We are one human family, yet we are born as members of a particular nation. Christians are reborn as members of Christ’s Mystical Body that unites believers worldwide. Given these bonds, we might wonder if it’s always better for nations to cooperate more closely to reflect global unity.
At first glance, the answer could come back, “Of course, why not?” Indeed, the Church’s mission does promote greater unity, as she seeks to draw all nations into the unity of the Kingdom of God, creating bonds of brotherhood in Christ. Paul spoke of God’s grace breaking down the dividing wall between peoples (Ephesians 2:14) because in Christ there is no longer a distinction between Jew or Gentile (Gal 3:28).
But not all unity is good, for nations can just as easily draw closer together for evil purposes. The twentieth century witnessed the rise of Communism, which created a bloc of nations under Soviet domination bent on spreading its ideology.
In reaction, other nations, such as Italy and Germany, turned to militant nationalism, emphasizing the unity and strength of the people even to the point of idolatry. After the collision of these forces in the Second World War, a trinity of committed Catholics—Ven. Robert Schuman, Servant of God Alcide de Gaspari, and Konrad Adenauer—worked to create a zone of economic cooperation between former enemies that laid the foundation for the European Union.
Today, many accuse that union of undermining national sovereignty, embracing its own liberal ideology, and creating a bureaucratic juggernaut that restricts subsidiarity. Likewise, the United Nations, which aspires for greater peace and cooperation, often descends into harmful ideological projects, as even highlighted by the AP last week in its article, “5 Things the UN Does You Might Not Have Known”, highlighting, as one of them “Sex education by monks in Bhutan,” in order to “increase in contraception use, and better reproductive care for pregnant women.”
Globalism and nationalism increasingly butt heads. Nationalist ideology by the Chinese Communist Party has led to oppression against minorities, such as the Uighurs, even as they use their labor to meet the demands to produce cheap goods for the West. Russia justifies its regional aggression through a Russkiy Mir ideology that asserts broader Russian hegemony.
On the other hand, there is a globalist push for a single interconnected consumerist economy, open borders to facilitate it, measures to lower the population (even as we begin to face underpopulation), stringent environmental and health controls encoded in treaties, and, at its most extreme, the subversion of national sovereignty in favor of world government. The United States has gone back and forth in its support for these globalist endeavors.
Nations rightly react against globalist ideology, wanting to pursue the legitimate good of their countries against outside manipulation, but they also can overreact if they turn their backs on neighboring countries and those in need. Fighting against ideological movements that would undermine family and national security is not necessarily nationalist, though it is often labeled as such by global elites, but there can be a fine line when the reaction leads to hostility and aggression.
The Church has sought to promote greater global solidarity, while also recognizing the rights and duties of nations. When the Second World War still lingered in recent memory, Paul VI pointed to the problem of nationalism in Populorum progressio:
Haughty pride in one’s own nation disunites nations and poses obstacles to their true welfare. It is especially harmful where the weak state of the economy calls for a pooling of information, efforts, and financial resources to implement programs of development and to increase commercial and cultural interchange. (62)
Forty years later, however, Pope Benedict XVI recognized the emergence of an overly assertive globalism in Caritas in veritate:
In our own day, the State finds itself having to address the limitations to its sovereignty imposed by the new context of international trade and finance, which is characterized by increasing mobility both of financial capital and means of production, material and immaterial. This new context has altered the political power of States. (24)
On Pentecost Sunday, Pope Leo made his own contribution, cautioning against a new rise of nationalism that undermines solidarity and compassion for those in need. The Holy Spirit, he reminds us, seeks to draw us into unity and brotherhood:
Finally, the Spirit also opens borders between peoples. … Whenever God’s ‘breath’ unites our hearts and makes us view others as our brothers and sisters, differences no longer become an occasion for division and conflict but rather a shared patrimony from which we can all draw, and which sets us all on journey together, in fraternity. The Spirit breaks down barriers and tears down the walls of indifference and hatred because he ‘teaches us all things’ and ‘reminds us of Jesus’ words’ (cf. John 14:26). … Where there is love, there is no room for prejudice, for ‘security’ zones separating us from our neighbors, for the exclusionary mindset that, tragically, we now see emerging also in political nationalisms.
Embracing the solidarity of the human family and the Church throughout the world, Catholics must reject nationalism, even as they remain faithful to their homeland with a proper patriotism. As an “ism,” nationalism elevates the State and its material interests above higher goods. All people should work for the common good of their own community, locally and nationally.
In addition, Catholics, drawing upon our worldwide communion, should be attuned to the common good of the entire human race. We cannot turn our backs on global interdependence, which obliges nations to cooperate for travel, communication, trade, peace, the alleviation of poverty and disease, and care for our common home.
Neither the State nor an abstract notion of humanity as a whole should receive our ultimate allegiance. The Christian faith can remind the world that human solidarity ultimately stems from our creation by the one God, who made us in his image and likeness. Confidence in this transcendent unity enables us to work more readily with others as children of God, in our nation and beyond.
The Church unites, but does not blur distinctions of people and culture. As Christians, we can find the right balance, embracing patriotism and solidarity with all those of goodwill throughout the world.
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Solidarity MUST ALWAYS be considered alongside its companion value – SUBSIDIARITY.
Unity…at what price? “Buy the truth and sell it not.” If THAT brings unity, then we shall prosper, but it is a fool’s errand to think unity that is built around a lie will help anyone involved. Globalist THIEVES are promoting this destructive “unity” with blatant misvirtuous lies about God’s actual world, coupled with utopian promises about theirs. “Four legs good, two legs bad,” and we want unity?
