What's in a Name? Hermeneutical Questions on ‘Globalisation’, Catholicity and Ecumenism

§1. The Moral Challenges of Globalisation and an Official Catholic Response – Conceptual and Methodological Questions

In an address to the Pontifical Academy of Social Science, John Paul II identifies the primary aim of globalisation as being the removal of barriers to the ‘movement of people, capital and goods’.¹ Yet, the Pope continues, while the triumph of the market and its logic is lauded triumphantly by some, the consequent effect upon social systems and cultures is often experienced, especially amongst the disadvantaged, as something forced upon them, as opposed to something in which they are invited to participate.

It may thus seem surprising that the Pope here goes on to adopt an ethically neutral and a somewhat perspectivalist position on the concept of globalisation in itself. He states that ‘a priori’, Globalisation ‘is neither good nor bad. It will be what people make of it. No system is an end in itself, and it is necessary to insist that Globalization, like any other system, must be at the service of the human person; it must serve solidarity and the common good’.² But a number of questions are raised by the position that the Pope here takes.

The Pope here appears to want it both ways – both criticising globalisation and yet seemingly viewing the term as being an ethically neutral concept, in itself.³ Now, admittedly, this may well be the fault of the way in which papal writings are drafted and revisited by numerous hands that seemingly can never let a document be released until they have inserted at least one sentence which contradicts other parts of the document, if not, indeed, the entire logical thrust of the whole text.

Nonetheless, we have to work with what documents emerge (regardless of how they are pieced together) and in this document under consideration the Pope at first seems to presume we all know and agree upon what the ‘system’ of globalisation is and what it entails which is, by and large, something negative for so many smaller social and cultural ‘systems’ and thus for human beings in general.

Yet, on the other hand, the Pope is telling us that globalisation is what one ‘makes of it’. It is morally neutral in and of itself.⁴ So there seems to be – at least in ethical terms – a number of contradictions at work here. Firstly, although the Pope is, in one sense, right to identify the perspectival nature of how we employ the term itself in its most general sense, his own address appears to flout such a rule – i.e. in beginning with a pejorative employment of the term globalisation along with a negative assessment, ethically speaking, of its effects.

And yet it would appear that most of those engaged ethically with globalisation, including the majority of Christians, do, indeed, perceive the consequences of the phenomenon described by the term ‘globalisation’ in negative terms. Indeed, the term, itself has become, by and large, one that is employed in a pejorative sense by most of those engaged in an ethical sense with such consequences.

And here is the second problem, for the Pope (or at least those responsible for some of his recent pronouncements) persists with the ‘Manichean’ assumption that ‘globalisation’ can be both/and good and evil, instead of either/or. Thus he sates that ‘The challenge continues to be to give life to a solidaristic globalization, identifying the causes of economic and social imbalances and presenting operative options capable of ensuring a future of solidarity and hope for all’.⁵ The use of the term ‘globalisation’ here causes multiple difficulties. Indeed, the Pope is calling for something which is, in effect, a contradictio in adjecto.⁶ For it appears questionable whether one can conceptually ‘have it both ways’, by retaining some ‘good’ umbrella concept of globalisation which will effectively facilitate discourse to counter the effects of ‘bad’ globalisation.

Contrary to such seemingly ambivalent thinking I believe we should rather abandon all such Manicheistic tendencies, for the greater hermeneutical and hence ethical rewards which can be gained from avoiding confusion and naming our collective enemy so that we may better know it and so confront and defeat it. The reason for doing so is because too much confusion follows from allowing a positive conception of and employment of the term globalisation. In allowing such a positive understanding of the term to take hold, one risks furthering the arguments and cause of those who wish everyone to embrace this new religion and new ‘god’, and hereby one risks serving the propagandistic purposes, the ‘spin’ of the very people who are directly responsible for the social evils we wish collectively to confront and to counter.

We will consider one example of where such ‘neutral’ thinking may lead us and move on to consider just one or two of the many alternative conceptual and linguistic approaches which present themselves.

