Ethics and the Welfare Debate.

Thomas Massaro, Catholic Social Teaching and United States Welfare Reform. Collegeville, Minn: Glazier/Liturgical Press, 1998. 276pp. $24.95 (paper).

On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed into law The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which made good on his campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it." A new era of federal assistance to the poor was initiated. While the legislation has been signed, the debate about welfare reform is hardly over. The task before those who are concerned about the poor is how to evaluate the impact of the new system and to build public consensus about fairness and justice when the flaws in the current law become evident. How do we bring the best of our moral and religious principles to evaluate the new "from welfare to work" system? Into this public debate Thomas Massaro dives with courage, creativity, and guarded hope.

Massaro brings to the public debate a rich and nuanced understanding of Roman Catholic social thought. It is a tradition which he realizes contains both a distinctive set of teachings and "the potential to build bridges to other religious traditions and to those who identify with no religious tradition at all" (xv). In unpacking the Catholic tradition Massaro names nine values and principles which are foundational for a moral evaluation of welfare. These values include: human dignity, solidarity, the common good, the transcendent character of human personhood, private property, the role of the state, universal social membership, no surplus persons, and the preferential option for the poor.

After laying out the Catholic tradition Massaro gives the reader the historical context of welfare policy in the U.S. since colonial times and a succinct analysis of the new welfare law of 1996, with attention to its probable effects and missing pieces. The contribution of the U.S. Catholic Bishops to the welfare debate is examined with a sense of lingering disappointment as the political momentum of the country took a harsher view of the poor.

A central concern of Massaro's is how to remain rooted in the Roman Catholic social tradition which is distinctive but also builds a consensus with other faith communities and people of good will. To achieve this dual purpose Massaro turns to the work of political philosophers John Courtney Murray and John Rawls, who have analyzed the meaning of "fairness," as a way to achieve public consensus on issues of social justice. In light of the notion of "fairness," Massaro offers five "middle axioms" as the substructure for building a consensus on welfare reform and a humanized economy: recognizing human dependency; fulfilling social obligations; extending the proactive of decommodification (insuring basic needs, e.g., food, housing, health care); advancing the health of family life; preserving a social safety net through public action.

Massaro has appropriated the term "middle axioms" from mainline Protestant social ethics. The use of this approach may invite thinkers from other Christian denominations to find common ground with the Catholic tradition which has been so heavily dependent on natural law arguments. Massaro is exploring a methodological approach to public policy formation and analysis which may be more attractive to those traditions not rooted in the natural framework. His book, therefore, puts into practice in the methodological arena what he hopes to achieve in the area of public policy -- a reaching out to other traditions while remaining rooted in one's own.

While all the chapters are informative and helpful, the last two chapters stand out as Massaro's unique contribution to the welfare debate. In these chapters he unpacks the five middle axioms and looks to future indicators of our postindustrial economy as he shapes "a new logic of distribution." The book ends on a hopeful note that each of the middle axioms "represents an area of potential (though not yet full existing) normative agreement." They serve as "a partial agenda for future research into the normative bases and empirical consequences of social policy" (210-11).

While Massaro is not naive about the work that needs to be done to achieve consensus around these five areas, his hope seems to be rooted more in the momentum of Catholic social teaching than in the reality of many Catholics' political and economic attitudes. Archbishop Rembert Weakland became painfully aware of the clash between the two when he oversaw the writing of the Bishops' letter on the economy. He was confronted by many angry Catholics whom he called "hyper-individualists" because they disagreed vehemently with the Bishops' vision of distributive and economic justice. The gap between official teaching and the sentiments of the voters in the pews is often immense. The challenge confronting Massaro's proposal is how to advance the communitarian middle axioms in a society which worships independence, detests dependence, and is, at times, destructively individualistic. Massaro has made a significant contribution by providing an ethical analysis of and moral guidelines for the welfare debate. Others will have to contribute their expertise as well, in terms of practical strategies and transforming stories which will bring us closer to the goal of a humanized economy and political structures which address the needs of all citizens.