Dr. Staudt writes broadly of nationalism, globalism, and fraternity under the Mystical Body of Christ. But, does he still miss the camel in the living room? What is “fraternity?”
A Question and a Quote:
QUESTION: What about the non-Westphalian perspective, that is, the difference between perennial Christian fraternity and the “common good” versus the different fraternity or the “ummah” of pre-modern Islam? The difference between Christian fraternity and the more cultic fraternity of the family of Islam, as rooted in the closed and fideistic world of the “dictated” Qur’an and the Sunnah (the 7th-century Muhammad’s history and sayings). And where Muslim participation in the Westphalian model—and then the post-World War II artifact United Nations—is a very recent overlay in the multinational/multistate ummah of Islam? The Qur’an as the overlay to both Muslim and Western sectarianism.
Where Trinitarian and incarnational spirituality is rejected as pagan polytheism. That is, as a falling away from the more original and purer ummah of Man in the state of nature (Rousseau’s Social Contract in a turban!). And, where this truncated human nature sidesteps the recurring internal detail of original sin? And of free will and Christian openness to gratuitous/divine grace.
QUOTE: Prior to the interreligious language of the Second Vatican Council, a Muslim thinker paused longer at this question, and implicitly at the divergent (not convergent?) meanings of “fraternity”:
“It all comes down to knowing whether one should hold strictly to the fundamental religious values which were those of Abraham and Moses, on pain of falling into blasphemy—as the Muslims believe; or whether God has called men to approach him more closely, revealing to them little by little their fundamental condition as sinful men, and the forgiveness that transforms them and prepares them for the beatific vision—as Christian dogma teaches.” (el Akkad in 1956, as cited by Jean Guitton, “The Great Heresies and Church Councils,” 1965).
SUMMARY: Solidarity? Fraternity? A “pluralism” of religions? For the Church, the challenge and mission—in season and out of season—is to artfully promote the light of distinctly Christian “fraternity”… without being annexed by either post-Christian secularism or, again, by dhimmitude within a naturalistic ummah. Political conflicts are ultimately theological in origin.
(P.S. Thinking outside the ephemeral Westphalian box: Beaulieu, “Beyond Secularism and Jihad: A Triangular Inquiry into the Mosque, the Manger & Modernity,” University Press of America, 2012. https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/04/29/the-mosque-the-manger-and-modernity/)
“The Church unites, but does not blur distinctions of people and culture. As Christians, we can find the right balance, embracing patriotism and solidarity with all those of goodwill throughout the world.”
The True Church unites The People of God, but an atheistic materialistic overpopulation alarmist globalism culture that denies Divine Law, has created an antagonistic ideology that denies the inherent Dignity of the human person, and is thus anti Christ:
“When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker Himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man.” – Pope Benedict’s Christmas Address 2012
The People of God, proclaim that decency, is “an inner commitment to living a life that pleases God”, while the atheist materialistic overpopulation alarmist globalists have created a culture that has no boundaries in proclaiming that decency is an inner commitment to pleasing self, for they believe “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning of the Universe, and of the mystery of human life”, for It is no longer God Who Endows us with our inherent unalienable Right to Life, to Liberty, And To The Pursuit Of Happiness, the purpose of which can only be what God Intended, but it is man who declares what is True, Beautiful, and Good.
Liberty sans God, cannot preserve all that is True, Beautiful, and Good, because all that is True, Beautiful, and True comes from God, The Blessed Trinity, The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, and thus The Author Of Our Inherent Unalienable Right to Life, To Liberty, And To The Pursuit Of Happiness, the purpose of which can only be what God intended.
At the heart of Liberty Is Christ, “4For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5Have moreover tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come…”, to not believe that Christ’s Sacrifice On The Cross will lead us to Salvation, but we must desire forgiveness for our sins, and accept Salvational Love, God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy; believe in The Power And The Glory Of Salvation Love, and rejoice in the fact that No Greater Love Is There Than This, To Desire Salvation For One’s Beloved.
“Blessed are they who are Called to The Marriage Supper Of The Lamb.”
“For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”
“Hail The Cross, Our Only Hope.”
Let the atheist materialistic overpopulation alarmist globalist culture, that is attempting to subsist within The One Body Of Christ while denying Divine Law, officially be declared anathema, for the sake of Christ, His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, all who will come to believe, ad the multitude of beloved prodigal sons and daughters, who, hopefully, will soon return to The One Body Of Christ, Existing “Through Him, With Him, And In Him, Oh God Almighty Father, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost”, The Spirit Of Perfect Divine Eternal Love Between The Father And His Only Begotten Son, Jesus The Christ, Who Proceeds From Both The Father And The Son, In The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Divine Eternal Love, The Most Holy Blessed Trinity.
Re 5 Things That the UN Does That You Might Not Have Known – (So-called) Sex Education in Bhutan resulting in increased use of contraception.
True. I wasn’t aware that Bhutan was a centre of western ideological colonization.
“This new context has altered the political power of States” (Staudt). Yes. Most have been drawn into a conglomerate of vassal states subject to the new Nebuchadnezzar Xi Jinping. Result. USA the world’s military superpower attempting to extract itself from the world’s economic Chaldean empire.
“Pope Benedict XVI recognized the emergence of an overly assertive globalism in Caritas in veritate” (Staudt). Essayist Staudt defines globalism as open borders, management of population, environmental priorities, singular finance network. Unfortunately, globalism as described does not strike a marked difference from Leo IX:
Finally, the Spirit also opens borders between peoples. All journey together, in fraternity. The Spirit breaks down barriers and tears down the walls of indifference. Where there is love, there is no room for prejudice, for ‘security’ zones separating us from our neighbors, for the exclusionary mindset that, tragically, we now see emerging also in political nationalisms.