- James V. Schall, S.J.
Bruce Fingerhut, the good director of St. Augustine’s Press, sent me the other day the following amusing, but provocative citation: “Bertrand Russell, who, when asked why he did not give to charity, replied: ‘I’m afraid you’ve got it all wrong. We are Socialists. We don’t pretend to be Christians.’” Needless to say, that witty retort contains a whole theology and a philosophy that deserve to be spelled out. The logic of classic socialism makes Christianity not only superfluous—everyone has everything by rights—but impossible—no one has anything to give.
Russell is right, of course. In a socialist world, no charity can exist because there can be no need that is unfulfilled by the commonality’s duty. It is a world in which there can be no gratitude. I can thank someone for giving me what is really his. I cannot thank him for giving me what is by rights already mine. And if everything belongs to the community, how can I give it away? Or if I do give it away, how can it be anything but stealing from the commons on my part and receiving illicit booty on the receiver’s part?
Grace and charity have no place in a socialist world, the kind our current leaders seem to be partial to, even when they deny it. As Heather Higgins points out, charitable giving institutions, those unique instruments that do not exist in every culture, are suddenly under political fire. The Christian world and the socialist world are built on entirely different principles. Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est took pains to make clear that no actual world could exist in which, by right, everything was automatically taken care of through the public mechanisms of the state.
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