Michel Schooyans was born in Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium on July 6 ,1930. He studied in the Catholic University of Louvain, where he received his Doctorate in Philosophy in 1958. He taught in several universities throughout the world, especially in Latin America. He was called by St. John Paul II to be a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in 1994. He is, therefore, one of the founding members of this Academy. He was a Catholic priest and a Jesuit. He died in Brussels, in his home country, on May 3, 2022.
It is impossible to give, on this occasion, an evaluation of his multifaceted personality and of his contribution in the most different areas of social sciences, from political philosophy and social theology, to demography and sociology. He was a very conscientious scholar, but his research was not merely academic. He wanted to produce knowledge in order to shed light on the problems of our time.
We must limit ourselves today to remembering only two aspects of his broad and fruitful cultural heritage. The first regards the totalitarian drift of liberalism. In a more traditional sense, the word “liberalism” is the defence of the human right to pursue truth freely without any external coercion. In this sense, Fr. Schooyans was a stubborn advocate of liberalism. As time goes by, the word “liberalism” has acquired a different meaning. It has emancipated itself from the idea of truth and it has proclaimed the right to affirm one’s own preferences and to follow one’s own passions without any limit imposed by the obedience to truth.
There is here a shift from the idea of liberalism to the idea of libertinism. We can find this idea already at the beginning of Western philosophy. Plato, in The Republic, makes us acquainted with Thrasymachus, the sophist: without the reference to truth, no rational discussion is possible in the field of politics. The powerful will impose his will on the less powerful, using all means of manipulation and violence. The loss of the idea of truth is the sickness and true death of democracy.
The neoliberals have preached that the philosophy of democracy is relativism. They think that those who pretend to possess truth are inclined to impose their vision on others. Schooyans replied, with the old liberals, that this will not happen if the truth professed encompasses the human right to pursue truth without violence and coercion. He also added, together with Plato, that the fruit of moral relativism is corruption, and the fruit of corruption is the dissolution of the political order. Everybody today can see how prophetical his vision was.
I wish to remember, on this occasion, a second aspect of the scientific activity of Fr. Schooyans: his struggle against the so-called “lifeboat ethics”. In the time of my youth, the opinion was absolutely dominant that on this Earth we are too many and that, in a short time, the resources of our planet would be depleted. The situation of mankind on Earth was compared to that of a shipwrecked crew, who must make recourse to extreme and cruel measures that would be unjustifiable under normal circumstances. They cannot save on their boat those who are drowning. They may even be justified if they throw overboard some of their fellow sailors. On this basis, it is necessary to encourage people not to have children at all costs. This includes, of course, policies in favour of abortion or of alternative lifestyles. Young people are invited not to get married and to renounce the possibility of having children.
Fr. Schooyans has documented that the major premise of this syllogism on which the “lifeboat ethics” is based is not just questionable: it is outrightly, egregiously false. It is not true that we are too many, and he gives evidence of this matter of fact in three steps: first, the unsustainable pressure on the natural environment recently denounced by Pope Francis and the Encyclical Laudato si’ is dependent upon the overconsumption of the rich and not on the overpopulation of the poor; second, the reason why so many people in the world are starving is not a food shortage – there is food in abundance for all. The problem is that many people do not have the money to buy it. The problem is not that the Earth does not produce enough food for all, but that the income distribution is so unequal that some do not have money to buy food. Third, population growth has stopped. We are reaching a break-even point. Some demographers think we have already reached it. Others, that it will be reached in the next decades. What lies beyond the break-even point is the demographical winter. The population will decrease, and the number of active workers will be too reduced to pay the expenses for the pensions and the health care of the elderly. In many countries there is already a major problem, and the chief cause of the fiscal crisis of our states. It is open to discussion how much of this demographical trend is dependent upon the “lifeboat ethics” measures taken by some states and international organizations, and how much is just dependent upon the autonomous decisions of men and women exercising their responsible parenthood. Such was the force of the campaign in favour of abortion that today many people keep speaking of the demographical bomb and make the Catholic Church responsible for it, while there is, in the science of demography, an unanimous consensus on the fact that the real problem is the demographic winter and reality has not confirmed the expectations of the anti-natalist movement. Fr. Michel Schooyans struggled against this tide in years when nobody dared contrast it. He was often isolated but never intimidated. He was never afraid because he was a man of faith and a scrupulous scientist who took into consideration all available data. He was short of stature, very courageous in the defence of truth, but rather timid and reserved in his private life. He had a winning smile. He loved the Church and was well aware of the fact that man is the way of the Church. He is out of our time; he enters the other that has no end.