There can be confusion when one develops egalitarian political positions from the Christian tradition [1]: [for example], that political engagement in favor of social justice must stem from a deeper sense of charity. One risks, then, imagining oneself as a political saint, “defending the most vulnerable”, placing oneself on the side of the oppressed, because of one’s greater sense of morality. The people “of the right” would then not be absolutely wrong in criticizing those “of the left” because they place “good intentions” where administrational rigor is needed.

“Left-wing Catholics” are not, however, more charitable than other people, they are not less bourgeois or more cultivated. But they want to be more logical. Not more intelligent, no, since to be more logical we must sometimes be stubborn. Equality, a logical lotion, is not the aspiration of a larger heart but of a brain more determined to hold to a point.

What there is “of the left” in us arises not from our good intentions but from our anger at the irrationality of a world where humans die from hunger or from pollution by the millions each year, due to other humans who deprive them of what is necessary, where the bourgeoisie preaches work while the bulk of its wealth comes from inheritance or rent, where the police claim to defend security while bashing young blacks and arabs, where religious minorities are harrassed in the name of secularism [laïcité], where Total Energie wants to increase its hydrocarbon production by 3% when we are already dying from climate change, where the result of the destruction of lives and ecosystems is called growth. All of this is first and foremost absurd, and stirs up in us not a spirit of charity, but a determination to find paths of struggle where we are and to join other struggles where we are not.

“Left-wing Catholics” also want to be more consistent with the tradition of the Church, which has no other meaning than being the carrier of the Gospel. It would be illogical for Christianity to serve as an alibi for the “defense of civilization”, which is nothing other than a new form of fascism, when it presents a Messiah crucified precisely by the defenders of civilization and order. It would be illogical for Philippe de Villiers and Éric Zemmour to be the paragons of the “defense of Christian roots” when one constantly criticizes the Pope and the other desires a Christianity without Christ. It would be illogical to believe for an instant that the Gospel which announces that the powerful have been deposed [destitués] from their throne would be defended by CNEWS and Bolloré, the latter of which participates in the post-colonial domination of Africa when it bought its ports and employs children [2].

Thus, what ethical revolt there is in our commitment to the left does not originate from a conviction that we are morally superior, but only from a concern to say nothing except what we see. Do not say that there is “merit” where there is inheritance. Do not say that there is “secularism” where there is racism. Do not say that there is an “economic law” where there are iniquitous decisions. People on the right may well be more moral, more engaged in charitable associations and visiting the sick and the elderly, more involved in looking after their children, more diligent in prayer itself – that is not the issue. On the contrary, to be committed to equality, even if only by words, is to know oneself as inadequate to what one professes, concerned by the contradiction between our sense of justice and our privileged position, a contradiction that we have the courage not to put under the bushel but which animates our struggles. “Left-wing Catholics” are not, therefore, more moral than others, they, on the contrary, have the courage to know that they are not that, without falling into the cynicism of those who draw the conclusion that the world will never get better.

[Published by the French left-wing Catholic Collectif Anastasis on October 1, 2023]