Debate between SPGB and Roman Catholic Church
It is an extraordinary event for a representative of the Roman Catholic Church to debate in public with a Socialist. On Sunday, 10th May, however, Father Bernard Rickett, headmaster of the West Bridgeford Roman Catholic School, Notts, received the Bishop’s permission to do so. Representing the Catholic attitude he debated the subject, "Socialism or Social Catholicism?” with the Socialist Party’s speaker, R. Coster. The debate was attended by an audience of 78 on a sweltering afternoon at the Co-op. Educational Centre, Nottingham.
R. Coster
Opening the debate for the Socialist Party, R. Coster defined its scope in terms of a Catholic writer’s phrase “ human life and happiness,” and said at once it was impossible to consider the question unless one dealt with the great problems which stood in the way of life and happiness for the great majority of humanity. War and its terrible weapons; insecurity and fear, and the recurrence of economic crises; poverty and its consequences in bad housing, a great deal of disease, crime and unhappiness; the overwhelming lack of satisfaction of people in the present-day world that produced appalling figures for mental and nervous disorders: these were the impediments to human life and happiness, and these were what had to be dealt with.
The Socialist case was that all these problems were consequences of the Capitalist organization of society. Capitalism was founded on the ownership of the means of living by a class; it meant that all productive activity was carried on solely for the motive of sale at a profit, that this commercial motivation dominated all relationships in society. It meant also that the non-owning class, the great majority, must be exploited and always more or less poor; and that the interests of these two classes were therefore irreconcilably opposed.
But Capitalism meant as well the conflicts between rival capitalist groups which led inevitably to war. It meant that from time to time, unpredictably and uncontrollably, there were crises and all the suffering which depressions brought. Parties and governments, and philosophers and religious leaders too, had been powerless to prevent these things because Capitalism’s antagonistic relations arising from division of interests over property caused them. The Socialist case, therefore, was for the abolition of this system. What was wanted was a new basis for society— the ownership by everybody of all the means of living, so that poverty, conflict and all the other barriers to decent life and happiness could no longer exist.
Could Catholicism solve all, or any, of these problems? There was no point of contact between Catholicism and Socialism; the speaker pointed to Catholic reiterations that the two were antagonistic and that private property was a natural right. The Church stood not only for Capitalism, but for a Capitalism so authoritarian that its criticisms of the Russian dictatorship could largely be applied to itself. By its defence of Capitalism, the Church acquiesced in the system which was the source of the problems.
Catholics talked about improving workers’ conditions, but the living standards their Popes advocated were those of “frugal and well-behaved” workers; the rate of emigration from Ireland was no advertisement for Catholic society On the war question, Catholic authorities were as divided and helpless as any Capitalist politicians—some opposed to nuclear weapons, some ready to justify them. The remedies for crises and exploitation advocated were childish: classes could not harmonize even at Popes’ bidding, in a class-divided society, and the proposals to “lift barriers” on trade and production showed incomprehension of how Capitalism worked.
Social Catholicism had no case. The only case was for Socialism, which aimed at establishing conditions in which the problems could not arise and human life and happiness could flourish.
Father Rickett
Father Rickett, in his opening speech, said he was not an expert on economic and social matters; he must treat the questions raised as a theologian who had studied history. He expressed appreciation of the Socialist Party as the only organization professing Socialism which was logical in its arguments. The trouble with the Socialist case was that its logic, though impeccable, rested on a false premise. Its view of man's nature was incomplete and therefore incorrect. Man lived in society, but he had been created for a supernatural destiny, and the idea of Socialism was incompatible with this divine nature. Man did not live by bread alone—he had been created not for temporal but for eternal happiness, though that did not mean he had to be miserable in this world.
Man was a selfish brute, imperfect by nature, and no solution could be valid which ignored his original sin.
Catholic sociology started from the need for him to reform his own character, to curb his selfishness and be content with his station in life. Disease, work and suffering were the lot of the human race. Capitalism was largely beyond the control of the Church, which indeed was not concerned with temporal things except insofar as they related to man's salvation.
Nevertheless, Popes had strongly denounced the excesses of Capitalism and laid down for those living in it what were God's will and moral laws. Social living was the will of God. The reverse of the Class-struggle doctrine was true; capital and labour were complementary—each needed the other, and our higher standards of living today were due to large-scale enterprise and the brains and invested capital behind it. It was quite wrong to claim that the product should belong to the labourer. The Church tried to see that there was an equitable share, and laid down rules of justice for employers and employees. The employer had duties to his workmen, and the worker also must recognise moral laws in his behaviour towards the employer.
