Catholic and monarchist nationalism in twentieth-century Portugal

The subject of this article is Christian nationalism in twentieth-century Portugal in its two ideological and organizational crystallizations. The first is the Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista), operating in the late period of constitutional liberal monarchy, founded in 1903 on the basis of Catholic circles, whose initiator, leader, and main theoretician was Jacinto Cândido da Silva (1857–1926). The second is the metapolitical movement created after overthrowing the monarchy in 1914, aimed against the Republic, called Integralismo Lusitano. Its leader and main thinker was António Sardinha (1887–1925), and after his untimely death — Hipólito Raposo. Both organizations united nationalist doctrine with Catholic universalism, declaring subordination to the idea of national Christian ethics and the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. The difference between them, however, was that, although the party led by Cândido was founded, i.a., to save the monarchy, after its collapse, it doubted the sense of combining the defence of Catholicism against the militant secularism of the Republic with monarchism. Lusitanian integralists, on the other hand, saw the salvation of national tradition and Christian civilization in the restoration of monarchy — not liberal, but organic, traditionalist, anti-parliamentary, anti-liberal, and legitimistic. Eventually, the Nationalist Party gave rise to the Catholic-social movement from which an António Salazar’s corporate New State (Estado Novo, 1889–1970) originated, while Lusitanian Integralism was the Portuguese quintessential reactionary counter-revolution, for which Salazarism was also too modernist.

The Holy See’s Contemporary Foreign Policy: Origins, Methods, Instruments

In this essay, the author made an attempt to study the origins, functions and vectors of papal diplomacy, focusing on its transformation in the conditions of the modern political system, to analyze the main social principles on which the foreign policy of the Holy See is based; to fi nd out what methods are used by the state to promote Christian moral values in global politics. Besides, studying numerous examples of mediation policy of the Vatican in international aff airs, the author has investigated the methods by which the theocratic monarchy, lacking signifi cant territorial and military resources, plays a signifi cant role in contemporary international relations. Papal diplomacy, as one of the fi rst in the world, has successfully adapted to the processes taking place in world politics. Based on the basic principles stemming from the Code of Canon Law and the Social Doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy See participates in most of the international negotiation platforms where topical issues of world politics are raised.

For the Life of the World and Orthodox Political Theology

The article explores the document For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church ( FLW) in the contexts that had instigated its promulgation. It maps this document in the coordinates of the Orthodox political theology during the long twentieth century. FLW corresponds to a line in “the theology of the 1960s,” which advocated for liberal democracy and against anti-Westernism. The article argues that FLW fulfills the unaccomplished mission of the Panorthodox council in producing a comprehensive Orthodox social doctrine. It compares FLW with the social corpus adopted by the Russian Orthodox Church during the 2000s.

Eurasianism and geopolitics: Social mythologemes of space

The article considers the origins of Eurasianism as a Russian social doctrine that emerged as an answer to the Western geopolitical concepts, in particular of the Anglo-Saxon and German geopolitical schools. Both concepts serve to justify social institutions and associations based on the difference between the spaces of the Eastern and Western parts of Eurasia. The authors argue that geopolitics of both the Western-European and Eastern-European types is based on mythologemes which claim to be of scientific importance but are not capable of achieving this status. The article shows that both theories claim (1) the invention of an ideal timeless homeland of society on the basis of a mythological interpretation of space; (2) possession of sacred knowledge (through the sacralization of space) which is actually profane. The key difference between Western geopolitical schools (Anglo-Saxon and German) and Eurasianism is the proposed connection between space and a specific society. Geopolitics proceeds from the constant spatial opposition as a factor of social-political competition. The geopolitical assessment of reality is based on the need to attack the alien space due to its initial, natural hostility. The geopolitical hostility and even aggressiveness contradicts the defensive nature of Eurasianism which declares that space unites peoples with similar values; therefore, their societies should defend their space of development from the encroachments of the Western countries. Thus, Atlanticism as a global project of the contemporary Western geopolitics fundamentally contradicts Eurasianism which does not accept hegemonism and supports the principle of a multipolar world; today, the level of conflict between these projects is not high, although there are no prospects for this conflict resolution.

STOICISM AND ITS METAPHORS IN EARLY MODERN EMBLEM BOOKS

The moral and social doctrine of Stoicism, well known among Early Modern humanists, was popularized in the emblem books of the time. The tool of this popularization was the visual metaphor capable of conveying abstract ideas through concrete images. The main stoic notions (such as virtue, apatheia as a complete freedom from passions, constancy, patience, etc.) have found extremely diverse metaphorical equivalents in the visual language of emblems, where inanimate objects (e.g. rock, flint, anvil, tongs, cube, scales) as well as living creatures (kingfisher, turtledove, bear) could equally function as metaphors. Emblematics, being a kind of ars inveniendi, acted as a mechanism for inventing new metaphors to express old meanings. However, some traditional metaphors dating back to antiquity (for example, Plato’s comparison of the human soul to a chariot pulled by two horses – “reason” and “emotion”) were also rethought in the spirit of the Stoic doctrine.