§2. Legitimising Globalisation – the Church's Role

We can perceive⁷ that much church teaching under the present Pontiff, especially, though by no means exclusively, in the realm of social ethics, is, in many ways, methodolgically more akin to the deductive, crudely teleological and organic moral reasoning which marked Catholic Social Teaching in previous times. By this, I mean prior to the shift in ecclesial anthropological thinking towards a more historicist and inductive form of ethical reasoning, witnessed most notably under John XXIII and the early Paul VI.⁸

Secondly, along with such a shift or, some might say, methodological regression, we might also perceive a return to an even older ‘tradition’ of moral reasoning in the church, namely the notion of the ‘law of nations’, conceived in terms of natural law and broad brush (again some might say crudely) teleological thinking characteristic of late scholastic thinking on both sides of the Reformation divide.

For example, one recent study of the relation between religion and globalisation in general goes even further still, in identifying religious legitimation for the original social, economic and political trends which gave rise to globalisation. In that study, Ivan Strenski,⁹ perceives the development of international law, itself, and in particular the notion of the moral right to freedom of movement and commerce, as the forerunner of globalisation. But international law or ‘the law of nations’(understood as something transcendent rather than determined by historical circumstances), was provided with moral and political legitimation on theological grounds and in a natural law framework by religious scholars, most notably Spanish Jesuit jurists such as Francisco de Vitoria (1485–1546) Francisco Suarez (1548–1617) and the school of Salamanca, along with Protestant thinkers who built upon their thought such as Hugo Grotius (1583–1645).

It was thus that the Spanish, Portuguese and, a little later, Dutch and English empires could so rapidly spread, exploit and overcome all in their paths – all aided and abetted by the leading theological thought of the day. As Strenski states, ‘Many Christian jurists of the period of the rise of economic globalization believed that God had certain predetermined “ends” in mind for creation. Economic activity was one of those parts of creation where the “ends” of the divine purpose would be worked out’.¹⁰

Admittedly Vitoria, Suarez and Bartolomé de las Casas (1485–1576) also sought to place limitations upon the conduct of those charged with the spread of the Spanish empire, but Strenski also believes their writings served to legitimate, above all else, the ‘rights’ of Spain to enter lands, to ‘trade with’ and enslave the natives (or persecute those who resisted Spain's interests) and to export the natural resources and further their nation's economic and trading interests. For all such thinkers Strenski believes ‘the right to free passage’ was inviolable and laid the foundations for globalisation, itself.¹¹

Hence we see theological and ethical ambivalence is not isolated to our own day and numerous other examples could be provided. And the problems with this early ‘legitimisation’ of globalisation would appear to be due to an ambivalence which is the fault of an overtly rigid application of a particular method in moral theology, namely late scholastic natural law moral reasoning.

Strenski's analysis is enticing yet perhaps needs supplementation as it stands. Some would say he has been unfair to the jurists he criticises, others than he paints with too broad a brush. Whatever the case may be, his analysis nonetheless assists us further in assessing what we have identified as the Pope's at times ambivalent and at times seemingly ‘Manichean’ pronouncements on globalisation. For, aside from his perspectival postmodern assessment of globalisation, it appears that what the Pope is attempting to offer (as elsewhere on other topics in his writings) is something very much like a ‘law of nations’.

But the international law or law of nations approach is simply inadequate to tackle the many evil consequences of globalisation that the Pope correctly identifies. For, in an era of relentless unilateralism by the world's most rich and powerful nation – along with other rich and powerful nations (or perhaps one should now say, market‐states)– in an era where the pronouncements and agreed regulations and resolutions issued by international collectivist organisations such as the United Nations, the WTO, etc. are so regularly flouted by those rich and powerful nations, we see that international law is, as so often in the past, not even worth the paper it is only theoretically ‘printed’ on.

In other words, churches and religious organisations must take a different approach than simply the appeal to a consensual, divinely ordained natural law of nations, for such discourse is today alien to or rejected outright by the main proponents of political and economic globalisation. Indeed, international law is often confronted with that ‘alternative’ naturalistic determinism which perceives globalisation to be necessary and/or irresistible.¹²

Thus, neither stance exhibited by the Pope is sufficiently adequate to counter the evils of globalisation – not the return to a law of nations model, nor the perspectivalistic, morally neutral assessment of globalisation.¹³ Ultimately, such ‘neutral’ thinking is ethically futile, for as William Schweiker states ‘…what is at issue most basically is how we ‘picture’ the moral space of life. It is not enough to isolate common standards, values, and attitudes, even those about human rights, if we leave in place a construal of the world that foils moral aspirations’.¹⁴ If, then, the Pope's methodological confusions might serve, on both fronts, to ‘foil’ such moral aspirations, what alternatives might we thus have?