What must be sought was charity, in its sense of brotherly love and mutual support. The Catholic Church had advocated the formation of Guilds like those which existed in former times, and in these there would be not class conflict but class collaboration. Class hatred, and hatred of any kind, could never produce anything constructive.
R. Coster
R. Coster, in reply, summarised Father Rickett's argument as that, first, man must consider his life in relation to a life hereafter, and second, that man was innately bad, and that these two conditions put the Socialist case out of court
He submitted that the argument was, in fact, complete irrelevant to the matter under discussion. We were talking about human life and happiness, and it was useless to make the supernatural a basis for argument to people who were not aware of it. The proposal that human society was divinely instituted was superfluous and meaningless; human society was a fact—man organized socially for survival, and had he not done so there would have been no man. '
Were all the things said of man's “brutal, selfish” nature true? Nothing of the kind was known historically of human nature. The only thing known was that human nature continually altered. So did valuations of it: what was brutal and selfish in one age was heroic in another, and the Catholic Church itself had undergone this kind of societal conditioning.
Did the Church want a better world? The speaker read from a Papal Encyclical which said the world could not be better, that claims to the contrary were “lying promises.” But what were the effects of the Church's laying down laws of social justice? One Encyclical had stated the duties of employers towards their employees, and Catholic employers had conspired to prevent their workpeople learning what was said in it. And this in fact underlined what Socialists said—that a class must obey, not its religious ideals, but its interests as a class.
Socialists agreed that men did not live by bread alone. The quality of living was what made happiness. But first, man's material needs must be satisfied. The conditions must be created in which man could know the enjoyment of living; that was the aim of Socialism.
Father Rickett
Father Rickett, replying, spoke of the tyranny which Socialism would impose. It meant that we should lose our freedom. No one could understand human nature unless he contemplated the Crucifixion; it was an aberration of mind to put it aside. Society without God was an unrealizable Utopia. There could be and there was happiness in our world: nothing was more lovely to behold than a little Catholic home with its many children.
It was not mere egalitarian distribution that mattered. The Church wanted to see men make the best of the existing order, and within that order better distribution had been obtained. The Church had encouraged workers to organize in trade unions and stand up to Capital. On the question of the great problems, obviously insecurity and injustice were parts of the natural order. War was hateful and the Church would never support it—but it must be realized that some things were worse than war.
What had been said about Catholic employers was true, but they would suffer in eternity for it; their action was an instance of original sin. The Church's mission was to see that life as it was organized here below was not incompatible with the destiny of man. Nowhere had working people a better friend than the Catholic Church.
Father Rickett
After a short period in which questions were asked and contributions to discussion made by members of the audience. Father Rickett made his summing-up speech. He said that the Catholic Church was much misunderstood by people; one either loved it or hated it. The idea of the classless society was unreal. It had never been depicted, and could only be achieved if we were all angels. Marx's arguments left much unexplained : heaven help us, the speaker said, if the right of property were not safeguarded. This right was precious to all of us in our daily lives, in our homes and in preserving our possessions. It protected the small man trying to advance his business or his career. Capitalism would pass away and some other social order replace it, but the Church would remain.
R. Coster
R. Coster, concluding for the Socialist Party, said that Father Rickett had completely evaded the issue of the debate.
The questions put had not been answered. It was claimed that the Catholic Church stood aside from politics; in fact, the Church’s record showed a great deal of political activity not advantageous to working people. To say that Socialism would take away freedom was untrue and, for the Church, unfortunate; the Concordat between Spain and the Church, for example, had stripped the Spanish worker of every kind of freedom. As for happiness, the “lovely” Catholic home was frequently a squalid, overcrowded place. As for war being hateful, in this century Catholic authorities had repeatedly advocated the suppression of heresies by violence.
The whole conception of property as a right was mistaken. The capitalist class had known no right but might: by force and every other means they had secured their ownership, and established the legal and moral titles—the “ right ”—to it afterwards. At no point had Father Rickett shown why Socialism was “unrealizable.” All that was needed for its realization was understanding, and this was the enemy of Catholicism. Cardinal Manning had once said: “ I do not have to think for myself. The Pope does my thinking for me." But Socialism had everything to offer of human life and happiness, and to think for oneself was to hold the key to it.
Freddie James
Blogger's Note:
As mentioned previously on the blog, 'R. Coster' was the pen-name/party-name of Robert Barltrop during his first period of membership of the SPGB. When Barltrop rejoined the SPGB in the 1970s, he opted to use his own name when writing and speaking for the Party.
Barltrop, in fact, briefly mentions this debate in The Monument — his unofficial history of the SPGB — when he states that Father Bernard Rickett was ". . . the best of all the speakers I met in debate . . ."
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