luminous and precious wisdom ever written down.
They can be understood as many things - as a guide as how to live, to determine what is the truth, and perhaps most vitally at this moment - as a manual as to how to reconstitute our civilisation from the dissolving counterfeit culture which sought, and failed, to replace it by artificial design.
Professor Etienne Gilson’s excellent book remains my guide, which you can read - free of charge - on the internet archive here.
I paywall my Monday posts in recognition of those subscribers who pay for my work.
If you would like to read this but cannot pay, send me an email saying “SKINT” and I will let you in (if I believe you are not telling Tommy Peppers, that is).
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Frank Wright to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.