Breaking Free

Catholic social teaching is full of references to anthropology. For example, one of the recurring themes of Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’ is: “There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology.”

Man cannot understand the meaning of creation, or how to use it well, without understanding himself, including his own purpose and ends. And man cannot understand his own purpose and end without some sense of the God in whose image he was created and for whom he was made.

Christian anthropology was a constant theme of Pope St. John Paul II (and not just in his social encyclicals). He saw the fundamental crisis of the modern era as man living in such a way that he was losing sight of God, and in so doing, was losing sight of himself. As he wrote in Evangelium Vitae, “By living ‘as if God did not exist,’ man not only loses sight of the mystery of God, but also of the mystery of the world and the mystery of his own being.”

For his part, Leo XIII traced the evils of his day to a widespread turning away from the Church. “Now, the source of these evils lies chiefly, We are convinced, in this, that the holy and venerable authority of the Church, which in God's name rules mankind, upholding and defending all lawful authority, has been despised and set aside.”

This may sound to our ears like a pope lamenting the loss of the Papal States and, indeed, its political power within Christendom. But at its heart, Leo’s is a lament for society turning away from the truth proclaimed by the Church and toward a manner of living which obscures both God and our own humanity.

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