§3. Globalisation as an Arena of Moral Discourse and the Hermeneutics of Encountering the Other

Of course, much of what we have been discussing involves questions of a hermeneutical nature. Today we see so much ethical and hermeneutical debate alike concerned with our understanding of and our relations with the ‘other’. This is increasingly so also across debates concerning globalisation, social ethics and ecumenism.¹⁵ The question is, how do we best go about understanding and improving how we relate to and engage in meaningful shared discourse with those ‘others’ beyond our own respective communities, cultures and traditions?

Let us consider some examples. The task, I think, has been particularly well put by the Presbyterian theologian and tireless ecumenist, Lewis Mudge. In his earlier work, Mudge posed the task thus, when he speaks of perceiving such Christian ecumenical efforts as ‘attempts to articulate hermeneutical principles which can permit us to hear one another, and be heard in turn, across diverse situations and ecclesial cultures’.

In fact, in a number of his publications, it becomes clear that Mudge is identifying globalisation as the issue upon which diverse communities might become more united. Hence he poses the following methodological question,

Is it possible to think of a sort of ecclesiological hermeneutic of the koinonia we share when we find ourselves united on some moral issue – say the impact of global economic greed on the earth and all its inhabitants?…What kind of hermeneutic might this be?¹⁶

Mudge was very taken with Robert Schreiter's concept of ‘global theological flows’ in developing his model of social and ethical ecumenical discourse. Schreiter, as Mudge observes, understood such ‘flows’ as theological discourses (i.e. they emerge out of religious belief and practice) which are ‘not uniform or systemic’ but are ‘linked, mutually intelligible discourses that address the contradictions or failures of global systems’.¹⁷ Their intelligibility is accessible across cultural and social divides, but they nonetheless emerge from particular contexts. To Schreiter's list of ‘liberationist, feminist, ecological and human‐rights discourses’, Mudge adds discourse concerning ‘democracy and civil society’ and considers a sixth addition, namely, ‘discourse concerned with the nature of localism or multiculturalism itself’.¹⁸

Each flow, then, is a ‘local expression’ which yet also serves to link disparate cultures. But its ‘universality’ is

quite unlike the universality claimed by Enlightenment rationality, or even that claimed by European and North American academic theology. Despite highly diverse cultural forms, these expressions understand one another when gathered around a particular moral concern. Here a series of conversations girdle the earth without sharing common theoretical structures. Such ‘flows’ consist of shared bundles of inter‐related questions, hypotheses, models, methods and the like which constitute a field of knowledge and enquiry.¹⁹

Mudge's work has increasingly become focused upon ways in which these other analogous flows and forms of global discourse might better intersect and interact with one another.

Thus we here see similar concerns expressed to those identified in our earlier considerations of the problems inherent in recent papal teachings. The issue is how to allow a multitude of discourses to co‐operate and unite, at least in intention, to confront a common enemy. The form of universalising discourse at large in the official Roman Catholic church, at present, cannot serve such an aspiration. In fact, Christianity in general has a problem with its universalising discourse in the present age. As Mudge states, ‘It is ironic that we speak of ‘catholicity’ but have not generated a global theological flow of discourse about what it means to be church.’²⁰

In one sense, then, Mudge wishes to take further the efforts to contribute to the ‘new catholicity’ espoused by Schreiter. Of late he is now engaged in exploring how the methodology to take these matters forward might be shaped. Indeed, his thinking along such lines has already taken him beyond the Christian ecumenical realm for, as he states ‘we must say today that neither the intellectual resources nor the institutional base exist now for a purely Christian global ethical project’.²¹

Hence Mudge wishes to engage in what he calls ‘parallel hermeneutics’ in order to conceive the inter‐faith relationships necessary to confront the forces of globalisation. In other words,

a method for finding the sort of moral coherence among now‐fragmented religious energies needed for resistance to these systemically linked powers. At every level of its operation it is an approach to overcoming the practical consequences of difference among resistance communities.²²

The task is to enable ‘parallelism among different interpretive worlds’.²³ Mudge wishes to encourage the formation of a ‘covenantal coalition of resisters’.²⁴ For, Mudge believes, despite our differences, ‘we all bear hermeneutical responsibilities toward one another: to hear accurately and to reply fairly. We are responsible also for the practical consequences of our interpretive work in the worlds we share’.²⁵

In many ways the movement towards a ‘global ethic’ began, albeit with honourable reasons (given the urgency of the moral dilemmas which globalisation presents to the world's communities), before much methodological and hermeneutical thinking had been undertaken. Perhaps the ambivalence in recent official Roman Catholic thinking might be attributable to the same cart and horse dilemma.

