Symposium on R Hittinger's Latest

ICYMI: A full video of last fall's symposium on LCI senior fellow Russell Hittinger's new book: On the Dignity of Society is now on YouTube!

>>>https://t.co/meax2fYpra

— Lumen Christi Institute (@LC_Institute) February 27, 2025

R. Hittinger on Social Ontology

Listen to “Social Ontology: Concepts and Verification” by Doctor Russell Hittinger on the Thomistic Institute Podcast 👉https://t.co/ZDE4guFlCx pic.twitter.com/dqXg2K7Oii

— Thomistic Institute (@ThomisticInst) November 15, 2023

Russell Hittinger on Intermediary Associations

Do not miss our inaugural honorary fellow’s lecture by Dr. Russell Hittinger!

“Intermediate Associations as a Key to Human Flourishing”

Date: Thursday, October 21, 2021
Time: 6:30 pm
How to Watch: Zoom link at https://t.co/cKzYK6A8Vm
Cost: Free pic.twitter.com/CnTt4UiRa4

— 🌪Bo G Bonner🌪 (@RuinUrLifeWell) October 11, 2021

Russell Hittinger on the Common Good

"Some Reflections on the Common Good in Modern Catholic Social Doctrine"

Russell Hittinger's lecture given to the @PFIC_DHS on Feb. 26 — as part of the 2nd installment of the annual Thomistic Circles series: What is the Common Good? — is now available: https://t.co/HgdlVPFC5d. pic.twitter.com/UZnLTBQILL

— Thomistic Institute (@ThomisticInst) July 21, 2021

St. Augustine on Virtue and Politics

What qualities are required in citizens for the flourishing of a polis? Join @jennfrey of @eudaimoniapod, Russell Hittinger, and Fr. Michael Sherwin, OP for a conversation on Augustine on virtue and politics

with @americamag

HAPPENING NOW: https://t.co/WhoxJq27Rh pic.twitter.com/Ysqmjklep9

— Lumen Christi (@LC_Institute) May 1, 2021

Interview with R. Hittinger on Maritain's Scholasticism and Politics

My interview with Russ Hittinger about about Maritain's "Scholasticism and Freedom" https://t.co/BnRDlh8Kca https://t.co/EcXVaHm7Vx

— Richard Reinsch (@Reinsch84) November 18, 2020

Law & Liberty

Fratelli Tutti: Engaging Pope Francis's New Encyclical on Social Friendship

Many thanks to IHE Fellow @jennfrey for moderating an invigorating conversation between IHE Executive Director @josephecapizzi and @LC_Institute Fellow Russell Hittinger on fraternity and friendship in the Pope’s encyclical. https://t.co/TsICVFNnAY

— IHE (@HumanEcologyCUA) October 29, 2020

Russell Hittinger

Russ Hittinger on John O'Malley on conciliar reform in @americamag.

It doesn't get any better than that. https://t.co/nyRmSJz654

— Bill McCormick, SJ (@BMcCSJ) October 16, 2020

America Magazine

An abridged version of this paper:


See also:

Video of R. Hittinger's 2020 Aquinas Lecture

Don't Start Where Communities Don't Exist

Most people can't relate to the common good or imagine it, because they don't live in a community.

The Public Discourse: Where (Not) to Begin with the Common Good by Mark Hoipkemier

The question “Who are we to become?” is always answered together. In a world where this fact were understood, we would use the grammar of the common good in the course of deliberations about how to act justly. Needless to say, that is not our world. https://t.co/ziSxBwWZcj

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) June 16, 2020

Russell Hittinger on the Compendium of Catholic Social Doctrine

From Pecknold's essay:

Hittinger’s critical analysis comes to a head when he discusses the Compendium’s treatment of the common good. He notes that the older metaphysical definition of the common good—that which belonged to the common philosophical infrastructure of Leo XIII and Pius XI—had given way in the Catechism to a weaker definition lifted from Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes, which suggested that the common good was concerned with “the sum total of social conditions.” But the compilers of the Compendium are aware that this “sum total” account differs from the older and more precise definition of the metaphysical primacy of the common good. So what do they do? As Hittinger observes, they don’t try to reconcile them, they just “juxtapose” them, like this: 

a. The common good indicates “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily.”

b. The common good does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject of a social entity. Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains “common”, because it is indivisible.

Hittinger thinks that the authors of the Compendium juxtapose these two passages without reconciling them because they don’t know how to do so. They are actually perpetuating the problem that John Paul II was trying to solve. The juxtaposition is not only lazy, but dangerous—in such juxtapositions, usually the weaker, less binding of the formulas wins out. This loss of philosophical coherence leads to a loss of moral authority, ecclesial unity, and evangelical witness.

