The political fitness of the non negotiable principles in a non-confessional democracy...

Politics is not just the ambit of relativism and mediation.

A dispute with Giorgio Campanini.

by Stefano Fontana

In the January issue of the review “Aggiornamenti sociali” Giorgio Campanini reiterates what could be called the canonical viewpoint of “democratic Catholics” on the political fitness of the non negotiable principles in a non-confessional democracy. 

One after another he proposes the following evaluations: there is no such thing as a doctrine of the non negotiable principles, and even less so is there an exact list of them; the only non negotiable principles of the Catholic Church are the dogmas (which, says he, were negotiated, especially at Councils of the early Church: curious is this idea that mediation even produces dogmas); the teaching office of the Church has never spoken out dogmatically on the themes people ordinarily include nowadays under the heading of non negotiable principles; more so than from the Magisterium, the themes proper to the non negotiable principles issued forth in the past from natural law, which is in definitive crisis at present; politics is by its selfsame nature the ambit of relativeness and mediation among diverse values and visions; the appeal to non negotiable principles degrades the autonomy of politics and the commitment of the laity with respect to the hierarch; the task of laypersons involved in politics is to strive, while pursuing the lesser evil, to attain the loftiest possible implementation of the non negotiable principles through their mediation endeavours.

I believe many ambiguities in Campaini’s article stem from his equating ‘values’ to ‘principles’ and vice versa. In fact, the title of the article reads like this: “The non negotiable values and the dilemmas of politics”. Moreover, in the text itself these two words – values and principles – are associated in such a way as to come across as synonyms.

..............

www.vanthuanobservatory.org