Paulo Freire and Catholicism: The Critical Approach of Catholic Social Teaching

“Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is a commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is commitment to their cause--the cause of liberation.”

-Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

There is much to be gleaned from the critical approach to pedagogy and curriculum. Pulling from the traditions of Marxism, Psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School, and various discourses concerning power whether from perspectives of race, gender, age, colonialism, class, or any other number of socio-political factors. Indeed, the work of Paulo Freire does just this and set much of the groundwork for critical theorists to come. However, this is largely common knowledge. What is often overlooked or simply unknown by many is that Freire was a predominant voice for the Catholic approach to these issues as well. When we expand our notions of pedagogy and curriculum from simply what happens in the classroom and in education and apply these categories more broadly to all aspects of social life, epistemology, and ethics, it is possible to bring harmony between the central aspects of Catholic Social Teaching to contemporary critical theory. Moreover, Freire’s work will provide a bridge for us here between critical theory and that of Catholic Social Teaching which in turn can work to bring further collaboration between both secular and religious peoples as solidarity is necessary to combat all forms of oppression and violence we face in this world.

Life and Dignity of the Human Person

Utilizing the seven categories found in Catholic Social Teaching as sections for the analysis, we will begin the bridge-making work by first discussing the dignity of the human person. For, how we conceive of the person is vital for how we are to understand justice and how people should be treated and treat one another. An appropriate place of analysis here can be found in regards to how a society educates its children to be critical subjects with a capacity to recognize and confront oppressive forces. Macedo, in his book Literacies of Power, points out a vital issue that is currently plaguing the education of many. He states, “A society that reduces the priorities of reading to the pragmatic requirements of capital necessarily has to create educational structures that anesthetize student’s critical abilities, in order to “domesticate social order for its self-preservation” (Macedo, 2019). Speaking specifically to the very basics of how we educate through teaching our young ones how to read, Macedo brings attention to how capital has worked to anesthetize student’s critical abilities by only teaching reading as a pragmatic strategy rather than a foundational skill to allow for socio-political reflection and critical thinking about real-world issues.

Hope for Criticality

So, if Macedo helps us to identify just one of many issues where institutional forces are oppressing our ability to think critically and thus not approaching even our children with human dignity, how can this be remedied? How can we use this insight from critical theory in addressing a problem and move to create solidarity to engage it? Certainly, Freire was aware of this issue of creating ignorance and silence when he stated, “Every human being, no matter how "ignorant" or submerged in the "culture of silence" he or she may be, is capable of looking critically at the world in a dialogical encounter with others” (Freire, 2000). What we see from Freire is a positive affirmation of hope—hope for a critically engaged student. Indeed, he states that all peoples are capable of this ability to critically engage with others in dialogue. It is exactly this hope, this firm belief that human beings have certain innate capacities that need to be fostered in order to have a just society which is vital. Our very conceptualization of the human person as one who has dignity in and of themselves is what is not only required to be believed but to be acted out.

A Just Society

To be sure, this belief in the dignity of persons as socially conscious and critically reflective peoples is the kind of bridge work that is done by Freire to connect the work of critical theorists to the social teaching of the religious in Catholicism. Moreover, we find exactly this affirmation in Catholic Social Teaching. Pulling from the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace it states, “A just society can become a reality only when it is based on the respect of the transcendent dignity of the human person. The person represents the ultimate end of society, by which it is ordered to the person: Hence, the social order and its development must invariably work to the benefit of the human person, since the order of things is to be subordinate to the order of persons, and not the other way around” (Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, 2006). In keeping students from not learning how to read critically we deprive them of their transcendent dignity. If we as a society are following the demands of capital and not placing the person at the center of their own education, we are doing exactly as the Pontifical Council suggests not to do, we are putting social order before the order of persons. Just on this one point of agreement, there is so much potential here for bridging the world of critical theory and Catholic Social Teaching. Thankfully, we have the work of Freire to help bridge these worlds and create solidarity between peoples to create a just society.