Hittinger observes that “at best these are equivocations about what the common good means.” What was needed was not a mere juxtaposition, but a synthesis that strengthens rather than weakens principles. Hittinger even suggests an elegant way the Compendium authors could have done so. Rather than let a thousand principles bloom, they could have clarified that the first “broadly accepted sense” of the common good is not an aggregate definition at all but simply concerns “social conditions,” whereas the second is a definition of the common good in the strict and stronger sense. If they had done the work that John Paul II had asked for, Hittinger reckons, they would have secured the tradition instead of exchanging it “for a mess of pottage.”

Httinger is correct, and it should be noted that the Compendium was released with Rome's authority.

C.C. Pecknold on R. Hittinger and RCST

First Things: Defend Us From Ideology by C. C. Pecknold

“To guard ourselves against ideology...we need to strengthen principles through coherent philosophical definition and reflection. Hittinger concludes, ‘it is not only rigid thinking...but also weak thinking is vulnerable to ideology.’

My latest. https://t.co/fZ3x6aVQNw

— C.C. Pecknold (@ccpecknold) May 8, 2020

"Some might take this as a counsel of despair, but I take Hittinger to be issuing an invigorating challenge... we need to strengthen principles through coherent philosophical definition & reflection."https://t.co/EjweJOEHKh

— Josh Hochschild (@JoshHochschild) May 8, 2020

Yet Hittinger sees “warning signs” beginning with Pope Pius XII. Pius was well-schooled in the same philosophical infrastructure, yet issued no social encyclicals from 1940 until his death in 1958. Pope John XXIII began writing social encyclicals again, but no longer “to all bishops,” as was the Leonine custom. Rather, he addressed them “to all men of good will.” This shift of address drastically changed the scope and coherence of social doctrine, since it no longer assumed the shared philosophical infrastructure and distinctions that had been essential to the tradition.

Should a bishop be preaching moral theology to non-believers or Christ instead?

Does Rome have the authority to promulgate principles of moral theology, other than precepts of the Divine Law, as definitive? By what competence? Rome can only affirm that such principles (and conclusions of moral theology) are free from heresy but Rome cannot guarantee that their formulation is true or sound as they stand, at least not with the authority of the pope as defined so far. Not only that, but the Compendium does not include an exhaustive list of the precepts of Divine Law regarding political communities and political life.

Some might take this as a counsel of despair, but I take Hittinger to be issuing an invigorating challenge. If we want to guard ourselves against ideology and corruptions of our traditions, we need to strengthen principles through coherent philosophical definition and reflection. Hittinger concludes, “it is not only rigid thinking that’s vulnerable to ideology, but also weak thinking is vulnerable to ideology.” 

This is true for the political common good as well as the ecclesial common good. Skepticism that eschews a strong, coherent public philosophy will not help us. Only a philosophically coherent account of the American common good will save us from our descent into ideological incoherence.

Preaching the "common good" never transformed a tyranny to a just regime. While we need to critically examine the principles of RCST, I do not think that Latins will have the courage to take such an examination that far, as it may run contrary to accepted beliefs about the state and other beliefs taken from liberalism, egalitarianism, and other political ideologies.

Waiting for This One to Be Published

Nobody knows more about the history of Catholic social teaching than Russell Hittinger.

This lecture is a preview of Russ’s book forthcoming later this year. https://t.co/sDVXNzu5AA

— Josh Hochschild (@JoshHochschild) April 29, 2020

Blackfriars 2020 Aquinas Lecture for by Russell Hittinger

"Tradition or Pottage: Reflections on Catholic Social Doctrine"

Lecture includes discussion of the notions of justice an the common good.https://t.co/lpIEkJ9xvi

— Josh Hochschild (@JoshHochschild) April 29, 2020

Soundcloud

The Open Question of Church Polity and Governance: Trent, Vatican I, Vatican II

Vatican I: Loss and Gain with Papal Governance of the Catholic Church

A panel discussion featuring John W. O'Malley, SJ (Georgetown University), Russell Hittinger (University of Tulsa), and Joseph Mueller, SJ (Marquette University), held on October 13, 2018 at the University of Chicago.

The Natural Law Jurisprudence of Russell Hittinger

The Imaginative Conservative: The Natural Law Jurisprudence of Russell Hittinger by Robert Kraynak

"Natural Law and Public Discourse: Legacies of Joseph Ratzinger," Russell Hittinger

Two Thomisms: Reflections on the Centenary of Pius X's Letter against the Modernists

From 2007

"John Paul II and the Crisis of Modern Times" Russell Hittinger