A conservative Reading of Rerum novarum through a Neo-Scholastic Lens. The Jesuit Auguste Castelein (1840-1922) and the Belgian 'Patrons Catholiques'.

This chapter sheds more light on the ways in which the more conservative factions of the Belgian Catholic bourgeoisie responded to the papal encyclical Rerum novarum. As the discussions on how to read and implement the encyclical were intricately interwoven with those on political democratization the conflict was particularly deep and bitter. Our analysis focuses on the writings of the Jesuit father Auguste Castelein. Although merely one particular actor, his life path and networks allowed us to sketch a broader panorama, with particular attention paid to the Jesuit Order and the cross-border Catholic industrial elite of Belgium and Northern France. Castelein was an ecclesiastical scholar, called upon by these entrepreneurial networks to articulate their arguments and to substantiate them within Catholic doctrine and Church tradition. Given the papal plea for a Thomist revival, it was particularly beneficial to quote Aquinas when one wanted to substantiate a more moderate and even deviant reading of his encyclical. Castelein eagerly did so. For him Aquinas above all was a fashionable source of authority who he cited to validate his own, highly traditionalist arguments and statements, not only when writing on the social question, but also on the nature of public authority, the content and limits of commutative and distributive justice, the pre-eminence of charity and so forth. But his Thomist lens often remained hazy. The teachings of the doctor angelicus that did not fit into his agenda, for instance on the origin of property rights or the number of the elect, were carefully circumvented and/or re-interpreted. Although the societal impact of Castelein's highly instrumental involvement in Neo-Scholasticism is difficult to evaluate, his numerous vulgarizing books and brochures were widely read and often quoted by the conservative Catholic press. The more traditionalist and paternalist view of social activism that he propagated would remain a durable component of multi-layered social Catholicism throughout the 20th century.

ISBN:9789461664211

Jaar van publicatie:2021

Toegankelijkheid:Closed