Are Catholics Globalist?

Are Catholics globalist? Globalism has become a dirty word in recent years, especially on the political right. Yet the Catholic Church remains the quintessential global institution and can—in core dimensions—be understood as supportive of a globalist ethic.

To unpack this, it helps to begin with the theology. At its most basic, Christianity holds that we are less autonomous individuals than relational persons, beings-in-relation. In other words, we become fully human only in relation to others. As Meghan Clark has stressed, the imago Dei—being made in God’s image—also implies imago trinitatis. We are created to mirror the inner life of the Trinity, which is absolute unity and pure relationality. We can go even further. In the words of the eminent Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas, Christianity entails a kind of “infinite relationality” that enfolds every person in the world. Love becomes truly global. It gives rise to a true universalist ethic that transcends the boundaries of narrow communities.

Pope Francis draws this out in Fratelli Tutti: Springing from the parable of the Good Samaritan, he calls for a world in which all human beings are bonded together by fraternity and social friendship. This is a world suspicious of nationalism and populism, ideologies that pit the people in one’s backyard against foreigners and outsiders. These ideologies give rise to what Pope Francis calls a culture of walls, which serves to prevent encounter with other peoples and cultures. For Pope Francis, a love capable of transcending borders is the basis of social friendship.

This universalist ethic has practical implications in the arena of global governance. The Catholic Church is a consistent defender of global institutions designed to support the global common good.

This support for global institutions flows from the twin pillars of solidarity and subsidiarity. Solidarity—the notion that, in the words of Pope John Paul II, all are responsible for all—also comes with a global dimension. As the world becomes more interconnected, so do our circles of solidarity widen. Pope Francis has expressly called for a globalization of solidarity to replace what he calls a globalization of indifference.

The defense of global institutions based on subsidiarity seems a little more peculiar. After all, doesn’t subsidiarity call for taking decisions at the most local level? Not necessarily. Subsidiarity, in the phrasing of Meghan Clark, means taking decisions at the lowest level possible and the highest level necessary. Sometimes the global level is the right level. When the problems are global—as with climate change, for example—then the solutions too must be global.

Given these principles, it is not surprising that Catholic social teaching strongly endorses global institutions.

In Pacem in Terris, written in 1963, Pope John XXIII gave a vigorous defense of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As Mary Ann Glendon has shown, while the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reflects a cross-cultural consensus on human rights, it was heavily influenced by Catholic notions of human dignity and the common good. Similarly, the idea of the United Nations embodies the very Catholic idea of a single human family united around a universal common good—a good marked by peace, human rights, and human development. In the words of Pope John XXIII:

“May the day be not long delayed when every human being can find in this organization [the United Nations] an effective safeguard of his personal rights; those rights, that is, which derive directly from his dignity as a human person, and which are therefore universal, inviolable and inalienable.”

Subsequent popes have adopted similar positions. With the United Nations in mind, Pope Paul VI, in Populorum Progressio, called for an “effective world authority.” In his words:

“Such international collaboration among the nations of the world certainly calls for institutions that will promote, coordinate and direct it, until a new juridical order is firmly established and fully ratified. We give willing and wholehearted support to those public organizations that have already joined in promoting the development of nations, and We ardently hope that they will enjoy ever growing authority.”

Pope John Paul II, in Centesimus Annus, also called for beefed-up global institutions—in his view, to better manage globalization:

“There is a growing feeling, however, that this increasing internationalization of the economy ought to be accompanied by effective international agencies which will oversee and direct the economy to the common good, something that an individual State, even if it were the most powerful on earth, would not be in a position to do.”

He goes on to call for these international agencies to better represent the citizens of poorer countries, who are too often locked out of the global economy and global institutions.

Writing in the midst of the global financial crisis, Pope Benedict XVI, in Caritas in Veritate, called for a “true world political authority”—this time to better manage the global economy and protect it from tumult and financial excess. Specifically, his authority would be called upon:

“to manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration.”

It was the environmental dimension that Pope Francis took up in Laudato Si’. “Interdependence obliges us to think of one world with a common plan,” he wrote. He went on to argue that:

“A global consensus is essential for confronting the deeper problems, which cannot be resolved by unilateral actions on the part of individual countries. Such a consensus could lead, for example, to planning a sustainable and diversified agriculture, developing renewable and less polluting forms of energy, encouraging a more efficient use of energy, promoting a better management of marine and forest resources, and ensuring universal access to drinking water.”

Accordingly, he calls for enforceable international agreements to govern all aspects of the global commons. To this end, he expresses support for stronger and better-organized international institutions. He endorses a set of global goals—the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, both adopted by the world community in 2015. In Fratelli Tutti, he repeats his call for stronger international institutions “equipped with the power to provide for the global common good, the elimination of hunger and poverty and the sure defense of fundamental human rights.”

So from this perspective, the Catholic Church is indeed globalist. It recognizes a universal common good and calls for stepped-up global institutions to support this common good.

But in other dimensions, the Church is more suspicious of the globalist ethic. This is especially the case with globalization itself. Pope Benedict XVI was quite forceful here, noting in Caritas in Veritate that the global market tends to outsource production to low-cost regions, which has perverse consequences:

“These processes have led to a downsizing of social security systems as the price to be paid for seeking greater competitive advantage in the global market, with consequent grave danger for the rights of workers, for fundamental human rights and for the solidarity associated with the traditional forms of the social State.”

In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis echoes this suspicion of globalization, noting that opening up to the world “is an expression that has been co-opted by the economic and financial sector and is now used exclusively of openness to foreign interests or to the freedom of economic powers to invest without obstacles or complications in all countries.”

In this sense, globalization strengthens the rich and powerful but diminishes the poor and the weak. The bottom line, says Pope Benedict, is that “as society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbors, but does not make us brothers.”

In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis also points the finger at another problem with globalism—the tendency to downplay the importance of local cultures. The local must also be seen as a forum for social friendship, in creative tension with the universal. A big risk for Pope Francis is that globalization leads to a form of leveling, something that is “bland, uniform and standardized, based on a single prevailing cultural model.” This, in his view, is a false universalism.

But there is a twist. A key advantage of localism is that it allows people to encounter the other based on firm foundations—love for one’s own land, people, and culture. It is not possible, Pope Francis says, to embrace the local in a healthy way without also being open to the universal in a spirit of solidarity and fraternity. A healthy openness never threatens one’s own identity, he says. Rather, it integrates people in a way that benefits all. For this reason, Pope Francis embraces the concept of “a people” while rejecting populism, which only seeks to exploit people and culture for power and petty advantage.

So are Catholics globalists? If globalism means support for global institutions, the universal common good, and a mature universalism, then the answer is a definite yes. But if it means a globalization benefitting those with economic power and a leveling of cultural differences, then the answer is less definitive. It is a nuanced question that deserves a nuanced answer.