For the New Millennium: the Society of Catholic Social Scientists

by Joseph A. Varacalli, Ph.D.

The recent passing to the Lord of Cardinal John O'Connor marks a useful moment to examine the raison d'etre, history, progress and present state of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists (SCSS), an organization that represents a small part of the Catholic restoration inspired by the Pontificate of John Paul II. With the assistance of Cardinal O'Connor, then Bishop (now Archbishop) Edward Egan, Bishop John Myers, and the late Bishop Glennon Flavin, the SCSS was founded in 1992 and based at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. It was spurred into existence by the blunt question, born out of exasperation, posed to me by Bishop Myers: "Are there no social scientists who stand with the Pope?". The SCSS is composed of Catholic scholars, professors, teachers, and others in political science and political philosophy, sociology, social thought, history, economics, psychology, law, moral theology, social work, medicine and other disciplines whose intellectual activity is tied to social and public concerns and who very much stand with John Paul II and the Magisterium of the Church.

Purpose and history

The two interrelated goals of the SCSS are: 1) to incorporate, where appropriate, Catholic philosophical/theological assumptions, issues, concepts and modes of interpretation into the social sciences and 2) to bring Catholic social doctrine into the American (and international) public square from which social policy is forged. What makes the attempt of the SCSS so important is that, for better or worse, the social sciences are today an imposing social fact of life. Worthy or not, they have very real consequences for the health and welfare of both Church and civilization. In the contemporary United States, the ideas of social scientists have not only influenced seemingly countless undergraduate and graduate students during their college years. Such ideas have also shaped government policies, have influenced the helping professions, have seeped downward to the grammar and secondary school levels, have been popularized (and often vulgarized) through the mass media and, last but not least, have been received enthusiastically (and often uncritically) by mainstream Christian denominations, including (unofficially) many circles within the Catholic Church of the United States, that formally claim to be religions ultimately based on divine revelation.

What has made this widespread dispersion so harmful for both the Church and the larger civilization is that presently the social sciences are almost completely dependent on secular assumptions, concepts and theories about the nature and destiny of, and relationship between, the individual and society.

Consider a few examples. School administrators take for granted a Freudian-like assumption of human sexuality and conclude that condom distribution is both a strategic and moral imperative. Many psychologists portray supernaturally-based religion as both an illusion and opiate, while seeing their own discipline as an alleged enlightened substitute for it. Many in the marriage counseling profession talk of courtship and marriage exclusively in contractual and emotional terms consisting merely of social, economic and psychological exchanges. In many sociology classes, the traditional nuclear family is depicted as an abusive prison for women and children. Many anthropologists seem to be unable to condemn such practices as human sacrifice, active homosexual acts and children being born out of wedlock, thus promoting, either unconsciously or not, the philosophy of moral relativism. The elderly risk getting the short end of the deaf in some hospital care, especially on the part of younger "quality of life" doctors and nurses. Too many lawyers and political scientists interpret the First Amendment in such a manner as to clearly deny Christians their rights and duties in the public square.

Governmental action increasingly erodes parental rights. The decision of President Clinton to veto the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, as well as that of the courts to lift the bans on assisted suicide, mark American civilization's further descent into the culture of death. Neo-Malthusian scholars fabricate the concept of the "population bomb", while the positive effects of natural family planning for marriage, family and society are not only denied but met with outright derision. Many African American courses tend to assume, a priori, that all Caucasians are racists; the reality of black racism is never broached. Similarly, much feminist scholarship simply defines men as sexist and ignores the injustice done to men in employment through the use of quotas. While racism, sexism, homophobia, nativism and ageism are unquestionably seen as real "social problems", the deleterious effects of abortion, euthanasia, divorce, excessive exposure of children to day-care centres, and religious bigotry are either not addressed or not addressed squarely. Put crudely, a secular social science attacks the Church both from without and within while the American social fabric continues unabated in its precipitous decline and the state of millions of individual souls are thrown in jeopardy.

Indeed, it is true that most of its 19th- and 20thcentury founding fathers saw the social sciences as an "enlightened" substitute for religion. However, the important point to stress here is that social science perspectives are not intrinsically secularist; they can be and, by a small group of devoted Catholic scholars in the 20th century prior to Vatican II, were shaped by Catholic principles and a general Catholic worldview and sensibility. The ideas that it is necessary and possible both to develop a Catholic social science and to evangelize society with a Catholic presence were only two of the casualties suffered by Catholicism in the turbulent wake of the immediate post-Vatican II period. Put another way, the idea behind the founding of the SCSS was that the "restoration of the social sciences in Christ" would better guarantee a magisterially defined Church a voice in both the intellectual and political marketplace.

Progress and present state of the SCSS

The progress of the SCSS since its 1992 inception has been steady and real, if unspectacular. The present state of the organization is good with its potential even more promising. With an international membership fast approaching 400, the SCSS has held consecutive national conferences at Franciscan University since 1993, with one being held at Christendom College in 1995 and one scheduled, in 2001, at the Ave Maria Law School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Among other accomplishments, the SCSS now has 10 active local chapters; an annual 300-plus-page journal, The Catholic Social Science Review; book and pamphlet publications (e.g. Defending the Family: A Sourcebook, The Catholic and Politics in Post World War II America); and dozens of policy statements on Church and society issues (e.g. homosexuals in the military, homosexual ministries run by Catholic Dioceses, fetal research, abortion, national health insurance, parental rights, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, ethics of business investment, environmentalism, international relations, among others) that have been distributed to many American Bishops and American elected government officials. A new major scholarly project, Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy: An Encyclopedia, is now under way.

Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, Archbishops Charles Chaput and Roberto O. Gonzalez, and Bishops Raymond Burke, Thomas G. Doran, Norman McFarland and the late Austin Vaughan have, since 1993, joined Archbishop Egan and Bishop Myers on the Bishops' Board. The SCSS Advisory Board, led by co-chairman Donald J. D'Elia, contains the names of 30 individuals which read like a "Who's Who" of Catholic intellectual life. The organization has given the Annual Pope Pius XI Award for Contributions Toward the Building Up of a True Catholic Social Science to Warren Carroll (history), Fr Francis Canavan, S.J. (political science), Rupert J. Ederer and Alberto M. Piedra (economics), Mary Ann Glendon (law), Mons. George A. Kelly (sociology), Paul Vitz (psychology), and upcoming in 2001, James Hitchcock (history) and William Brennan (social work). Another SCSS honour, recently renamed the Blessed Frederic Ozanam Award for Catholic Social Action, has been given to Thomas S. Monaghan of the Ave Maria Foundation, Charles Rice of Notre Dame Law School, William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and Candace de Russy of the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York, and, upcoming in 2001, to Phyllis Schafly of the Eagle Forum and Helen Hull Hitchcock of Women for Faith and Family.

Individuals interested in applying for membership in or learning more about the Society of Catholic Social Scientists should contact either of its two cofounders, Stephen M. Krason, Department of Political Science, Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio, 43952 or Joseph A. Varacalli, Department of Sociology, Nassau Community College -- SUNY, Garden City, NY 11530, USA.

© L'Osservatore Romano, Editorial and Management Offices, Via del Pellegrino, 00120, Vatican City, Europe, Telephone 39/6/698.99.390.