Call to Family, Community, and Participation

The second point of contact involves a focus on community and participation. Liberation of oppression is done communally and not by any creed. All must work together to combat oppression in order to not reinstitute the same power structures of exclusion. Watkins states, “Human beings are social creatures. All people desire interaction, exchange and the transmission of ideas and culture. Communication, cultural expressions, and some form of education, informal or formal, are integral components of societal life. A central-feature in the 400-year history of oppression has been the denial and subsequent control of education” (Watkins, 2005). Again, looking to the educational sphere for an example of control and exclusion, we know that when people have been controlled historically, especially African Americans, they have been controlled through either being barred from education altogether or are given an education that only fosters being controlled by hegemonic power structures. This is not a call to family, community, or participation.

Critical Intervention

Freire provides further insight into this form of oppression and its focus not on community but rather on individual leaders with power. Freire states, “The oppressors do not favor promoting the community as a whole, but rather selected leaders. The latter course, by preserving a state of alienation, hinders the emergence of consciousness and critical intervention in a total reality. And without this critical intervention, it is always difficult to achieve the unity of the oppressed as a class” (Freire, 2000). What’s key here is that we must understand that control happens by hegemonic forces with intentionality. When we promote only a select few of a society, leaders of select demographics, is creates alienation of the others. Not only does it create a sense of alienation, it actually stops critical consciousness from developing and thus keeps the oppressed from collaborating and working together. The worst still is that by not focusing on community participation, the society can contain ills that it is not even aware of being capable of becoming free of—this is a sense of learned helplessness.

Community Collaboration

So, how does this bridge us to Catholic Social Teaching and what is gained in doing so? In Freire’s call to approach the community as a whole through critical intervention, we can see a detailed proposal for how Catholic Social Teaching suggests we overcome this issue. The Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace states, “Man's community aspect itself — both civil and ecclesial — demands and leads to a broader and more articulated activity resulting from well-ordered collaboration between the various agents of education. All these agents are necessary, even though each can and should play its part in accordance with the special competence and contribution proper to itself” (Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, 2006). The emphasis on a need for broad activity is again mentioned here; however, the call also specifically mentions a collaboration of all agents of education needing to play a part. This leaves us with questions of who are agents of education and what would this collaboration look like? What we do know is that if community is central in our focus then all means all. Parents. Students. Educators. Administrators. Community leaders. All are called to collaborate together regardless of their status or position. What we do known is that this focus is non-hierarchical and one where each player is given an equal voice in the community collaboration.

Rights and Responsibilities

The third point of collaboration to discuss is regarding rights and responsibilities. When discussing rights, it is impossible not to speak about the power relations involved in how societies either tend to bestow or divvy up rights and responsibilities to its community. McLaren and Kincheloe speak on this issue in their book Critical Pedagogy: Where are We Now? They state, “This individual subject is removed from the effects of complex power relations and endowed with abstract political rights that mean little when disconnected from the regulatory and disciplinary aspects of economic, social, and cultural forces” (McLaren & Kincheloe, 2007). Critical theory does a wonderful job in providing a historical analysis of how concepts and ideas both develop over time and how they instill said ideas into the fabric of society. Here McLaren and Kincheloe are speaking about the individual as understood by Descartes Cogito—a concept that has had a massive impact on our social consciousness. When people in a society are seen as completely autonomous and separated individuals what happens is an ideological disconnection from processes that occur institutionally and collectively. That is to say, people believe that they have rights, but they are not connected to their rights materially and therefore often only have rights insofar as their thinking they have them.

Restoring Humanity

Freire, rather than simply restating that people need to be connected to material processes and functioning as a collective community in order to claim and protect their rights, does something interesting when considering oppression and the violation of rights. He steps into the shoes of the oppressor through empathy in the way that Jesus often did. Freire states, “As the oppressors dehumanize others and violate their rights, they themselves also become dehumanized. As the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the oppressors power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the oppressors the humanity they had lost in the exercise of oppression. It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors (Freire, 2000). It is important to realize the effects that oppressors have on themselves in that they dehumanize themselves by oppressing others and violating their rights. In an interesting turn of events, Freire states that the oppressed actually free their oppressors by fighting for their own humanity. This does not dismiss the need for collective action and the need to be connected communally and materially; rather, it provides more bridge-work between the potential religious knowledge and spirituality of peoples via concepts of empathy and the importance of institutional dynamics and power relations as emphasized by critical theory.