Hence we have been considering how a common moral response to globalisation might catch up a little more in the hermeneutical and methodological realms. Let us turn to consider how the negative effects of ‘globalisation’ might better be countered by renewed due attention to ‘catholicity’.

§4. Re‐visioning Catholicity and Beyond – Ecumenical and Contextual Considerations

We earlier raised the possibility of a more positive term being employed within and without distinctive religious traditions, which might serve the attempts to counter the negative impact of globalisation better than the either merely perspectival (or Manichean) affirmation of the term itself, for that term has acquired far too many pejorative connotations to be effective in turning the vicious circle into a more virtuous one. We also raised the possibility of rehabilitating older religious concepts and stories in the service of meeting the ethical challenges posed by globalisation today. William Schweiker's own work recommends something along similar lines. In addition to contributing to debates concerning common human dignity and rights, he believes religions can help counter the ‘wholesale demythologising’ that globalisation entails.²⁶ Hence,

Hermeneutical moral inquiry…engages the dialectic of myth and morals in the labor of construing and orienting life. What is needed is an ethical reinterpretation of stories about the world and others so that we might escape or at least curtail the globalization of hate and the annihilation of the future.²⁷

But to such thinking we might add that theological concepts and constructs can also be employed to the same ends, in addition to myth. Hence, in such a spirit, we suggest that the term ‘oikumene’(or ‘ecumene’) understood in a wider and macro context may serve well our discourse which might resonate across various communities and traditions. Yet even this is possibly a step that must be taken further down the line.

So, perhaps we might also, in order to begin that greater mutual recognition and resonance across the divides within Christianity itself, engage in exploring how to re‐appropriate the term ‘Catholicity’ in the service of such ‘bridgebuilding’. Of course, Robert Schreiter has already offered us something of a treatise on redefining this concept in his now classic work.²⁸ Here we have been engaged in exploring the ‘next stage’ on from such thinking.

Thus we come to understand that revisiting and re‐appropriating the concept of ‘catholicity’ offers much to the churches’ common efforts in the struggle against globalisation. But we Roman Catholics must also move our contemporary discourse concerning Catholicity beyond discussions of an intra‐ Roman Catholic nature to consider the thoughts of other Christians on how we might proceed in re‐appropriating catholicity in that struggle. For example, as Lewis Mudge (a Presbyterian) has suggested,

Thinking about the resonance of ‘kingdom’ language today could lead us to an eschatologically‐oriented theological anthropology in which we articulate what we believe about the future of the human race. It could also lead us towards a new way of thinking about ‘catholicity’ as a mark of the church. Catholicity might be envisioned as a field of hermeneutically conceived communicative action among those living within the household of action‐discourses in which the kingdom‐parables of Jesus can today be heard and re‐enacted. Each of our various communions, confessions and denominations in effect presents visions – seen through its respective theological lenses – of what the wholeness of the church should consist of. They need to be helped to reflect how it is that they already meet on the groundfloor of a larger household of life.²⁹

Further insights and conceptual resources on the reappropriation of Catholicity have been offered by Christopher Duraisingh, for whom the call to a praxis of mutual recognition and cross‐cultural conversation can be understood best by reference to what he considers to be the two inseparable concepts of context and catholicity. These both unite into a ‘cross‐cultural hermeneutics of our pluralist traditions’.³⁰

Hence Duraisingh suggests that we should counter the ‘hermeneutics of domination’, which, as I have been suggesting, characterises globalisation best, with the ‘hermeneutics of solidarity’. Instead of singularity of tradition and meaning, along with uniformity, reducing the other into the same, the familiar, Duraisingh believes that ‘the hermeneutics of solidarity is committed to “being‐with” the other in solidarity and dialogue even in the midst of difference, tension or conflict. It is to hold that the truth in its fullness is not found in any single tradition…’.³¹ So, this leads us to appreciate that the negative homogenisation which globalisation entails can be countered by solidaristic practices where the ‘other’ is respected ‘as other’.

