The new encyclical "charity in truth" is HERE. There's a lot of interesting philosophy in the whole document.
For me it's weird to read this given that I teach, work with, and am related to a number of American "conservative" Catholics. Here Pope Benedict unambiguously supports labor unions and social welfare in a way clearly inconsistent with the entire thrust of the Republican party since Reagan:
From the social point of view, systems of protection and welfare, already
present in many countries in Paul VI's day, are finding it hard and could find
it even harder in the future to pursue their goals of true social justice in
today's profoundly changed environment. The global market has stimulated first
and foremost, on the part of rich countries, a search for areas in which to
outsource production at low cost with a view to reducing the prices of many
goods, increasing purchasing power and thus accelerating the rate of development
in terms of greater availability of consumer goods for the domestic market.
Consequently, the market has prompted new forms of competition between States as
they seek to attract foreign businesses to set up production centres, by means
of a variety of instruments, including favourable fiscal regimes and
deregulation of the labour market. These processes have led to a
downsizing
of social security systems as the price to be paid for seeking greater
competitive advantage in the global market, with consequent grave danger for the
rights of workers, for fundamental human rights and for the solidarity
associated with the traditional forms of the social State. Systems of social
security can lose the capacity to carry out their task, both in emerging
countries and in those that were among the earliest to develop, as well as in
poor countries. Here budgetary policies, with cuts in social spending often made
under pressure from international financial institutions, can leave citizens
powerless in the face of old and new risks; such powerlessness is increased by
the lack of effective protection on the part of workers' associations. Through
the combination of social and economic change,
trade union organizations
experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the
interests of workers, partly because Governments, for reasons of economic
utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labour unions.
Hence traditional networks of solidarity have more and more obstacles to
overcome. The repeated calls issued within the Church's social doctrine,
beginning with
Rerum Novarum[60], for the promotion of workers'
associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honoured today even
more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need
for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local
level.
There's a lot more along these lines, including the importance of having access to local agriculture, which is interesting in light of what has happened in rural America (prisons, methamphetamine, lower life expectancy, etc. etc.) as a result of conservative policies that have fostered monopolization of food production and distribution.
Pointing this out is not to do justice to the broader philosophical context of the document, but it is there and does need to be pointed out. And no amount of sophistry by the Wall Street Journal editorial board (today's utilizes both the strawman fallacy and false dichotomy to mislead the reader about the content of the encyclical) or the good folks at National Review can change the clear, unambiguous contents of the encyclical.
In this regard, note that what Pope Benedict describes above is exactly what the American South did in instituting "right to work" laws. Note that, contra the Wall Street Journal and National Review, Pope Benedict is neither stupid nor uninformed. When he writes that governments "often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labour unions" THAT'S WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT. Contra the entire thrust of the Republican Party since Reagen, he's criticizing "right to work" laws. The encyclical entails defending, among other things, the Employee Free Choice Act.
I am morally certain that my home state of Louisiana, one of the most Roman Catholic in the country, is not going to revoke its anti-union laws, even though those very laws have led to the outmigration of skilled labor and increase relative wealth inequality and poverty. Even though Pope Benedict says they are inconsistent with Roman Catholic teaching. This being said, Louisiana will spend millions each year losing lawsuits defending unconstitutional laws regarding evolution, school prayer, and abortion that are yearly passed as a sop to supposed Christians.