The Whole Person

Unsurprisingly, at this stage in our analysis we see a continued point of agreement here when linking to Catholic Social Teaching. The Pontifical Council utilizes language that emphasizes the importance of the whole person in defending the rights of persons. It states, “Human rights are to be defended not only individually but also as a whole: protecting them only partially would imply a kind of failure to recognize them. They correspond to the demands of human dignity and entail, in the first place, the fulfilment of the essential needs of the person in the material and spiritual spheres” (Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, 2006). Indeed, in this quote we see a direct mentioning of both the needs of the material and spiritual spheres of a person. In the same way that Freire states that we need to emphasize, in a sense, with the oppressor, the Council insists on not only paying specific attention to the material needs of people in order to protect rights, but also the spiritual needs. We can understand this act of restoring the humanity of our oppressors by collective action very much as a spiritual act of redemption which in turn allows for our own spiritual growth and flourishing as we care for our fellow man despite their sins. In focusing on the whole person, part of the protection and valuing of our own rights comes from the valuing and protection of the rights and humanity of others—even our oppressors.

Option for the Poor and Vulnerable

Further convergence and congruence between critical theory and Catholic Social Teaching to analyze includes how a society treats the poor and the vulnerable. There are several insights worth mentioning from critical theorists regarding this topic. Shapiro, in their text Educating Youth for a World Beyond Violence: A Pedagogy for Peace, states “Violence is ideologically and culturally insinuated into the way society functions so that the inequality seems to be justified by how institutions work and distribute rewards” (Shapiro, 2011). When considering how the poor and vulnerable are being treated, it is important to note that these behaviors are tied to institutions that by their nature are inequitable. Not only are is the ideological makeup of powerful institutional structures inequitable, they are deliberately turned from the poor and vulnerable because they themselves are often dependent upon and create the poor and vulnerable in order to sustain power and wealth.

The Vulnerable Oppressor

Keeping this in mind, Freire follows suit with his ability to take a step back and not be reactionary. Freire suggests that we make an empathic move that feels into the frame of the oppressor. Freire states, “The oppressed must see examples of the vulnerability of the oppressor so that a contrary conviction can begin to grow within them. Until this occurs, they will continue disheartened, fearful, and beaten” (Freire, 2000). In other words, he suggests that we see consider the psychology of the oppressor and come to realize that they too in their humanity have vulnerabilities. Further, that the vulnerable can utilize these vulnerabilities to gather courage and solidarity with one another. This turn is akin to something Catholicism might also state regarding how seeing the humanity in others, not even necessarily in a positive point of view, helps us to grow in our own humanity and dignity. In this way, Freire continues to function as a bridge drawing together these domains that some might initially think to be irrelevant to one another or even oppositional to one another.

A Common Good

Catholic Social Teaching operates here not only as a tool for strategic ethical and moral consideration of oppressors, as we get from Freire, but also as a source for considering what a society that values the poor and vulnerable should look like. The Pontifical Council states, “Goods, even when legitimately owned, always have a universal destination; any type of improper accumulation is immoral, because it openly contradicts the universal destination assigned to all goods by the Creator” (Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, 2006). Goods should be for all in this view, they should not be disproportionately distributed and owned by alienating and controlling hegemonic powerful institutions. The Council specifically states that any improper accumulation of wealth is immoral because it creates these groups of poor and vulnerable peoples. This speaks directly to the same insight we saw from Shapiro and equipped with Freire in his praxis, we can orient ourselves towards this understanding of the common good.

The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers

A further related topic to discussing social vulnerability is that of the dignity of work and the rights of workers; this also links back to the dignity of the person and really all the topics discussed thus far. Often, critical theory pulls from its historical backdrop of Marxism to give an analysis of the dignity of workers. Held works to describe the kind of society that workers find themselves in even still in the 2020s. In his often-cited handbook on critical theory, Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas, he states, “Workers live in a world which is highly rationalized and depersonalized, and where they are often reduced to being mere adjuncts to the means of production” (Held, 1980). In this depersonalized world, workers are alienated from their own work and are like the proverbial cogs in the machine of capital. Again, if humans are being treated as means to an end rather than ends themselves, this is a problem and Held is right to continue pointing out how we as a society have not shed these well-known, well-documented issues.

