Christ was born to save us all. His church is called Catholic because it does not exclude anyone. It urges what he urged, love of neighbor as being equal to and a test of our love of God, our common parent. So far, so good. No controversy to divide us at this time of year when we tend to come out of our trenches and approach each other, if only for a few hours or days. Christmas joy is a unifying social thing we can all enjoy. In fact, it is a kind of seasonal signal of that misunderstood phrase, the common good.
In our land of rugged individualists, where ear-pieces and do-everything cell phones block communication, where foreign policy seems to be governed by a prevailing conceit of us uber alles, where isolation is something to be sought in itself, “common good” is viewed as suspiciously near communism. What is this controversial and divisive notion? The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” in paragraph 1906, quotes Vatican II, calling it “. . . the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.”
Too complicated to be controversial? Its meaning is dynamite, especially to a culture consumed with getting and spending for one’s own benefit even if it means steamrolling over less fortunate people not at fault for being born with minority status. It concerns everyone’s life and well being, not just mine. It means pulling together to accomplish public goals like insuring everyone against medical mishaps.
The whole notion of insurance is collective: everyone agrees to pool resources in a fair way so that if one suffers and has to file a claim, the healthy community pays. It’s there for any of them if they become ill or injured. One hardly sees the insurance industry as communist. Some jurisdictions require it by law. We must have car insurance if we want to drive legally. This eliminates voluminous litigation, a benefit to us all.
Some people prefer small government because they feel people should fend for themselves. This can be done more easily if one has financial resources, less easily if not. A wealthy person might be able to avoid health insurance because he/she can pay even exorbitant medical bills if needed. But the big government needed to provide national health insurance for all will cost money. The hitch is for the wealthy, who are taxed progressively: they are charged more, the poor less or not at all. And while one might escape for a time sickness and accident, he/she will never escape taxes. Guess which side declines health insurance.
No wonder the rest of the industrialized world looks aghast at us. They know enough of our cultural mores to know that we, isolated by our oceans, have been shielded from world wars on our land, unlike them. They have been brutally forced, like it or not, to pull together to fend off fascism or communism. They may have hated their neighbor because he or she was a Croat or Muslim instead of a Serb. But they learned the wisdom of the common good.
Renowned ethicist Daniel Callahan, senior researcher and president emeritus of the Hastings Center, wrote in a recent Commonweal article called “America’s Blind Spot” that “Except for Catholics and a few others, however, the common good as a moral value has little purchase in America.” We Catholics are 24 percent while Protestants are over 60. Yet we all breathe the same air.
They feel philosophically less inclined to put aside the desires of the individual for the good of the community. They see themselves not as stingy but as industrious.
The most influential branch in the U.S. follows not Luther but Calvin. He preached predestinationism. In his schema, one could know if one was saved by the wealth he or she had as signs of God’s blessings and favor. The multiplying of these God-given gifts was called the Protestant work ethic. Hard-working sod-busters were saved; loafers and other miscreants who could not get anyone to hire them because of minority status were not. It’s a bit more involved, but the common good is of vastly different import to each.
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