Conclusion – Catholicity and Ecumenism as Alternatives to Globalisation and Foundations for Solidarity

If it is effectively to confront globalisation, the church, itself, must also learn to counter its own globalising and universalising tendencies and this, itself, requires a renewed understanding of Catholicity. Catholicity is not the same thing as globalisation viewed from a different perspective but, at times, it appears that some within the church act as if or even genuinely believe that, it is. As Paul Lakeland states, ‘at no time in history has the institution [of the Roman Catholic church] behaved more like a corporate giant than it does today, with head offices in Rome and branches throughout the world, staffed by local managers called bishops. This ecclesial vision is wrong. It contradicts Vatican II’.³²

For Duraisingh, drawing upon Roman Catholic scholarship,³³ this means revising our understanding of the relationship between the universal and the local, emphasising the priority of the local and understanding the universal church as the ‘mutual inclusion and communion that exist among the local churches’, thereby mirroring recent debates in Roman Catholic circles, also. As Duraisingh states,

Does not the very word catholic, kata’holon imply this? As the word means, ‘according to the whole,’ the wholeness is the communion that exists, comes to be expressed, among the locals. Of course, it does not mean that the federation or the organization that draws them together brings about the catholicity. The communion is in itself the expression of their catholicity. The fullness of the apostolic tradition‐ing process is precisely expressed as the local churches share their contextual expressions of the faith out of every tribe and nation.³⁴

Duraisingh shuns both ‘narrow parochialism’ and ‘false universalism where the position of one, often the one who has the power, becomes the universal norm for all’, as well as any attempt to perceive contextuality and catholicity as being in polar opposition. Instead he believes them to be ‘tandem concepts…inseparably related. One without the other makes no sense’.³⁵ The other must be held in communion ‘in all his/her difference’.³⁶ Only then can we defeat the logic of colonialism which leads to domination, absorption, marginalisation and exclusion.³⁷ And all of this describes the ‘logic’ of globalisation very well.

And yet, in all this we actually might hear echoes of the sentiments expressed by John Paul II in his address.³⁸ But if the Roman Catholic Church is serious about such aspirations and about playing a significant role in the quest for a ‘global ethic’ of some sort, then it must revisit its methodology, as we have argued here, as well as engaging in an ethical hermeneutics of its own globalising and universalising tendencies. Otherwise it will, even if unwittingly, only repeat the mistakes of the past and give further credence and legitimation to the new quasi‐religion that we have sought to here name – globalisation itself. For, as the Pope says, ‘Ethics cannot be the justification or legitimation of a system. Ethics demand that systems be attuned to the needs of man, and not that man be sacrificed for the sake of the system’.³⁹

The Pope is, furthermore, surely also correct to state that ‘not all forms of ethics are worthy of the name’ and to point out that certain ‘patterns of ethical thinking’ are, in themselves, ‘by products of globalization’.⁴⁰ But for Catholic social ethics contra globalisation to be worthy of the name ‘ethics’ at all, the church's teaching must be seen to be consistent, to avoid any pretence that globalisation can ever be understood in morally neutral terms, and to ensure that it avoids all forms of neo‐colonial and domineering globalising tendencies itself. To achieve all this will require something very different to a contemporary law of nations model of ethical reasoning.

It is no good trying to humanise, Christianise or merely temper the excesses of global capitalism, however strongly worded such efforts may be, as they often are in the Pope's teachings, just as they were in the teachings of the scholastic jurists on the law of nations. I think Lakeland captures the matter in question very well,

The church as communion must show itself to be a workable model in miniature of what the church as mission is offering to the world, to counter the antihuman bias of global capitalism.⁴¹

The Pope called for a ‘solidaristic globalization’– something we believe to be a contradictio in adjecto. No such thing is possible. But we know what the Pope really means and true catholicity and ecumenicity are far better terms to express what his sentiments entail. And, we add, that such efforts can and must be undertaken in a synodal fashion. We can and should travel a shared path and recognise how we must share our labour, embracing the call for a parallel engagement in hermeneutical ethics.