How Imagination Can Save Us From Ourselves

Ideas Can Flourish When Government, Church and Family Are Properly Balanced

Photo by Taton Moïse on Unsplash

Imagination often works in the background. I notice this when deep thoughts surface at the most unexpected times. While putting away laundry, this one arrived: where do ideas come from?

An idea can turn into a wonderful novel, a new product or a solution. But there are also ingenious discoveries that started with an observation or a “what if?” Galileo looked up into the sky and wanted to know more about the stars and planets. Fleming’s discovery of penicillin and Pasteur’s development of germ theory both began with a simple thought or a moment of curiosity. But what moved them into action? What informed them to decide to not just think, but do?

I wrote last week about the three societies as outlined by pope Leo XIII in his historic Rerum Novarum and how each society connects and overlap, impacting one another. These three societies are family, polity and the Church and they encompass and impact every part of a country.

What I want to address now is how those three societies work together and, at times, against one another and affects the motivation of the individual to do or not do. Much of the troubles throughout human history occurred when these three societies were not properly balanced. Yet our imagination, wonder and ideas persisted even in the most dire times. This gives me hope that if/when these three societies are properly balanced again, there will be a renaissance of ideas that benefits everyone and save us from ourselves.

The United States Polity: The Republican Model

The United States is a constitutional republic, designed explicitly to prevent the concentration of power in any single person or institution. The founders were deeply concerned about tyranny and wanted to create a government that would be accountable to the people it serves. Checks and balances across the branches of government were put in place to prevent tyranny. In addition, the power of the federal government is listed or enumerated in the Constitution. Any other power not provided to it is reserved to the individual or the states (though, there are implied powers provided in order to execute enumerated powers). This multiple layered system of government—federal, state and often county or city—is known as federalism.

The purpose of republicanism was to organize society in a way that prevents tyranny, keeps governance close to the people, and ensures citizens retain significant control over issues that most impact their daily lives. In other words, republicanism was established to maintain individual liberty.

As a result, the individual was free to pursue what it wished, within the law. Thoughts and ideas flourished, inventions made lives better and new businesses formed. Tools were invented, transportation imagined and put forth, electricity made, light bulbs produced, medicine healed, agriculture flourished and space travel began and continues to this day.

I must stress that republicanism, with all its intentions and purposes to prevent tyranny, may indeed prevent it on an entire population, but has not and will not prevent tyranny on subsets of its population if it is not equally applied. That is how the United States continued on with slavery, purged Blacks from political power during the Lily White movement, the Ku Klux Klan was formed, President Woodrow Wilson’s permeated racism throughout government and in its policies and President Roosevelt sent U.S. citizens to concentration camps during World War II. The injustices within local communities continues today, often with politicians at the helm claiming they will resolve them, but instead only use injustices to raise funds and maintain the status quo and their power.

Why has all of this has occurred within the republicanism structure of the United States? And how do we stop it?

I chose to first discuss the polity from the three societies in the Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII because it is the primary society popularized by the media. It is also the one furthest away from the individual. And it is the individual that comprises the government and politics. I believe that instead of looking to the government for solutions, we are better served strengthening the morality of the individual, unleashing them to imagine solutions that benefit us all. We do this by raising up the other two societies: The family and the Church.

The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is not a republic; rather, it is a hierarchical institution organized around apostolic succession and unified spiritual authority. The Pope is the leader and serves as the successor to Saint Peter who was told by Jesus to build His Church. The bible is a historical, spiritual and filled with deep meaning. It is the Pope’s purpose to lead the Church so that we live our life in accordance with the bible.

There are about 5,000 Bishops around the world and all report directly to the Pope. The Bishops oversee a diocese and its priests who oversee a parish whose job is to be the shepherd of the parish members. Though this is a flat hierarchical structure with all power still residing in the Pope, it is the parish priests and deacons that remain closest to the Church members and are there to relate and to guide them.

Although the laity hold no formal authority, they do participate in Church governance in a consultative capacity. The Church seeks this consultation to help in different ways including financial management and receiving feedback on issues of importance that the Church may want to address. I personally participated in a Synod a few years ago. It was just one evening with Church members across the Diocese that dealt with a variety of issues. They sought our opinions and we gave it to them.

But, like in the government, the Church is run by people. The sexual abuse scandals that were tolerated are often used to disregard the Church as a whole. But the Church is not a building or an organization, it is all of us. We are the Church and we will continue to make mistakes. The Church has responded by implementing a zero-tolerance policy, mandatory reporting and accountability, background checks and screening, training and education, codes of conduct at dioceses and the child and youth protection offices.

Like governments, the Church is run by people and people make mistakes and sin. So what do we do? Do we just give up? Move on to anarchy and individual religious beliefs? No. Instead we should strive to become better people and stewards of what God has given us and of what authority bestowed upon us by addressing the third society in the Rerum Novarum to treat the individual at the most local level possible: the family.

The Family

The Catholic Church refers to the family as the domestic church. It is here where support at the most intimate level takes place within the confines of our homes. It is the domestic church, according to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, where children learn about God, how to pray and go through the process of understanding God’s will in your individual life. It is here where morals are formed and where ideas comprising a full perspective of a society can flourish and benefit us all.

Here is what the Catechism says about the family:

1656 In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living, radiant faith. For this reason the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the family the Ecclesia domestica.166 It is in the bosom of the family that parents are "by word and example . . . the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each child, fostering with special care any religious vocation."167

1657 It is here that the father of the family, the mother, children, and all members of the family exercise the priesthood of the baptized in a privileged way "by the reception of the sacraments, prayer and thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active charity."168 Thus the home is the first school of Christian life and "a school for human enrichment."169 Here one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous - even repeated - forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one's life.

It is not coincidence that, while the media popularizes the notion that the government and politicians are the ones to shepherd society to happiness, they ignore the critical role in the family and the Church in forming moral people. For it is these two societies that connect to and undergirds the other. It is here where real solutions are formed for the common good.

As John Adams, a Founding Father and the second President of the United States said:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Final Thought

Only by strengthening the Christian family structure and weaving its moral values into every aspect of daily life—inside and outside government—can we create a society that truly promotes individual liberty to everyone. It is in such a society where dreams not only form, but where the means exist to act on them, bringing its benefits and fruits to everyone, especially the dreamer. All from an idea.

Peace.