Strategy of Socio-Demographic Development of Russia and the Main Guidelines for Social Doctrine of the Russian Federation in 2025–2030

The article analyzes the current situation and long-term strategy in the sphere of fertility and mortality in Russia. Methodology for elaborating the social doctrine of the Russian Federation in 2025–2030 is addressed.

Towards the social doctrine of the Orthodox Church: The document ‘For the Life of the World’ of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (2020)

Amongst the recent documents released by the Greek Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the one titled ‘For the Life of the World’, published before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, touches upon an important section of the life of the Orthodox Church, namely, the social one. As a result of the fact that, so far, there is no official document of the aforementioned Church dedicated to this aspect, whilst the Reformed Churches and the Catholic one have already issued similar documents, I consider the existence of such an article, with all its minuses, important. Moreover, it can constitute a bridge and an invitation to dialogue with other Christian traditions or backgrounds. Being aware of this fact, I have decided to analyse this document in this article to emphasise its influence and its elements of novelty and to speak about both its utility and its weaknesses. As a result of the fact that the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has had an important contribution to its drafting, I will also try to present this aspect and to show how the ecological vision that he has, amongst other aspects, influenced its content.Contribution: Considering the importance of the recent document ‘For the Life of the World of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople’, I will try to analyse it and to present its social relevance and meaning.

The COVID-19 Pandemic in the Social Teaching of the Roman Catholic Church

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the critical problems of the structure not only of the modern health system but also of the role of the state in managing socio-economic processes, government institutions, and their ability to ensure the safety and well-being of the population in conditions of the practical economic shutdown, self-isolation of citizens and ultra-high mobilization of state administrative resources to ensure a full-scale fight against the spread of the virus. Inherent human rights and freedoms were limited to effectively counter the coronavirus, which would have been difficult to imagine even a few months before the pandemic outbreak. Arguments about the gradual decline of the role of the state in the organization of the management of socio-economic processes against the background of the strengthening of civil society institutions also lost their significance, as only the state was able to organize a centralized mobilization of resources to counter the mass threat to public health. These questions lead to a revision of the traditional axiology of Western society, based on the primacy of individualism and the atomization of society – approaches that the Roman Catholic Church has traditionally opposed, which in its doctrine is based on the concept of the common good. As the world's largest confession, Catholicism retains its influence over a wide range of people in many of the leading countries of the modern West. The church's social doctrine is traditionally perceived, both by Catholics themselves and by various associations of citizens, as an ethical basis for organizing the life of society. The paper analyzes the development of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church after the outbreak of the pandemic in the context of both its perception of the coronavirus itself and the necessary measures to combat it and its position on the post-ovoid structure of the world. The Papal encyclicals, messages, and speeches, which reflect the official position of the Vatican, are of crucial importance. As a possible way to overcome the crisis, the Vatican offers the classic principles for the social teaching of the Catholic Church-solidarity and subsidiarity, which require, on the one hand, the subjectivity of society and the decentralization of power.

New attempts to revive Ukrainian neo-Thomism through inspiration-by-translations. Reflections on the book Krąmpiec, M. (2020). Why evil? Kyiv: Kairos.

One of the unsolved problems for the historical and philosophical thought of Ukraine is the lack of reflection on the phenomenon of Ukrainian neo-Thomism. Today, there has not been reconstructed the history of this trend, which had been actively developing in the interwar Western Ukraine since the time of socio-ethical letters by Andrei Sheptytsky in the early XX century, gained new connotations in the diaspora from 1940s to 1990s and acquired new forms in Roman Catholic thought in Ukraine at the beginning of the XXI century. Moreover, a comprehensive historical and philosophical assessment of the achievements and shortcomings of Ukrainian neo-Thomism at different stages of its development has not been made. Meanwhile, Ukrainian neo-Thomism is experiencing a crisis, which it is trying to overcome by translating controversial works devoted mainly to the history of moral theology. The main feature of the proposed works is the oscillation between the need to recognize the presence of a person’s spiritual-intellectual and moral-volitional intuitions and the reluctance to recognize it openly, because it would be contrary to the very principles of Thomism. Modern Ukrainian neo-Thomism inherits this contradiction, and therefore the choice of classic books for translation reflects the dialectic of the struggle of different tendencies, which objectively cannot contribute to the legitimization of neo-Thomism in the Ukrainian philosophical discourse. Especially significant in this regard was the translation of the book by the classic of Polish neo-Thomism Mieczysław Krąmpiec “Why evil?”, because this monograph shows the contradiction of neo-Thomistic thought in the key issues about the possibility of person’s moral intuition, moral responsibility and dignity. The very refusal of Krąmpiec to recognize the existence of a person’s spiritual-intellectual and moral-volitional intuitions, despite all the prerequisites for such recognition, leads the monograph Why evil? to failure and to inability to answer the question stated in the title of the monograph. All this justifies that in the time of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis moral theology and social doctrine moved to neo-Augustinianism, which unequivocally recognizes that the person has spiritual-intellectual and moral-volitional intuitions.