Capitalism and Catholic Social Ethics: From Benedict XVI to Francis with a Sideways Glance to Augustinian Liberalism
Capitalism and Catholic Social Ethics: From Benedict XVI to Francis with a Sideways Glance to Augustinian Liberalism

Summary/Abstract: This article first outlines some of the basic lines of recent Catholic social ethics, as developed in Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato si’ (2015). In his letter which is less fundamental but more prophetic with a strong Franciscan background, Pope Francis continues the thoughts of his predecessor Benedict XVI and Benedict’s encyclical letter Caritas in veritate (2007). In the course of criticizing a misguided reliance on a market economy (and so-called capitalism without adjectives), it is emphasized in this paper that these alone are not sufficient to promote the Common Good or understood as integral to human development and social inclusion in a global world. With a view to the challenges of our time outlined by the encyclicals, the article then wants to focus on an approach to political theology that draws on the tradition of Augustinian thought and offers a solution for the promotion of the Common Good under the circumstances of modernity. The core tenet of so-called Augustinian Liberalism is the demonstration that the central liberal principles of individual freedom and universal equality are not sufficient enough to ensure human flourishing in this world. Despite the eminent importance of democratic constitutional principles, they ultimately fail to comprehensively promote the fulfilment of human life in its individual and social dimensions. They shorten the concept of rational autonomy to self-centred freedom that absolves itself of its responsibility and value-relativist tendencies, the thinkers of Augustinian Liberalism then profile a concept of love based on the thought of St. Augustine as a normative. Their position promotes principles for the political practice of individuals and guidelines for institutions in the liberal constitutional state.

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