In the last essay (here) I argued that the liberal order has built a total cultural environment, a matrix, that makes its own premises feel like the natural horizon of reality. I want now to press on the single point where that matrix does its deepest damage, the point at which it touches not merely our politics or our economics but the destiny of the soul itself.

The Church has a phrase for the principle the matrix has erased. Salus animarum suprema lex. The salvation of souls is the supreme law. The principle is not a modern invention. It descends through the great canonists, through Saint Raymond of Peñafort and Francisco Suárez, back to Ivo of Chartres at the threshold of the twelfth century, who taught that every institution of ecclesiastical law must always refer to the salvation of souls. Behind it stands an even older formula from Cicero, who held that the welfare of the people is the highest law, salus populi suprema lex. The Church took that civic maxim and raised its object from the body politic to the immortal soul. The highest law is not the safety of the state, not the growth of the economy, not the expansion of individual freedom. It is the salvation of souls.

Originally published in Integrity Magazine. Read original article

Original Tags: Culture, Catholic Social Teaching, Economics, Liberalism, Modernity, Western Civilization