Blinding Ideology

This does bring us to the question then, why are we still seeing these kinds of issues if they are indeed well-known and well-documented? A piece of wonderful insight can be found in the exchange between Schor and Freire in A Pedagogy for Liberation: Dialogues on Transforming Education. Freire states, “I must recognize that students cannot understand their own rights because they are so ideologized into rejecting their own freedom, their own critical development, thanks to the traditional curriculum” (Shor & Freire, 1987). Here, Freire is speaking about students, but we can use this information to discuss workers as well because we are all students at some point in our lives. To answer the question beginning this section, the reason why these issues continue to exist is that workers themselves are “ideologized” to reject their own freedom. Freire contributes this to the traditional curriculum that suppresses critical development, and he is not wrong. The traditional curriculum that seeks to use subjects as banked information and pragmatic working cogs does not seek to have the workers critically question their situation and predicament and thus dignity is stifled, and oppression continues.

The Need for Personal Development

On this point, this information may be helpful to Catholic Social Teaching in that while the Pontifical Council agrees that workers should not be depersonalized and alienated, but identifying how the alienation occurs is equally important in order to bring change and solutions. Moreover, Catholic Social Teaching restates the need for personal development and the need for taking into account not just the goods produced but also the manner in which they are produced and also distributed: “The economic well-being of a country is not measured exclusively by the quantity of goods it produces but also by taking into account the manner in which they are produced and the level of equity in the distribution of income, which should allow everyone access to what is necessary for their personal development and perfection” (Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, 2006). Part of the problem with alienation is that the worker has not claim to the product that is produced—there is an inequality in the distribution of the product and of the income gained by the selling of the product produced by workers. If this continues to be standard practice and part of the standard curriculum which blinds the worker, justice is not being served in our society. Perhaps this kind of collaboration between critical theorists in the secular world and social theorists in the religious world would help to provide solidarity against the common issues face by our society—Freire, without a doubt, continues to be the place for this kind of necessary bridge-work.

Solidarity

Regarding solidarity, it is a word that tends to come up in this kind of work regarding these kinds of issues; however, sometimes it goes without exploration itself and without its own analysis. Thankfully, bell hooks provides what appears to be a powerful definition of solidarity. In Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, she states, “The mind motivated by compassion reaches out to know as the heart reaches out to love. Here, the act of knowing is an act of love, the act of entering and embracing the reality of the other, of allowing the other to enter and embrace our own” (Hooks, 2003). Solidarity is therefore rooted in a sense of love for the other. The heart and the mind work in the same capacity out of love to embrace the other and form solidarity with the other.

True Solidarity

Likewise, Freire makes a similar observation regarding what he considers true solidarity to be. Turning again to Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire states, “True solidarity is found only in the plenitude of this act of love, in its existentiality, in its praxis. To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce” (Freire, 2000). Freire highlights the importance of love in both existentiality and in what it does—love as praxis. If one states that they love their fellow man and then they do nothing to act on it, this is not love, and therefore this is not solidarity. There is an accompanying movement and action entailed within true solidarity—it is not the kind of thing that can be said with the mouth and not followed with blood, sweat, and tears.

Solidarity Through Love

Furthermore, if there is one silver lining between all three of these approaches: secular critical theory, the bridging work of Freire, and Catholic Social Teaching, it is found in this notion of solidarity being created through love. The Pontifical Council puts it in the following way: “The full truth about man makes it possible to move beyond a contractualistic vision of justice, which is a reductionist vision, and to open up also for justice the new horizon of solidarity and love. By itself, justice is not enough. Indeed, it can even betray itself, unless it is open to that deeper power which is love” (Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, 2006). Again, the Church adamantly protests any kind of contractual notion of justice or anything theory which seeks to reduce justice to some quantified measure. It even goes as far as to say that any notion of justice is simply not enough to ground solidarity. Instead, and in congruence and harmony with hooks and Freire, the grounding force of solidarity must be love itself.

