Brendan Hodge takes a closer look at one of the Church’s more interesting encyclicals from the last century on social teaching (is capitalism an unfettered good?).
In this sense, what I see as the correct conservative approach to social teaching does not have nearly the warm and comforting glow as the “progressive” approach. And yet, I think it more correctly accounts for the reality of our nature as moral and mortal beings, living out our time on earth in expectation of what is to come.
The phrase “you cannot legislate morality” has been very much overused, and yet in this instance there is a very real truth to it. We cannot achieve the twin aims of respecting people’s natural right to property and leaving room for people to behave in a virtuous manner by helping their fellow men unless we simultaneously allow people the opportunity to sin against their fellow men by refusing to help anyone.
Perhaps it is not surprising that in a society in which many loudly blame God (or suggest that he does not exist) for having given us the freedom to sin, many also feel reluctant to leave individual citizens the liberty to sin, or be virtuous, in their use of their personal wealth.