Care for God’s Creation

Finally, it would be a great loss if we did not consider an even wider application of critical theory regarding the curriculum of the environment. Our care for the environment through solidarity is fundamental for all things which flow from it including the dignity of humans, worker rights, and a concern for the poor and vulnerable. Unfortunately, our society, particularly the corporate world, shows very little care for the environment. Rather, it is often antagonistic and harmful for the environment. Horton & Kohl provide one example of how oppressors do not seek to care for the vulnerable or the dignity of humans when they put profits before people. In The Long Haul: An Autobiography they describe the following real-world example of this: “It turned out that over 80 percent of the land was absentee-owned and that the tax rate on it was just a fraction of the tax rate on what little land the people owned. For example, the coal company that made $100 million profit didn’t pay enough taxes to buy a school bus. The people didn’t have buses and roads because there was no tax base, and the reason these large absentee landowners didn’t pay taxes was that they controlled the judges, the governors—they controlled everything.” (Horton & Kohl, 1998) In this example, profit-motivated corporations owned land without living on it and caring for it. In fact, the coal company paid very little taxes on the land in comparison to their profits and they not only contributed nothing to the community, but they controlled the powers in the community to protect their profits and not work to contribute to and uplift the community.

Dominion and Objectification

Freire speaks directly to this and couches the issue in terms of domination. This is in stark contrast to the dominion of man that is spoken about in Catholic Social Teaching. Rather than man caring for the environment, man dominates it and uses it as a means to an end. Freire writes, “The oppressor consciousness tends to transform everything surrounding it into an object of its domination. The earth, property, production, the creations of people, people themselves, time – everything is reduced to the status of objects at its disposal” (Freire, 2000). In an oppressively controlled society, all things are used by the oppressor as means to an end and the idea of the inherent value of people and the environment is completely ignored. Unfortunately, the poor and vulnerable suffers the most because of this. However, in identifying the problem at hand, it does open up the opportunity for solidarity if we develop critical consciousness to combat oppressive forces.

Protection and Profit

In a final analysis of the possible collaboration and solidarity with Catholic Social Teaching we turn once more to the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace. In harmony with Freire, the council states, “An economy respectful of the environment will not have the maximization of profits as its only objective, because environmental protection cannot be assured solely on the basis of financial calculations of costs and benefits. The environment is one of those goods that cannot be adequately safeguarded or promoted by market forces” (Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, 2006). We know that maximization of profits is a problem—it is the overt issue we can point to. Moreover, the Council works to pull the rug out from under the concept that the market can work to safeguard the environment—as many profit apologists will suggest. The solution to our economic crisis cannot come from the oppressor and to believe this is to be a victim of manipulation. Rather, the community, the workers, the people who live on and love their land are the caretakers. Solidarity and protection of the environment must occur on the local level from the people themselves and not by the hands of the oppressor.

Conclusion

Furthermore, what we must understand is collaboration and solidarity is key for our society to create justice and to thrive. Often this collaboration is lacking in that we tend to approach critical issues from our different various camps. It is imperative for us to build bridges between camps and to work together against common enemies that are not only enemies to our camps but enemies to our society at large. This is a critical consciousness that we must develop, and Paulo Freire does great work to bridge these two particular communities: critical theorists and Catholic Social Teaching theorists. Furthermore, and following Freire’s emphasis on praxis, this collaboration must not just be one of an existential or intellectual nature. Rather, it must be one of action in order for true solidarity to exist and actual justice be obtained. Echoing bell hooks, Freire, and the Pontifical Council, we must therefore start with and proceed with love for the other and in this we can be liberated from oppression.

References

Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace. (2006). Compendium of the social doctrine of the church. Burns & O.

Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition. Continuum.

Held, D. (1980). Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas. Univ of California Press.

Hooks, B. (2003). Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope. Psychology Press.

Horton, M., Kohl, J., & Kohl, H. R. (1998). The Long Haul: An Autobiography.

Macedo, D. (2019). Literacies of Power: What Americans Are Not Allowed to Know. Routledge.

McLaren, P., & Kincheloe, J. L. (2007). Critical Pedagogy: Where are We Now? Peter Lang.

Shapiro, H. (2011). Educating Youth for a World Beyond Violence: A Pedagogy for Peace. Palgrave Macmillan.

Shor, I., & Freire, P. (1987). A Pedagogy for Liberation: Dialogues on Transforming Education. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Steinberg, S., Watkins, W. H., & Kincheloe, J. L. (2005). Black Protest Thought and Education. Peter Lang.